The Masters of the Long Sword

In this house there was until 1730 a celebrated fencing school, the so-called Greifenfels school. In 1688 the Emperor Leopold I granted the Prague guild of the Federfechter, that is, the free fencers of the feather, the title of Masters of the Long Sword of Greifenfels. The house used to have six Renaissance gables and a pointed tower, and the little bell with an owl on it is of interest — for earlier there were only knockers on doors, and bells only came into use in the fifteenth century, first at shops.