Weird Medieval Weapons: Tod's Hilted Pollaxe Sword Thing!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ต.ค. 2021
- Tod of Tod's Workshop recreated a weird medieval weapon, a hilted pollaxe, from the British Museum ( • WEIRD WEAPONS 2 - Swo... ). Here I dig deeper on the context and ask such questions as who used this, when, and why?
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"You might have disarmed me of my Pollaxe sire, but but have you considered this?"
*pulls out second, smaller pollaxe*
And then, when the other guy also disarms his opponent of his second pollaxe, he pulls out his secret *Pocket Pollaxe*
@@leoprzytuac3660 and after he's disarmed of that as well, he has an emergency pollaxe in his left sock
I have one on my Swiss Army Knife.
@@leoprzytuac3660 A pouch of throwing pollaxes
Thanks Matt, great thinking and analysis here and I think your idea of a tournament weapon could well be it. For me the weight and the short length makes it unlikely to be a battle field weapon and so thanks Matt for those insights. The hook is interesting because it is close to the COG and that (in my opinion) makes it really unsuitable for suspension, but as you say if it was a trapping hook it is also sub-optimal and why not have two? So basically neither option is entirely satisfactory. Anyway thanks for making the film and I look forward to getting some of you guys to spar with them.
Would you be inclined to reshape the pummel to fit the Royal Armoury's style and check the balance to see if the belt hook theory holds-up?
Ive absolutely no knowledge of any of this, but wonder if these were not hung after the initial use, as heraldry display somewhere
Depending on how the weapons are setup and hearing about about the odd Henry VIII tourneys could it be a backup weapon similar to the shooting tournaments in the US where we use a rifle and switch to a pistol. A short weapon to use in stage two of a fight and have it hanging close on a rack or belt and be required to switch to partially into the fight, Like something between a proper polaxe and arming sword.
I think the hooks might have been a bit of an afterthought, a tournament weapon doesn't really need to be worn for any real length of time, but a knight might have wanted a way to carry it hands free as they walked into the arena/ring so that they could wave at the crowd, kiss the hands of fair maidens etc etc, so the maker just stuck on a belt hook that sort of worked and shipped it.
Being a tournament weapon would also make the rather low durability of the weapon in terms of bending much less of an issue, iirc they did often have smiths on site at tourneys to do on the spot repairs, so the shaft bending like it did when Matt hit the targets would be a non-issue, just pop into the smith between bouts and get it straightened, like Matt did!
It looks a bit more like a horseman's axe/mace than a pole axe, but that's neither here nor there.
Maybe someone was challenged to a poleaxe duel and wanted a weapon that was technically a poleaxe but which allowed him to use his longsword training.
Good thinking.
the original weirdos
The fact that there's two of them, nearly identical, thinking they were made for a tournament or a duel makes sense.
Or maybe they were decorative.
It's ceremonial
I also think the tournament hypothesis is really good, but the “nearly identical” claim is silly. How many totally unrelated swords are out there that you could say are “nearly identical”.
@@andrewz5981 not very many niche weapons like this
I'm pretty convinced by Matt's theory that these are tournament weapons, however _if_ it was a battlefield weapon, one potential use does occur to me, which is as a portable poleaxe for mounted knights.
As I understand it, the typical weapon set for a mounted knight was lance, sword and dagger. If he was unhorsed, he would be fighting as a foot knight with a sword - a perfectly serviceable weapon but not as effective as a poleaxe for armoured fighting (which is why dedicated foot knights of the period used the latter).
A mounted knight couldn't carry a full size poleaxe but he could have worn one of these, and maybe even somewhat used it from horseback, but most importantly should his horse fall he would have had immediate access to something he might feel was a superior weapon in the circumstances than the standard longsword.
But regular warhammers were used by mounted knights, and they seem like they would be just as effective against armoured opponents AND more conducive to being swung from horseback.
"Tournament weapon": expression used while "ceremonial" is on holiday
🤣👍
It's like an archaeologist looking at any artifact of unknown use and saying "Must be a religious item"
I appreciate the wit but i think in this case, the tournament theory is actually quite reasonable.
@@Likexner agreed he makes a solid case as always
@@Likexner Yep, it's entirely plausible, especially since there are a pair. I was just tickled by the implied 'but we have no idea'.
My theory about the "sword catcher" tab, its for displaying them in a pair like crossed swords.
It just reminds me of 'rifle stacking swivels and rods' on the front ends of old military rifles, used for keeping the guns from laying in the dirt by making a free standing tripod. The fact that there two of them and they are identical would lend to this super specialized use. If they were judicial dueling weapons then they would probably spend their lives mostly sitting around waiting to be used. It sure would be a dramatic thing to see on a wall, and maybe reinforce the idea that maybe you don't want to mess with a guy so well equip to fight in duels with strange brutal looking weapons.
