Many years ago I saw a kid with a broken arm ride at full tilt passed another kid. As he went by he called the kids name and when he turned round the guy on the bike stuck his broken arm out. The other kid took the plaster straight in the teeth, (he was a terriblle bully who made a LOT of kids lives miserable) and was knocked straight off his feet sans several teeth. If that was the effect of a schoolkid on a bike with nothing more than an arm in plaster I hate to think what a horserider with a mace could do!
I've played around with it over 50 years of horse riding, and I can assure you that any sort of club swung from a galloping horse will do devastating damage. Obviously, armor would diminish the effect, but I think it would still significantly disable the opponent, at least temporarily.
Even a bicycle crashing into somebody is dangerous and even if somebody is accelerating really fast on the back of a bicycle and is swing an object they can hurt somebody extremely bad sort of like what would happen if somebody was riding on a horse and swinging something at somebody else.Something I sort of thought of is what if hypothetically bicycles existed in the medeval period and some people used them in wars instead of horses.
@GaryNac wars were typically fought in open field from my understanding, any type of bicycle would not perform as well as any type of horse would and riding a bicycle with plate and mail would be horrible and would likely make you vulnerable as you would be entering combat weary and out of breath
A beautiful thing about a mace is that you don’t need to sharpen it all the time. It works when it’s dull - it works when it’s rusty - it works, period.
A sharp sword isnt necessarily better. In close combat, a sharp weapon will get stuck in bone, leaving the attacker exposed. The bayonets we used in the army were on purpose not allowed to be sharpened.
@@bjornlangoren3002 *IF* it gets stuck in the bone The human body has a lot of spots you can stab where there are no bones to stop you And well it's never a problem just ask a stabbing victim how much their bones helped them😅
The mace is very effective in head strikes after your opponent has dramatically torn his helmet off and thrown it away so his face can be seen by the film's audience.
Uhm, the mace is effective in head strikes no matter what kind of helmet you have on, it’s called blunt force trauma. If helmets could stop it the NFL wouldn’t have such a concussion/CTE problem.
That may well be, but when the cops find your deadly weapon, you'll go to jail whether you used it on someone or not. Stupid, stupid, stupid...that's just as bad as carrying concealed weapons--you have no justification for carrying it.
@@bronco1199 galvanised steel. Though... if you go for a more tasteful handle and a copper verdigris, the responsible gentleman-homeowner aesthetic will surely come in handy, when having to explain how an intruder came to be 'differently-abled'.
If I were to design a backup or secondary weapon for cavalry, a couple of considerations: 1. Leverage is at a premium, so things like poleaxes, spears, thrusting weapons, etc. are not ideal. A swung weapon such as an axe or club that still delivers great force but doesn't require solid footing would be better. 2. You can swing to either side of the horse, both overhand and underhand, so the weapon needs to be easily used in any orientation. A single bit axe or hammer may inadvertently get swung sideways or backwards. 3. A baseball bat with nails would work, but a horse will necessarily have large armor gaps for mobility, so a weapon without excessive spikiness will avoid injuring the animal if brushed up against, fallen on, or errantly swung.
Oddly...people don't realize that a mace is dirt cheap to produce in man-hours versus a more refined sword (so can go to all types of soldiers outside just armored troops) which is an extreme industrialization plus in long wars, is much more mobile (for use in tight quarters of rooms and stairways), and with more specialized mace head designs, would have been used to also break hands, forearms and biceps, therefore immobilizing the other soldiers ability to wield a weapon. Secondarily, a mace is a 360 degree headed weapon, whereas all others are directionally orientated at 180 degrees and must be within about 25 degrees of dead on strike to do real damage without severe deflection, with exception of thrusting blades and weapons, which are obviously deflected by armor depending on degree of angle from armor to weapon.
Considering the primary weapon of most calvary throughout history was a thrusting weapon I have to argue point 1 isn't entirel accurate and I think their are other concerns alot more pressing than your 3rd point IE a weapon that can offer a DEFENSIVE use since a horse rider cannot rotate himself to defend his right side a sword actually turns out to be the ideal weapon. Swords we're the most common secondary weapon for calvary throughout history Im sure for more reasons than that alone. i just dont think accidentally injuring your horse with your weapon is a real consideration.
Cavalry has always struck to me as the obious usecase. If on horse, you will either poke with a lance, or slash in melee. Now, slashing with a sword against plate armoured opponents is almost pointless. If you try to give point, you will get at risk of someone grabing your arm and dragging you of your horse. You will have a much better time bludgeoning all those heads sitting at the right hight below you. Remember, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail-head...
@@cegesh1459 very different times and context. On a Medieval battlefield, if you are on horse and can afford whatever you like and multiple weapons, you might decide to have the best tools for the job ; that being : one long solid pointy thing for poking hard (a lance), one smashy thing for smashing hard with one hand (because horseback, so a mace or warhammer, essentially the same thing). Plus a sword for dismounted combat. And a dagger for that last resort.
I don't remember my source for it, but I do also remember long-hafted (but single-handed) maces being used by Byzantine cataphracts to strike the heads of spears (whether to knock them aside and clear the way or even perhaps to break the heads off of them). I don't know how that would translate to the faster charges of more western European cavalry, but I expect it would be better than a sword at knocking aside a lance.
@@scholagladiatoria On foot matt you use a Streitkolben or streithammer that is both 1 handed & 2 handed so think of it as the b@stard mace to B@rstard swords equivalent even if both were not a term used back then. Streitkolben are about 1.5 to 1.8kg. Morgenstern are about 4 to 6 feet with heavier weights as they are 2handed. What you have their is large six feather Pernach so about 1.2kg I'd guess. If not mounted maces are heavier & used with both hands for 1 & 1/2 more impact even if the weight was the same.
@@scholagladiatoria To be honest I'm not found of pernach's without a shield. I suspect this is why heater shields came to be as you don't need large shields in full plate but with a mace it keep your opponent out of clinch-grapple while you smack them with the pernach-mace.
Just to throw this into the mix, Persian deghans and Roman/Byzantine cataphracts -- both heavily-armored cavalry types -- often used maces on one another. They seemed to be pretty happy with 'em!
A famous historical joke in Chinese literature about the Song Dynasty is that the Jin Dynasty's army used maces, but the soldiers of the Song Dynasty could only use their own heads to resist, and there was no other good way to defend themselves. and the armor of the Song Dynasty is considered to be the most heavily armored in Chinese history. I think the correct use of a mace in any era is very clear, which is to hit someone hard on the head, even if it's wearing a metal helmet it won't reduce the impact of a concussion much. It's just do that will be easier for the cavalry. One more thing to mention, it seems that because wooden-handled maces require less metal to make and are more durable than swords, they were more popular in places like Central Asia that lacked the fuel wood that blacksmiths needed. Axes are also more popular in these places.
Interesting theory about the lack of fule wood. A lack of fule wood would presumably also mean less plate armour. If that's the case, it would provide an alternative explanation for the correlation between a lack of plate armour and the widespread use of maces (in the central Asian case); and on the other hand, the presence of plate armour and the comparatively limited use of maces (in the European case) - namely that more fule wood means greater avaliablity of both plate armour and good alternatives to maces. So that rather than the presence or absence of plate having a causal impact on the use of maces as Matt Easton suggests, both have a common cause the in availability of fule wood.
@@tobytoxd The Chinese joke mentioned earlier is known in modern times due to the record of the famous writer Lu Xun. Lu Xun recorded that this joke came from miscellaneous notes written by people from the Song Dynasty that he had read. In modern times, it is often simplified into an idiom: "金有狼牙棒，宋有天靈蓋"(Jin have maces, Song have skulls). This joke originated from the dejected Song people laughing at themselves for being unable to resist the invasion of the Jin Dynasty army. And it goes to show that a hard blow to the head with a mace is a very effective attack.
In Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth flanged mace was a symbol for officers up to regimental commander. Most of the Cavalry during 16th-17th century use horseman's picks. This days flanged mace is given by president to officers promoted to first general rank.
yes but it's more of if such thing can still be used as weapons or just symbolic toys. Swords and katanas also have those symbolic use but didnt make them useless on battlefield
@@wolfensniper4012 The point here is that it was (and is up to this day) a distinctive mark of a higher officer. Yes, it was used in fights and brawls but it was not the point of having one. It id already depicted in this context on the painting of the Battle of Orsza, 1514.
@@Kamamura2 nope... They call it buzdygan(flanged mace). Bulava is ball mace and it was used(as a badge of office) only by hetman. Modern day Poland bulava is given to general that is promoted to the rank Marshall of Poland(currently there is no living person with that rank). In the novel Deluge and also in the film adaptation, there is a scene in which the colonels, having learned about the betrayal of the Grand Hetman of Lithuania, throw flanged maces at his feet as a sign that they renounce obedience to him.
A mace is less likely to get stuck in your target. So if you lose your lance by getting it stuck in a target, and you lose your sword getting it stuck in a target, then it's a smart idea to have your failsafe not have the same flaw (sacrificing reach though)
I think that is a much greater consideration to actual period warriors then we consider. Losing your weapon is uselessness or worse death. Having something reliable that your not going to be disarmed of would be a huge psychological comfort.
Even when it doesn’t stick in the target, the longer reach of a sword also means that it’s a longer lever - if you are on a charging horse, smashing the end of your sword into an armoured cavalryman going the other direction, that’s a lot of strain on both the material of the sword and your own grip on the weapon. Seems reasonable to have a backup that handles the specific issue that might have lost you your sword, even if a sword is better in most situations.
Enough force would still break an arm even under plate. Break swords or give shields a real good test. WW1 soldiers made modern versions for trench warfare as well
Could be I'm wrong, but wasn't there something about clerics (Bishops etc) fighting with maces, because it was an "unbloody" weapon? Because cutting someone to pieces was a sin - because people believed to be literally revived when Jesus Returns. So when you where missing e.g. an arm, you also miss it in your eternal life.
Pietro Monte talks about using horseman’s hammers on hands when fighting on horseback. Fighting on horseback halfswording becomes impossible so the stabbing and finding gaps becomes harder, you also are likely aiming at a fast moving target. So working with momentum makes more sense.
Regarding use on horseback, Pietro monte does write about clubbing the head of the opponent's horse to kill it or at least ensure that it refuses to approach you again.
Except he started out the video busting the old myth that there were large numbers of people in armor. The number of guys in heavy armor on the battlefield was less than 1%. The vast preponderance of guys on the battlefield had leather armor and maybe if they were lucky, some chain mail. Basic wooden shields were common, and typically made to be lightweight. So if you want to smash a commoner's shield into splinters, or break some bones under light armor, the mace is really the ideal tool.
@@Mr.Ekshin he's made the point, as have others, that leather isn't half as common as people thought they were. Shields for commoners were only light for archers, infantry had infantry shields--heavy and solid. Maces still good, cos flexible armour, but not for the reason you state.
@@Mr.Ekshin Sir, this is just wrong, the vast preponderance of guys on the 15th century battlefield were wearing at least jack-chains (basic plate arm protection on a padded jack), or a shirt of mail, and often wore brigandines or breastplates. (The English army had a minimum standard of a shirt of mail or a brigandine to even be allowed to serve in the first place). Do not speak authoritatively on topics you do not know about, you will only ever make yourself out to be a moron.
@scholagladiatoria Matt, have you looked at Pietro Monte's Exercitiorum Atque Artis Militaris Collectanea (available in English translated by Mike Pendergrass and Ingrid Sperber)? The Collectanea is one of the few treatises I know of that actually _discusses_ fighting with the one-handed bludgeon (specifically, one-handed warhammers, but almost everything he says about them ought to apply to maces as well). He makes a number of interesting points that address what you're talking about in this video directly. I'll omit the quotes for brevity's sake here, but: In chapter 72, he comments on using the bludgeon to knock the opponent's weapon out of their hand in mounted combat. Also in chapter 72, he advises the horseman to carry two bludgeons, in case one is lost. In chapter 72, he advises hitting the opponent's horse in the head with one's bludgeon, to either fell the horse or cause it to shy away for the rest of combat. In chapter 79, he comments that the bludgeon is rarely able to stop a man in plate armor on foot from closing to grappling range, where, he says, the bludgeon is useless (against plate armor). In chapter 118, he advises that there be an air gap padded with wool between the back of the hand and one's gauntlets, and that one's shoulder guards be "thoroughly raised," because of the blows of bludgeons. In chaper 125, he advises that pieces of armor that are joined by pins also be joined by loose ties, because the blows of a bludgeon can break fastenings of pins alone. In chapter 128, he has some advice for reinforcements to the chamfron "because of club-blows" [Monte prefers the Latin clauas, "club," for the warhammer, but he describes the object in detail in chapter 72, and it's clear he's talking about what we would call a one-handed warhammer].
This is all super great to read, I have not researched a lot of treatises but, a few years back I came to think that mace and warhammer treatises basically didn't exist. It's nice to see in recently years more and more appearing, from different cultures and time periods. Even if they are still few compared to the body of sword treatises.
At the moment, we can download the text of the second edition for free, too. However, Jeffrey L. Forgeng had already translated it, and it's easily available, if you want a hard copy. Forgeng also includes some nice photos in his translation. I was able to find that one on Z-Library, and the original Latin is downloadable from the Internet Archive.....I think I'll compare the two translations, just because I'm curious--is one superior, or are they similar enough to not matter? Also, these days, Google Translate seems to do a decent job on Latin...yes, having a human doing the translation can get you much closer to the original meanings, but that's only if they're using colloquial speech...which there shouldn't be much of in such a document. Turns out that there is a stumbling block to translating this book--the author originally wrote in Spanish, then translated it to Latin, which he was not especially fluent in, plus he uses Italian scattered among the rest. But Forgeng, I'd say, did a much more readable translation, which Pendergrass' version seems more of a literal translation. It might be more sensible to read both translations, if the contents are actually important to the reader. I was surprised to find the book is purely text...seems like the sort of thing that ought to have a few illustrations, I guess that's why Forgeng added some photos. Pendergrass should be doing something similar...there should be plenty of useful images in the public domain, if nothing else...and with his SCA connections, I'm certain he could find someone to do illustrations.
One other note on taking hostages is that you might be doing that during a rout. If you're on horseback and someone is fleeing on foot, you don't even need to hit them hard in the head to capture them; any hit on the back could put them on the ground relatively intact
I'm getting shades of William Marshall here. Knock them silly, get the ransom and win. I'm also wondering about the use against the armour itself. Articulation requires very fine tolerances and those are easier to upset. It's also more hypothetical, without getting some armour, period equivalent and the same in the weapon. I'm wondering if there's some element of the tournament fight, the tournament here. Better a bruise that an open wound and better a bruised ego than a broken bone. On the breaking thing, I'm also wondering if that's a strength. If you're moving around, got some momentum, a whole heap of force. On some level, the mace is the back up for the charge, you need to have something that won't turn into shrapnel in your hand and leave you less well defended. Some quick first thoughts at least.
I was thinking about the armour damage as well. You can crush a faceplate, or mangle it from the side with a swipe. As you stated, points of articulation would fairly easily be bent or crushed by a flanged mace. Even in the SCA I got my fans on my knees bent badly by mere rattan, same with overlapping lames on my upper chausses. I feel like flanged mace would be very effective at this.
Use in Tournaments was my first thought too, although he has made many good points about other uses. In a tournament disabling your opponent would be sufficient. Getting hit on the head with a mace while charging past each other would be enough force to knock you off your horse I bet. The combination of getting hit off your horse and hit in the head would be pretty disorienting I expect. I could see the mace being a useful tool for that purpose. Once dazed and lying on the ground you are pretty clearly defeated...
Great video. For the longest time I've been in the "flanged mace is the ideal weapon vs plate armor" camp so this was quite a nice eye opener. Always fun to learn something new.
Also, consider group situations. The flanged mace, specifically, is a short, omni-directional weapon. If you are packed in tight with friends and foe, a mace can be swung about forehand, backhand, point, and it won't stick in the enemy and be at rick of being pulled from your hand. They notably did *not* have large crossguards, at a time when swords did. You are not intended to be fencing with intricate parry/riposte/bind against other sword users. It seems like a good weapon for a scrum.
I think one more thing the mace is particularly nice for cavalrymen is edge alignment. A galopping horse is not the smothest way of movement and the rider might not be able to hit with the edge of the sword perfectly, making it quite ineffective. With a mace you don't have the same problem, a heave lump of metal is a heavy lump metal. If it hits, it hits.
Considering how difficult it is to prevent concussions in modern sports with modern helmets, I’m skeptical that a medieval helm would be optimized to protect you from someone intending to concuss you with a optimal tool for the job.
