ALL Medieval & Renaissance POLEARMS or Staff Weapons CATEGORIZED
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- Опубліковано 18 лип 2021
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In this extra length feature video I attempt to define and categorize ALL the main types of medieval and renaissance polearms (AKA staff weapons).
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Is this the end of Raid shadow legends?
What is the difference between spontoon & Partisan?
Was not that halberd you showed as an early halberd a Voulge, it's my understanding that a Glaive is mounted on the end of the haft, but a Voulge is mounted to the side on the haft?
Is it not polaxe? Pol-axe (head-axe) not pole-axe (our good friend on modern history TV is most decisive about this point)
Is the mallet not called a maul? A leaden maul I have read about in sources but not a mallet, English archers did have them I forget where I read it but it was in an account of agincourt where mauls were sometimes used to hammer roundel daggers through gorgets, I could be mistaken in this recollection but I am modestly confident in it.
Ketten means chains or in more modern times, tracks (kettenkrad)
I think that last one you pointed to its a modified duelling sword (a kind of sword with an axe head on one side half way along it)
I think you have forget the Swordstaff
Nice to see a more relevant sponsor again.
That said, you do whatever you need to do to get paid, to be able to continue putting out excellent content.
:)
Why did they change their name? The Great Courses Plus is a much better name. (I'm not expecting anyone here knows, just shouting at the screen.)
"Let's look at every single medieval polearm ever used." My immediate thought, "Wait, how long is this is video?"
The word "is" has invaded your thoughts.
I thought the same exact thing 🤣🤣🤣
"concise"
I'm like "ALL" that's a bold statement. Then immediately we get the caveats... :(
All I know is, I’m four and a half minutes into this.. I’m finally able to stop all the inappropriate jokes that flood my mind as he’s describing shafts, and thrusting, and such.. Then he has to say “length of pole matters” (paraphrasing) 🤣🤣
It’s been a long day.. don’t judge.
I died with that sudden cut, you were going to keep talking about pike and shoot warfare but this was suposed to be concise xDD never change matt
But it was Contextual wasn't it P
Kette indeed means chain. One of our terms for hauberk is Kettenhemd, wich literally means chain shirt.
Isn’t kette also used for necklace?
@@jacobmyers3868 only if it's a chain necklace.
Same in Dutch 🇳🇱 we use Keten ✌🏻
@@jacobmyers3868kind of - we have the term „Halskette“ , literally meaning „neck chain“. You also find the the diminutive “Kettchen”, meaning “little chain”.
It may be used in a more broad sense (for all kinds of necklace, like woven wire and such) today, but that is where the expression comes from originally.
@@jacobmyers3868 it also means track as in tracked vehicle.
"Bohemian ear spoon" is in Czech "ušatá sudlice" for which a better and more literal translation would be "A lance with ears" or something like that
oh that actually makes sense
This is why Matt holds the honourary rank of 'Staff' Sergeant.
Take your upvote and go.
Lmao
I'm pretty sure he was promoted a Shaft Sergeant recently.
If you're looking for something specifically:
3:10 Spear
5:17 Pike
6:50 Boar Spear - Winged Spear - Bohemian earspoon
13:30 Spiedo - Cutting Spear - Hewing Spear
14:17 Partisan - Partizan - Protazan
16:12 Corsec - Spetum - Runka
19:57 Ahlspieß - Ahlspiess
22:20 Dane Axe - Great Axe
23:35 Halberd
27:10 Bardiche - Bardische - Berdish - Geesam
28:50 Lochaber axe
30:10 Poleaxe
33:54 War hammer - Lucerne hammer
35:44 Mallet - Maul
37:44 Billhook - Ronca
41:48 Glaive - Kuss
47:22->48:30 Morgenstern - Holy Water Sprinkler
52:03 Goedendag
53:21 Flail - Kettenmorgenstern - Ketten Flail
Bonus:
55:29 Scythe - War Scythe
56:06 Fork - Pitchfork
57:04 other
Thanks my dude
18:50 langue de boeuf
I was looking for the Bec de Corbin. Disappointing it didn't make the list.
My introduction to polearms was AD&D PHB.
This is the way
I’m Scottish,we get introduced to these when very young
Matt: "Now, medieval pole arms, before I start running you through..."
Me: "please don't"
Matt: "...the list"
Me: "oh."
The 'Goedendag' is still famous in Flanders, but for some reason nearly everyone thinks it was a flail.
That's a funny name for a brutal weapon 😜
Or as Matt calls it: ketten morgenstern. And yes, ketten means chain.
It is one of the earliest multipurpose infantry weapons. The spike could be used to hold off cavalry and the heavy two handed blows could do some serious injury to knights even in full hauberk. It was also relatively easy and cheap to make and was more effective than farming tools.
@@uncanny_bassman It means "good day". :oP
**Stab!** **Smack!** I said good day, sir!
By now I expected him to call this a "short video" 😆
No no no, that would be the video on one handed pole weapons.
Nah, this video is at least man-height in length.