Maybe when Todd brings by his pair of sparing ones you can try to hook them together?
Not theories but some not-too-far-fetched possibilities:
- Masterpieces made for admission as a Master in a Guild (alternatively, "journeyman pieces" [Gesellenstück])
- Presentation pieces made for a noble or high official, perhaps even from weapon's makers guilds.
- Commissioned by a noble or military official as research, potentially from two different makers; would this be an effective weapon? Let's try out. Here are the specs. Poleaxe makers think "odd as all f***, but you're the boss...".
- Commissioned as potential unique weapons for a section of honour- or bodyguards (again, maybe from two+ smiths).
- Made for a special tournament, display or presentation of warriors, and thus with a novelty/entertainment spin.
- Gag gift from a noble to another.
- Just a regular poleaxe, but designed by a committee.
- Aliens.
-Competition between two blacksmiths.
"designed by a committee" lol, thanks for the laugh
"History" channel "scientist": "I'm not saying it was Aliens, but ALIENS!"
Definitely aliens!
Must have been Quagaars
Really interesting idea about them being a pair made for a specific type of specialised 'sporting' tournament combat. That fits will with the odd special fights they were having and specialised rules sets in the C16th. We know some rules were very specific about armour and weapons.
Which might help explain the hooks. Maybe they spent most of their time hung up with a selection of other weapons. Options to be selected from by the combatants? Completely a guess from a layperson.
If it was from Henry VIII's collection, then he might have just bought it out of sheer curiosity. Some of the other stuff from his personal collection is really unorthodox and potentially impractical- e.g. the spectacled helmet in the Royal Armories and the 'holy water sprinklers' and 'gun shields' in the Tower of London. He paid German armourers to relocate to Greenwich and work for him, because he was that much of an aficionado or arms and armour. There's every chance he'd buy something just because it was weird and he hadn't seen it before, and if he was buying one, he'd probably want another so he could spar with it.
From what I've read and heard about Henry VIII, he was competing (in a way) with Maximilian.
The Holy Roman Emperor had sent Henry VIII a specially made Parade armor (totally impractical for combat) as a kind of "backhanded" gift (saying "I'm so rich and powerful that I can afford to have a suit of highly decorated, gold inlaid, gilded armor made just to give away"). I'd have to look it up again, but I believe that the "spectacled" piece is what remains of that gift armor, which was only meant to be worn in parades or at parties.
For some reason, "showing off" was very important to the nobility.
To be fair, a firearm shield isn't even the least practical thing I've seen. Ever see the Lantern shield?
Maybe this pair was a gift to Henry from a weapon maker to show of his ingenuity and skill. Or maybe a diplomatic gift from some lord, foreign or domestic, or maybe from another king.
Hank 8 was fundamentally an early modern mall ninja.
Given the shape and style, the Zweihammer seems like a fitting moniker.
I like to think of it as a product of Henry's top secret experimental weapons division.
The late medieval Q-departement!
On there being two of them, you forgot to consider a third possibility.... perhaps it's the work of *_TWO_* drunken blacksmiths on a Saturday night (or alternatively, one drunken blacksmith on two Saturday nights). 😁😁
My then best friend and I used to always end drinking nights watching "Where Eagles Dare" when we were late teens
Two drunken blacksmiths and their equivalent of a shitpost?
What about a dead sober blacksmith with a drunken customer who could pay on a saturday night?
for 1 second I read the thumbnail as Hitler's Pollaxe, lol
Sounds like a history channel documentary
He did not have a poleaxe, as far as we know. He did have a buzzsaw though.
It’s too bad the nazis didn’t actually go with the poleaxe. Wouldn’t have been too hard to stop them then. They would have taken France and then got smacked.
If there are only two survivors and they were most likely used for tournament, is it possible that the hooks were added later as a way of displaying the pieces? Tod mentioned that the original might have been made out of wrought, given how much it bent when you swung this mild steel one it makes sense to me that whoever commissioned them might not have had the best luck in tourney but might still have wanted to show them off afterward because they look neat.
Aren't there more convenient ways to display them than welding on hooks?
@@Blaisem There definitely are, but given that we only have two surviving examples and one of them has the hook missing, the only conclusion I can draw is that the individual hooks must have been added on later. This is assuming that the two are actually a matched set and were kept in the same general humidity for hundreds of years.
aah good thinking
It looks like its more of a specialized war hammer to me, Based on its looks: spiked hammer face, a hook/spike opposite the hammer face, and thrusting spike at the end. The first thing jumps into my head is this is for combat in enclosed areas like rooms against armored opponents. possibly a siege/breaching/dueling hammer...