@scholagladiatoria great video matt, I am a big fan. I do think maces probably weren't used as much against armor as popular culture would suggest, but I do think Dequitem's videos aren't necessarily the best resource either for a couple reasons, and these reasons are directly relevant to the question of "were maces effective against full plate armor?" Reason 1: Dequitem is an amateur athlete in a very pretty, very well-choreographed video, sparring other amateur athletes. No knock on him: pretty much all of us HEMA/buhurt people are amateur athletes. But judging whether or not a mace is effective against armor based on Dequitem (or whomever) smacking a piece of modern steel is kind of like judging whether a left hook is an effective punch by watching a hobbyist boxer smack a heavy bag. You'll come away thinking "why doesn't he just jab or throw the right hand all the time?" But then you look at someone with more skill throw the punch, like Canelo or Frazier, and you understand. I imagine it might be the same with some of the weapons Dequitem is testing. Reason 1.5: In his videos on the mace (and on the flail, incidentally) Dequitem hits the armor a couple times, and then (when the armor isn't damaged) says the mace is ineffective. But armor wasn't hit only a handful of times in any given situation---or rather, perhaps sometimes it was, and sometimes it wasn't. A modern boxing match, which lasts around 30 minutes, might involve hundreds of punches thrown, with many of them hitting the opponent (sometimes almost all of them hit the other person, even if it is on area deemed "off-target" for scoring purposes, such as those shots parried by a hand or elbow). Certainly, there were battles which involved the same in the medieval era. Even in 1v1 scenarios, like the pas d'armes performed by Lalaing, there were challenges involving counted blows ranging from the dozens to "unlimited," so the idea was clearly out there. Anyways, armor "works" (as so many are fond of saying), but that means it obviously is going to be struck more, not less. And this means it's more likely to have severe dents, or cracks, or other damage done to it. I suspect few people in the medieval era thought armor needed to be penetrated in only one blow, or a handful---just as few combat sports athletes today imagine they'll KO an opponent in one, or a handful, of blows. So striking a piece of armor a handful of times and declaring it "proof" seems like you're testing a scenario for which there is no controversy: of course armor persists through a couple of strikes. It would be ridiculous if it didn't. But armor didn't endure only a handful of strikes. Reason 2: Dequitem uses modern hardened steel. This is probably another insurmountable issue, so again no knock against him; it's simply far more economical to use modern steel than to try and replicate medieval steel and hardening techniques. And if you did replicate the medieval forging process, it would be unlikely you'd want to waste the thousands of dollars you just spent on that by bashing it all to pieces to prove a point. But this makes it even difficult to assess the accuracy of his tests. Alan Williams, in The Knight and the Blast Furnace, showed that (depending on the region and the era), not only was fully hardened steel relatively uncommon, in certain cases steel itself was uncommon. Northern Italian armor before 1450, for example, was a little over 50% hardened steel, judging by the examples tested by Williams---Italian armor from the period before 1500 was only 35% hardened steel, however (interestingly enough, after 1515 almost all Italian armor becomes unhardened steel). German-produced armor before 1450, however, had only two examples of hardened steel armor; the majority wasn't even steel, it was simple wrought iron, and the majority of the remainder was low-carbon steel (mild steel, relatively speaking). And even the hardened steel produced in the middle ages was of lower quality, for the most part, relative to modern homogenous steel: the hardening could be uneven, the steel itself was subject to inclusions of slag (sometimes considerably so), and of course the thickness of the steel varied, often by design but sometimes not. Mild steel is significantly easier to defeat than hardened steel; wrought iron is (presumably) even easier (as it is softer). Medieval hardened steel is more likely than modern hardened steel to fail. So when Dequitem tests a mace on modern steel---which outstrips in quality all but the very best of extant medieval armor, often by a significant margin---it doesn't tell us much about the material reality faced by medieval men-at-arms. Reason 3: We know from period sources that maces were used against men in full plate armor to deadly effect. Consider the following description from Breve suma de la vida y hechos de Diego García de Paredes of a single combat in the city of Ravenna in 1533: "In this battle a French Captain turned to face me because I killed two of his brothers on the battlefield, and we fought in the middle of the two camps armed as men at arms with some iron maces that I brought out. The Frenchman, seeing the weight of them, threw his (mace) to the ground, being unable to wield it well, and seized hold of an estoc and lunged at me, thinking that I would not be able to wield the mace either. He stabbed me through the tasset and wounded me, and I then struck him on the armet with the mace and I sank it into his head, from which he fell down dead." Apologies for the essay. Again, big fan of the videos!
There are also questions as to the thickness and weight of Dequitem's armor. I believe he does Bohurt? Which, in addition to the superior materials, is often comparatively overbuilt relative to historical military equipment. Which is the point; people in Bohurt are looking for a game of whacking each other with relatively ineffective bludgeons because effective bludgeons would inflict serious injury.
Your coment perfectly encapsulates what what I think of the current state of the maces vs armor debate. Not only was material reality quite different, also people have sparred and experimented with axes, maces, clubs and warhammers (imposibly hard to estate) very little compared to swords. So there's probably also a technical and experience gap aswell. Just because the weapons listed above have a narrower breadth of posible techniques does not mean people have them all figured out. An example of something I have never seen discussed for example is that shields are not only a good combo with maces because they don't have good defense by themselves, but also because it's basically a plank to frame against your oponent, keeping him at arms lenght, distance in which you can build up speed for good, powerfull swings. That could be a posible tactic to prevent people from getting to close where it's hard to generate enough force to damage people wearing plate. I have seen no video or anything of people trying to test such a thing.
@@kevinlobos5519 Oh, hey, this lines up with my hypothesis that much of why the Hussites found success with two-handed flails (an anomoly) is because of their war wagons. The wagons functioning similarly to battlements provided defenses that negated a lot of the problems that flails usually incur, such as the slow recovery from a swing or the awkward angle being made very advantageous from a higher position.
@nevisysbryd7450 yea flails should be added to the list I made in my comment. Have heard of those wagons. It's epic to think about a cart full of dudes with poleflails clubbering anything and anyone who comes close enough 😆.
@@NevisYsbryd I don't know if dequitem does buhurt. If he is german, I know there are relatively few succesful german buhurt teams, so I imagine the scene is quite small relative to Poland, Ukraine/Russia, or America. Many serious buhurt fighters wear fairly light titanium armor at this point, except for their gauntlets and helms (which are, in some senses, overbuilt relative to extant artifacts, but in other ways underbuilt. Almost no buhurters wear the ubiquitous helm of the foot tourney, for example: the great bascinet, which generally connects to the cuirass and prevents the head from moving independently of the body). And generally you win at modern buhurt by outgrappling the opponents, not bludgeoning them (though, strikes are often used to set up successful grapples), so you tend to see the better teams using weapons that (under the rules of modern buhurt) make grappling easier.
You mentioned the fieldmarshalls' baton. The word "staff", as in "staff officer" (or "Stabsoffizier") is most probably also related to a baton as symbol of authority then. I had never thought of that. Roman centurions also had their sticks. Ha.
A centurion is closer to a modern NCO than a general officer, and I think the stick is more functional than symbolic there: you can use it to point, you can use it to get someone's attention, you can use it to prod someone into position, you can use it to wave around in a crowd and be seen. (IIRC British senior NCOs often carry "swagger sticks," or used to. Same deal: it's useful. You can also use them to measure, as for instance when instructing new recruits how far to step when marching in formation.) The marshal's baton probably descends from a centurion's stick (or related Roman sticks), but I think it's useful to note that in some cases this is an object with practical functions, while in other cases it's symbolic.
A horse due to its speed is a force multiplier, the mace is a simple weapon that relies on mass. Add those two bits together and it is obvious. In a protracted combat, having a mace with its inherent durability would be a necessity. Especially for missions which are more about submission, wherein the violence of a mace clash from horseback could provide a gruesome demonstration of power that risked none of the more fragile gear that could be maintained for another fight. Armored knights didn't always fight other Armored knights, and maces are very important in asymmetrical engagements. There's my rant.
From a horseback charge or ride-by attack, a sword or lance can easily get stuck in your opponent, his horse or his equipment (armour, barding, saddle, caparison etc), wrenching your weapon from your hand. Maces - even flanged ones - don’t penetrate much, so were far less likely to be lost.
If someone bash you with mace while be on fast riding horse i think damage is less concern you probably gonna have funny sight from force,head trauma or something padding is good but not perfect.
The mace being symbol of power reminds me of the Narmer palette, which might depict the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt with the first Pharaoh/King of all of Egypt. You can really feel/see the power in that. And that is one of the oldest historical documents (3200-3000 BC) in the world. Interesting video, love the channel!
It's possible that the European tradition dates all the way back to the Indo Europeans. They venerated club/axes as weapons of their gods, such as for Mithra and Hercules among romans. Might have taken a role as a scepter by then, I should look into it more.
@@theghosthero6173 I'd it's a pretty universal thing around the world, big pointy stick (spear) big club with rock (mace). You can see some pretty neat examples or I can stone maces from Peru.
Scholagladiatoria and Skallagrim - two absolutely best channels in this topic EVER! Thank You very much for Your work. Freakin love this channel. Cheers from poland!
In terms of the mace being third choice behind the sword on horseback; specifically against full harness. In the saddle you're not going to be able to wrestle, half sword, and find the gaps in full plate - you're pretty much reduced to ineffective slashing with an arming sword. An estoc, like the Polish Koncerz, might be a bit different giving point at speed, but no use whatever in the melee or on foot. The mace however covers both bases, at speed and in the melee, and is not useless if unhorsed. Could it be that the mace was the go second weapon on horseback while the sword took that spot on foot? Context and all that?
If you have experience with that Battle of Nations stuff, you know a hard hit to the head can knock you down (like a punch can) for a moment. You legs just go when hit in the head hard. That can be pretty dangerous in a large melee. Especially in a time were capture was a big danger.
Aimed shot: knee, elbow and/or shoulder armor: repeat as desired. Anywhere full plate allows for movement. If they can't move; they can't fight. Ransom is now an option.
@@vanivanov9571 likely on modern steel armor too! They were a lot tougher than we are as well and knew where to strike for maximum effect. And even if you want to say the armor wouldn't stop bending from one blow; it's melee combat, you will get hit more than once. I want to say that if you looked at the guys that used a mace in combat, generally they'd be larger men than average and tend to hit harder anyway but I have no evidence to prove that. But in general they'd be a knight and a trained warrior anyway.
@@oscaranderson5719 I do trust knights who did it for real in the past though. Pietro Monte (1457-1509 ) who was a famous master of arms in his day says this. “For even though we strike him with a club, axe, and points, this inflicts little or no harm, especially if he is somewhat wise, for against similar we can never apply great blows when he always turns aside or enters in where we can make a small blow on him; which he who is entirely in white armour cares nothing for” A mace should be considered as a secondary weapon. It is really polearms that do the real damage in most armored fighting. Maces hit no where near as hard as a lance at a gallop, a halberd, glaive, or poleaxe. Considering them in context then, yes maces are not particularly effective. We see so many thrusting techniques in armor in the HEMA treatises too. It isn't that maces are useless, but using them against armor is hard work compared to many other weapons. Plus maces are very picky about range. If you get a bit too close to a mace user, he actually no longer can use the full rotation of his arm and his power is then limited. Whereas a sword is easier to use in a close press with half-swording and has the additional advantage of being able to stab, strike, and cut so you can take on a larger variety of opponents. The mace only has the advantage over the sword from horseback where versatility is not an advantage but getting a clean hit is (plus a gallop increases the percussive impact).
Very interesting, cheers. After watching you talk about chainmail and because my main opponent normally wears gilded chainmail without padding underneath... I decided to make a mace. I made my 3prong anti-chainmail mace 'arc' from an old heavy 5prong fork. I cut the 2 outside prongs off (leaving 2 side spikes) and shortened the handle. Then after a few experimental throws I shortened the 2 outside spikes so it penetrates better. I left the fork prongs curved as they are stronger like that. So its a very effective warhammerish mace and the spikes can pierce chainmail and weak plate. Quite heavy, but thrown at close range it hits like a guttendag/thunderbolt and sticks well in shields, a bit like a pilum. A surprisingly effective weapon 1 or 2 handed. I recommend wholeheartedly making some peasant improvised weapons/homebuilt weaponry it's a very interesting experience and you learn quite a bit about how you yourself actually fights and your possible weaknesses and foibles.
@@baltasartranconywidemann5129 The difference is you seem to know your Phrygian helmet is a fake not like this painting which appears as authentic at places on the internet and on this channel.
15:02 "...especially if you stand up..." By looking at contemporary illustrations, preserved examples of Medieval saddlery, and documentary sources, historians of horsemanship have concluded that knights and men-at-arms rode with very long stirrup leathers, almost straight legs, and toes pointed slightly downward -- virtually the exact opposite of horsemanship in the West since the latter half of the 19th century, i.e. knees flexed, heels down, center-of-gravity slightly forward, varying with speed. In fact, it has been suggested that war horses of the late Medieval period, especially mounts that wore bard (horse armor) or were trained for the lists did not gallop or canter. Instead, they were trained to pace, a two-beat lateral gait, or rack, a four-beat lateral gait with footfalls in the same sequence as the regular walk, but characterized by greater speed and smoothness. This was more comfortable for an armored rider whose center of gravity was higher than his hips thanks to the steel. Taken together --- the position of the rider, the mass of the armor, and the gait of the mount -- rising in the saddle to increase the force of a downward stroke of the mace was unusual if not impossible. Matt should try some mounted experiments, taking as many cues from the historians as possible, to test this.
Some people would have sharp weapon saying YoU CaN CuT OfF ThE HeAd but i dont care mace or any type of blund weapon can easily knock zombie on ground if we speak about walking dead style zombie and you bash head into pieces head is no longer treat but if you cut off head, head can still bites if someone is unaware of dead logic 😂
@@SainsSDR3SD Depends on which zombie trope it'll be ...From my point of view, mace requires less care than a sword, and it's much easier to replace a shaft than a blade.
@@SainsSDR3SD I live about a mile away from a castle with an armoury. I wont have to worry about making them - although if it's tourist season that'll make it a bit difficult to clear out the place. ;)
@@Caderynwolf You can simply buy aluminium bat or wooden one put nails,barbed wire on it like negan and you have spiked mace/club like i said you dont even need to go there thing in home can be enought to make weapon.
i think the mace was primarily used on horseback. i dont think they are very effective on foot due to limited reach and limited force that you can generate with your arm, i think a longer two handed mace would be effective on foot, but if you put that same short mace in a hand of a knight on a horse than the force generated from a speeding horse could be enormous. horse running at 30 mph with a guy swinging that down while maintaining the momentum of the speeding horse than it really can crush through quite a lot. i think also they are effective when you get to fighting levies in chainmail or quilted armor that mace will break things.
What makes me question the theory that maces were not that effective against armor in-period is that when we had dedicated armored dueling long swords, they often would turn the pommel into effectively a mace, with angled or spiked striking surfaces. Not trying to throw away the recent work dine by dequitem, Id just put money on us missing something so far. I wonder why they would do that if it was not considered an effective way of dealing with armored targets in some capacity. I would say the same with blunt pollax/hammers. I think we just need to continue testing and maybe figure this out
my suspicion is that maces worked, just not well enough to replace a sword. especially given the fact it would be a backup weapon- a sword is better at fending off blows than a mace, and if you’re already less combat effective you probably care more about survival than achieving glory with a little mallet.
Its to do with versatility. Plus with a sword when you use the murderstroke, you are using both hands on the attack and those examples you refer to are much heavier than a mace would be. Judicial duels have a lot of strange designs too so that is worth keeping in mind. Maces also are a bit limited as to what targets you can strike to inflict damage as many parts of the plate armor will not be affected by a mace strike. You also need a lot more effort to slam a mace into someone compared to fishing for a gap as many HEMAists who fight in armor have shown us. Another thing is that a mace is very picky about distance management. Too close and you hit with the haft and because they are shorter, you cannot strike from as far away as other weapons. Maces also cannot be used as a grapple assist like a half-sworded sword can be. Polearms on the other hand hit much much harder than a mace. You should consider the mace as a sidearm much like a sword really.
I suspect that the idea with hitting someone with a pommel is that you're hoping to keep them down so you can get in those gaps more easily, in the same way that the hammer of a pollaxe seems to mostly have been for already fallen opponents down until they slow enough for you to spike 'em. A single-handed mace doesn't really have the leverage for that.
They wouldn't OFTEN use the pommel as a mace, although it is absolutely a thing. In a duel you only had so many options, and you typically would take the most effective weapons with you, ie a polearm, a longsword, and a dagger. If you wanted to try and stun your opponent with a blow to the head, and you'd already discarded your polearm, mordhau would've been your best bet. Blunt pollax/hammers were largely a battlefield weapon as well, meaning the majority of their targets would be in gambeson, chainmail, brigandine, and only sometimes plate. Even when you did encounter people wearing plate, it often wouldn't cover a significant amount of their body. Hammers / maces / other bludgeoning weapons would be very effective against these types of armors. Pollaxes were likely blunted because the number of people who could actually be cut were negligable, and the cutting aspect doesnt matter much with the amount of force behind a pollax, so they likely kept it blunt to prolong its life and prevent unnecessary damage.
I think the misconception that maces aren't good against armor is that they don't leave much of a mark, however that's exactly WHY maces are good against armor. They transfer all the blunt force into the squishy person inside. You don't need to break the armor, you just need to rattle the person inside of it. Headshots obviously would lead to concussions, but even a chest shot would probably leave a person gasping for air.