"Bohemian Ear Spoon" sounds like it's making exactly the same joke as calling a Bowie Knife an "Arkansas Toothpick"
I might be missing a joke here, but there is actually style of bowie knife called Arkansas toothpick. Also, if I am not mistaken, in Czech republic we call the Bohemian ear spoon "sudlice ušatá". I am not sure about the meaning of the first word, the second one means roughly "with ears".
@@janbernad4729 Oops yes, Arkansas. Texas Toothpick is another traditional American knife, but a small one not a big Bowie.
Calling a big sturdy knife a toothpick is the joke. As if one would use it for a dainty personal hygiene task. Likewise an ear spoon is a small tool for cleaning your ears.
@@cargo_vroom9729 oh I see it now, English is not my first language, so thanks for explanation
@@janbernad4729 Does this wiki article clarify anything? It's something of a jumble in English translation, but seems relevant. cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudlice
Fancy meeting you here!
Imagine a spinoff polearm channel called "The Big Long Shaft"
Matt’s Hard Wood Shafts
'He's a baaad motha-...' 'Shut your mouth!'
Penetration station
As for the Ahlspieß (Ahlspiess) the german "ie" is a lenghtened german i and sounds like the english "ee" (in free)
The "Ahl" commes from the "Ahle" which the dictionary tells me is called awl in english. So it's an Awl-spear.
Kettenmorgenstern: Ketten is plural for Kette which is a chain. So: Chainmorningstar.
German is quite descriptive.
Chuchichästli
Entgegensprechanlage
Antibabypille. Always gets me laughing.
In the fantasy game 'das schwarze Auge' a Kettenmorgenstern is called a 'Dreschflegel', I guess that's the name of the agricultural tool but maybe you have fun pronouncing it, it means thrash (whacking, in case I got the word thrashing wrong) flail, 'flegel' today means a rude person, so not sure what word came from what here.
I've seen it called an awlpike in English before.
"I could make a whole dedicated video just talking about spear types." Easton, Matt. Please do it!
Yes! I would totally listen to Matt talking about spears for hours!
The naming of pointy sticks is surprisingly controversial among experts, enthusiasts and even people in the past. I obviously haven't seen the whole thing yet but I am curious to see your take on the matter.
Perfect shitstorm starter :D
One might say there's quite a few sticking points in describing polearms.
The Type XXXVII-Q pointy stick is the best pointy stick. Change my mind.
@@coreys2686 It's a very polarising issue. People can get very up in arms about it.
Well they can be classified into pokey choppy and whacking sticks
The Poleaxe is my favorite polearm, and I am happy to learn that the different combinations can be called the same name. :D
Where was this video when I was trying to figure out how to arm my character in AD&D in 1983?! :)
Glaive guisarme, guisarme voulge, guisarme guisarme ........oh yes, it all comes painfully back. :D
Hello Matt, Luzerner Hammer is called as it is not because this was "a Swiss thing", it is called Luzerner Hammer because of a massive find of this type of weapon near the city of Luzern. It is a relative new name from the 19. century. Back in the days it was simply known as "hammer"...
I hope they at least called it something like a long hammer or the like because I could see a guy trying to set nails asking for a hammer and responding with "Well I suppose technically this could be something I asked for but this is not quite what I wanted"
...can't touch this !
The flail itself is also agricultural in origin
I have a wooden one from before WWll.
Bohemian earspoon was a jokey name similar to how certain large daggers were called Texas toothpicks.
maybe :) or perhaps it was for swinging laterally at the side of a guys head? or perhaps it actually resembles some medieval tableware and we dont get the reference?
Or maybe people used them for clearing their ears in peace time
@@markhill3858 Earspoons or other spatula-shaped tools made of metal are toilet requisites for clearing your ears from earwax and are the size of your ear canal at the tip. Until the introduction of qtips they were used at least since the bronze age and are still widly used in India and other parts of Asia afaik.
In early 15th cent. the Hussites from Bohemia used their spears to clean the ears of german knights quite successfully (at least those who received the treatment didn't complain any more)
Also I read, the Hussites called their war flails "Scorpions" because they hit their targets out of the blue just like the animal.
.As far as I know it's the "Arkansas Toothpick", which is a very narrow, symmetrical, double edged dagger that is used predominatly for thrusting at your opponent whereas the typical Bowie Knife is a single edged "Messer" kind of blade that offers considerable cutting/hacking/slashing capabilities, that are in the bigger versions used similarly to a short sword. The fighting style with an Arkansas Toothpick is quite different from that with a Bowie knife. Of course such fine detail were no longer of great concern after Col. Colt made all men equal thanks to him inventing and making generally available the Sixshooter.
this is going to be the best hour of my life.
The Madman Matt did the impossible,polearms toponomastic!
Me: I really do like pole arms. I gotta keep studying and stay off you tube though.
Schaolagladitoria: Hold my beer.
LOL
Mat : before i start running you through.....
And yes he is talking about big pointy sticks...