Maybe the hook/blade catcher/ belt hook thingy is meant to interlock with the Royal Armoury’s one and stand against something else as part of a “fantasy weapons “ display ! but I still think it is part of some sort of parade equipment.
I do like the rule-set theory. If a tournament is designed around measuring one`s skill level at wielding a particular weapon in a harness, then it makes absolute sense that any feature that would make the general tendency harnessed fighting has to descend into grappling viable not desirable. The barrier hypothesis is particularly attractive if interpreted in this manner. The butt end would also be conducive to closing in between fighters. The question, then, would be why were they made that heavy - if I recall correctly, safety becomes a central issue in the 16th century tournaments and that thing hits like a bloody truck.
I am personally thinking it is meant for barrier or fortification fighting myself and its just an unique one that either didnt see much production or the more likely is the weapons were broken and the heads reforged into hammer and the handle into swords. Because the weight issue and the fact its a weapon that will do VERY well against armor makes me think its not a good tourney weapon too easy for people to be killed by it.
I bet it's a belt hook for some over the shoulder belt harness thing, a bandolier? Why? Because it would look cooler that way and the person who designed this weapon clearly made decisions based on the rule of cool.
there is a certain crazy logic here and thanks or the chuckle
My first instincts agree with Matt. This is a tournament weapon. But, I gave it some thought and wondered if possible it could be used for castle defense where there's less space? You get most of the advantages of a pole axe. But, you don't have much of the long shift to contend with in a confined space. Any thoughts on this?
I would suggest that perhaps as a pair, instead of tournament use, they could have been kit for somebody's personal bodyguards. Perhaps he wanted his guys to present poleaxes, for whatever reason, but decided to swap out the long handles in favor of sword hilts because he was very frequently in close quarters.
Is it possible that it was made to fit within a tournaments definition of a sword while giving the user an advantage against armor? Maybe they had a definition along the lines of "metal weapon with a crossguard that can be drawn from a hilt" or something
Without the "butt" end it looks like a great close-combat weapon. Taking corridors and staircases from armoured defenders. Although a mace or warhammer might be even more convenient
Sort of a FIBUA pollaxe.
I like this idea. Why this and not other things - potentially a knight may be most comfortable using a polaxe, and wanted their cqb weapon to be as similar as possible. Maybe think about it like a knights version of a shotgun.
"Oh, don't look now, it's Rolf"
"He still using that sawed-off poleaxe with the obnoxiously long handle?"
"Yeah, I tried to talk him into using a respectable sword, but he thinks it makes him look hard. The sunglasses are new, though. When did that nonsense start?"
"Oh, last week sometime. The court dwarf got him good and drunk and talked him into it."
"What an utter fool"
IF it's not just a tourney weapon - could it be a weapons specialized for castle defenses? Seems like it could be more useful against armor inside a confined space.
That was one of my first thoughts outside of the tournament idea. Or possibly it's a combination of the two: it was used in a tournament for a mock-seige display intended to simulate a confined space in an exaggerated manner.
This was my first thought too, much more useful if passing through a narrow passage or doorway perhaps?
I think I saw something similar in the Netherlands. Rijks Museum in Amsterdam I believe. But that is if my memory serves me properly. I recall that one being shorter by a good bit. more the length of your average sword.
Watching Matt move in such a fluid way whilst wielding sword or polearm is fascinating and most impressive. Almost like a very lethal dancer. You don't learn to move like that in just a few hours that's for sure.
"The Albatross" was a nickname at university. Nate is a real name though.
Looks like something Adam Driver would bring to Medieval Times.
There is a saying, "Mission determines the gear". In other words, before you choose your gear, which includes weapons, first know and understand the mission, i.e. what do you want them to do. The converse is "Gear defines the Mission". That version can serve as a tool to determining what the weapon was designed to do.
The grip and cross guard look like they come off a longsword or even a Zweihander. The shaft and head are definitely in the warhammer/polearm genre, and it was designed to fight someone in armor. One of the things I've observed in the manuals and in videos of armored fighting, is that use of a longsword against armored opponents is the use as a grappling tool. So here is my theory. The grip, long crossguards, and the shaft are designed to assist in grappling and leveraging your opponent for a takedown. Unlike the longsword which would primarily use the point for half-swording into gaps in the armor. This weapon isn't designed for thrusting, it is used for smashing and penetrating with the point via the heavy swings, not thrusts.
And I agree with the belt hook. I've seen old pistols with a similar design.