I think there's a few reasons why fully plated Knights are seen holding both sword and mace. Because Knights were fully protected against arrows in their plate armour, they stopped carrying shields, instead the mace was adopted an off-hand parrying weapon. It has no blade to get damaged parrying, it has weight behind it so it can be used as a blunt weapon and maybe used as a sword/shield breaker. I probably wouldn't break a shield, but it could be used to knock or hook shields aside.
One other consideration for the flanged mace was that it was cutting edge technology. The ability to make the metal tube for the shaft and welding the individual flanges in place rather than just beating the metal into shape was something new and exciting so there may have been people buying them for the same reason people get the latest cell phone model. Not because it's necessarily any better but because it's the new cool thing. Edited for spelling.
Extremely interesting!! Among other interesting facts, I like that you mentioned how maced were carried, which I find to be a fascinating topic. Could you do a video on scabbards, sheaths, hoops, weapon belts, other belts/means of carrying weapons, including weapons that were generally only ever carried in one's hands? I think it's great for historical understanding, role-playing games, novels, computer games, movies &c.
That makes a lot of sense that these would primary be used mounted, but as a person who has never had the opportunity to actually ride a horse my first thought was that the shorter length of the mace would have make it really good for fighting indoors or in tight spaces, besides just having less of a chance of hitting something you didn't intend (like a wall) even if you did the much more sturdy construction of the mace would leave it relatively undamaged and being a blunt weapon you don't have to worry about it losing its edge.
I think the risk of a sword breaking on hard surfaces due to the added power of the horse is the most convincing reason for use of maces. This may also be the reason why single-handed flails were invented. Possibly even maces broke due to the force, or perhaps the handshock was too heavy. Later, when heavy armor mostly stopped being used on the battlefields, cavalrymen reverted back to using swords, spears, lances and sabres.
@@ctrlaltdebug The two handed flail was originally a farmer's tool (like the pole kind). I think they're saying that horse combat could be a reason the single handed flail was invented (as I don't believe farmers used such a thing, though I could be wrong).
Love the video, makes a lot of sense and raises some interesting ideas. Love the idea of the mace having these uses, breaking weapons, sign of status and as a backup weapon for cavalry.
To clarify I also appreciate the idea of the usage VS different armies too, which makes even more sense but since I've read a lot of books and appreciate fantasy types of stories, it's nice to see different uses that could inspire people to have them be more important and used instead of mainly the sword because it's easy to use. Also appreciate this channel and others for spreading the awareness of how great spears and halberd and similar weapons were because of reach and of course the fact that swords, even the big ones, are in fact finesse weapons. It makes for more interesting uses and portrayals. Also, of course, I just like history and find it all very interesting :)
Mace makes a lot of sense for cavalry. It's not going to get stuck in a target and ripped out of your grasp, the momentum from the horse lets it hit thunderously hard, and the raised position makes hitting helmets much easier.
Good video! Love learning about maces. Two things I thought about. 1. If you want a back up weapon, why not another sword if it's better than the mace? 2. As the horses runs, the mace would bob. That could do damage to your horse's ribs!
a mace can cripple without killing. can mangle the articulations in armor and make movement difficult. you can break someone's knee through the armor plating without even really damaging the armor that badly, just with the impact against a leg that has full weight on it, shattering the knee cap even.
You forgot the Byzantine army also had use lot of many types of maces,depending the battle he wanted to fight,and for cavalry and infantry both,not only the rich soldiers with sophisticated maces but also poor soldiers with the simple ones.And for opponent with full metal plates armour Byzantine army had use maces with more long wooden bats over a meter,and bigger iron warheads.
Mace of Leadership Mace of Saint Cuthbert of the Cudgel Yeah, I could see a lot of Mace smashed for clerics, "kings", patriarchs, primates, and paladins
@@ChapterGrim I'd say a mace is really fitting for a paladin. Maces have always represented power, authority, order, etc. It's why maces (scepters as well) are still used ceremonially.
Paladins are associated with early medieval times, when plate armor wasn´t yet used, so I guess it makes sense. In fantasy, hopefully you can enchant the mace to make it more effective!
Very Interesting Video - Nicely Done! You might get this later, but I paused when you started talking about how effective it was for horsemen though did not initially add that striking downward on foot soldier, not only has downward momentum with gravity, but also is going to be landing headshots a great deal of the time which as you noted earlier is one of the more effective uses of a mace... if you daze, knock down, or knock out a foot soldier who falls under the feet of other soldiers or horses... that's a pretty bad situation.
The idea that the medieval one-handed mace or warhammer is a horseman's weapon is an old one, and one that definitely has a lot of credibility - the extra force capable from striking down from the saddle, the ease of access to the heads of enemy infantry, the inability to do precise strikes with a sword targeting weak points in armor, etc... On foot, against an armored opponent you would probably choose as two-handed weapon for the extra force. Still, I'm having a little trouble with this idea that a sword or dagger would be "better" against a plate-armored opponent, simply for the reason that you'd need to get in VERY close to be able to "target the gaps" in the way you are describing. I don't do HEMA, so maybe I'm speaking out of my ass here, but I would think you'd basically need to grapple the opponent, or otherwise incapacitate them before being to reliably hit those gaps. I realize that grappling IS a normal part of armored fighting, but hear me out: Wouldn't it be easier to knock the enemy down or stun him before pulling out your dagger? And wouldn't it be easier to do so if you had a one-handed mace rather than a one-handed sword? Smack them around, knock them off balance, then pull out your dagger and grapple them, and finish them off.
A legitimate question, but you've given the answer yourself. Infantry would have a two-handed blunt weapon (extra reach, extra force) with which to incapacitate (if temporarily) the target, before drawing the dagger and grappling for a kill (or a surrender if lucky enough). If they don't just use the spike on said blunt weapon to finish the job without even needing to grapple.
@@lasselen9448 Why bother with your dagger though? Trying to wrestle a blade into someone's neck seems difficult compared to "keep hitting them in the head until they stop moving with your blunt object" Maybe a blunt object short enough to be used in the grapple. Wonder what that could be
@@1stCallipostle You wouldn't have the leeway to deal a strong enough blow while being so close. Pushing a dagger through, especially one designed to defeat mail, requires little effort, no space, and is quicker. If you're going to keep hitting, there's no point going closer, you can do that with your two-handed weapon. If your main weapon is purely a blade, like a spear or pike, I'd understand having a mace as a backup, but at the same time if an armoured opponent gets close enough for you to use that mace it means you're already screwed because your line's broken.
I think, you (maybe without thinking about it) gives a very good summary of maces in a short comment at 1:02 into the video; You say, you have limited experience with them "because they are not very safe to use"...... NO SHIT, Sherlock!.. they are DANGEROUS, as any good weapon should be 👍👍!! For sparring with maces, you would need a LOT of padding/protection/armor to avoid serious injuries such as broken bones and concussions. And/or rules making the sparring look very different than actual combat. Love your videos, Matt. Keep them coming 👍👍☀️☀️
"Not particularly effective against full plate" describes most weapons short of light artillery, to be fair. But if I had to take a guess at what maces are better at doing than anything else one-handed? Armor damage. People doing armored HEMA are using the kinds of steel and heat treatment that would be reserved for the absolute best period armor and likely outstrip even that in consistency if nothing else. Hit the arm plates of someone in a more munitions-grade full plate, and you may well dent it. Hit it twice and it will very likely restrict the user. Aim for the hand segments, visors, other fiddly bits and you may well restrict mobility quite badly. On an unrelated note if you are interested in maces as a more broad tropic, the bronze knobbed type was overwhelmingly popular with nomads on the Black Sea steppes, to a point where we see lead-core bronze maces being made en masse. There are some bits and pieces of this research translated into English but really, you'll want to reach out to someone who can read Russian and is interested in the time period and area (so, probably someone from Czechia or Poland and interested in Cumans). Sources: A.P. Horvath's 'Pechenegs, Kumans Iasians' is a good start if you can find it, I have it as, uh, totally legitimate book and definitely not a series of jpeg scans from one of my mates A. Farcas: Maces in medieval Transylvania between 13th and 16th centuries M.E.C. Tiplic: Weapons and Military Equipment Found in the German Settlement Area from Southern Transylvania (the 12th - 13th Centuries). Some Aspects and Perspectives
Burning oil flasks or sticky balls of pitch were pretty effective. It is not easy to extinguish or doff plate armor when alight like you can with a gambeson.
Maces are shit at 'armor damage' compared to any two-handed weapon. And setting out to dent armor is a fool's errand when you could be bypassing it. Knights wielded poleaxes that were in effect gigantic maces, but STILL spent most of their time trying to thrust into gaps.
Pietro Monte (1457-1509 ) who was a famous master of arms in his day says this. “For even though we strike him with a club, axe, and points, this inflicts little or no harm, especially if he is somewhat wise, for against similar we can never apply great blows when he always turns aside or enters in where we can make a small blow on him; which he who is entirely in white armour cares nothing for”
@@Subutai_Khan other relevant quotes from Monte: "For the principle is the same: two unclothed men will fight with fists, or men in white armor with pollaxes, but the one who delivers the stronger blows will prevail." "I have personally witnessed two combatants in full white armor getting hurt almost as quickly as if they had been in their shirts." Diego Garcia de Paredes, writing in 1533, talks of killing a French knight with a blow of an iron mace that crushed the man's armet into his skull, killing him. Joanot de Martorell, himself an active and experienced knight, in his book Tirant lo Blanc called the axe "the deadliest of all weapons" and shows it being used to strike a knight until he cannot lift his arms, at which point "a mighty blow rove his helmet into his skull, causing his brains to squirt out his eyes and ears as he fell to earth, dead." Fiore, writing about the pollaxe, says this: "This play follows on from the student before me. As he clearly told you, you will likely drop to the ground dead after being struck in the head [with a pollaxe] like this." Meyer, writing in the 1560s, advises you strike "thunderbolts" (donnerschlag, or what we might know better as murderstrikes) to an opponents hands, knees, elbows and head before you try stabbing him, because these will "soften" him, or even knock him down. In your quote, Monte is specifically talking about being close enough to grapple an opponent. When you're that close, you can only strike "small blows," as he calls them. But that doesn't mean, as the quote out of its context seems to imply, that striking an armored person was ineffective. Armor was very useful, but it doesn't make you invincible. Yet any protection at all is an improvement over fighting unarmed where, as Monte himself says, "any small force is enough to kill the enemy."
@@montepietro-th9jl But you are talking about poleaxes here in many of your quotes. Two-handed swings from a poleaxe are way more powerful than a mace. It is simple physics. Longer lever, more weight on the end plus you are using both arms vs one arm with the mace. Only from horseback (which Matt elluded to in his video too) does the mace really get more significant power in its strikes because of the speed of the horse. As far as grappling and fighting in close, that is another reason why the sword is often preferred in the sources. You can half-sword in a press and use it to lever the opponent to the ground among other things. And you still have the mordhau or mordshlag if you want to strike him that way. But the murderstroke is not shown to be a finishing blow. But a set up for other finishing blows like grappling, dagger usage, or stabbing with the sword. The fact grappling occurs so often in armored fighting is a big reason why the mace shines more on horseback because you can then apply the energy of the gallop to your strike.
I would point out that the point that a sword is better at fighting someone in heavy armor than a mace hinges on having the point control to take advantage of being able to drive it into the gaps in said armor. This is something that's going to be hard to accomplish on a horse, not only because you don't have direct control of your footwork but you don't have the additional control of another hand on the sword. I suspect that in a situation where your mount gets bogged down in a melee, a mace is going to serve you better in laying about you to break free than a sword would.
Even on foot "just stab into the gaps lol" is a Herculean task. A precision stab at a specific angle is a rough thing to do in combat. Y'know what isnt hard? Bonk.
A flanged mace is easily carried tucked into a belt or sash, assuming you don't want to get a proper ring added to your belt designed to hold maces - those also did and do exist.
Speed of use for a defence weapon. I think that is your awnser. Calvary line hitting infantry will likely lose lance and need a fast weapon to prevent them from being dehorsed. Even if helmeted, striking down on a standing soldiers head will likely injure them. The mace will not get bound up and can deliver more blows per moment.
Isn't the answer simply: "it's a piece of metal swung at an object"? You don't need to worry about edge alignment, you don't need to consider parrying, you're just looking to knock out elbows, knees, and ring skulls. Optimised against foot troops and the like who lack full armour, though I'd be interested to see the types of damage it might do to helmets striking from above.
I just want to say massive respect for admitting that you were perhaps a bit wrong and changing your mind after talking to experts and doing some research.
Before i finish the video, my first thought would be that a flanged mace would give more concentrated weight behind a smaller impact area. You can hammer away at a log with a sledgehammer all you want, but use a hammer with a wedge shape edge on it and you'll split the log much faster. I imagine that's the same general concept with the flange.
A few more points about maces on horseback. A mace is easier to use than a sword if you're grappling with another knight on horseback (due to the short length). But it also makes it REALLY easy to bonk the heads of infantrymen (like medieval whack-a-mole) surrounding you.
So glad you two tackled this question. When I got a flanged mace from A&A, I marveled at how not powerful of a hitter it was, and on close inspection, it's clearly designed with speed and agility, not power in mind: the shaft tapers to get thinner near the head, and the flanges are all hollowed out.
Here's the kicker: Your mace would be illegal in Buhurt, because it'd be too heavy and dangerous. Because, sure, it's not going to mould plates like modelling clay like a video game or cartoon, but it's one of the weapons in Buhurt that has to be LIGHTER than historical examples, when most are much, much HEAVIER. Maces are good against armour, but that doesn't mean you just tear all armour to pieces.
I own the same mace from A&A and while it is no sledgehammer, it definitely is a specialized anti-armor weapon. I also don’t think Dequitem’s testing was particularly great for historical accuracy for multiple reasons. First, the steel he was using is hardened modern steel and hardly the best comparison for historical metals. Secondly, maces should be used to try to deal damage through and underneath armor (especially the head) which is much easier than stabbing through riveted chainmail under someone’s arm. Also, we have evidence that swords were often gripped by the blade “mordhau” and used as a hammer or mace like weapon which I think suggests that their usual purpose wasn’t very effective. I also think the mace that Dequitem was using was not very well crafted in terms of its length and ability to generate force. The mace that we own tapers I believe largely to get more length to transfer more force without becoming too heavy. The way Dequitem had tested his mace also made no sense either such as loosely dangling the piece of metal to some janky stand.
@@vanivanov9571 The issue with my mace isn't overall weight, it's balance. The mace is deliberately balanced towards the hand. It feels amazing as a fighting weapon, but not powerful as a bludgeoning weapon. My Tod Cutler mace (brass and wood) is way lighter overall and hits way harder.
@@joshuaworthington847 Have you watched Dequitem's channel? They slug very hard in historically shaped armor. I agree that most armor "testing" is bogus because people hit armor without a person in it, and it can very well be the case that armor can be fine when the person is not underneath.That said, Dequitem has spent a good amount of time slugging it out in armor, so has a well informed opinion on what hurts and doesn't in armor. I agree that the steel is his armor is probably better than the steel in historical armor, but the hardness and toughness of the steel doesn't affect how much blunt trauma hurts underneath. That task fall on the soft material between the armor and the user. If Dequitem was using modern padding and shock absorbing foam, then I'd question his conclusions, but afaik he isn't.
@@leelundkim4069 Still, I think it's okay to be skeptical. I wouldn't be surprised if it was somewhere in the middle. Dequitem might be right, but true scientific tests are needed before telling.
The mace is faster than a sword, so it would be more effective against multiple un-armored peasants. Hence a symbol of authority. It is also a close quarters weapon to be used indoors and also leaves less of a bloody mess if used inside a King's hall, again a symbol of authority. In the movie Excalibur, when King Arthur is fighting Sir Lancelot, Arthur uses his sword in one hand and a mace in his other.
