The half moon symbol in early Spanish swords

[fernando]

I thought i would give here some food for thought, on what concerns the half moon symbol applied by early Spanish sword smiths in their sword blades.
When researching on this subject in the course of a thread submitted by Lean-Luc (Cerjac) for comments on one of his swords, i came across citations of Spanish Scholars on a early, such as contemporaneous, personality (Jehan Lhermite) whom, along his Castillian Spanish travels made encounter with sources in Toledo, that provided him with a detailed description of early sword smith Masters, their works and their marks.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showpo...1&postcount=32.

What i here pretend to focus on is, the half moon symbol (mark) which the author mentions as having been a mark used by Master Juan Martinez in his blades.
The description reads, in a non sworn translation that, he used to put his name in the blade fuller and, while not in the sides of their ricasso, with a fleur-de-liz mark topped with a crown, which is the oldest one because after, together with this mark he puts a half moon, with a "rostrillo" formed inside it.
We know that the rostrillo is/was an adornment used by Spaniards to embellish the head of images of the Virgin Mary, aledgedly inspired in widow veils which, with not much effort, we can discern its part section inside some half moon variants we see in exhibited or registered blade marks out there.
We are aware that Sir James Mann, in his Wallace Collection catalogue, only points out two of several half moon marks in its contents as been connected with the status of Espadero del Rey, an assumption not subscribed by the Spanish scholars we managed to contact. On the other hand, when we try to figure out why Thomas Mann only selects two of all catalogue cases as been those appointed, we can not find solid consistency in such half moon examples being those with the rostrillo, as to distinguish their differentiation with the countless 'plain' half moons used by blade smiths of many nations.
One wonders the reason why these symbols, eventually in their specific rostrillo design, are forcingly connected (by Thomas Mann) with the espaderos honoured with the Royal appointment and, if so, why this duality is not recognised by other authors, namely those from Spain.


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