I think there might have been three total, on record at least... I think this weapon could possibly be one of three exotic two-hand pollaxes listed on Henry VIII's extensive inventory of arms and munitions. They were transferred from Westminster to the Tower on July 7, 1547 but that's all the information I can find, if its even applicable... maybe Toby would have some thoughts?
Since it was mentioned there was pair of them I had an idea. Maybe a bit weird, but taking into consideration the novelty aspect of the weapon(s) and that they would no doubt be eyecatching then as they are now I figured why not present it (unless someone already has in which case my apologies). It could be possible that someone ordered pair of them as the bodyguard weapons, I imagine going down the hall flanked by the pair of men at arms carrying two of these would attract attention. In more confined spaces their length might not be that big of a disadvantage compared to full-length pollaxes. Of course, there are still a great many questions to answer. I was simply going from the point that if their main purpose was to attract attention, they would certainly do the job, while not being completely useless as the weapon either. That might also answer why there are only a pair of them (for now), possibly "attention" they attracted wasn't the kind original owner imagined/desired and they never caught on. It's just a theory.
Just want to take a second to admire that the poleaxe that you possess that you compared this strange weapon to is absolutely beautiful. What a poleaxe mmph 👌
....so what you're REALLY saying is that Tod needs to make another one, right?
He is making some for sparring, so we should expect at least two of those... kind of...
Assuming the two were used against each other in a tournament, feel the cross guard also makes a lot more sense. Not sure I’d want to try to catch a swing of one of those things on a disc guard, as even a glancing blow might end up numbing the arm or hand through armour. The cross guard should be able to fully block or properly deflect the blow. Pure speculation behind the keyboard though, but might be nice to see that during sparring.
That "belt hook" or "blade catcher" reminds me a lot of the nail-hook thing that Shad uses to store a spear or longbow on his back.
Ya, I can see them doing that with this weapon. you can't sheath it.
The problem is the location is on the wrong side of the Center of Gravity. It doesn't hang it tries to flip, as seen in Tod's video
@@SirGambitRocks Depends on the level of the belt and what you use to support it. put a leather bit or catch of some sort it should be fine.
Could the belt hook be a simple hook for hanging the weapons on a wall? Would there not be an assortment of weapons displayed somewhere to be picked through for tournaments?
Could be, but why would you need the hook to fix the weapon to a wall when it already has a big crossguard? You can hang it easily with a pair of nails on a wall, blade slides in between and the crossguards is held by the nails.
I dont think so simply because it would be easier to use a more normal sword hanger which often hang using their crossguards which this weapon does have.
I had a similar thought. There's a chance that both could part of a single wall-hanger set, perhaps as part of a coat of arms or something. The "belt hooks" could be used to hook one pollaxe to the other in the display. And perhaps the commonwealth insignia was only added to one (maybe the top one) because it was assumed that they would always be together as part of the same display.
@@fred_oxford Yeah, that crossed my mind too as being fixed into a bracket behind a shield mounted to a wall or something. Given that M.E. seemed quite certain that it was a tournament weapon though, I assumed it best to leave that consideration out.
@@d0r1an06 Glad to hear I'm not the only crazy one. I had similar reservations after hearing how sure M.E. sounds, but I figured I'd put it out there.
Is "experiment" a valid category to consider? Someone could've had the idea of "poleaxe but use it like a montante", made a couple, tried them, realized it sucked, and stuffed them in a closet.
Good thought
To the speculation why one would want a short poleaxe for a tournament - I could imagine it being of great advantage in a Kolbengang setting where lots of people fight in a very confined space. It just came to my mind as you mentioned Maximilian I. as the Kaiser famous for his tournaments.
26:16 That's a cool looking little move there
It looks like you are probably right about it being some weird and wonderful tournament weapon, and also the belt hook theory... It does seem to be an insanely impractical weapon to have hanging from a belt though.
Haha! I am Matt on Patreon. Made my day to get the shout-out.
Glad to hear it!
The pair might have been made for a judicial dual. The one in the royal army looks like it is most likely in original condition and it's twin was rehilted around the same time it was stamped. Having a larger pommel added to it would explain the slightly increased weight of that one.
Sad that "I don't know" is so damn hard for people to say. Kudos good sir on being able to say such things, as those who refuse to use that term often say the dumbest of things to avoid those three little words.
Q 2 could this be a weapon for defending low walls - corridors - small doorways, where full length pole arms would not be useable ?
Some of the artwork you included shows fairly close to that weapon except without the crossguard, e.g. 4:36 - 4:44. Those look all-metal too, don't they? So maybe the crossguard addition for the specific tournament intent was simply better hand protection. Fighters must win by bashing the head and body, not breaking an opponent's fingers.
I think you are right about the matched set. I think it would be used by members of a team in a grand melee tournament as an experimental part of a confined space tourney field (maybe a mock bridge battle).