"you don't have to defeat the plate, just the ribs/skull underneath" -my instructor, right before wrecking me with a "safe" maul (rattan haft, rolled carpet head) on the battlefield, The Trick is that it's either for hitting maille (around/between plates), and the weaker, thinner edges of plates. But really it's for particularly large and strong fighters to break bones and wreck joints: Using/favoring a Mace was also a sign of Strength, as you HAD to be big and strong for it to be really effective, but whence the gentry were not, individually, strong enough to make one the best choice for them, they still held it as a symbol of that strength (I'm of the opinion that it started in an earlier era, when their ancestors used them, then it carried down) in the case of Full Plate, all of the joints are delicate enough that they cease to function when dented: "Denting" is something maces are quite good at... and the flesh underneath doesn't take kindly to it either... if your experiments suggest otherwise then I suggest the experimenters were weaklings, as I've seen superior, modern recreation plate (made of better steel, hardened, and just as thick) dent and crack in combat with my own eyes, and that's using just rattan analogues, not real steel. For mounted combat, precision targeting is not great, particularly while charging through, as you noted, the head is almost certainly your main target, and you're unlikely to get through a helm, so better to concuss the head inside with sheer momentum. Frankly I think this exposes a flaw in the hema community, where blunted "real steel" is used, which necessitates half-power, half-speed attacks, so as not to harm the partner, which lulls them into a false sense of what a battlefield is like. While the ruleset of the SCA took a sporty downturn in recent years, previously you could see how VERY different combat looks: and _FEELS:_ using historical techniques but at full speed and power. gear up, put a mace in the hands of someone 6'4" and 250lbs and let them come at you full force: your opinion will change, I assure you... 🤣
@@kevinlobos5519 I don't think so, no, this was decades ago, before armor was such big business here in the States. the gentleman making most of ours focused on museum-quality historical recreations; down to wall thickness and tempering. that said, bent and cracked breastplates were not uncommon throughout the SCA, but, admittedly, I can only vouch for the quality of the fighters in my particular group; as the armorer in question was local. they were rare, but did happen, and led directly to maces, hammers, and mauls (even though they were wooden) being fully banned from the field... armor is _expensive..._ I've also been IN a suit of full plate, and taken a full-power hit from a maul and from a Mace, before the ban. Sure, it's fine if they hit the middle of a plate, esp. if they hit right on the crown (if it's got one), but near the edges they plate can be made to flex inward: which is still better than being hit on bare flesh, but still hurts like heck; had the weapon been steel, I've no doubt it'd have broken my ribs. bearing in mind that, with a wooden analog of the same general dimensions and weight as a steel weapons, but fully blunt, hits come much harder and faster than would be safe with real steel (and being safe is key in this hobby/sport). I liken it to the difference between point-sports martial arts like TKD, compared to systems designed for actual combat: it's night and day, and comes with pitfalls...
@@lady_draguliana784 I see, and how much did those wooden replicas weighted? The historical one handed maces and war hammers I have seen from museums and comercial reproductions are in the range of one handed swords, or maybe slightly heavier (no more than a few hundred grams).
@@kevinlobos5519 a 'few hundred grams' is about right for a small-sword or rapier, not a longsword (unless you're talking a modern HEMA sparring longsword, maybe, but certainly not a typical historical example). these wooden weapons match up pretty well with the weight of a longsword, at about 2.5-3lbs (1-1.5kg), keeping in mind that they often include steel full-hand cages, similar to a Scottish Backsword's, AND that, by volume, Rattan is less weighty than Steel, and it's also softer. the mace analogs were just longsword analogs with a bundle of something (usually carpet, with some hard plastic to make a clear sound when a hit lands on armor, called a "clacker", wrapped in 1-2 layers of duct tape) at the end, but the whole weapon still had to come in under the max-weight limit of a 1-handed weapon, which is the same for all 1-handed weapons (which varies regionally, but the largest I've seen is 2.27kg (5lbs), keeping in mind that almost no-one builds their weapons that heavy, whatever their pattern, usually aiming to make their weapons as light as possible while meeting the minimum size requirements (nothing can fit through a standard face guard)). since historical maces were typically around 3-5lbs, it fits pretty perfectly into the weight ranges: yet made of a softer material, and lacking the force-multiplication of the flanges, they were still able to bend, dent, and crack quality steel armor, such that fighters usually have a separate set of armor for 'show' and tourneys b/c regular use can destroy even the highest quality armor when full-force blows are raining on them.
@@lady_draguliana784 I wish I could do some stuff like that. It all sounds very entertaining, although expensive as hell. Maybe I'm ignorant of something but I'm having a hard time buying the idea that wooden handle with rolled carpet and plastic can wreck quality metal armor, especially modern hardened steel. I supose you don't have any video proof of that or something similar happening?
I like this split screen thing to show period art relevant to what he's talking about. More of that, please. Not that Matt's not a captivating speaker on his own, but it keeps my attention better and provides more info. I'd even like little on screen citations for where and when the illustrations come from, but I'm probably weird in that.
Matt, you seriously overestimate the popularity of the all-metal family of flanged maces and underestimate that second family of these weapons - metal-head-and-wooden-haft maces, popular East of Germany. And those couldn´t have been as pricey as their all-metal cousins.
I feel like the mace against full plate would still be highly effective everywhere but the breast, spaulders, and cuiss, and helms depending on the style. That is one of the issues with re-enactment research, you are trying REALLY hard not to break arms, knees, elbows, clavicles (not so much in full plate), any of the things which in a real fight, you might immediately think to disable with a blunt melee weapon to disable a foe. The Persian breaking of swords is not at all dissimilar from Chinese maces that were popular during the era of bronze weaponry, and earlier steel, sometimes in conjuction with a hooksword or hook buckler. The flanges could also be used to hook, to a degree, on parts of enemy armor or possible shield, and to catch a blade with a parry and some kind of hooking movement. I think the whole idea is that they seem like just blunt force, but actually have numerous tactical uses that an enemy is likely much less prepared for than more common weapons.
Pietro Monte specifically wrote that powerful two-handed mace/club blows struck from the saddle would do great work wherever they landed. His mace/club was more of what we'd call a warhammer.
Polish nobility apparently preferred the mace when going out at night to the sword. Flanged maces were better for cracking armor and shattering bones, since the force of the blow was concentrated on a smaller area.
An additional reason the mace is a good cavalryman's backup weapon is that daggers are almost impossible to use effectively from horseback, while a mace can be used quite well. For a footman there is little reason to carry a mace when the dagger is already available as areliable and effective backup, for a cavalryman the dagger is almost useless, so they'd want something to use after the sword breaks.
Think about modern amateur boxing. They wore helmets for sometime then got rid of them and lightened the gloves because the braIn still rattled around inside the skull even if the outside was well protected. I bet even with the best helmet a hard stroke to the side of back of the head would at the very least be disorienting, and that any sort of reduction in awareness on a battlefield would likely lead to taking more and more hits. Plus, symbolic weapons often start getting tarted up pretty quickly to increase their perceived value. I suspect that anything that has a design that is mainly practical is still probably being used as a weapon and that, therefore, it still was useful. They were soldiers. No one is carrying around heavy kit if it isn't useful.
Let’s not forget the church big wigs also use the mace but they wear no armour. It’s a weapon than can be used safely in crowds such as church or the market without hurting bystanders. It also helps when taking prisoners for ransom.
Trench raiding clubs were maces used with great effect in a certain context. You might take it when you sneak over to the enemy trench even though you could use a knife or gun. There must be some advantages in the extreme close combat of trench fighting.
Yup, a rifle with a bayonet on the end is hard to maneuver in the cloese quarters of trenches so people got creative. It would also be quiter than a knife for taking out something like a sleeping enemy sentry during a trench raid. One good hit from a flanged mace in the head and you're no getting up, probably ever again lol..
As you both agreed, a mace can knock out an armoured knight, a sword cannot--unless you expose yourself by wrestling on a battlefield. Dequitem's video was poorly constructed. Buhurt maces are LEGALLY LIGHT because they're DANGEROUS to armoured men--when all other weapons are ridiculously HEAVIER than historical examples. Maces are mostly an intermediate anti-armour weapon, clearly less designed for it than a hammer or a pick.
The legendary hussite "hejtman" Jan Žižka from Trocnow is traditionally depicted with a mace (called "palcát" in Czech). He was one of the most ingenious battlefield tacticians, defeating multiple crusades sent against Bohemia, never losing a battle.
This is an ok overview, but it neglects to mention a number of sources & facts. As I've commented previously & I know you're aware, John Vernon wrote in the early 17th century that mounted arquebusiers could do little against cuirassiers by using swords, so they needed to carry pollaxes. (I assume these pollaxes were short cavalry versions.) Vernon's cuirassiers wore three-quarters harness plus a buff coat that offered some protection to the lower legs, while his mounted arquebusiers wore only a buff coat, breastplate, backplate, & helmet. A cavalry axe isn't identical to a flanged mace, but it occupies the same basic role. In the middle of the 16th century, Juan Quijada de Reayo did write that men-at-arms should use estoc & sword before the hammer. While it's possible the dynamics partially armored cavalry facing more heavily armored cavalry change the equation, it's just as likely that Quijada de Reayo & Vernon simply had different ideas about the best way to incapacitate an armored horseman. As far as striking horses goes, Pietro Monte recommended doing this with a hammer used in both hands that he called a mace or club. (The description is more like what we'd call a hammer.) He indicated that using this hammer to strike the horse's skull with both hands was the best way to deal with a foe who has a strong horse. He additionally noted this hammer could knock a weapon from the enemy's hand & do great work wherever its blows landed. He wrote about estocs & swords as well for armored combat, but I see no clear evidence he thought his sort of hammer inferior to the estoc/sword for combat between men-at-arms. He praised this hammer. It was a bit longer than the typical cavalry impact weapons that show up in collections, so it's not exactly the same as a flanged or the like. But it does give a sense of the utility of an impact weapon for cavalry. The last about flanged maces being more effective against lamellar or mail-&-plate armor & used for that reason strikes me as dubious. In the 1548 treatise commonly attributed to Raimond de Fourquevaux, the mace appears as one of the standard weapons for men-at-arms in the context of Western Europeans fighting Western Europeans. Similarly, Monte endorsement of the hammer ("mace" or "club") as a cavalry weapon comes in the context of mounted dueling (or some such arranged fighting) in full plate armor. A flanged mace way well be more effective against Ottoman armor, but that doesn't mean it developed for that purpose. As I recall, Bertrandon de la Broquière didn't recommend flanged maces for fighting the Ottoman, though he did note that he thought the Ottoman maces he saw could knock out a man through a helmet if swung freely. I suspect the effectiveness of flanged maces & such like short impact weapons varies based on the details of the armor & combatants involved. A particularly strong man-at-arms on a strong horse might do well with a mace, especially against foes who wore lighter helmets.
Place a ballistic gel dummy in armor and wack it a few times, the blunt force will impact through armor quite nicely and bruise and break things, try it you'll like it just like Mikey
Thank you for bringing up that the flanged mace would make an excellent backup weapon, or a weapon of submission. With poleaxes, swords, one handed axes, warhammers, and spears being so prevalent, it's highly unlikely a kitted up knight of that era would go into battle with a mace as his primary. I'm sure he trained with it of course, but video games and myths have really overstated the effect of maces on plate armor in battle. I agree most with the theory that it was most popular with Calvary as the sidearm of it's time. Interesting take. Also, it makes perfect sense that the flanged mace be used against mail users. You may have his the nail on the head with this hypothesis.
Also, I would have mentioned in the video to not confuse the mace against right now with a Warhammer against those are two very different things. Yes you strike with both of them but the force is more concentrated on the head of the hammer or on the tip of a spike if it has a spike. I feel like someone would have brought up the well how come warhammers are effective than argument so I figured I'd go ahead and say something. Someone else probably already beat me to it though.
I watched the video of dequitem using a flanged mace. On a battlefield, a third or fourth guy walking up to them struggling could quickly bash knees, elbows, point of shoulder, and so quickly reduce his target to a prisoner for ransom. It would hurt to get hit like that, stunning the joints, ending the fighting.
The latest theory/teaching on use of the mace, possibly even from you, was to target the joints of plate armor for the purpose of restricting movement, i.e. bend thinner armor so that you can no longer effectively bend your arm, elbow, or even a knee. Is that in error?
So even the joints in plate armor are tough enough to where they need to take quite a beating before they really start to restrict movement, and that’s when they’re constructed in a way that could bind if the plates are deformed.
I took a brick to my face back in high school when I was around 25 feet up on roof of a tree house. It crushed the right side of my face. That was in 1968 spring time full eclipse of the Moon that night. 3 weeks on Demerol massive doses 2 8-hour surgeries to reset the bones and remove all the splinters. I still have side effects at 73 years old. So, a mace can be a deadly weapon if used at the right time. Off to my side here at the computer I have a short-handled machinist hammer with a three-pound head if someone managed to smash through very heavy doors, as this house was built in the 1880's. I have many nasties in this room to use as needed the hammer is the first as it can be thrown down the stairwell if they have a firearm, my carbine is the next closest.
Couldn't agree with you more, the mace would be a secondary weapon. Museums have some fascinating examples of European and Asian maces, with some from Africa. The length, weight and even some double headed maces like the Indian Tabar- Shispar. Cavalry, as you said, seem to be the principle users, but African and Asian maces seem to be used by infantrymen, whereby the elongated handle gives extra reach, like the Gurz from India. Fascinating subject. In the UK we are spoilt for museums and collections from all over the world. Considering maces have been found being 4,500-5,000 years old, there are a lot of them out there. Thanks for posting.
I made a flanged mace years ago, using modern metal working tools (MIG welder, industrial cutting tools, etc.). Even with all of the modern tools to speed up the process, it’s still a difficult process to make a modestly elaborate flanged mace. Aside from welding, I’ve been dabbling in blacksmithing for roughly 20 years. To be honest, I don’t even know where I would start if I wanted to make a flanged mace with traditional techniques (FYI, I’m not asking for a dozen explanations on how to traditionally make a mace. You know who you are, thanks for the thought though.)
A battlefield in this era would have a variety of soldiers in a variety of kit. A fully armored knight might encounter another fully armored knight on the field occasionally, but most often he fought against soldiers with lesser armor.
Awesome vid!!! A few possible things to add. When you're on a horse the only real target with a mace vs a footman is their head. So way easier to ifnlict damage in that case than with a dagger. Also might be better than a sword in very close combat say you're surrounded you can indiscriminately swing at everything in range. Which might help open a path to get out of there. And very rarely maybe in a siege to smash things. Like door handles or doors etc. I guess in China the mace evolved into the sword breaker?
Amazing video! That just shows how important it is, especially in science and research, to always gather all information you can get (and even more;) and then take a lot of time to deeply think about it. Then start to create as many theories you can possibly come up with and only then with the data and your logic formulate conclusions. Sounds reasonable but we sometimes forget our basics :)
Many years ago I saw a kid with a broken arm ride at full tilt passed another kid. As he went by he called the kids name and when he turned round the guy on the bike stuck his broken arm out. The other kid took the plaster straight in the teeth, (he was a terriblle bully who made a LOT of kids lives miserable) and was knocked straight off his feet sans several teeth. If that was the effect of a schoolkid on a bike with nothing more than an arm in plaster I hate to think what a horserider with a mace could do!
I've played around with it over 50 years of horse riding, and I can assure you that any sort of club swung from a galloping horse will do devastating damage. Obviously, armor would diminish the effect, but I think it would still significantly disable the opponent, at least temporarily.
Even a bicycle crashing into somebody is dangerous and even if somebody is accelerating really fast on the back of a bicycle and is swing an object they can hurt somebody extremely bad sort of like what would happen if somebody was riding on a horse and swinging something at somebody else.Something I sort of thought of is what if hypothetically bicycles existed in the medeval period and some people used them in wars instead of horses.
He wasn't a bully stop making stuff up
@GaryNac wars were typically fought in open field from my understanding, any type of bicycle would not perform as well as any type of horse would and riding a bicycle with plate and mail would be horrible and would likely make you vulnerable as you would be entering combat weary and out of breath
@@NickReynolds-do8do Mark Twain disagrees with you.
A beautiful thing about a mace is that you don’t need to sharpen it all the time. It works when it’s dull - it works when it’s rusty - it works, period.
No, you can't sharpen it
You have to throw it away after every 20 to 70 hits (depending on the quality)......so in a way, it's even worse
A sharp sword isnt necessarily better. In close combat, a sharp weapon will get stuck in bone, leaving the attacker exposed. The bayonets we used in the army were on purpose not allowed to be sharpened.
@@bjornlangoren3002 *IF* it gets stuck in the bone
The human body has a lot of spots you can stab where there are no bones to stop you
And well it's never a problem just ask a stabbing victim how much their bones helped them😅
@@REAPERthePRUSKIE did you even watch the video? no they don't break easily
Said well, well said.
The mace is very effective in head strikes after your opponent has dramatically torn his helmet off and thrown it away so his face can be seen by the film's audience.
also good for countering a pommel thrown to end you rightly, and if you connect well you can even score a home run
Except that when they do that they get a massive luck bonus that will keep you from hitting their head in the first place
I love this comment!
Uhm, the mace is effective in head strikes no matter what kind of helmet you have on, it’s called blunt force trauma. If helmets could stop it the NFL wouldn’t have such a concussion/CTE problem.
@@Aquilenne
Only if they're the protagonist. If they're the antagonist, you'll crush them.
Plumbing pipe with threaded elbow joint and moldable tape handle grip is very effective against black hoodie armour, in the current era.
Copper or pvc?
That may well be, but when the cops find your deadly weapon, you'll go to jail whether you used it on someone or not. Stupid, stupid, stupid...that's just as bad as carrying concealed weapons--you have no justification for carrying it.
@@bronco1199 galvanised steel. Though... if you go for a more tasteful handle and a copper verdigris, the responsible gentleman-homeowner aesthetic will surely come in handy, when having to explain how an intruder came to be 'differently-abled'.
Self defense is a God given right. You are brainwashed by your police state to accept violence upon yourself. Look at you.
That feels like a dog whistle, are you a dog? Why does the color matter?
