Ananelace (or in Middle English anelas) was a medieval dagger worn as a gentleman's accoutrement in 14th century England.
Frederick William Fairholt (1846) describes it as "a knife or dagger worn at the girdle",[1] and George Russell French (1869) as "a large dagger, or a short sword, [that] appears to have been worn, suspended by a ring from the girdle, almost exclusively by civilians".[2]
Anelaces had a broad blade "sharp on both edges, and became narrower from hilt to point".[1] Auguste Demmin (1870) also uses the term "anelace" for the similar cinquedeas of 15th century Italy.[3] The term is attested from 1250 to 1300 in the Middle English form of an(e)las, which is derived from the Old French ale(s)naz, a derivative of alesne (awl), itself derived from the Old High German alasna.[4]
French mentions numerous examples of anelaces appearing in 14th century English art.[2] They were also mentioned in literature. In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, a franklin (a landowner) wears "an anelace and a gipciere [pouch] all of silk / Hung at his girdle, white as morwe milk", and in an undated English translation of the poem of Partonopeus de Blois, King Sornegur wears "an anelas sharp-pointed".[2]