The sword catcher is actually perfectly designed to catch AND keep control of the opponent's sword. Bigger lets it back out, and the sword is way more like to get caught while sliding along the shaft anyway.
I'm curious what Tod's thoughts are on the Royal Armouries one and if he had known about it what changes would he have done to the one he made?
I hoped I got my weights and proportions right and in fact looking at the RA one I think I had so in essence I would do the same again. The only thing I would do different is that I would make the shaft from a medium carbon steel ; I am not certain it was, but I think it would be better if it had been or was
A fascinating presentation - one of your best. Collaboration, sources, practical application and Patreon participation. A brilliant blend.
As far as pollaxe length goes, Pietro Monte's text is an important outlier. He wrote that "[i]ts length is somewhat longer than a man" & recommended an even longer one: "Some people usually carry a poleaxe which is as long as the hand can reach in the air. But in
truth it is much better to have one which is slightly longer." And he explained this:
"The length of the poleaxe or tripuncta to the hammer should be in measure one hand longer
than the man carrying it, so that it can reach everywhere, without being lowered to strike the other’s foot, for a distance on the ground as long as our self. For in leaning down great danger threatens, especially if we are wearing heavy armour, since the weight of the armour weighs forward, and no one can recover quickly."
Monte also noted how you can grab a pollaxe & that a dagger or estoc becomes more useful than a pollaxe up close while grabbing the enemy's pollaxe. It seems like the longer pollaxe he favored would be particularly awkward up close, though of course any pollaxe is hard to use once your opponent has grabbed it.
Regarding wearing staff weapons, curiously we do have references to wearing them at the belt or on the back. Henry Barrett's 1562 military manual assigns archers "a maule of leade with a pyke of five inches longe, well stieled, sett in a staff of fyve foote of lengthe with a hooke at his gyrdell to take of and mayntayne the fighte as oure elders have donn, with handye stroaks." That's a maul the size of modest pollaxe somehow suspended from the girdle. Roger Ascham wrote something similar in 1545: "And herein our archers of England far pass the Parthians, which for such a purpose, when they shall come to hand-strokes, hath ever ready, either at his back hanging, or else in his next fellow's hand, a leaden maul, or such-like weapon, to beat down his enemies withal." In the early 17th century, Joseph Swetnam mentioned a person going around with a Welsh hook on his back. & Swetnam otherwise brought up the Welsh hook as a staff weapon of considerable length. So there may have been viable ways of wearing staff weapons on the back historically, as odd as this seems.
Likewise, while I don't think this hilted pollaxe is a cavalry arm, we have lots of evidence for using large & heavy polearms from the saddle. While it wasn't especially popular in Europe, we still see a greatsword, pollaxe, or similar swung from the saddle in artwork. In manuals, certain techniques use the heavy lance in both hands & striking with the butt end, indicating it was possible to use a heavy weapon in both hands from horseback even for men-at-arms, who typically had gear (saddle, stirrups, etc.) designed to maximize stability against impact rather than control. From China, we have artwork & manuals for using a heavy glaive-type polearms from horseback in both hands. The same appears in artwork in other parts of Asia. It was much shorter & presumably much lighter, but Monte wrote highly of using a roughly 3ft warhammer in both hands from the saddle, particularly to hit horses in the head & make them fall.
@@F1ghteR41 Those are good examples, though what cavalry can do isn't necessarily the same as what infantry can. For instance, one method of carrying a lance on horseback involves putting one end into a pouch by the stirrup or similar.
This could perfectly fit into a fantasy setting with some kind of warrior culture where you would have to expect most if not all opponents to be wearing armor, making regular swords mostly ineffective as a self-defense weapon. So instead of a sword you would want something that has the anti-armor capacity of a pollaxe, but with the convenience of easily being able to carry it around with you.
26:15 That was a nifty move Matt. Didn't want you to think it went unnoticed. ^_
traditional or Hilted Pollaxe, which 1 was more suitable for fire rescue? which 1 was more suitable for naval warfare?
Yes, that explains the shrunk down size. But if it was meant to be a naval weapon, the head should have an axe-blade or a sharp spike, to hack through timber and rigging.
Matt, can I request a video? You've talked about how a lot of swords were kept unsharpened back in the day and only really sharpened when they went to actual war, but what is that process? How did they sharpen them? Who did they hire? Were there tricks to it? What tools did they use?
The whole, "not having a back end" benefit makes me wonder how useful it would be to use from horseback, being able to manoeuvre it more freely.