If I were to design a backup or secondary weapon for cavalry, a couple of considerations:
1. Leverage is at a premium, so things like poleaxes, spears, thrusting weapons, etc. are not ideal. A swung weapon such as an axe or club that still delivers great force but doesn't require solid footing would be better.
2. You can swing to either side of the horse, both overhand and underhand, so the weapon needs to be easily used in any orientation. A single bit axe or hammer may inadvertently get swung sideways or backwards.
3. A baseball bat with nails would work, but a horse will necessarily have large armor gaps for mobility, so a weapon without excessive spikiness will avoid injuring the animal if brushed up against, fallen on, or errantly swung.
Oddly...people don't realize that a mace is dirt cheap to produce in man-hours versus a more refined sword (so can go to all types of soldiers outside just armored troops) which is an extreme industrialization plus in long wars, is much more mobile (for use in tight quarters of rooms and stairways), and with more specialized mace head designs, would have been used to also break hands, forearms and biceps, therefore immobilizing the other soldiers ability to wield a weapon. Secondarily, a mace is a 360 degree headed weapon, whereas all others are directionally orientated at 180 degrees and must be within about 25 degrees of dead on strike to do real damage without severe deflection, with exception of thrusting blades and weapons, which are obviously deflected by armor depending on degree of angle from armor to weapon.
What about a machine gun mounted on the horse's chest armor? (like in aircraft wings).
Considering the primary weapon of most calvary throughout history was a thrusting weapon I have to argue point 1 isn't entirel accurate and I think their are other concerns alot more pressing than your 3rd point IE a weapon that can offer a DEFENSIVE use since a horse rider cannot rotate himself to defend his right side a sword actually turns out to be the ideal weapon. Swords we're the most common secondary weapon for calvary throughout history Im sure for more reasons than that alone. i just dont think accidentally injuring your horse with your weapon is a real consideration.
@@WeberkooksI actually read somewhere that later Roman cavalry used blunt pointed swords for that reason, and also to not stab yourself in the foot.
Cavalry has always struck to me as the obious usecase. If on horse, you will either poke with a lance, or slash in melee. Now, slashing with a sword against plate armoured opponents is almost pointless. If you try to give point, you will get at risk of someone grabing your arm and dragging you of your horse. You will have a much better time bludgeoning all those heads sitting at the right hight below you. Remember, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail-head...
Persians also used it on foot
@@cegesh1459one arguments in favor of that is the lesser use of plate armor like suits and the lack of polearms in Western Asia (outside of spears)
@@cegesh1459 very different times and context. On a Medieval battlefield, if you are on horse and can afford whatever you like and multiple weapons, you might decide to have the best tools for the job ; that being : one long solid pointy thing for poking hard (a lance), one smashy thing for smashing hard with one hand (because horseback, so a mace or warhammer, essentially the same thing). Plus a sword for dismounted combat. And a dagger for that last resort.
I don't remember my source for it, but I do also remember long-hafted (but single-handed) maces being used by Byzantine cataphracts to strike the heads of spears (whether to knock them aside and clear the way or even perhaps to break the heads off of them).
I don't know how that would translate to the faster charges of more western European cavalry, but I expect it would be better than a sword at knocking aside a lance.
Warhammers and Maces were known as “helmet-crushers” in period Swedish sources.
Thanks for this awesome video. You also changed my mind about falchions!
Greetings from a big fan!
Great to see you here mate! You really made me rethink short maces and I think we have a lot more to learn about them.
@@scholagladiatoria On foot matt you use a Streitkolben or streithammer that is both 1 handed & 2 handed so think of it as the b@stard mace to B@rstard swords equivalent even if both were not a term used back then. Streitkolben are about 1.5 to 1.8kg.
Morgenstern are about 4 to 6 feet with heavier weights as they are 2handed.
What you have their is large six feather Pernach so about 1.2kg I'd guess. If not mounted maces are heavier & used with both hands for 1 & 1/2 more impact even if the weight was the same.
@@scholagladiatoria To be honest I'm not found of pernach's without a shield.
I suspect this is why heater shields came to be as you don't need large shields in full plate but with a mace it keep your opponent out of clinch-grapple while you smack them with the pernach-mace.
It seems a fundamental point was neglected: A knight would fight moderately armoured foes too, not just other knights.
@@dequitemI found your channel the other day. dope content, pleasant surprise to find you here too. keep it up
Just to throw this into the mix, Persian deghans and Roman/Byzantine cataphracts -- both heavily-armored cavalry types -- often used maces on one another. They seemed to be pretty happy with 'em!
A famous historical joke in Chinese literature about the Song Dynasty is that the Jin Dynasty's army used maces, but the soldiers of the Song Dynasty could only use their own heads to resist, and there was no other good way to defend themselves. and the armor of the Song Dynasty is considered to be the most heavily armored in Chinese history.
I think the correct use of a mace in any era is very clear, which is to hit someone hard on the head, even if it's wearing a metal helmet it won't reduce the impact of a concussion much. It's just do that will be easier for the cavalry.
One more thing to mention, it seems that because wooden-handled maces require less metal to make and are more durable than swords, they were more popular in places like Central Asia that lacked the fuel wood that blacksmiths needed. Axes are also more popular in these places.
Interesting theory about the lack of fule wood. A lack of fule wood would presumably also mean less plate armour. If that's the case, it would provide an alternative explanation for the correlation between a lack of plate armour and the widespread use of maces (in the central Asian case); and on the other hand, the presence of plate armour and the comparatively limited use of maces (in the European case) - namely that more fule wood means greater avaliablity of both plate armour and good alternatives to maces. So that rather than the presence or absence of plate having a causal impact on the use of maces as Matt Easton suggests, both have a common cause the in availability of fule wood.
Who wrote the Song Dynasty?
@@tobytoxd The Chinese joke mentioned earlier is known in modern times due to the record of the famous writer Lu Xun.
Lu Xun recorded that this joke came from miscellaneous notes written by people from the Song Dynasty that he had read.
In modern times, it is often simplified into an idiom: "金有狼牙棒，宋有天靈蓋"(Jin have maces, Song have skulls).
This joke originated from the dejected Song people laughing at themselves for being unable to resist the invasion of the Jin Dynasty army. And it goes to show that a hard blow to the head with a mace is a very effective attack.
@@snkn9857 He's referring to the pun joke (song) but Thanks for explanation!
“Jin have maces, Song have skulls!” Very nice 👍 I am not as familiar with Chinese history, about when did this series of battles take place?
In Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth flanged mace was a symbol for officers up to regimental commander. Most of the Cavalry during 16th-17th century use horseman's picks. This days flanged mace is given by president to officers promoted to first general rank.
yes but it's more of if such thing can still be used as weapons or just symbolic toys. Swords and katanas also have those symbolic use but didnt make them useless on battlefield
@@wolfensniper4012 The point here is that it was (and is up to this day) a distinctive mark of a higher officer. Yes, it was used in fights and brawls but it was not the point of having one. It id already depicted in this context on the painting of the Battle of Orsza, 1514.
The legend of the black mace! Ogniez i Mieczem
It is true, they call it "bulava".
@@Kamamura2 nope... They call it buzdygan(flanged mace). Bulava is ball mace and it was used(as a badge of office) only by hetman. Modern day Poland bulava is given to general that is promoted to the rank Marshall of Poland(currently there is no living person with that rank). In the novel Deluge and also in the film adaptation, there is a scene in which the colonels, having learned about the betrayal of the Grand Hetman of Lithuania, throw flanged maces at his feet as a sign that they renounce obedience to him.
A mace is less likely to get stuck in your target. So if you lose your lance by getting it stuck in a target, and you lose your sword getting it stuck in a target, then it's a smart idea to have your failsafe not have the same flaw (sacrificing reach though)
I think that is a much greater consideration to actual period warriors then we consider. Losing your weapon is uselessness or worse death. Having something reliable that your not going to be disarmed of would be a huge psychological comfort.
Was thinking that about targeting horses, as well.
Even when it doesn’t stick in the target, the longer reach of a sword also means that it’s a longer lever - if you are on a charging horse, smashing the end of your sword into an armoured cavalryman going the other direction, that’s a lot of strain on both the material of the sword and your own grip on the weapon. Seems reasonable to have a backup that handles the specific issue that might have lost you your sword, even if a sword is better in most situations.
Enough force would still break an arm even under plate. Break swords or give shields a real good test. WW1 soldiers made modern versions for trench warfare as well
Could be I'm wrong, but wasn't there something about clerics (Bishops etc) fighting with maces, because it was an "unbloody" weapon?
Because cutting someone to pieces was a sin - because people believed to be literally revived when Jesus Returns. So when you where missing e.g. an arm, you also miss it in your eternal life.
Pietro Monte talks about using horseman’s hammers on hands when fighting on horseback.
Fighting on horseback halfswording becomes impossible so the stabbing and finding gaps becomes harder, you also are likely aiming at a fast moving target.
So working with momentum makes more sense.
Regarding use on horseback, Pietro monte does write about clubbing the head of the opponent's horse to kill it or at least ensure that it refuses to approach you again.
Now that’s soldiering!
(Sharpes show had a similar method but done with a rifle stock)
12:00 listening to how cavalry carried so many weapons as backup and everyone was in heavy armor, and seeing that horse looking so tired lmao
Poles had a lance, a sword, a backup sword on the saddle, and a backup mace on the saddle.
Except he started out the video busting the old myth that there were large numbers of people in armor. The number of guys in heavy armor on the battlefield was less than 1%. The vast preponderance of guys on the battlefield had leather armor and maybe if they were lucky, some chain mail.
Basic wooden shields were common, and typically made to be lightweight. So if you want to smash a commoner's shield into splinters, or break some bones under light armor, the mace is really the ideal tool.
@@Mr.Ekshin he's made the point, as have others, that leather isn't half as common as people thought they were. Shields for commoners were only light for archers, infantry had infantry shields--heavy and solid.
Maces still good, cos flexible armour, but not for the reason you state.
@@Mr.Ekshin Sir, this is just wrong, the vast preponderance of guys on the 15th century battlefield were wearing at least jack-chains (basic plate arm protection on a padded jack), or a shirt of mail, and often wore brigandines or breastplates. (The English army had a minimum standard of a shirt of mail or a brigandine to even be allowed to serve in the first place). Do not speak authoritatively on topics you do not know about, you will only ever make yourself out to be a moron.
@scholagladiatoria Matt, have you looked at Pietro Monte's Exercitiorum Atque Artis Militaris Collectanea (available in English translated by Mike Pendergrass and Ingrid Sperber)? The Collectanea is one of the few treatises I know of that actually _discusses_ fighting with the one-handed bludgeon (specifically, one-handed warhammers, but almost everything he says about them ought to apply to maces as well). He makes a number of interesting points that address what you're talking about in this video directly. I'll omit the quotes for brevity's sake here, but:
In chapter 72, he comments on using the bludgeon to knock the opponent's weapon out of their hand in mounted combat.
Also in chapter 72, he advises the horseman to carry two bludgeons, in case one is lost.
In chapter 72, he advises hitting the opponent's horse in the head with one's bludgeon, to either fell the horse or cause it to shy away for the rest of combat.
In chapter 79, he comments that the bludgeon is rarely able to stop a man in plate armor on foot from closing to grappling range, where, he says, the bludgeon is useless (against plate armor).
In chapter 118, he advises that there be an air gap padded with wool between the back of the hand and one's gauntlets, and that one's shoulder guards be "thoroughly raised," because of the blows of bludgeons.
In chaper 125, he advises that pieces of armor that are joined by pins also be joined by loose ties, because the blows of a bludgeon can break fastenings of pins alone.
In chapter 128, he has some advice for reinforcements to the chamfron "because of club-blows" [Monte prefers the Latin clauas, "club," for the warhammer, but he describes the object in detail in chapter 72, and it's clear he's talking about what we would call a one-handed warhammer].
This is all super great to read, I have not researched a lot of treatises but, a few years back I came to think that mace and warhammer treatises basically didn't exist. It's nice to see in recently years more and more appearing, from different cultures and time periods. Even if they are still few compared to the body of sword treatises.
❤ thats the type of comment Im always looking for! fantastioc job, have to read the source!
At the moment, we can download the text of the second edition for free, too. However, Jeffrey L. Forgeng had already translated it, and it's easily available, if you want a hard copy. Forgeng also includes some nice photos in his translation. I was able to find that one on Z-Library, and the original Latin is downloadable from the Internet Archive.....I think I'll compare the two translations, just because I'm curious--is one superior, or are they similar enough to not matter? Also, these days, Google Translate seems to do a decent job on Latin...yes, having a human doing the translation can get you much closer to the original meanings, but that's only if they're using colloquial speech...which there shouldn't be much of in such a document. Turns out that there is a stumbling block to translating this book--the author originally wrote in Spanish, then translated it to Latin, which he was not especially fluent in, plus he uses Italian scattered among the rest. But Forgeng, I'd say, did a much more readable translation, which Pendergrass' version seems more of a literal translation. It might be more sensible to read both translations, if the contents are actually important to the reader.
I was surprised to find the book is purely text...seems like the sort of thing that ought to have a few illustrations, I guess that's why Forgeng added some photos. Pendergrass should be doing something similar...there should be plenty of useful images in the public domain, if nothing else...and with his SCA connections, I'm certain he could find someone to do illustrations.
One other note on taking hostages is that you might be doing that during a rout. If you're on horseback and someone is fleeing on foot, you don't even need to hit them hard in the head to capture them; any hit on the back could put them on the ground relatively intact
I'm getting shades of William Marshall here. Knock them silly, get the ransom and win.
I'm also wondering about the use against the armour itself. Articulation requires very fine tolerances and those are easier to upset. It's also more hypothetical, without getting some armour, period equivalent and the same in the weapon.
I'm wondering if there's some element of the tournament fight, the tournament here. Better a bruise that an open wound and better a bruised ego than a broken bone.
On the breaking thing, I'm also wondering if that's a strength. If you're moving around, got some momentum, a whole heap of force. On some level, the mace is the back up for the charge, you need to have something that won't turn into shrapnel in your hand and leave you less well defended.
Some quick first thoughts at least.
I was thinking about the armour damage as well. You can crush a faceplate, or mangle it from the side with a swipe. As you stated, points of articulation would fairly easily be bent or crushed by a flanged mace. Even in the SCA I got my fans on my knees bent badly by mere rattan, same with overlapping lames on my upper chausses. I feel like flanged mace would be very effective at this.
Use in Tournaments was my first thought too, although he has made many good points about other uses. In a tournament disabling your opponent would be sufficient. Getting hit on the head with a mace while charging past each other would be enough force to knock you off your horse I bet. The combination of getting hit off your horse and hit in the head would be pretty disorienting I expect. I could see the mace being a useful tool for that purpose. Once dazed and lying on the ground you are pretty clearly defeated...
Great video. For the longest time I've been in the "flanged mace is the ideal weapon vs plate armor" camp so this was quite a nice eye opener. Always fun to learn something new.
Also, consider group situations. The flanged mace, specifically, is a short, omni-directional weapon. If you are packed in tight with friends and foe, a mace can be swung about forehand, backhand, point, and it won't stick in the enemy and be at rick of being pulled from your hand. They notably did *not* have large crossguards, at a time when swords did. You are not intended to be fencing with intricate parry/riposte/bind against other sword users. It seems like a good weapon for a scrum.
I think one more thing the mace is particularly nice for cavalrymen is edge alignment. A galopping horse is not the smothest way of movement and the rider might not be able to hit with the edge of the sword perfectly, making it quite ineffective. With a mace you don't have the same problem, a heave lump of metal is a heavy lump metal. If it hits, it hits.
Exactly! I feel this point was not made bluntly enough.
Considering how difficult it is to prevent concussions in modern sports with modern helmets, I’m skeptical that a medieval helm would be optimized to protect you from someone intending to concuss you with a optimal tool for the job.
It's only the ones that connect to the shoulders and form a fixed shell that would truly stop a concussion.
Medival helmets had layers like chainmail and coif cause without it even sword hurt to the head.
I find matt with the helmet much more aproachable
bald people dont get a break huh
@@dialectiks no sallets just make a man irresistible
Gotta appreciate a stylish helm.
If you happen upon a Time Machine and find yourself in medieval times, be careful who you approach
It's mirror polish all the way down.
@scholagladiatoria great video matt, I am a big fan. I do think maces probably weren't used as much against armor as popular culture would suggest, but I do think Dequitem's videos aren't necessarily the best resource either for a couple reasons, and these reasons are directly relevant to the question of "were maces effective against full plate armor?"
Reason 1: Dequitem is an amateur athlete in a very pretty, very well-choreographed video, sparring other amateur athletes. No knock on him: pretty much all of us HEMA/buhurt people are amateur athletes. But judging whether or not a mace is effective against armor based on Dequitem (or whomever) smacking a piece of modern steel is kind of like judging whether a left hook is an effective punch by watching a hobbyist boxer smack a heavy bag. You'll come away thinking "why doesn't he just jab or throw the right hand all the time?" But then you look at someone with more skill throw the punch, like Canelo or Frazier, and you understand. I imagine it might be the same with some of the weapons Dequitem is testing.
