Polearms

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A pole weapon or polearm is a close combat weapon in which the
 main fighting part of the weapon is placed on the end of a long
 shaft, typically of wood. The purpose of using pole weapons is either
 to extend reach or to increase angular momentum—and thus striking
 power—when the weapon is swung. The idea of attaching a weapon
 onto a long shaft is an old one, as the first spears date back to
 the Stone Age.

Spears, glaives, poleaxes, halberds, and bardiches are all varieties
 of polearm. Staff-weapons in Medieval or Renaissance England were
 lumped together under the generic term "staves"

 Pole weapons are relatively simple to make, and easy for most people
 to use as they were often derived from hunting or agricultural tools.

 Massed men carrying pole weapons with pointed tips (spears, pikes,
 etc.) were recognised early in the history of organised warfare
 as effective military units. On defence the men holding the polearms
 were hard to reach; on the attack they were devastating to any units
 that could not get out of the way.

 With the advent of armoured fighters, especially cavalry, pole
 weapons frequently combined the spearpoint (for thrusting) with
 an axe or hammerhead for a swinging strike which could pierce or
 break armour.

 Today, the military use of pole weapons is restricted to ceremonial
 guards, such as the Papal Swiss Guard or Yeomen of the Guard. They
 also remain a common sight in many schools of martial arts that
 study weapons. The bayonet of a modern rifle (especially sword bayonet
 or knife bayonet), when attached, can still be regarded as a form
 of pole weapon.

## Quarterstaves

 A quarterstaff is an English weapon that was used during the medieval
 period and up to the 18th Century. The term refers to a shaft of
 hardwood between five and seven feet in length, sometimes with metal
 tips, ferules or spikes.

 The origin of the weapon's name is uncertain. The name may come
 from the way that the staff is held: one hand at the centre of the
 staff, and one hand halfway between the centre and one end. However,
 this grip is not prescribed in early sources. Another theory links
 the word to its length being equal to the wielder's height plus
 another quarter.

 Swetnam writing in 1615 differentiates the quarterstaff of 6 or
 7 feet in length from the long staff of 12 feet and the pike of
 18 feet. Perhaps the most likely origin of the word is in its relationship
 to the "great" staff or pike, that was used to fight cavalry.
 Unlike its bigger cousin, a quarterstaff is literally one that is
 held and used in "close quarters" for personal combat,
 able to defend all four quarters of the body.

 A simple weapon to manufacture, the quarter staff has a long history
 of use, and a wide cultural dispersion. The quarterstaff proper
 was a common weapon in England, where it is featured in the Robin
 Hood legend as the favourite weapon of Little John.

 During the 1500s quarterstaves were favoured as weapons by the
 London Masters of Defence and by the 1700s the weapon was associated
 with gladiatorial prize playing. English fencing authors of the
 16th to 18th Centuries insist that the quarterstaff is the most
 effective of all hand weapons and devote lengthy portions of their
 works to its use.

 The quarterstaff is held with the back hand at the butt end of
 the staff and the other hand about a foot above it, as a two-handed
 sword would be held. The body is turned so the forward hand and
 forward foot are both facing the opponent, the feet taking the same
 stance as is used in sword or rapier fighting. This basic position
 is known as the low guard.

 Assuming the butt is gripped with the left hand, moving the staff
 slightly to the right to defend blows is called the outside guard.
 Moving it slightly to the left is called the inside guard. Raising
 the butt end up and pointing the point of the staff at the opponent's
 face to parry a blow to the head is called the middle guard.

 Raising the staff directly back over the head letting the tip point
 back at the ground behind oneself and looking under the butt end
 of the staff in front of oneself is called the open or hanging guard.
 The George guard or St. George guard is formed by grasping the staff
 at the thirds and raising it horizontally overhead to ward a direct
 overhead downward blow.

 Of these the low guard is considered the central guard. Blows were
 primarily delivered downwards either directly or at angles. Parries
 of blows to the legs were done either by lifting the leg away from
 the line of attack or by thrusting one end of the staff into the
 ground and releasing the foremost hand which was in danger of being
 struck. Thrusts were often performed with the release of the forward
 hand and a step with the forward leg like a fencing lunge, stretching
 forward the back hand as far as possible. Longer thrusts were delivered
 with a full step forward with the back leg accompanying the back
 hand. It was recommended that when delivering a blow that at the
 end of it the back leg and foot should be compassed about so as
 to fall roughly into a line with the front foot and the point of
 the weapon. The same circling round of the back leg was applied
 to parries also. Singularly among the three authors, Swetnam recommends
 preference of thrusting over striking. Silver and Wylde describe
 striking and thrusting as equally valid attacks.