Even just a bit of carbon in the shaft with some spring temper would keep the shaft from taking set. Mild steel doesn't recover from flexing at all and is designed to stay dead soft although with work a smith can get some extra hardness out if it but Todd likely didn't try to milk hardness out of it. I think it's likely that that historical steel would not have stayed bent like that one did. At least not easily.
I would certainly hope the originals had more spring. Medium-carbon steel was widely used for high-quality swords & armor in the 15th/16th century. We even have pictures of people flexing their swords. Of course, we also know lower-quality staff weapons like bills & halberds could have heads of dubious metal. So it would depend on the effort put into making the originals & whether they cared about the bending. The worst historical wrought iron, full of slag, might have snapped rather than just bent.
One reason for the cross hilt instead of the disc guard could be to make up for some of the offence lost by not having the cue portion of the poleaxe. Having those long quillons could be useful in a punching motion to create space to get out of a bind.
"Drunken blacksmith on a Saturday night"
Sounds like a fun plot idea for a book; a smith gets plastered, scribbles something down and on the next forge light makes it.
Same idea goes for the lantern shield, but that idea caught on
One potential Warfare application that springs to mind is siege warfare.
If scaling and fighting from a siege ladder, or fighting in cramped corridors and stairways of a castle not having the extra length of a full size poleaxe waving around behind you could be handy.
As a horseman's hammer the clip can hook on a saddle loop and allow a quick draw, The cross guard is good for looping a finger over to hold the weapon, for close strikes if the opponents are too close for a full blow, and of course regular cross guard protection. The long handle gives a bit of counter balance as well as the potential for a hell of a good reach compared to some horseman's axes I have seen.
Also, maybe the rules for some tournament/duel barred the use of polearms or weapons that exceeded a certain length and/or maybe even only allowed hilted weapons
This is an amusing notion that strikes me as at least distantly plausible.
P1: "Bring a sword of reasonable length! It can only come up to your navel."
P2: "Define 'sword.'"
P1: "Oh you know, all made of steel, with a hilt & cross guard & sharp point."
P2: *shows up for the duel with this hilted pollaxe*
You still have a pommel at the end... to end him rightly 😁
Joke aside, cool analysis on such an unique weapon.
Keep up the collaboration with Todd. you make quite a mighty duo
It is so funny to me that unusual objects like this could quite possible just be some random dude testing something. Maybe it wasn't one drunken blacksmith but two drunken blacksmiths challenging each other. They decided to build a pollaxemontantehammer for each other, than testet it against each other, again massively drunk - they died.
Knight. Have you seen those new, reinforced helms? Smith. Hold my mead. . .
I personally think that the belt-hook either isnt a belt hook or a very badly designed one. The reason is that even if the pommel was smaller or hollow, I still think that the weapon would be too back-heavy to not fall over while walking around with it.
And even if it didnt fall over, the hilt is so incredibly long that it would always be in the way simply due to the extreme size. One can actually see at 13:45 that it reaches up further than your armpit, which would make it almost impossible to wear this comfortably.
Also it would have been very easy to solve this problem by attaching the belt-hook closer to the hammer-head and reverse, as it has been done on the warhammer shown at 13:39.
This would immediately have eliminated both problems.
Therefore I am quite sure that the belt-hook either was no belt-hook and served a different function, or was simply badly designed.
Perhaps they just added it out of habit...thats surprisingly often the case with medival arms...they very often just added something to a weapon because it was always done like this, even though it might not serve a practical purpose.
By the way I think a blade catcher shouldnt be very open in order to make catching an opponents blade easier.
I think it is more important that the blade cannot be withdrawn once it has been trapped. Therefore I think the slim blade catcher is actually more effective.
Also it isnt really necessary to have any larger hook, as you can simply let the weapon slide down the hammers shaft until it automatically lands in the hook.
A larger hook would only pay of if you tried to catch the opponents blade out of the air, which is really hard to accomplish in the heat of combat.
Even still I dont think it was designed as a blade catcher...firstly because it is just on one side, but also because I think this weapon wasnt made to go up against swords.
Probably was made especially for a single fight in a tournament where it would go up against the other on of his kind.
But that thing is a fascinating item indeed.
The shortened “rear” could point to naval hand weaponry - the “belt-hook” would have ample points on a sailing ship of the time to be hung conveniently, and the “barrier” idea still holds - over the rail of the ship, for example.
Weight may be less of a problem for hard-working sailors
(A parallel would be the predilection for naval swords to be shorter, or replaced by weapons more like cutlasses)
I think the tournament weapon theory makes a lot of sense. Perhaps made to slightly different specifications of two combatants. The long cross guard may not provide as much overall hand protection as a disc, but may have been better at catching glancing blows, and even a light tap to the head may have yielded high points. The "belt hook" being off balance on the one Mr. Cutler referenced may have led to the clip not being used as much, so it didn't fall off from wear like the clip on the one at the Royal Armories Museum. As a bearing mace that surviving belt hook may have made a nice banner peg or something.
