# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mace

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​MACE (Fr. masse, O. Fr. mace, connected with Lat. mateola, a mallet), originally a weapon of offence, made of iron, steel or latten, capable of breaking through the strongest armour. The earliest ceremonial maces, as they afterwards became, though at first intended to protect the king’s person, were those borne by the serjeants-at-arms, a royal body-guard established in France by Philip II., and in England probably by Richard I. By the 14th century a tendency towards a more decorative serjeant’s mace, encased with precious metals, is noticeable. The history of the civic mace (carried by the serjeants-at-mace) begins about ​the middle of the 13th century, though no examples of that period are in existence to-day. Ornamented civic maces were considered an infringement of one of the privileges of the king’s serjeants, who, according to the Commons’ petition in 1344, were alone deemed worthy of having maces enriched with costly metals.
* From Jewitt and Hope’s Corporation Plate and Insignia (1895), by permission of
* Bemrose & Co.
* Fig. 1.—Group of War Maces of the 15th and 16th centuries.
This privilege was, however, granted to the serjeants of London, and later to those of York (in 1396), Norwich (in 1403/4) and Chester (in 1506).
* From Jewitt and Hope’s Corporation Plate and Insignia (1895), by permission of Bemrose & Co.
* Fig. 2.—Mace of the
* House of Commons.
Maces covered with silver are known to have been used at Exeter in 1387/8; two were bought at Norwich in 1435, and others for Launceston in 1467/8. Several other cities and towns had silver maces in the next century, and in the 16th they were almost universally used. Early in the 15th century the flanged end of the mace, i.e. the head of the war mace, was borne uppermost, and the small button with the royal arms in the base. By the beginning of the Tudor period, however, these blade-like flanges, originally made for offence, degenerated into mere ornaments, while the greater importance of the end with the royal arms (afterwards enriched with a cresting) resulted in the reversal of the position. The custom of carrying the flanged end upward did not die out at once: a few maces were made to carry both ways, such as the beautiful pair of Winchcombe silver maces, dating from the end of the 15th century. The Guildford mace is one of the finest of the fifteen specimens of the 15th century. The flanged ends of the maces of this period were often beautifully pierced and decorated. These flanges gradually became smaller, and later (in the 16th and early 17th centuries) developed into pretty projecting scroll-brackets and other ornaments, which remained in vogue till about 1640. The next development in the embellishment of the shaft was the reappearance of these small scroll-brackets on the top, immediately under the head of the mace. They disappear altogether from the foot in the last half of the 17th century, and are found only under the heads, or, in rarer instances, on a knob on the shaft. The silver mace-heads were mostly plain, with a cresting of leaves or flowers in the 15th and 16th centuries. In the reign of James I. they began to be engraved and decorated with heraldic devices, &c. As the custom of having serjeants’ maces ceased (about 1650), the large maces, borne before the mayor or bailiffs, came into general use. Thomas Maundy was the chief maker of maces during the Commonwealth. He made the mace for the House of Commons in 1649, which is the one at present in use there, though without the original head with the non-regal symbols, the latter having been replaced by one with regal symbols at the Restoration. There are two maces in the House of Lords, the earliest dating from the reign of William III. The dates of the eight large and massive silver-gilt maces of the serjeants-at-arms, kept in the jewel-house at the Tower of London, are as follows: two of Charles II., two of James II., three of William and Mary, and one of Queen Anne (the cypher of George I. was subsequently added to the latter). All the foregoing are of the type which was almost universally adopted, with slight differences, at the Restoration. The civic maces of the 18th century follow this type, with some modifications in shape and ornamentation. The historic English silver maces of the 18th century include the one of 1753 at Norfolk, Virginia, and that of 1756 of the state of South Carolina, both in the United States of America; two, made in 1753 and 1787, at Jamaica; that of 1791 belonging to the colony of Grenada, and the Speaker’s mace at Barbados, dating from 1812; and the silver mace of the old Irish House of Commons, 1765–1766, now in the possession of Lord Massereene and Ferrard.
Among other maces, more correctly described as staves, in use at the present time, are those carried before ecclesiastical dignitaries and clergy in cathedrals and parish churches and the maces of the universities. At Oxford there are three of the second half of the 16th century and six of 1723–1724, while at Cambridge there are three of 1626 and one of 1628, but altered at the Commonwealth and again at the Restoration. The silver mace with crystal globe of the lord high treasurer of Scotland, at
Bibliography.—Jewitt and Hope, Corporation Plate and Insignia of Office, &c. (2 vols., 1895); J. R. Garstin, Irish State and Civic Maces, &c. (1898); J. Paton, Scottish History and Life (1902); J. H. Buck, Old Plate (1903), pp. 124-140; Cripps, Old English Plate (9th ed., 1906), pp. 394-404; E. Alfred Jones, Old Plate at the Tower of London (1908); ed., “Some Historic Silver Maces,” Burlington Magazine (Dec. 1908).  (E. A. J.)