[Illustration:  MOORISH KEYS, SEVILLE]

Another object of utility which was frequently ornamented was the key.  The Key of State, especially, was so treated.  Some are nine or ten inches long, having been used to present to visiting grandees as typical of the “Freedom of the City.”  Keys were often decorated with handles having the appearance of Gothic tracery.  In an old book published in 1795, there is an account of the miraculous Keys of St. Denis, made of silver, which they apply to the faces of these persons who have been so unfortunate as to be bitten by mad dogs, and who received certain and immediate relief in only touching them.  A key in Valencia, over nine inches in length, is richly embossed, while the wards are composed of decorative letters, looking at first like an elaborate sort of filigree, but finally resolving themselves into the autographic statement:  “It was made by Ahmed Ahsan.”  It is a delicate piece of thirteenth or fourteenth century work in iron.

Another old Spanish key has a Hebrew inscription round the handle:  “The King of Kings will open:  the King of the whole Earth will enter,” and, in the wards, in Spanish, “God will open, the King will enter.”

The iron smiths of Barcelona formed a Guild in the thirteenth century:  it is to be regretted that more of their work could not have descended to us.

A frank treatment of locks and bolts, using them as decorations, instead of treating them as disgraces, upon the surface of a door, is the only way to make them in any degree effective.  As Pugin has said, it is possible to use nails, screws, and rivets, so that they become “beautiful studs and busy enrichments.”  Florentine locksmiths were specially famous; there also was a great fashion for damascened work in that city, and it was executed with much elegance.

In blacksmith’s work, heat was used with the hammer at each stage of the work, while in armourer’s or locksmith’s work, heat was employed only at first, to achieve the primitive forms, and then the work was carried on with chisel and file on the cold metal.  Up to the fourteenth century the work was principally that of the blacksmith, and after that, of the locksmith.

The mention of arms and armour in a book of these proportions must be very slight; the subject is a vast one, and no effort to treat it with system would be satisfactory in so small a space.  But a few curious and significant facts relating to the making of armour may be cited.

The rapid decay of iron through rust—­rapid, that is to say, in comparison with other metals—­is often found to have taken place when the discovery of old armour has been made; so that gold ornaments, belonging to a sword or other weapon, may be found in excavating, while the iron which formed the actual weapon has disappeared.