## Spears

A
 spear is a pole weapon consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with
 a sharpened head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the
 shaft, or it may be of another material fastened to the shaft, such
 as obsidian, iron, or bronze. The most common design is of a metal
 spearhead, shaped like a triangle or a leaf.
 Spears were one of the most common personal weapons from the Stone
 Age until the advent of firearms. They may be seen as the ancestor
 of such weapons as the lance, the halberd, the bill and the pike.
 One of the earliest weapons fashioned by human beings and their
 ancestors, it is still used for hunting and fishing. Its influences
 can still be seen in contemporary military arsenals as the rifle-mounted
 bayonet.

 Spears can be used as both ballistic and melee weapons. Spears
 used primarily for thrusting may be used with either one or two
 hands and tend to have heavier and sturdier designs than those intended
 exclusively for throwing. Those designed for throwing, often referred
 to as javelins, tend to be lighter and have a more streamlined head..

 After the fall of the Roman Empire, the spear and shield continued
 to be used by almost all Western European cultures. Since a medieval
 spear required only a small amount of steel along the sharpened
 edges (most of the spear-tip was wrought iron), it was an economical
 weapon. Quick to manufacture, and needing less smithing skill than
 a sword, it remained the main weapon of the common soldier. The
 Vikings, for instance, though often portrayed with axe or sword
 in hand, were armed mostly with spears, as were their Anglo-Saxon,
 Irish, or continental contemporaries.

 Spears were either designed to be kept in hand (thrusting spears),
 or to be thrown (throwing spears). Within this simple classification,
 there were a remarkable range of types.

 Notable types of Early medieval spears include the Angon, a throwing
 spear with a long head like a Roman pilum used by the Franks and
 Anglo-Saxons and the winged (or lugged) spear, which had two prominent
 wings at the base of the spearhead, either to prevent the spear
 penetrating too far into an enemy or to aid in spear fencing . Originally
 a Frankish weapon, the winged spear was also popular with the Vikings.
 It would become the ancestor of later medieval polearms, such as
 the partisan and spetum.

 The thrusting spear also has the advantage of reach — being
 considerably longer than other weapon types. Exact spear lengths
 are hard to deduce as few spear shafts survive archaeologically
 but 6 ft. - 8 ft. (1.8m - 2.5m) would seem to be the norm. Some
 nations were noted for their long spears, including the Scots and
 the Flemish. Spears were usually used in tightly ordered formations,
 like the shieldwall or the schiltron To resist cavalry, spear shafts
 could be planted against the ground. William Wallace drew up his
 schiltrons in a circle at the Battle of Falkirk in 1298 to deter
 charging cavalry, but it was a widespread tactic, sometimes known
 as the "crown" formation

 Throwing spears became rarer as the Middle Ages drew on but survived
 in the hands of specialists such as the Catalan Almogavars. They
 were commonly used in Ireland until the end of the 16th. Century

 Spears began to lose fashion among the infantry in the 14th. Century,
 being replaced by pole weapons which combined the thrusting properties
 of the spear with the cutting properties of the axe, such as the
 halberd Where spears were retained they grew in length, eventually
 evolving into pikes which would be a dominant infantry weapon in
 he 16th. and 17th. centuries

 Cavalry spears were originally the same as infantry spears and
 were often used with two hands or held with one hand overhead. In
 the 11th. Century, after the adoption of stirrups and a high-cantled
 saddle, the spear became a more powerful weapon. A mounted knight
 would secure the lance by holding with one hand and tucking it under
 the armpit (the couched lance technique). This allowed all the momentum
 of the horse and knight to be focused on the weapon's tip whilst
 still retaining accuracy and control. This use of the spear spurred
 the development of the lance as a distinct weapon which was perfected
 in the medieval sport of jousting.