A couple folks have said as much, but I think that, rather than a "belt hook", those hooks are for hanging them on some kind of rack or display, in a hall or armory or tournament space, until they are taken down to use for whatever tournament battle or judicial duel they were designed for.
I have to wonder, could the device on the original be a belt hook, and the pommel not have been replaced, and the original might simply be a case of "damn it, I've never made one of these before, and the balance is all messed up and the belt hook doesn't work properly?" If there really are so few instances of this, maybe they hadn't gotten all the kinks worked out in the design. It does seem like there were quite a few cases of exotic weapons whose designs weren't all that practical, maybe this is one where not all the features worked quite as intended.
I like to imagine Robert Baratheon using something like that one handed from horseback.
Matt you mentioned there might possibly be an advantage driving a shorter pollaxe in armor...
That might be a very good point. I believe Fiore show a shorter pollax in his works might be considered just a larger Warhammer.
I think it would be pretty close to the proportions of this hilted pole act you're holding. Perhaps it's the same concept just in a different iteration?
Yay for more collaborations with Tod!
It reminds me of another weird weapon you were contemplating at one point; the burial axe from Sutton Hoo.
There is a huge hilt already to catch blades, so to speak. And the fact that this metal bar is on this particular side of the weapon, to keep the hilt out of your ribs when it is on your belt, strengthens the theory of the belt hook.
This was really interesting, thanks.
Regarding the bends, do you think there is a possibility that the shaft is spring tempered?
quite possibly, but this sort fo thing was not always, so I took the view not wasn't, but now in hindsight I suspect it was.
@@tods_workshop thanks so much for making this. I’ve always been curious about the one in the BM and to see so much discussion about it and see it handled has really brought it to life. Big fan.
I imagine Todd has a very good eye for sizing.
there are quite a few examples in artwork of regular hafted pollaxes/pole hammers of a shorter length akin to this one. Makes sense to me if you are likely to be fighting in confined spaces like in a siege or town.
The theory that it’s made to “game” tournament rules reminds me of the otherwise useless abominations that haunt IPSC (etc.) “open” divisions (and other divisons to a lesser degree). show that happens plenty today (well maybe not today because nobody can feed them).
Perhaps it was for fighting in confined spaces, raiding castles or fortresses, trench warfare? Something along those lines would even make a later dating for this weapon possible.
It being so heavy enables the wielder to put more force into a shorter strike.
My initial thought is either a guards weapon or a mercenaries weapon. I imagine you could use the belt hook as it were or hook 2 ends of a strap to it and carry it with the strap over a shoulder or across the chest and back.
its so cool. What if an estoc had a way of fitting the head on it. Part way down the blade it could have a screw shape and a small stop. hmm a boars spear kind of thing....
I still like the blade catch idea. jutte works alright in that shape.
Many naval weapons have bizarre shapes. Maybe its for close quarters of some sort? or for defending in the castle halls?
Needs a skyrim mod please.
Hey sort of Schoagladitoria! I bought a LK Chen Dao after seeing the review on this channel. An excellent cutter!
"Except for a pommel" looks like something to end the fight rightly then.
If the two were indeed a pair, the "belt hooks" could have been used to bind them together (and e.g. lean them against a wall that way).
Great video Matt!
My 2 cents on this: From the look of it, I'd say it's German late 15th- early 16th cent. weapon. It was initially designed as an alternative to the full length poleaxe and it was to be carried as a sidearm (hence the hook) on the saddle or the belt (on horseback) to be used if and when the rider was unhorsed. Probably for a tournament or a judicial duel but military action isn't out of the question. As I see it, the lance is the optimum knightly weapon on horseback and the pollaxe is the optimum on foot, but you can't carry both. Not even on horseback. So the pollaxe was intentionally shrank to these proportions hoping to make it
After some action they found out that it doesn't work (not on the battlefield at least) and got repurposed as a tournament weapon so the pommel was enlarged to bring the balance closer to the guard and make it more wieldable and less lethal.
It became popular in Maximilian style german tournaments and Henry VIII (our beloved Hank Ocho) imported it to imitate the German tournament. Keeping up with the Joneses, in the times of the English-Imperial alliance.
