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During the Renaissance, the English seemed to have a fetish about the length of their weapons. The first documented instance is a royal proclamation:
"Item, her majesty also ordereth and commandeth that no person shall wear any sword, rapier, or suchlike weapon that shall pass the length of one yard and half-a-quarter of the blade at the uttermost, nor any dagger above the length of 12 inches in blade at the most, nor any buckler with any point or pike above two inches in length. And if any cutler or other artifices shall sell, make, or keep in his house any sword, rapier, dagger, buckler, or suchlike contrary thereunto, the same to be imprisoned and to make fine at the Queen's majesty's pleasure, and the weapon to be forfeited; and if any such person shall offend a second time, then the same to be vanished from the place and town of his dwelling."
-Proclamation 542, 1566
The need to make such a law obviously means people were going overboard with weapon lengths. What is especially interesting is that while this proclamation is usually affiliated with Elizabeth I, this particular wording was a 1566 reissue as it was initiated during the reign Mary I and Phillip II of Spain (who had a similar law in Spain *). As for the weapons in question, "one yard and half-a-quarter" is approximately 40.5 inches. The dagger affiliated with England above this length is known as an alehouse dagger or a bum dagger that usually had a basket-hilt which could get up to 2 feet *. The preferred buckler is made in the Welsh style that resembles a satellite to the modern eye and consisted of a spike of almost 1 foot at the time.
The next reference to weapon length is George Silver in Paradoxes of Defence:
"To know the perfect length of your sword, you shall stand with your sword and dagger drawn, as you see this picture, keeping out straight your dagger arm, drawing back your sword as far as conveniently you can, not opening the elbow joint of your sword arm, and look what you can draw within your dagger, that is the just length of your sword, to be made according to your own stature."
-G. Silver, 1599
This basically follows the law above in that based on the average height of the time (about 5 ft. 8 in. *) it could range between 36-40 inches. The next reference that most people jump to is Joseph Swetnam's The Schoole of the Noble and Worthy Science of Defence. in which he claims the rapier should be 4 feet and the dagger to be 2 feet. The main point people jump to is that it is far above the law's limit, however, there was a new law before Swetnam's book and after Silver's books. When James I sat on the throne, he abolished the sumptuary laws in order to "modernize". In essence, Swetnam is more in the right than people give him credit for (just in weapons, let's not open THAT can of worms). This also explains why the alehouse dagger lasts into the 18th century as well as why length laws were not applied to Scotland, despite unison, in the form of long targe spikes and 20 inch dirks.
* means link to more information