 In the 14th century, tactical developments meant that knights and
 men-at-arms often fought on foot. This led to the practice of shortening
 the lance to about 5 ft. (1.5m.) to make it more manageable. As
 dismounting became commonplace, specialist pole weapons such as
 the pollaxe were adopted by knights and this practice ceased

 The development of both the long, two handed pike and gunpowder
 in renaissance Europe saw an ever increasing focus on integrated
 infantry tactics. Infantry not armed with these weapons carried
 variations on the pole-arm, including the halberd and the bill.
 Ultimately, the spear proper was rendered obsolete on the battlefield.
 Its last flowering was the half-pike or spontoon, a shortened version
 of the pike carried by officers and NCOs. While originally a weapon,
 this came to be seen more as a badge of office, or leading staff
 by which troops were directed . The half-pike, also known as a boarding
 pike, was also used as a weapon on board ships until the 19th. Century

 At the start of the Renaissance, cavalry were still predominantly
 lance armed; gendarmes with the heavy knightly lance and lighter
 cavalry with a variety of lighter lances. By the 1540s, however,
 pistol-armed cavalry called reiters were beginning to make their
 mark. Cavalry armed with pistols and other lighter firearms, along
 with a sword, had virtually replaced lance armed cavalry in Western
 Europe by the beginning of the 17th. Century, though the lance persisted
 in Eastern Europe, from whence it was reintroduced into the European
 mainstream in the 19th. Century.

## Winged Spears

The winged (also lugged or barred) spear was a common type of thrusting
 spear during the early Middle Ages. It consisted of a leaf or lozenge
 shaped head, beneath which on the socket there were prominent wings.
 The earliest use of barred spears for hunting is recorded by Xenophon
 in the 4th. Century BC and illustrations of Roman examples are known[34].
 Its use in war, however, seems to relate to German tribes in the
 Early Middle Ages, particularly the Franks[, and it was used by
 the Vikings. The type is commonly illustrated in Early Medieval
 Art, including the Bayeux Tapestry and the Golden Psalter of St.
 Gallen..
 The winged spear is shown used by both cavalry and infantry. Although
 some authors claim the intention of the wings was to prevent the
 weapon from penetrating too deeply into an enemy, others see them
 as an aid to spear-fencing. In the later Middle Ages a number of
 polearms derived from the winged spear evolve. Some, such as the
 Bohemian ear spoon, differ little from the original. Weapons such
 as the Spetum, Ranseur, Corseque and Partisan show a greater evolutionary
 change.

## Lances

The word lance is a catchall term for a variety of different pole
 weapons based on the spear. The name is derived from lancea, Roman
 auxiliaries' javelin..
 A lance in the original sense is a light throwing spear, or javelin.
 The English verb to launch "fling, hurl, throw" is derived
 from the term (via Old French lancier), as well as the rarer or
 poetic to lance. The term from the 17th century came to refer specifically
 to spears not thrown, used for thrusting by heavy cavalry, and especially
 in jousting.

 A thrusting spear which is used by infantry is usually referred
 to as a pike.

 The Roman cavalry long thrusting spear was not called lance, but
 contus (from Greek language kontos, barge-pole). It was usually
 3 to 4 m long, and grasped with both hands. It was used by equites
 contariorum and equites catafractarii, fully armed and armoured
 cataphracts.

 The use of the basic cavalry spear is so ancient, and warfare so
 ubiquitous by the beginning of recorded history, that it is difficult
 to determine which populations invented the lance and which learned
 it from their enemies or allies.

 The best known usage of military lances was that of the full-gallop
 closed-ranks and usually wedge-shaped charge of a group of knights
 with underarm-couched lances, against lines of infantry, archery
 regiments, defensive embankments, and opposition cavalry.

 It is commonly believed that this became the dominant European
 cavalry tactic in the 11th century after the development of the
 cantled saddle and stirrups and of rowel spurs which enabled better
 control of the mount. Cavalry thus outfitted and deployed had a
 tremendous collective force in their charge, and could shatter most
 contemporary infantry lines.