Reason 1.5: In his videos on the mace (and on the flail, incidentally) Dequitem hits the armor a couple times, and then (when the armor isn't damaged) says the mace is ineffective. But armor wasn't hit only a handful of times in any given situation---or rather, perhaps sometimes it was, and sometimes it wasn't. A modern boxing match, which lasts around 30 minutes, might involve hundreds of punches thrown, with many of them hitting the opponent (sometimes almost all of them hit the other person, even if it is on area deemed "off-target" for scoring purposes, such as those shots parried by a hand or elbow). Certainly, there were battles which involved the same in the medieval era. Even in 1v1 scenarios, like the pas d'armes performed by Lalaing, there were challenges involving counted blows ranging from the dozens to "unlimited," so the idea was clearly out there.
Anyways, armor "works" (as so many are fond of saying), but that means it obviously is going to be struck more, not less. And this means it's more likely to have severe dents, or cracks, or other damage done to it. I suspect few people in the medieval era thought armor needed to be penetrated in only one blow, or a handful---just as few combat sports athletes today imagine they'll KO an opponent in one, or a handful, of blows. So striking a piece of armor a handful of times and declaring it "proof" seems like you're testing a scenario for which there is no controversy: of course armor persists through a couple of strikes. It would be ridiculous if it didn't. But armor didn't endure only a handful of strikes.
Reason 2: Dequitem uses modern hardened steel. This is probably another insurmountable issue, so again no knock against him; it's simply far more economical to use modern steel than to try and replicate medieval steel and hardening techniques. And if you did replicate the medieval forging process, it would be unlikely you'd want to waste the thousands of dollars you just spent on that by bashing it all to pieces to prove a point.
But this makes it even difficult to assess the accuracy of his tests. Alan Williams, in The Knight and the Blast Furnace, showed that (depending on the region and the era), not only was fully hardened steel relatively uncommon, in certain cases steel itself was uncommon. Northern Italian armor before 1450, for example, was a little over 50% hardened steel, judging by the examples tested by Williams---Italian armor from the period before 1500 was only 35% hardened steel, however (interestingly enough, after 1515 almost all Italian armor becomes unhardened steel). German-produced armor before 1450, however, had only two examples of hardened steel armor; the majority wasn't even steel, it was simple wrought iron, and the majority of the remainder was low-carbon steel (mild steel, relatively speaking). And even the hardened steel produced in the middle ages was of lower quality, for the most part, relative to modern homogenous steel: the hardening could be uneven, the steel itself was subject to inclusions of slag (sometimes considerably so), and of course the thickness of the steel varied, often by design but sometimes not.
Mild steel is significantly easier to defeat than hardened steel; wrought iron is (presumably) even easier (as it is softer). Medieval hardened steel is more likely than modern hardened steel to fail.
So when Dequitem tests a mace on modern steel---which outstrips in quality all but the very best of extant medieval armor, often by a significant margin---it doesn't tell us much about the material reality faced by medieval men-at-arms.
Reason 3: We know from period sources that maces were used against men in full plate armor to deadly effect. Consider the following description from Breve suma de la vida y hechos de Diego García de Paredes of a single combat in the city of Ravenna in 1533: "In this battle a French Captain turned to face me because I killed two of his brothers on the battlefield, and we fought in the middle of the two camps armed as men at arms with some iron maces that I brought out. The Frenchman, seeing the weight of them, threw his (mace) to the ground, being unable to wield it well, and seized hold of an estoc and lunged at me, thinking that I would not be able to wield the mace either. He stabbed me through the tasset and wounded me, and I then struck him on the armet with the mace and I sank it into his head, from which he fell down dead."
Apologies for the essay. Again, big fan of the videos!
There are also questions as to the thickness and weight of Dequitem's armor. I believe he does Bohurt? Which, in addition to the superior materials, is often comparatively overbuilt relative to historical military equipment. Which is the point; people in Bohurt are looking for a game of whacking each other with relatively ineffective bludgeons because effective bludgeons would inflict serious injury.
Your coment perfectly encapsulates what what I think of the current state of the maces vs armor debate. Not only was material reality quite different, also people have sparred and experimented with axes, maces, clubs and warhammers (imposibly hard to estate) very little compared to swords. So there's probably also a technical and experience gap aswell. Just because the weapons listed above have a narrower breadth of posible techniques does not mean people have them all figured out.
An example of something I have never seen discussed for example is that shields are not only a good combo with maces because they don't have good defense by themselves, but also because it's basically a plank to frame against your oponent, keeping him at arms lenght, distance in which you can build up speed for good, powerfull swings.
That could be a posible tactic to prevent people from getting to close where it's hard to generate enough force to damage people wearing plate. I have seen no video or anything of people trying to test such a thing.
@@kevinlobos5519 Oh, hey, this lines up with my hypothesis that much of why the Hussites found success with two-handed flails (an anomoly) is because of their war wagons. The wagons functioning similarly to battlements provided defenses that negated a lot of the problems that flails usually incur, such as the slow recovery from a swing or the awkward angle being made very advantageous from a higher position.
@nevisysbryd7450 yea flails should be added to the list I made in my comment. Have heard of those wagons. It's epic to think about a cart full of dudes with poleflails clubbering anything and anyone who comes close enough 😆.
@@NevisYsbryd I don't know if dequitem does buhurt. If he is german, I know there are relatively few succesful german buhurt teams, so I imagine the scene is quite small relative to Poland, Ukraine/Russia, or America. Many serious buhurt fighters wear fairly light titanium armor at this point, except for their gauntlets and helms (which are, in some senses, overbuilt relative to extant artifacts, but in other ways underbuilt. Almost no buhurters wear the ubiquitous helm of the foot tourney, for example: the great bascinet, which generally connects to the cuirass and prevents the head from moving independently of the body). And generally you win at modern buhurt by outgrappling the opponents, not bludgeoning them (though, strikes are often used to set up successful grapples), so you tend to see the better teams using weapons that (under the rules of modern buhurt) make grappling easier.
You mentioned the fieldmarshalls' baton. The word "staff", as in "staff officer" (or "Stabsoffizier") is most probably also related to a baton as symbol of authority then. I had never thought of that. Roman centurions also had their sticks. Ha.
I guess you gotta keep the guys following orders and not starting a mutiny somehow
A centurion is closer to a modern NCO than a general officer, and I think the stick is more functional than symbolic there: you can use it to point, you can use it to get someone's attention, you can use it to prod someone into position, you can use it to wave around in a crowd and be seen. (IIRC British senior NCOs often carry "swagger sticks," or used to. Same deal: it's useful. You can also use them to measure, as for instance when instructing new recruits how far to step when marching in formation.)
The marshal's baton probably descends from a centurion's stick (or related Roman sticks), but I think it's useful to note that in some cases this is an object with practical functions, while in other cases it's symbolic.
A horse due to its speed is a force multiplier, the mace is a simple weapon that relies on mass. Add those two bits together and it is obvious. In a protracted combat, having a mace with its inherent durability would be a necessity. Especially for missions which are more about submission, wherein the violence of a mace clash from horseback could provide a gruesome demonstration of power that risked none of the more fragile gear that could be maintained for another fight. Armored knights didn't always fight other Armored knights, and maces are very important in asymmetrical engagements. There's my rant.
From a horseback charge or ride-by attack, a sword or lance can easily get stuck in your opponent, his horse or his equipment (armour, barding, saddle, caparison etc), wrenching your weapon from your hand. Maces - even flanged ones - don’t penetrate much, so were far less likely to be lost.
If someone bash you with mace while be on fast riding horse i think damage is less concern you probably gonna have funny sight from force,head trauma or something padding is good but not perfect.
The mace being symbol of power reminds me of the Narmer palette, which might depict the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt with the first Pharaoh/King of all of Egypt. You can really feel/see the power in that. And that is one of the oldest historical documents (3200-3000 BC) in the world.
Interesting video, love the channel!
It's possible that the European tradition dates all the way back to the Indo Europeans. They venerated club/axes as weapons of their gods, such as for Mithra and Hercules among romans. Might have taken a role as a scepter by then, I should look into it more.
@@theghosthero6173 I'd it's a pretty universal thing around the world, big pointy stick (spear) big club with rock (mace). You can see some pretty neat examples or I can stone maces from Peru.
Scholagladiatoria and Skallagrim - two absolutely best channels in this topic EVER! Thank You very much for Your work. Freakin love this channel. Cheers from poland!
In terms of the mace being third choice behind the sword on horseback; specifically against full harness.
In the saddle you're not going to be able to wrestle, half sword, and find the gaps in full plate - you're pretty much reduced to ineffective slashing with an arming sword.
An estoc, like the Polish Koncerz, might be a bit different giving point at speed, but no use whatever in the melee or on foot.
The mace however covers both bases, at speed and in the melee, and is not useless if unhorsed.
Could it be that the mace was the go second weapon on horseback while the sword took that spot on foot?
Context and all that?
If you have experience with that Battle of Nations stuff, you know a hard hit to the head can knock you down (like a punch can) for a moment. You legs just go when hit in the head hard. That can be pretty dangerous in a large melee. Especially in a time were capture was a big danger.
Aimed shot: knee, elbow and/or shoulder armor: repeat as desired. Anywhere full plate allows for movement. If they can't move; they can't fight. Ransom is now an option.
The other guy claimed you can't do that, but he was using a light mace and only demonstrating with a weak swing
He proved that you can't do that , the mace was heavier @@vanivanov9571than a historical one and it was multiple full swings . And you're a Lair.
@@vanivanov9571yeahhh I don’t super-trust buhurt fighters on the topic of weapons and damage, have seen some really strange opinions in the past.
@@vanivanov9571 likely on modern steel armor too! They were a lot tougher than we are as well and knew where to strike for maximum effect. And even if you want to say the armor wouldn't stop bending from one blow; it's melee combat, you will get hit more than once. I want to say that if you looked at the guys that used a mace in combat, generally they'd be larger men than average and tend to hit harder anyway but I have no evidence to prove that. But in general they'd be a knight and a trained warrior anyway.
@@oscaranderson5719 I do trust knights who did it for real in the past though.
Pietro Monte (1457-1509 ) who was a famous master of arms in his day says this.
“For even though we strike him with a club, axe, and points, this inflicts little or no harm, especially if he is somewhat wise, for against similar we can never apply great blows when he always turns aside or enters in where we can make a small blow on him; which he who is entirely in white armour cares nothing for”
A mace should be considered as a secondary weapon. It is really polearms that do the real damage in most armored fighting. Maces hit no where near as hard as a lance at a gallop, a halberd, glaive, or poleaxe. Considering them in context then, yes maces are not particularly effective. We see so many thrusting techniques in armor in the HEMA treatises too. It isn't that maces are useless, but using them against armor is hard work compared to many other weapons. Plus maces are very picky about range. If you get a bit too close to a mace user, he actually no longer can use the full rotation of his arm and his power is then limited. Whereas a sword is easier to use in a close press with half-swording and has the additional advantage of being able to stab, strike, and cut so you can take on a larger variety of opponents.
The mace only has the advantage over the sword from horseback where versatility is not an advantage but getting a clean hit is (plus a gallop increases the percussive impact).
Very interesting, cheers. After watching you talk about chainmail and because my main opponent normally wears gilded chainmail without padding underneath... I decided to make a mace.
I made my 3prong anti-chainmail mace 'arc' from an old heavy 5prong fork. I cut the 2 outside prongs off (leaving 2 side spikes) and shortened the handle. Then after a few experimental throws I shortened the 2 outside spikes so it penetrates better. I left the fork prongs curved as they are stronger like that. So its a very effective warhammerish mace and the spikes can pierce chainmail and weak plate. Quite heavy, but thrown at close range it hits like a guttendag/thunderbolt and sticks well in shields, a bit like a pilum. A surprisingly effective weapon 1 or 2 handed. I recommend wholeheartedly making some peasant improvised weapons/homebuilt weaponry it's a very interesting experience and you learn quite a bit about how you yourself actually fights and your possible weaknesses and foibles.
2:35 you need to emulate that aventail-moustache combo, it's awesome!
It is actually a fake, as I said in my other comment. That's why it looks awesome to us, the painter is 20th century.
@@petrapetrakoliou8979 I don't mind. I have a Phrygian helmet with a fake moustache on the bronze chin flaps, also awesome.
@@baltasartranconywidemann5129 The difference is you seem to know your Phrygian helmet is a fake not like this painting which appears as authentic at places on the internet and on this channel.
15:02 "...especially if you stand up..." By looking at contemporary illustrations, preserved examples of Medieval saddlery, and documentary sources, historians of horsemanship have concluded that knights and men-at-arms rode with very long stirrup leathers, almost straight legs, and toes pointed slightly downward -- virtually the exact opposite of horsemanship in the West since the latter half of the 19th century, i.e. knees flexed, heels down, center-of-gravity slightly forward, varying with speed. In fact, it has been suggested that war horses of the late Medieval period, especially mounts that wore bard (horse armor) or were trained for the lists did not gallop or canter. Instead, they were trained to pace, a two-beat lateral gait, or rack, a four-beat lateral gait with footfalls in the same sequence as the regular walk, but characterized by greater speed and smoothness. This was more comfortable for an armored rider whose center of gravity was higher than his hips thanks to the steel. Taken together --- the position of the rider, the mass of the armor, and the gait of the mount -- rising in the saddle to increase the force of a downward stroke of the mace was unusual if not impossible. Matt should try some mounted experiments, taking as many cues from the historians as possible, to test this.
All I'm saying is, during a zombie apocalypse, I'm having a flanged mace rather than a sword.
Some people would have sharp weapon saying YoU CaN CuT OfF ThE HeAd but i dont care mace or any type of blund weapon can easily knock zombie on ground if we speak about walking dead style zombie and you bash head into pieces head is no longer treat but if you cut off head, head can still bites if someone is unaware of dead logic 😂
@@SainsSDR3SD Depends on which zombie trope it'll be ...From my point of view, mace requires less care than a sword, and it's much easier to replace a shaft than a blade.
@@Caderynwolf also it can be wooden no iron needed to be perfect just be creative when you making one.
@@SainsSDR3SD I live about a mile away from a castle with an armoury. I wont have to worry about making them - although if it's tourist season that'll make it a bit difficult to clear out the place. ;)
@@Caderynwolf You can simply buy aluminium bat or wooden one put nails,barbed wire on it like negan and you have spiked mace/club like i said you dont even need to go there thing in home can be enought to make weapon.
i think the mace was primarily used on horseback. i dont think they are very effective on foot due to limited reach and limited force that you can generate with your arm, i think a longer two handed mace would be effective on foot, but if you put that same short mace in a hand of a knight on a horse than the force generated from a speeding horse could be enormous. horse running at 30 mph with a guy swinging that down while maintaining the momentum of the speeding horse than it really can crush through quite a lot. i think also they are effective when you get to fighting levies in chainmail or quilted armor that mace will break things.
BONK ❗️
I came here to post this
"Le Bonque" if you're French.
Captain cavemen approves of this post
An outstanding video! Thank you very much. This is invaluable for game designers and, especially, novelists.
What makes me question the theory that maces were not that effective against armor in-period is that when we had dedicated armored dueling long swords, they often would turn the pommel into effectively a mace, with angled or spiked striking surfaces. Not trying to throw away the recent work dine by dequitem, Id just put money on us missing something so far.
I wonder why they would do that if it was not considered an effective way of dealing with armored targets in some capacity. I would say the same with blunt pollax/hammers. I think we just need to continue testing and maybe figure this out
my suspicion is that maces worked, just not well enough to replace a sword. especially given the fact it would be a backup weapon- a sword is better at fending off blows than a mace, and if you’re already less combat effective you probably care more about survival than achieving glory with a little mallet.
Its to do with versatility. Plus with a sword when you use the murderstroke, you are using both hands on the attack and those examples you refer to are much heavier than a mace would be. Judicial duels have a lot of strange designs too so that is worth keeping in mind. Maces also are a bit limited as to what targets you can strike to inflict damage as many parts of the plate armor will not be affected by a mace strike. You also need a lot more effort to slam a mace into someone compared to fishing for a gap as many HEMAists who fight in armor have shown us.
Another thing is that a mace is very picky about distance management. Too close and you hit with the haft and because they are shorter, you cannot strike from as far away as other weapons. Maces also cannot be used as a grapple assist like a half-sworded sword can be. Polearms on the other hand hit much much harder than a mace. You should consider the mace as a sidearm much like a sword really.
I suspect that the idea with hitting someone with a pommel is that you're hoping to keep them down so you can get in those gaps more easily, in the same way that the hammer of a pollaxe seems to mostly have been for already fallen opponents down until they slow enough for you to spike 'em.
A single-handed mace doesn't really have the leverage for that.
They wouldn't OFTEN use the pommel as a mace, although it is absolutely a thing. In a duel you only had so many options, and you typically would take the most effective weapons with you, ie a polearm, a longsword, and a dagger. If you wanted to try and stun your opponent with a blow to the head, and you'd already discarded your polearm, mordhau would've been your best bet.
