anelace
{{short description|Type of dagger from 14th century England}}
An anelace (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",{{cite book |last1=Fairholt |first1=Frederick William |title=Costume in England: A History of Dress from the Earliest Period Till the Close of the Eighteenth Century: To which is Appended an Illustrated Glossary of Terms for All Articles of Use Or Ornament Worn about the Person |date=1846 |publisher=Chapman and Hall |pages=[https://archive.org/details/costumeinenglan01fairgoog/page/n427 411]-412 |url=https://archive.org/details/costumeinenglan01fairgoog}} 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".{{Cite book|last=French|first=George Russell|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=amMKAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA184|title=A Catalogue of the Antiquities and Works of Art, Volume 1|publisher=Harrison and sons|year=1869|location=London|pages=184}}
Anelaces had a broad blade "sharp on both edges, and became narrower from hilt to point". Auguste Demmin (1870) also uses the term "anelace" for the similar cinquedeas of 15th century Italy.{{cite book |last1=Demmin |first1=Auguste |title=Weapons of War: Being a History of Arms and Armour from the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Part 1 |date=1870 |publisher=Bell & Daldy |page=378 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4Zc0AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA378}} 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.{{Cite web|title=Anelace|url=https://www.dictionary.com/browse/anelace|website=Dictionary.com|language=en|access-date=2020-05-05}}
French mentions numerous examples of anelaces appearing in 14th century English art. 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".