 While it could still be generally classified as a spear, the lance
 tends to be larger - usually both longer and stouter and thus also
 considerably heavier, and unsuited for throwing, or for the rapid
 thrusting, as with an infantry spear. Lances did not have spear
 tips that (intentionally) broke off or bent, unlike many throwing
 weapons of the spear/javelin family, and were adapted for mounted
 combat. They were often equipped with a vamplate, a small circular
 plate to prevent the hand sliding up the shaft upon impact. Though
 perhaps most known as one of the foremost military and sporting
 weapons used by European knights, the use of lances was spread throughout
 the Old World wherever mounts were available. As a secondary weapon,
 lancers of the period also bore swords, maces or something else
 suited to close quarter battle, since the lance was often a one-use-per-engagement
 weapon; after the initial charge, the weapon was far too long, heavy
 and slow to be effectively used against opponents in a melee.

 Because of the stopping power of a thrusting spear, it quickly
 became a popular weapon of footmen in the Late Middle Ages. These
 eventually led to the rise of the longest type of spears ever, the
 pike. Ironically, this adaptation of the cavalry lance to infantry
 use was largely tasked with stopping lance-armed cavalry charges.
 During the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, these weapons, both mounted
 and unmounted, were so effective that lancers and pike men not only
 became a staple of every Western army, but also became highly sought-after
 mercenaries.

 In Europe, a jousting lance was a variation of the knight's lance
 which was modified from its original war design. In jousting, the
 lance tips would usually be blunt, often spread out like a cup or
 furniture foot, to provide a wider impact surface designed to unseat
 the opposing rider without spearing him through. The centre of the
 shaft of such lances could be designed to be hollow, in order for
 it to break on impact, as a further safeguard against impalement.
 They were often 4 m long or longer, and had special hand guards
 built into the lance, often tapering for a considerable portion
 of the weapon's length. These are the versions that can most often
 be seen at medieval re-enactment festivals. In war, lances were
 much more like stout spears, long and balanced for one handed use,
 and with sharp tips.

 The mounted lance saw a renaissance in the 18th century with the
 demise of the pike; heavily armoured cuirassiers used 2 to 3 m lances
 as their main weapons. They were usually used for the breakneck
 charge against the enemy infantry.

 The Crimean War saw the most infamous use of the lance, the Charge
 of the Light Brigade, though lances continued to be used into the
 twentieth century.

## Pikes

A pike is a pole weapon, a very long thrusting weapon used extensively
 by infantry both for attacks on enemy foot soldiers and as a counter-measure
 against cavalry assaults. Unlike many similar weapons, the pike
 is not intended to be thrown. Pikes were used by European troops
 from the early Middle Ages until around 1700, and wielded by foot
 soldiers deployed in close order. While the soldiers using such
 spears may not have called them "pikes", their tactical
 employment of these weapons ran along broadly similar lines.
 The pike was an extremely long weapon, varying considerably in
 size, from 3 to 6 metres (10 to over 20 feet) long. It had a wooden
 shaft with an iron or steel spearhead affixed. The shaft near the
 head was often reinforced with metal strips called "cheeks"
 or langets. When the troops of opposing armies both carried the
 pike, it often grew in a sort of arms race, getting longer in both
 shaft and head length to give one side's pikemen an edge in the
 combat; the longest pikes could exceed 6 m (22 feet) in length.
 The extreme length of such weapons required a strong wood such as
 well-seasoned ash for the pole, which was tapered towards the point
 to prevent the pike sagging on the ends, although this was always
 a problem in pike handling.

 The great length of the pikes allowed a great concentration of
 spearheads to be presented to the enemy, with their wielders at
 a greater distance, but also made pikes unwieldy in close combat.
 This meant that pikemen had to be equipped with a shorter weapon
 such as a sword, mace, or dagger in order to defend themselves should
 the fighting degenerate into a melee. In general, however, pikemen
 attempted to avoid such disorganised combat, at which they were
 at a disadvantage. To compound their difficulties in a melee, the
 pikeman often did not have a shield ..

 On the battlefield pikes were often used in "hedgehog"
 formations, particularly by troops such as rebel peasants and militias
 who had not received a great deal of training in tactical manoeuvres
 with the weapon. In these, the troops simply stood and held their
 pikes out in the direction of the enemy, sometimes standing in great
 circles or squares with the men facing out in all directions so
 that the enemy was confronted by a forest of bristling pikeheads,
 and could not attack the formation from the sides or rear.

 Better-trained troops were capable of using the pike in an aggressive
 attack, each rank of pikemen being trained to hold their pikes so
 that they presented enemy infantry with four or five layers of spearheads
 bristling from the front of the formation.