Blunt pollax/hammers were largely a battlefield weapon as well, meaning the majority of their targets would be in gambeson, chainmail, brigandine, and only sometimes plate. Even when you did encounter people wearing plate, it often wouldn't cover a significant amount of their body. Hammers / maces / other bludgeoning weapons would be very effective against these types of armors.
Pollaxes were likely blunted because the number of people who could actually be cut were negligable, and the cutting aspect doesnt matter much with the amount of force behind a pollax, so they likely kept it blunt to prolong its life and prevent unnecessary damage.
I think the misconception that maces aren't good against armor is that they don't leave much of a mark, however that's exactly WHY maces are good against armor. They transfer all the blunt force into the squishy person inside. You don't need to break the armor, you just need to rattle the person inside of it. Headshots obviously would lead to concussions, but even a chest shot would probably leave a person gasping for air.
I think there's a few reasons why fully plated Knights are seen holding both sword and mace. Because Knights were fully protected against arrows in their plate armour, they stopped carrying shields, instead the mace was adopted an off-hand parrying weapon. It has no blade to get damaged parrying, it has weight behind it so it can be used as a blunt weapon and maybe used as a sword/shield breaker. I probably wouldn't break a shield, but it could be used to knock or hook shields aside.
One other consideration for the flanged mace was that it was cutting edge technology. The ability to make the metal tube for the shaft and welding the individual flanges in place rather than just beating the metal into shape was something new and exciting so there may have been people buying them for the same reason people get the latest cell phone model. Not because it's necessarily any better but because it's the new cool thing.
Edited for spelling.
the first thing I thought while looking at his mace was, "wait how did they make that in the 15th century?"
Didn't many of the metal handle one actually had wooden cores? I remember reading and seeing examples of that.
"You're still using a *sword* in this day and age? Dude. I'm leaving you on dead." (bonk!)
@@kevinlobos5519 Yes, it was hard to weld a thick walled metal tube but easy to wrap a wooden core with sheet metal.
Why do you feel the need to include that it was edited for spelling?
Extremely interesting!! Among other interesting facts, I like that you mentioned how maced were carried, which I find to be a fascinating topic. Could you do a video on scabbards, sheaths, hoops, weapon belts, other belts/means of carrying weapons, including weapons that were generally only ever carried in one's hands? I think it's great for historical understanding, role-playing games, novels, computer games, movies &c.
"This is new anti-theft device Grog make. Grog call it- The Club."
"Ug interested. Ug fights with it. Ug call it Fight Club."
@@Taistelukalkkuna - Excuse me sir... but we do NOT talk about fight club.
"Whaduoyadowithit?"
That makes a lot of sense that these would primary be used mounted, but as a person who has never had the opportunity to actually ride a horse my first thought was that the shorter length of the mace would have make it really good for fighting indoors or in tight spaces, besides just having less of a chance of hitting something you didn't intend (like a wall) even if you did the much more sturdy construction of the mace would leave it relatively undamaged and being a blunt weapon you don't have to worry about it losing its edge.
I think the risk of a sword breaking on hard surfaces due to the added power of the horse is the most convincing reason for use of maces. This may also be the reason why single-handed flails were invented. Possibly even maces broke due to the force, or perhaps the handshock was too heavy.
Later, when heavy armor mostly stopped being used on the battlefields, cavalrymen reverted back to using swords, spears, lances and sabres.
I thought the flail was an adapted farming tool.
@@ctrlaltdebug The two handed flail was originally a farmer's tool (like the pole kind). I think they're saying that horse combat could be a reason the single handed flail was invented (as I don't believe farmers used such a thing, though I could be wrong).
Love the video, makes a lot of sense and raises some interesting ideas. Love the idea of the mace having these uses, breaking weapons, sign of status and as a backup weapon for cavalry.
To clarify I also appreciate the idea of the usage VS different armies too, which makes even more sense but since I've read a lot of books and appreciate fantasy types of stories, it's nice to see different uses that could inspire people to have them be more important and used instead of mainly the sword because it's easy to use.
Also appreciate this channel and others for spreading the awareness of how great spears and halberd and similar weapons were because of reach and of course the fact that swords, even the big ones, are in fact finesse weapons. It makes for more interesting uses and portrayals.
Also, of course, I just like history and find it all very interesting :)
Mace makes a lot of sense for cavalry. It's not going to get stuck in a target and ripped out of your grasp, the momentum from the horse lets it hit thunderously hard, and the raised position makes hitting helmets much easier.
Good video! Love learning about maces. Two things I thought about.
1. If you want a back up weapon, why not another sword if it's better than the mace?
2. As the horses runs, the mace would bob. That could do damage to your horse's ribs!
Lance, Sword, and Mace - the Middle Ages version of the Three Gun.
a mace can cripple without killing. can mangle the articulations in armor and make movement difficult. you can break someone's knee through the armor plating without even really damaging the armor that badly, just with the impact against a leg that has full weight on it, shattering the knee cap even.
You forgot the Byzantine army also had use lot of many types of maces,depending the battle he wanted to fight,and for cavalry and infantry both,not only the rich soldiers with sophisticated maces but also poor soldiers with the simple ones.And for opponent with full metal plates armour Byzantine army had use maces with more long wooden bats over a meter,and bigger iron warheads.
nothing like a careful, thoughtful and nuanced discussion on the subject of bashing heads in!
Not careful enough, he did a 180. And his new opinions seem a bit corrupted by the sword-worshipping perspective.
Paladin class explained in detail.
Clerics have maces, Paladins get better toys... 😅
I think that a Cleric would work better.
Mace of Leadership
Mace of Saint Cuthbert of the Cudgel
Yeah, I could see a lot of Mace smashed for clerics, "kings", patriarchs, primates, and paladins
@@ChapterGrim I'd say a mace is really fitting for a paladin. Maces have always represented power, authority, order, etc. It's why maces (scepters as well) are still used ceremonially.
Paladins are associated with early medieval times, when plate armor wasn´t yet used, so I guess it makes sense. In fantasy, hopefully you can enchant the mace to make it more effective!
Very Interesting Video - Nicely Done! You might get this later, but I paused when you started talking about how effective it was for horsemen though did not initially add that striking downward on foot soldier, not only has downward momentum with gravity, but also is going to be landing headshots a great deal of the time which as you noted earlier is one of the more effective uses of a mace... if you daze, knock down, or knock out a foot soldier who falls under the feet of other soldiers or horses... that's a pretty bad situation.
The idea that the medieval one-handed mace or warhammer is a horseman's weapon is an old one, and one that definitely has a lot of credibility - the extra force capable from striking down from the saddle, the ease of access to the heads of enemy infantry, the inability to do precise strikes with a sword targeting weak points in armor, etc... On foot, against an armored opponent you would probably choose as two-handed weapon for the extra force. Still, I'm having a little trouble with this idea that a sword or dagger would be "better" against a plate-armored opponent, simply for the reason that you'd need to get in VERY close to be able to "target the gaps" in the way you are describing. I don't do HEMA, so maybe I'm speaking out of my ass here, but I would think you'd basically need to grapple the opponent, or otherwise incapacitate them before being to reliably hit those gaps. I realize that grappling IS a normal part of armored fighting, but hear me out: Wouldn't it be easier to knock the enemy down or stun him before pulling out your dagger? And wouldn't it be easier to do so if you had a one-handed mace rather than a one-handed sword? Smack them around, knock them off balance, then pull out your dagger and grapple them, and finish them off.
A legitimate question, but you've given the answer yourself. Infantry would have a two-handed blunt weapon (extra reach, extra force) with which to incapacitate (if temporarily) the target, before drawing the dagger and grappling for a kill (or a surrender if lucky enough). If they don't just use the spike on said blunt weapon to finish the job without even needing to grapple.
@@lasselen9448 Why bother with your dagger though?
Trying to wrestle a blade into someone's neck seems difficult compared to "keep hitting them in the head until they stop moving with your blunt object"
Maybe a blunt object short enough to be used in the grapple.
Wonder what that could be
@@1stCallipostle You wouldn't have the leeway to deal a strong enough blow while being so close. Pushing a dagger through, especially one designed to defeat mail, requires little effort, no space, and is quicker. If you're going to keep hitting, there's no point going closer, you can do that with your two-handed weapon.
If your main weapon is purely a blade, like a spear or pike, I'd understand having a mace as a backup, but at the same time if an armoured opponent gets close enough for you to use that mace it means you're already screwed because your line's broken.
I think, you (maybe without thinking about it) gives a very good summary of maces in a short comment at 1:02 into the video;
You say, you have limited experience with them "because they are not very safe to use"...... NO SHIT, Sherlock!.. they are DANGEROUS, as any good weapon should be 👍👍!!
For sparring with maces, you would need a LOT of padding/protection/armor to avoid serious injuries such as broken bones and concussions. And/or rules making the sparring look very different than actual combat.
Love your videos, Matt. Keep them coming 👍👍☀️☀️
"Not particularly effective against full plate" describes most weapons short of light artillery, to be fair. But if I had to take a guess at what maces are better at doing than anything else one-handed? Armor damage.
People doing armored HEMA are using the kinds of steel and heat treatment that would be reserved for the absolute best period armor and likely outstrip even that in consistency if nothing else. Hit the arm plates of someone in a more munitions-grade full plate, and you may well dent it. Hit it twice and it will very likely restrict the user. Aim for the hand segments, visors, other fiddly bits and you may well restrict mobility quite badly.
On an unrelated note if you are interested in maces as a more broad tropic, the bronze knobbed type was overwhelmingly popular with nomads on the Black Sea steppes, to a point where we see lead-core bronze maces being made en masse. There are some bits and pieces of this research translated into English but really, you'll want to reach out to someone who can read Russian and is interested in the time period and area (so, probably someone from Czechia or Poland and interested in Cumans).
Sources:
A.P. Horvath's 'Pechenegs, Kumans Iasians' is a good start if you can find it, I have it as, uh, totally legitimate book and definitely not a series of jpeg scans from one of my mates
A. Farcas: Maces in medieval Transylvania between 13th and 16th centuries
M.E.C. Tiplic: Weapons and Military Equipment Found in the German Settlement Area from Southern Transylvania (the 12th - 13th Centuries). Some Aspects and Perspectives
Burning oil flasks or sticky balls of pitch were pretty effective. It is not easy to extinguish or doff plate armor when alight like you can with a gambeson.
Maces are shit at 'armor damage' compared to any two-handed weapon. And setting out to dent armor is a fool's errand when you could be bypassing it. Knights wielded poleaxes that were in effect gigantic maces, but STILL spent most of their time trying to thrust into gaps.
Pietro Monte (1457-1509 ) who was a famous master of arms in his day says this.
“For even though we strike him with a club, axe, and points, this inflicts little or no harm, especially if he is somewhat wise, for against similar we can never apply great blows when he always turns aside or enters in where we can make a small blow on him; which he who is entirely in white armour cares nothing for”
@@Subutai_Khan other relevant quotes from Monte:
"For the principle is the same: two unclothed men will fight with fists, or men in white armor with pollaxes, but the one who delivers the stronger blows will prevail."
"I have personally witnessed two combatants in full white armor getting hurt almost as quickly as if they had been in their shirts."
Diego Garcia de Paredes, writing in 1533, talks of killing a French knight with a blow of an iron mace that crushed the man's armet into his skull, killing him. Joanot de Martorell, himself an active and experienced knight, in his book Tirant lo Blanc called the axe "the deadliest of all weapons" and shows it being used to strike a knight until he cannot lift his arms, at which point "a mighty blow rove his helmet into his skull, causing his brains to squirt out his eyes and ears as he fell to earth, dead."
Fiore, writing about the pollaxe, says this: "This play follows on from the student before me. As he clearly told you, you will likely drop to the ground dead after being struck in the head [with a pollaxe] like this."
Meyer, writing in the 1560s, advises you strike "thunderbolts" (donnerschlag, or what we might know better as murderstrikes) to an opponents hands, knees, elbows and head before you try stabbing him, because these will "soften" him, or even knock him down.
In your quote, Monte is specifically talking about being close enough to grapple an opponent. When you're that close, you can only strike "small blows," as he calls them. But that doesn't mean, as the quote out of its context seems to imply, that striking an armored person was ineffective. Armor was very useful, but it doesn't make you invincible. Yet any protection at all is an improvement over fighting unarmed where, as Monte himself says, "any small force is enough to kill the enemy."
@@montepietro-th9jl But you are talking about poleaxes here in many of your quotes. Two-handed swings from a poleaxe are way more powerful than a mace. It is simple physics. Longer lever, more weight on the end plus you are using both arms vs one arm with the mace. Only from horseback (which Matt elluded to in his video too) does the mace really get more significant power in its strikes because of the speed of the horse.
As far as grappling and fighting in close, that is another reason why the sword is often preferred in the sources. You can half-sword in a press and use it to lever the opponent to the ground among other things. And you still have the mordhau or mordshlag if you want to strike him that way. But the murderstroke is not shown to be a finishing blow. But a set up for other finishing blows like grappling, dagger usage, or stabbing with the sword. The fact grappling occurs so often in armored fighting is a big reason why the mace shines more on horseback because you can then apply the energy of the gallop to your strike.
I would point out that the point that a sword is better at fighting someone in heavy armor than a mace hinges on having the point control to take advantage of being able to drive it into the gaps in said armor. This is something that's going to be hard to accomplish on a horse, not only because you don't have direct control of your footwork but you don't have the additional control of another hand on the sword.
I suspect that in a situation where your mount gets bogged down in a melee, a mace is going to serve you better in laying about you to break free than a sword would.
Even on foot "just stab into the gaps lol" is a Herculean task.
A precision stab at a specific angle is a rough thing to do in combat.
Y'know what isnt hard? Bonk.
A flanged mace is easily carried tucked into a belt or sash, assuming you don't want to get a proper ring added to your belt designed to hold maces - those also did and do exist.
Speed of use for a defence weapon. I think that is your awnser. Calvary line hitting infantry will likely lose lance and need a fast weapon to prevent them from being dehorsed. Even if helmeted, striking down on a standing soldiers head will likely injure them. The mace will not get bound up and can deliver more blows per moment.
Isn't the answer simply: "it's a piece of metal swung at an object"? You don't need to worry about edge alignment, you don't need to consider parrying, you're just looking to knock out elbows, knees, and ring skulls. Optimised against foot troops and the like who lack full armour, though I'd be interested to see the types of damage it might do to helmets striking from above.
I just want to say massive respect for admitting that you were perhaps a bit wrong and changing your mind after talking to experts and doing some research.
Before i finish the video, my first thought would be that a flanged mace would give more concentrated weight behind a smaller impact area.
You can hammer away at a log with a sledgehammer all you want, but use a hammer with a wedge shape edge on it and you'll split the log much faster. I imagine that's the same general concept with the flange.
Is more to stop the head sliding on impact; that reduces the power if its not stopped. Same as the spikes on the faces of warhammers and poleaxes.
A few more points about maces on horseback. A mace is easier to use than a sword if you're grappling with another knight on horseback (due to the short length). But it also makes it REALLY easy to bonk the heads of infantrymen (like medieval whack-a-mole) surrounding you.
So glad you two tackled this question. When I got a flanged mace from A&A, I marveled at how not powerful of a hitter it was, and on close inspection, it's clearly designed with speed and agility, not power in mind: the shaft tapers to get thinner near the head, and the flanges are all hollowed out.
Here's the kicker: Your mace would be illegal in Buhurt, because it'd be too heavy and dangerous. Because, sure, it's not going to mould plates like modelling clay like a video game or cartoon, but it's one of the weapons in Buhurt that has to be LIGHTER than historical examples, when most are much, much HEAVIER.
Maces are good against armour, but that doesn't mean you just tear all armour to pieces.
I own the same mace from A&A and while it is no sledgehammer, it definitely is a specialized anti-armor weapon.
I also don’t think Dequitem’s testing was particularly great for historical accuracy for multiple reasons. First, the steel he was using is hardened modern steel and hardly the best comparison for historical metals. Secondly, maces should be used to try to deal damage through and underneath armor (especially the head) which is much easier than stabbing through riveted chainmail under someone’s arm. Also, we have evidence that swords were often gripped by the blade “mordhau” and used as a hammer or mace like weapon which I think suggests that their usual purpose wasn’t very effective. I also think the mace that Dequitem was using was not very well crafted in terms of its length and ability to generate force. The mace that we own tapers I believe largely to get more length to transfer more force without becoming too heavy.
The way Dequitem had tested his mace also made no sense either such as loosely dangling the piece of metal to some janky stand.
@@vanivanov9571 The issue with my mace isn't overall weight, it's balance. The mace is deliberately balanced towards the hand. It feels amazing as a fighting weapon, but not powerful as a bludgeoning weapon. My Tod Cutler mace (brass and wood) is way lighter overall and hits way harder.
@@joshuaworthington847 Have you watched Dequitem's channel? They slug very hard in historically shaped armor. I agree that most armor "testing" is bogus because people hit armor without a person in it, and it can very well be the case that armor can be fine when the person is not underneath.That said, Dequitem has spent a good amount of time slugging it out in armor, so has a well informed opinion on what hurts and doesn't in armor.
