page_title: Flail (weapon)
section_title: The ball-and-chain flail
hierarchical_section_title: Flail (weapon) / The ball-and-chain flail
context_page_description: A flail is a weapon consisting of a striking head attached to a handle by a flexible rope, strap, or chain. The chief tactical virtue of the flail was its capacity to strike around a defender's shield or parry. Its chief liability was a lack of precision and the difficulty of using it in close combat, or closely ranked formations.
  There are two broad types of flail: a long, two-handed infantry weapon with a cylindrical head, and a shorter weapon with a round metal striking head. The longer cylindrical-headed flail is a hand weapon derived from the agricultural tool of the same name, commonly used in threshing. It was primarily considered a peasant's weapon, and while not common, they were deployed in Germany and Central Europe in the later Late Middle Ages. The smaller, more spherical-headed flail appears to be even less common; it appears occasionally in artwork from the 15th century onward, but many historians have expressed doubts that it ever saw use as an actual military weapon.
context_section_description: The other type of European flail is a shorter weapon consisting of a wooden haft connected by a chain, rope, or leather to one or more roughly spherical striking ends.  Modern works variously refer to this particular weapon as a "military flail", "mace-and-chain" or "chain mace", and sometimes erroneously label them as simply a "mace" or morning star, terms which technically apply only to rigid weapons.  Some historians refer to this weapon as a kettenmorgenstern ("chain morning star") to distinguish it from the rigid weapon.
  The haft is usually shown as approximately 1–4 feet long and the head can be a smooth metal sphere or a somewhat geometric shape, with some variants covered in spikes.  The chain also varies, sometimes being no more than a few links to form a hinge, while others exceed the length of the haft and are several feet long.  Artwork from the 15th century to the early 17th century shows most of these weapons having handles longer than 3 ft and being wielded with two hands, but a few are shown used in a single hand or with a haft too short to be used two-handed.
  Despite being very common in fictional works such as cartoons, films and role-playing games as a "quintessential medieval weapon", historical information about this type of flail is somewhat scarce. A few doubt they existed at all due to the number of pieces sitting in museums that turned out to be forgeries, as well as the unrealistic way they are depicted in art. Archaeologically, however, a type of military flail known as a kisten, with a non-spiked head and a leather, rather than chain, connection to the haft is attested in the 10th century in the territories of the Rus, probably being adopted from either the Avars or Khazars. This weapon had spread into central and eastern Europe in the 11th–13th centuries and may be considered an ancestor of the ball-and-chain flail. Waldman (2005) documented several seemingly authentic examples of the ball-and-chain flail from private collections as well as several restored illustrations from German, French, and Czech sources.  He states that the scarcity of artifacts and artistic depictions, combined with the almost complete lack of text references, suggests they were relatively rare weapons and never saw widespread use. One of the reasons was the hazard the weapon posed to its wielder, especially the varieties with long chains and short handles. A missed swing would still retain momentum, causing the striking end to continue its arc around, potentially into the user's hand or body. A miss could also throw the user off balance, and even if a blow were struck, there would be a dangerously long recovery time before the user could ready another swing or defend himself.
caption: Lithuanian hussar with kisten [lt; pl; ru] in his belt. Detail from Battle of Orsha painting, 1520–1534
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