 As long as it kept good order, such a formation could roll right
 over enemy infantry, but had its own weaknesses – as the men
 were all moving forward, they were all facing in a single direction
 and could not easily turn to protect the vulnerable flanks or rear
 of the formation, and the huge block of men carrying such unwieldy
 spears could be difficult to manoeuvre, other than for straightforward
 movement.

 As a result, such mobile pike formations sought to have supporting
 troops protect their flanks, or would manoeuvre to smash the enemy
 before they could themselves be outflanked. There was also the risk
 that the formation would become disordered, leading to a confused
 melee in which pikemen had the vulnerabilities mentioned above.

 Though primarily a military weapon, the pike could be effective
 in single combat, and a number of 16th-century sources explain how
 it was to be used in a duelling situation; fencers of the time often
 practiced with and competed against each other with long staves
 in place of pikes.

 In the Middle Ages, the principal users of the pike were urban
 militia troops such as the Flemings or the peasant array of the
 lowland Scots. For example, the Scots used a spear formation known
 as the schiltron in several battles during the Wars of Scottish
 Independence including the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, and the
 Flemings used their geldon long spear to absorb the attack of French
 knights at the Battle of the Golden Spurs in 1302, before other
 troops in the Flemish formation counterattacked the stalled knights
 with plancons. Both battles were seen by contemporaries as stunning
 victories of commoners over superbly equipped, mounted, military
 professionals, where victory was owed to the use of the pike and
 the brave resistance of the commoners who wielded them.

 These formations were essentially immune to the attacks of mounted
 men-at-arms as long as the knights obligingly threw themselves on
 the spear wall, but the closely-packed nature of pike formations
 rendered them vulnerable to enemy archers and crossbowmen who could
 shoot them down with impunity, especially when the pikemen did not
 have adequate armour. Many defeats, such as at Roosebeke and Halidon
 Hill, were suffered by the militia pike armies when faced by enemies
 who employed their archers and crossbowmen to thin the ranks of
 the pike blocks before charging in with their (often dismounted)
 men-at-arms.

 Medieval pike formations tended to have better success when they
 operated in an aggressive fashion. The Scots at the Battle of Stirling
 Bridge (1297), for example, used the momentum of their charge to
 overrun an English army while the Englishmen were halfway through
 the process of crossing a narrow bridge. And then, at the Battle
 of Laupen (1339), Bernese pikemen overwhelmed the infantry forces
 of the opposing Habsburg/Burgundian army with a massive charge before
 wheeling over to strike and rout the Austro-Burgundian horsemen
 as well. It was not uncommon for aggressive pike formations to be
 composed of dismounted men-at-arms, as at the Battle of Sempach
 (1389), where the dismounted Austrian vanguard, using their lances
 as pikes, had some initial success against their predominantly halberd-equipped
 Swiss adversaries. Dismounted Italian men-at-arms also used the
 same method to defeat the Swiss at the Battle of Arbedo (1422).

 The Swiss solved the pike's earlier problems and brought a renaissance
 to pike warfare in the 15th century, establishing strong training
 regimens to ensure they were masters of handling of the long pike
 on manoeuvres and in combat, the Swiss having also introduced marching
 to drums for this purpose. This meant that the pike blocks could
 rise to the attack, making them less passive and more aggressive
 formations, but sufficiently well trained that they could go on
 the defensive when attacked by cavalry. German soldiers known as
 Landsknechts later adopted Swiss methods of pike handling.

 The Scots also still used pikes heavily by now, but were dropped
 in masses after ineffective use after a humiliating defeat at the
 Battle of Flodden. Swiss and Landsknecht phalanxes also contained
 men armed with two-handed swords, or Zweihänder, and halberdiers
 for close action against both infantry and attacking cavalry.

 The high military reputation of the Swiss and the Landsknecht again
 led to the employment of mercenary units across Europe in order
 to train other armies in their tactics. These two and others, who
 had adopted their tactics, faced off in several wars leading to
 a series of developments as a result of these confrontations.

 These formations had great successes on the battlefield, starting
 with the astonishing battlefield victories of the Swiss cantons
 against Charles the Bold of Burgundy in the Burgundian Wars, in
 which the Swiss participated in 1476 and 1477. In the battles of
 Grandson, Morat and Nancy, the Swiss not only resisted the attacks
 of knightly foes, as the relatively passive Scottish and Flemish
 infantry squares had done in the earlier Middle Ages, but also marched
 to the attack with great speed and in good formation, their attack
 columns steamrolling the Burgundian forces.