I agree that the steel is his armor is probably better than the steel in historical armor, but the hardness and toughness of the steel doesn't affect how much blunt trauma hurts underneath. That task fall on the soft material between the armor and the user. If Dequitem was using modern padding and shock absorbing foam, then I'd question his conclusions, but afaik he isn't.
@@leelundkim4069 Still, I think it's okay to be skeptical. I wouldn't be surprised if it was somewhere in the middle. Dequitem might be right, but true scientific tests are needed before telling.
The mace is faster than a sword, so it would be more effective against multiple un-armored peasants. Hence a symbol of authority. It is also a close quarters weapon to be used indoors and also leaves less of a bloody mess if used inside a King's hall, again a symbol of authority. In the movie Excalibur, when King Arthur is fighting Sir Lancelot, Arthur uses his sword in one hand and a mace in his other.
"you don't have to defeat the plate, just the ribs/skull underneath" -my instructor, right before wrecking me with a "safe" maul (rattan haft, rolled carpet head)
on the battlefield, The Trick is that it's either for hitting maille (around/between plates), and the weaker, thinner edges of plates. But really it's for particularly large and strong fighters to break bones and wreck joints: Using/favoring a Mace was also a sign of Strength, as you HAD to be big and strong for it to be really effective, but whence the gentry were not, individually, strong enough to make one the best choice for them, they still held it as a symbol of that strength (I'm of the opinion that it started in an earlier era, when their ancestors used them, then it carried down)
in the case of Full Plate, all of the joints are delicate enough that they cease to function when dented: "Denting" is something maces are quite good at... and the flesh underneath doesn't take kindly to it either... if your experiments suggest otherwise then I suggest the experimenters were weaklings, as I've seen superior, modern recreation plate (made of better steel, hardened, and just as thick) dent and crack in combat with my own eyes, and that's using just rattan analogues, not real steel.
For mounted combat, precision targeting is not great, particularly while charging through, as you noted, the head is almost certainly your main target, and you're unlikely to get through a helm, so better to concuss the head inside with sheer momentum.
Frankly I think this exposes a flaw in the hema community, where blunted "real steel" is used, which necessitates half-power, half-speed attacks, so as not to harm the partner, which lulls them into a false sense of what a battlefield is like. While the ruleset of the SCA took a sporty downturn in recent years, previously you could see how VERY different combat looks: and _FEELS:_ using historical techniques but at full speed and power.
gear up, put a mace in the hands of someone 6'4" and 250lbs and let them come at you full force: your opinion will change, I assure you... 🤣
Interesting, your witnessing of armor breaking down in combat was in buhurt?
@@kevinlobos5519 I don't think so, no, this was decades ago, before armor was such big business here in the States. the gentleman making most of ours focused on museum-quality historical recreations; down to wall thickness and tempering.
that said, bent and cracked breastplates were not uncommon throughout the SCA, but, admittedly, I can only vouch for the quality of the fighters in my particular group; as the armorer in question was local. they were rare, but did happen, and led directly to maces, hammers, and mauls (even though they were wooden) being fully banned from the field... armor is _expensive..._
I've also been IN a suit of full plate, and taken a full-power hit from a maul and from a Mace, before the ban. Sure, it's fine if they hit the middle of a plate, esp. if they hit right on the crown (if it's got one), but near the edges they plate can be made to flex inward: which is still better than being hit on bare flesh, but still hurts like heck; had the weapon been steel, I've no doubt it'd have broken my ribs.
bearing in mind that, with a wooden analog of the same general dimensions and weight as a steel weapons, but fully blunt, hits come much harder and faster than would be safe with real steel (and being safe is key in this hobby/sport).
I liken it to the difference between point-sports martial arts like TKD, compared to systems designed for actual combat: it's night and day, and comes with pitfalls...
@@lady_draguliana784 I see, and how much did those wooden replicas weighted? The historical one handed maces and war hammers I have seen from museums and comercial reproductions are in the range of one handed swords, or maybe slightly heavier (no more than a few hundred grams).
@@kevinlobos5519 a 'few hundred grams' is about right for a small-sword or rapier, not a longsword (unless you're talking a modern HEMA sparring longsword, maybe, but certainly not a typical historical example). these wooden weapons match up pretty well with the weight of a longsword, at about 2.5-3lbs (1-1.5kg), keeping in mind that they often include steel full-hand cages, similar to a Scottish Backsword's, AND that, by volume, Rattan is less weighty than Steel, and it's also softer.
the mace analogs were just longsword analogs with a bundle of something (usually carpet, with some hard plastic to make a clear sound when a hit lands on armor, called a "clacker", wrapped in 1-2 layers of duct tape) at the end, but the whole weapon still had to come in under the max-weight limit of a 1-handed weapon, which is the same for all 1-handed weapons (which varies regionally, but the largest I've seen is 2.27kg (5lbs), keeping in mind that almost no-one builds their weapons that heavy, whatever their pattern, usually aiming to make their weapons as light as possible while meeting the minimum size requirements (nothing can fit through a standard face guard)).
since historical maces were typically around 3-5lbs, it fits pretty perfectly into the weight ranges: yet made of a softer material, and lacking the force-multiplication of the flanges, they were still able to bend, dent, and crack quality steel armor, such that fighters usually have a separate set of armor for 'show' and tourneys b/c regular use can destroy even the highest quality armor when full-force blows are raining on them.
@@lady_draguliana784 I wish I could do some stuff like that. It all sounds very entertaining, although expensive as hell.
Maybe I'm ignorant of something but I'm having a hard time buying the idea that wooden handle with rolled carpet and plastic can wreck quality metal armor, especially modern hardened steel. I supose you don't have any video proof of that or something similar happening?
I like this split screen thing to show period art relevant to what he's talking about. More of that, please. Not that Matt's not a captivating speaker on his own, but it keeps my attention better and provides more info. I'd even like little on screen citations for where and when the illustrations come from, but I'm probably weird in that.
Matt, you seriously overestimate the popularity of the all-metal family of flanged maces and underestimate that second family of these weapons - metal-head-and-wooden-haft maces, popular East of Germany. And those couldn´t have been as pricey as their all-metal cousins.
11:45 - That was my understanding as well, that it works best as a cavalry weapon. I wanted to ask you about it, but I'm glad I waited!
I feel like the mace against full plate would still be highly effective everywhere but the breast, spaulders, and cuiss, and helms depending on the style. That is one of the issues with re-enactment research, you are trying REALLY hard not to break arms, knees, elbows, clavicles (not so much in full plate), any of the things which in a real fight, you might immediately think to disable with a blunt melee weapon to disable a foe. The Persian breaking of swords is not at all dissimilar from Chinese maces that were popular during the era of bronze weaponry, and earlier steel, sometimes in conjuction with a hooksword or hook buckler. The flanges could also be used to hook, to a degree, on parts of enemy armor or possible shield, and to catch a blade with a parry and some kind of hooking movement. I think the whole idea is that they seem like just blunt force, but actually have numerous tactical uses that an enemy is likely much less prepared for than more common weapons.
Pietro Monte specifically wrote that powerful two-handed mace/club blows struck from the saddle would do great work wherever they landed. His mace/club was more of what we'd call a warhammer.
@@b.h.abbott-motley2427 Oh that is large two-handed, yeah that amount of force, on horseback, can't be stopped by armor.
Thank you for this video ! It's really nice to see erratums like this.
Maces against maille is just a horrifying thing to think about.
It's not nearly as bad as people assume, maile is pretty good against bludgeoning--but it's not great.
Polish nobility apparently preferred the mace when going out at night to the sword. Flanged maces were better for cracking armor and shattering bones, since the force of the blow was concentrated on a smaller area.
An additional reason the mace is a good cavalryman's backup weapon is that daggers are almost impossible to use effectively from horseback, while a mace can be used quite well.
For a footman there is little reason to carry a mace when the dagger is already available as areliable and effective backup, for a cavalryman the dagger is almost useless, so they'd want something to use after the sword breaks.
Think about modern amateur boxing. They wore helmets for sometime then got rid of them and lightened the gloves because the braIn still rattled around inside the skull even if the outside was well protected.
I bet even with the best helmet a hard stroke to the side of back of the head would at the very least be disorienting, and that any sort of reduction in awareness on a battlefield would likely lead to taking more and more hits.
Plus, symbolic weapons often start getting tarted up pretty quickly to increase their perceived value. I suspect that anything that has a design that is mainly practical is still probably being used as a weapon and that, therefore, it still was useful.
They were soldiers. No one is carrying around heavy kit if it isn't useful.
Let’s not forget the church big wigs also use the mace but they wear no armour. It’s a weapon than can be used safely in crowds such as church or the market without hurting bystanders. It also helps when taking prisoners for ransom.
Trench raiding clubs were maces used with great effect in a certain context. You might take it when you sneak over to the enemy trench even though you could use a knife or gun. There must be some advantages in the extreme close combat of trench fighting.
Yup, a rifle with a bayonet on the end is hard to maneuver in the cloese quarters of trenches so people got creative. It would also be quiter than a knife for taking out something like a sleeping enemy sentry during a trench raid. One good hit from a flanged mace in the head and you're no getting up, probably ever again lol..
As you both agreed, a mace can knock out an armoured knight, a sword cannot--unless you expose yourself by wrestling on a battlefield.
Dequitem's video was poorly constructed. Buhurt maces are LEGALLY LIGHT because they're DANGEROUS to armoured men--when all other weapons are ridiculously HEAVIER than historical examples.
Maces are mostly an intermediate anti-armour weapon, clearly less designed for it than a hammer or a pick.
The legendary hussite "hejtman" Jan Žižka from Trocnow is traditionally depicted with a mace (called "palcát" in Czech). He was one of the most ingenious battlefield tacticians, defeating multiple crusades sent against Bohemia, never losing a battle.
This is an ok overview, but it neglects to mention a number of sources & facts. As I've commented previously & I know you're aware, John Vernon wrote in the early 17th century that mounted arquebusiers could do little against cuirassiers by using swords, so they needed to carry pollaxes. (I assume these pollaxes were short cavalry versions.) Vernon's cuirassiers wore three-quarters harness plus a buff coat that offered some protection to the lower legs, while his mounted arquebusiers wore only a buff coat, breastplate, backplate, & helmet. A cavalry axe isn't identical to a flanged mace, but it occupies the same basic role. In the middle of the 16th century, Juan Quijada de Reayo did write that men-at-arms should use estoc & sword before the hammer. While it's possible the dynamics partially armored cavalry facing more heavily armored cavalry change the equation, it's just as likely that Quijada de Reayo & Vernon simply had different ideas about the best way to incapacitate an armored horseman.
As far as striking horses goes, Pietro Monte recommended doing this with a hammer used in both hands that he called a mace or club. (The description is more like what we'd call a hammer.) He indicated that using this hammer to strike the horse's skull with both hands was the best way to deal with a foe who has a strong horse. He additionally noted this hammer could knock a weapon from the enemy's hand & do great work wherever its blows landed. He wrote about estocs & swords as well for armored combat, but I see no clear evidence he thought his sort of hammer inferior to the estoc/sword for combat between men-at-arms. He praised this hammer. It was a bit longer than the typical cavalry impact weapons that show up in collections, so it's not exactly the same as a flanged or the like. But it does give a sense of the utility of an impact weapon for cavalry.
The last about flanged maces being more effective against lamellar or mail-&-plate armor & used for that reason strikes me as dubious. In the 1548 treatise commonly attributed to Raimond de Fourquevaux, the mace appears as one of the standard weapons for men-at-arms in the context of Western Europeans fighting Western Europeans. Similarly, Monte endorsement of the hammer ("mace" or "club") as a cavalry weapon comes in the context of mounted dueling (or some such arranged fighting) in full plate armor. A flanged mace way well be more effective against Ottoman armor, but that doesn't mean it developed for that purpose. As I recall, Bertrandon de la Broquière didn't recommend flanged maces for fighting the Ottoman, though he did note that he thought the Ottoman maces he saw could knock out a man through a helmet if swung freely.
I suspect the effectiveness of flanged maces & such like short impact weapons varies based on the details of the armor & combatants involved. A particularly strong man-at-arms on a strong horse might do well with a mace, especially against foes who wore lighter helmets.
Place a ballistic gel dummy in armor and wack it a few times, the blunt force will impact through armor quite nicely and bruise and break things, try it you'll like it just like Mikey
Took me a few seconds to figure out, what "playtahma" means.
That comes from Austria.
Thank you for bringing up that the flanged mace would make an excellent backup weapon, or a weapon of submission.
With poleaxes, swords, one handed axes, warhammers, and spears being so prevalent, it's highly unlikely a kitted up knight of that era would go into battle with a mace as his primary. I'm sure he trained with it of course, but video games and myths have really overstated the effect of maces on plate armor in battle.
I agree most with the theory that it was most popular with Calvary as the sidearm of it's time. Interesting take.
Also, it makes perfect sense that the flanged mace be used against mail users. You may have his the nail on the head with this hypothesis.
Also, I would have mentioned in the video to not confuse the mace against right now with a Warhammer against those are two very different things. Yes you strike with both of them but the force is more concentrated on the head of the hammer or on the tip of a spike if it has a spike. I feel like someone would have brought up the well how come warhammers are effective than argument so I figured I'd go ahead and say something. Someone else probably already beat me to it though.
I watched the video of dequitem using a flanged mace. On a battlefield, a third or fourth guy walking up to them struggling could quickly bash knees, elbows, point of shoulder, and so quickly reduce his target to a prisoner for ransom. It would hurt to get hit like that, stunning the joints, ending the fighting.
The latest theory/teaching on use of the mace, possibly even from you, was to target the joints of plate armor for the purpose of restricting movement, i.e. bend thinner armor so that you can no longer effectively bend your arm, elbow, or even a knee. Is that in error?
So even the joints in plate armor are tough enough to where they need to take quite a beating before they really start to restrict movement, and that’s when they’re constructed in a way that could bind if the plates are deformed.
I took a brick to my face back in high school when I was around 25 feet up on roof of a tree house. It crushed the right side of my face. That was in 1968 spring time full eclipse of the Moon that night. 3 weeks on Demerol massive doses 2 8-hour surgeries to reset the bones and remove all the splinters. I still have side effects at 73 years old.
So, a mace can be a deadly weapon if used at the right time. Off to my side here at the computer I have a short-handled machinist hammer with a three-pound head if someone managed to smash through very heavy doors, as this house was built in the 1880's. I have many nasties in this room to use as needed the hammer is the first as it can be thrown down the stairwell if they have a firearm, my carbine is the next closest.
dammit you're ruining maces for me
And I did it for Matt Easton 😅 I am sorry!
@@dequitem _shakes fist at you_
Couldn't agree with you more, the mace would be a secondary weapon. Museums have some fascinating examples of European and Asian maces, with some from Africa. The length, weight and even some double headed maces like the Indian Tabar- Shispar. Cavalry, as you said, seem to be the principle users, but African and Asian maces seem to be used by infantrymen, whereby the elongated handle gives extra reach, like the Gurz from India. Fascinating subject. In the UK we are spoilt for museums and collections from all over the world. Considering maces have been found being 4,500-5,000 years old, there are a lot of them out there. Thanks for posting.
1. Swords break even with modern steel and modern heat treatment.
2. A mace (or bulawa) is a simbol of presitential power in Ukraine even today.
I love it when someone can say "I was wrong and here's why..." with such joy and enthusiasm!
A mace is only a D6, a long sword is a D10. Enough said.
Thank you Sir! That was a great video.
If you didn't repeat everything 20 times, this could been a 5 min vid.
Wordy, a lot of blah blah blah
I made a flanged mace years ago, using modern metal working tools (MIG welder, industrial cutting tools, etc.). Even with all of the modern tools to speed up the process, it’s still a difficult process to make a modestly elaborate flanged mace. Aside from welding, I’ve been dabbling in blacksmithing for roughly 20 years. To be honest, I don’t even know where I would start if I wanted to make a flanged mace with traditional techniques (FYI, I’m not asking for a dozen explanations on how to traditionally make a mace. You know who you are, thanks for the thought though.)
A battlefield in this era would have a variety of soldiers in a variety of kit. A fully armored knight might encounter another fully armored knight on the field occasionally, but most often he fought against soldiers with lesser armor.
Awesome vid!!!
A few possible things to add.
When you're on a horse the only real target with a mace vs a footman is their head. So way easier to ifnlict damage in that case than with a dagger.
Also might be better than a sword in very close combat say you're surrounded you can indiscriminately swing at everything in range. Which might help open a path to get out of there.
And very rarely maybe in a siege to smash things. Like door handles or doors etc.
I guess in China the mace evolved into the sword breaker?
Also aren't Indian maces on the larger end?
I know in Hindu myth two of the great heroes have a mace duel.
Bhima vs Duryodhana.
Dequitem is the best. love that channel. 👍
Amazing video! That just shows how important it is, especially in science and research, to always gather all information you can get (and even more;) and then take a lot of time to deeply think about it. Then start to create as many theories you can possibly come up with and only then with the data and your logic formulate conclusions. Sounds reasonable but we sometimes forget our basics :)