Great video. Love weird weapons. Hope to see more. Could this weapon have been more useful than a regular please in confined spaces perhaps? Indoor cqb? Defending doorways or narrow passages? 🤷♂️
I have seen illustrations of something similar but the pommel is a spiked mace the cross guard is small axe/pick combo the mid blade is dull and the tip is pointy. At first when he unveiled it I thought that was what he had made
I still like the thought of two drunken blacksmiths looking for something to do with a few broken longswords. I know Chaucher didn't cover this story in Canterbury Tales, but I doubt our drunken blacksmiths lived in Canterbury.
i could see it being used in a seige, both defending or attacking, easier to defend a building with a weapon that fits & easier to climb a ladder with something you can hang on a belt/is less likely to catch on something due to length.
I agree with the tournament hypothesis. It seems to be the most logical answer without some primary information. Also, "enjoyed" the oh bleep no body language when you were trying out the great sword technique.
Hi, Matt.. on the one-handed use, I'd suggest an other technique and that is a mixed approach based on two handed and using the position of the left hand close to the pommel to strike the opponent with more range.. perhaps you could try that one out? Used that sometimes in the past.
Modern History TV raised a very good point that i think might be often undervalued, truthfully a lot of weapons or items that existed in the medieval period might simply not have survived to this day, purely because they were kinda common and just reused often, or 'ugly' so after a war its owner wouldnt wall-mount it, but would instead reuse the metal/sell them, and lets be honest, that thing is mighty ugly.
They could have been more than just a pair, even used to a decent degree, it just that no one ever thought of keeping them.
It they were specialized tournament weapons, there might note have been much reason to keep them around once that sort of tournament fell out of fashion. & seven pounds of iron/steel would have appealing to scrap back then.
[Fantasy Context but might be interesting to some] I based some weapons for a dwarven culture in the novel I'm writing on these two examples. There are some cultural contexts that make them somewhat popular there, but more to a point that could be relevant here is that they were more useful for fighting heavily armored opponents in smaller spaces where a poleax (still more popular in that culture) is more limited. My versions had longer top spikes because combat would often come down to half-'swording' at near grapple distance.
The solution for using those hooks in my fantasy world, as I too predicted the placement wouldn't be too stable, was that the shaft of the 'hook' goes into a tube in a frog in various arrangements. One is set into a 'Sam Brown' style belt so that the cross guard goes under one's armpit, allowing for the movement out of the way without having to actually use a hand but just pushing it around with the elbow. The other was to put it in one attached high on the back of one's non-dominate shoulder. This keeps the weapon straight up and down on the back, not across it. The benefit I speculated there was that it would keep the spike and head of the weapon away from one's feet and legs better. As one could still grab the shaft and the hook means you only have to pull it out half a foot, this overcomes a lot of the problems with wearing a sword in that way.
So my solution was that they were not BELT hooks, but MOUNTING hooks, which could be on a belt or the like with the right accompanying hardware. I thought the hook and remnant on the other one were for mounting on a wall to look pretty.
"Can it be used one-handed?"
The pained expression on Matt's face says no. I suspect using such a weapon one-handed for any length of time is a recipe for a wrist injury.
observation - it looked like the hilted pole arm moved similarly to the montanto. you actually had a nice continuous flow going.
Hilted poleaxes would be ideal Close quarters and limited/niche Cavalry duty. the belt hook idea makes sense. the pommel replacement and the belt could be adjusted.
As for battlefield, it would be a Polearm with a damaged shaft and possibly used as a training weapon of some sort. Certain kings were known to have obscure training techniques.
While it probably is a tournament weapon, I can see a battlefield application. In melee combat, with men at arms packed shoulder to shoulder, it would be difficult to wield a conventional, long poleax to its maximal extent. This was for instance a problem on both sides at Agincourt, but especially for the hexagonally closest packed French.
Sir John Smythe wrote that halberds of no more than 6ft total length could be used by halberdiers in formation without hindering each other. He thought these were great weapons for an armored infantry slugfest. However, other 16th-century military manuals do note just how tight things could get. One claims pikers fighting pikers sometimes lacked even the space to use their swords, having to rely on their daggers. So a short pollaxe like this would potentially be advantageous in exactly the right sort of press.
@@b.h.abbott-motley2427 Thanks! Does Sir John mention the half pike? It could be ten feet long, but still a lot handier than a full pike.
Macedonian sarissas came in two parts.
Matt makes a compelling argument. If we voted I’d vote for a tournament speciality.
How ever I am still interested in their use for drilling in greatsword use. Could the “pole axe” head be a weight to allow a short practice weapon for use in a smaller space? (Though not for sparring).
However, this makes no sense of the hook.
"END HIM RIGHTLY! ... now my pole axe has a POMMEL! ". I think they just a rare and unique EPIC TROLLS from a nobalman to his friend, who then also had another one made and sent one back in kind with an offer to duel for shits n giggles. The belt hook actually is the icing on the cake for it being a joke because its so funny and stupid to think u could wear it. (but thats the joke)