 The deep pike attack column remained the primary form of effective
 infantry combat for the next forty years, and the Swabian War saw
 the first conflict in which both sides had large formations of well-trained
 pikemen. After that war, its combatants – the Swiss (thereafter
 generally serving as mercenaries) and their Landsknecht imitators
 – would often face each other again in the Italian Wars, which
 would become in many ways the military proving ground of the Renaissance.

 T the rise of firearms and artillery in the sixteenth century made
 the big pike columns vulnerable to being shot down despite their
 awesome close-combat power. The decline of the combat column of
 pikemen was starkly displayed at the terrible Battle of Bicocca
 in 1522, for instance, where arquebusiers contributed to the heavy
 defeat of a force of Swiss pikemen.

## Corseques

A corseque has a three-bladed head on a 6-8ft. (1.8m-2.5m.) haft
 which, like the partisan, evolved from the winged spear or spetum
 in the later Middle Ages. It was popular in Europe in the 16th and
 17th centuries. Surviving examples have a variety of head forms
 but there are two main variants, one with the side blades (known
 as flukes or wings) branching from the neck of the central blade
 at 45 degrees, the other with hooked blades curving back towards
 the haft.
 The corseque is usually associated with the rawcon, ranseur and
 runka. Another possible association is with the "three-grayned
 staff" listed as being in the armoury of Henry VIII in 1547
 (though the same list also features 84 rawcons, suggesting the weapons
 were not identical in 16th century English eyes). Another modern
 term used for particularly ornate-bladed corseques is the chauve-souris.

## Fauchards

A fauchard is a type of polearm used in medieval Europe from the
 11th through the 14th centuries. The design consisted of a curved
 blade on top of a 6–7-foot long pole. The blade bore a moderate
 to strong curve along its length. Unlike a glaive the cutting edge
 was only on the conc side. This made the fauchard blade resemble
 that of a sickle or a scythe.
 This was not a very efficient design for the purposes of war, and
 was eventually modified to have one or more lance points attached
 to the back or top of the blade. The modern name for this weapon
 is a fauchard-fork, but is very often erroneously referred to as
 a guisarme or bill-guisarme since it superficially appears to have
 a "hook".

## Glaives

A glaive is a polearm consisting of a single-edged tapering blade
 similar in shape to a modern kitchen knife on the end of a pole.
 The blade is fixed in a socket-shaft configuration similar to an
 axe head, both the blade and shaft varying in length.
 Illustrations in the 13th century Maciejowski Bible show a short
 staffed weapon with a long blade used by both infantry and cavalry.
 Typically however, the blade was around 18 inches (55 cm) long,
 on the end of a pole 6 or 7 feet (180–210 cm) long. Occasionally
 glaive blades were created with a small hook or spike on the reverse
 side. The modern term for these is glaive-guisarmes.

## Guisarmes

A guisarme (gisarme, giserne or bisarme) was a pole weapon used
 in Europe between 1000–1400. It was used primarily to dismount
 knights and horsemen. Like most polearms it was developed by peasants
 by combining hand tools with long poles, in this case by putting
 a pruning hook onto a spear shaft.
 While hooks are effective for dismounting horsemen from mounts,
 they lack the stopping power of a spear especially when dealing
 with static opponents. Early designs were simply a hook on the end
 of a long pole. Later designs implemented a small reverse spike
 on the back of the blade.

 Eventually weapon makers incorporated the usefulness of the hook
 in a variety of different polearms and guisarme became a catch-all
 for any weapon that included a hook on the blade.

## Halberds

A halberd (or Swiss voulge) is a two-handed pole weapon that came
 to prominent use during the 14th and 15th centuries but has continued
 in use as a ceremonial weapon to the present day. First recorded
 as "hellembart" in 1279, the word halberd possibly comes
 from the German words Halm (staff) or Helm (helmet), and Barte (axe).

 The halberd consists of an axe blade topped with a spike mounted
 on a long shaft. It always has a hook or thorn on the back side
 of the axe blade for grappling mounted combatants.

 Early forms are very similar in many ways to certain forms of voulge,
 while 16th century and later forms are similar to the poleaxe. The
 Swiss were famous users of the halberd in the medieval and renaissance
 eras, with various cantons evolving regional variations of the basic
 form.

 The word halberd is also used to translate the Chinese ji and also
 a range of medieval Scandinavian weapons as described in sagas,
 such as the atgeir.

## Danish Axes

The Danish Axe (also Broad Axe, Dane-axe) is a weapon with a heavy
 crescent-shaped head mounted on a haft 4ft. to 6ft. (1.2-1.8 m.)
 in length.
 Originally a Viking weapon, it was adopted by the Anglo-Saxons
 and Normans in the 11th century, spreading through Europe in the
 12th and 13th centuries.].

 Variants of this basic weapon continued in use in Scotland and
 Ireland into the 16th century.

## Sparths

In the 13th century, variants on the Danish axe are seen. Described
 in English as a sparth (from the Old Norse sparðr) or pale-axe],
 the weapon featured a larger head with broader blade, the rearward
 part of the crescent sweeping up to contact (or even be attached
 to) the haft. Another development extended the forward part of the
 crescent.
 In Ireland, this axe was known as a Sparr. Originating in either
 Western Scotland or Ireland, the sparr was widely used by the galloglass.
 Although sometimes said to derive from the Irish for a joist or
 beam, a more likely definition is as a variant of sparth. Although
 attempts have been made to suggest that the sparr had a distinctive
 shaped head, illustrations and surviving weapons show there was
 considerable variation and the distinctive feature of the weapon
 was its long haft.

## Bardiches

A bardiche (berdiche, or long poleaxe), is a type of polearm known
 in medieval and renaissance Europe, especially in Eastern Europe
 and Russia where it was used instead of halberd.
 Occasionally the weapons of such form were made in Antiquity and
 Early Middle Ages, but the regular and massive usage of bardiches
 started in the late 14th century.

 It was probably developed from the Scandinavian broad axe, but
 in Scandinavia it appeared only in the late 15th century. In the
 16th century bardiche became a weapon associated with streltsy,
 Russian guardsmen armed with firearms.

## Pollaxes

In the 14th century, the basic long axe began to evolve, gaining
 an armour piercing spike on the back and another on the end of the
 haft for thrusting. This evolved into the pollaxe of the following
 century.
 The pollaxe evolved to break through plate armour and featured
 various combinations of an axe-blade, a back-spike and a hammer.

 It was the favoured weapon for men-at-arms fighting on foot into
 the sixteenth century[.

## Mauls

The maul is a long-handled hammer with a heavy metal head, either
 of lead or iron. It is similar in appearance and function to a modern
 sledgehammer but is sometimes shown as having a spear-like spike
 on the fore-end of the haft.
 The use of the maul as a weapon seems to date from the later 14th
 century. In 1382, rebellious citizens of Paris seized 3,000 mauls
 from the city armoury, Later in the same year, Froissart records
 French men-at-arms using mauls at the Battle of Roosebeke, demonstrating
 it was not only a weapon of the lower classes.

 A particular use of the maul was by archers in the 15th and 16th
 centuries. At Agincourt, English longbowmen are recorded as using
 lead mauls, initially as a tool to drive in stakes but later as
 an improvised weapon. Other references during the century suggest
 continued use. They are recorded as a weapon of Tudor archers as
 late as 1562.

## Becs de Corbin

A bec de corbin is a type of pole weapon that was popular in medieval
 Europe. The name is Old French for "crow's beak".
 Similar to the Lucerne hammer, it consists of a modified hammer's
 head and spike mounted atop a long pole. Unlike the Lucerne hammer,
 the bec de corbin was used primarily with the 'beak' or fluke to
 attack instead of the hammer head. The hammer face balancing the
 beak was often blunt instead of the multi-pronged Lucerne, and the
 beak tended to be stouter; better designed for tearing armour. Also,
 the spike mounted on the top of head was not nearly as long and
 thin as in the Lucerne. Bec de corbin occasionally becomes a catchall
 for any type of warhammer, such as a maul or a horseman's pick.

 A similar name bec de faucon (meaning 'falcon's beak') refers to
 a related weapon called a poleaxe or, more specifically, to the
 hook on its reverse side.