Short spear : shorter than a man (12ft)
Here's a guide to the weapons mentioned:
4:37 Short-spear
5:16 Pike
6:47 Winged spear (Bohemian Ear-Spoon)
13:29 Spiede (broad-headed spear)
14:14 Partisan
16:11 Corseque/Runca/Spetum
18:47 Ox-tongue
19:58 Ahlspiess (awl pike)
22:29 (not exclusively) Dane axe
23:35 Halberd
27:11 Bardiche/Guisarme
28:50 Lochaber axe
30:10 Poleaxe/Pollaxe (which does not necessarily include an axe)
34:29 Lucerne hammer
35:43 Mallet (hammer-spear)
37:43 Bill (numerous variations, including ronca)
41:48 Glaive/Voulge (sword-headed pole)
48:36 Morningstar (polearm version), Holy Water Sprinkler
52:11 Godendag
53:25 Flail
55:43 War scythe (scythe version of glaive)
56:07 Military fork
57:04 miscellaneous unnamed objects
"Kette" is indeed German for chain, relating to 53:40
Swedish being a german languge I can tell you that "kätting" is a Swedish word for chain
Same in Dutch 🇳🇱 which is "Keten".
@@ex0ne and kätting, at least today refers specifically to a utility chain used like medium-heavy ropes and cables while a smaller chain like the safety chain on an appartment door, a hanging flower pot or kitchen ceiling lamp is called kedja and fine jewlery chains are refered to as länk (eng. link)
If I'm not mistaken, the Ahlspiess is called awl pike in English.
That would make sense.
Mount and blade online flashbacks
True. As a german i can say german and english language are not so different than many personsthink.
@@brittakriep2938 Old English and German look practically identical. Only after the linguistic revolution after Middle English did it start to really become its own language. When dealing with historical stuff, translations are easy. Nowadays, it's hard to believe that this is even related to Old English.
BTW the spieß part would is pronounced more like spees. Overall the german ie is a lot like the english ee.
If "kuss" appears in the early 15th century, it could be from the Czech "kúsa" (from "kosa", the Czech word for scythe; it was used in Hussite wars).
I think everything Matt calls Glaves can be reffered as Kůsa in Czech...
Easton "Concise".
Video length - an hour.
Yep, checks out.
Super interesting video. I knew of most of the weapons described, but their names and groupings in my head were REALLY off :) Thank you for clearing things!
Getting a handle on this terminology, thanks.
Has your handle got langets though?
"I'm going to talk about every medieval pole arm ever in just under an hour."
Wow. Way to poke the bear.
I will give you this, you are not even a little bit fainthearted.
(Matt disappears under an avalanche of "Well, actually..." and "You missed...")
The Lucerne is best used whilst wearing a Leo Ring, to get that sweet buff to thrust counterattack damage.
Holy water sprinkler is called an aspergill which does look similar to a mace. And also to a mould fungus under the microscope, therefore named aspergillus fungus.
When talking about hammer poleaxe you didn’t mention (or I totally miss it) my favorite: the Bec de Corbin (and its “bigger” version the Bec de Fauchon). Similar to a lucern hammer but in my opinion a quite different and more beautiful pole weapon .
I thought that too, but it really is just a variation of a pollaxe when you think about it. But I am surprised he didn’t mention it. But at least my beautiful glaives did lol
"Bardiche" - thanks for the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha flashbacks 😀
A little correction about the word "Spiedo", it's probably not derived from the same etymon as "spear" but it came from the latin word "spiga". Today "spiga" in italian means "ear of corn" but at the time it could also mean "spike", and "Spiedo" nowadays means "skewer".
In norwegian spyd = spear and å spidde = to skewer.
I would watch a whole video on spears. I would watch several in fact.
This video has big Dark Age of Camelot energy. That MMO had tons of love for polearms, all sorts of odd ones like lochaber's and lucene's along with halberds, bills, pikes, pollaxes, bardiches, and volgues were in there.
Finally a good sponsor. You bring honor to your Daimyo, Matt.
Hey Matt! French speaker from Quebec here!
I wanted to add a little bit on the glaive word complication. In the early mid 20th century in France, when people in the mainstream were not so keen on researching historical accuracy in litterature, terms like "épée longue" ou "épée bâtarde" were not taken too seriously regarding sword shapes and "glaive" was more or less used for all sorts of sword shapes and sizes (I've even seen stuff like "glaive à deux mains" meaning two-handed glaive, when talking about a zweihander). This most likely comes from the fact that pretty much all the school history books refer to the Roman gladius, the Xiphos, Kopis and virtually all the Germanic and proto-germanic and Keltic swords as simply "glaives". Therefore, glaive has not only been used to describe a short or arming sword, but it has been used to describe most types of swords in Europe, really. Today not as much, as the more accurate terms have made their way to the mainstream, but you still can still see "glaive" used in modern mainstream books like the French traduction of the Witcher novels, where "glaive" is used to describe all types of swords and even some forms of sabers if I recall, perpetrating the confusion further even more...
Irritatingly, “glaive” can also refer to a large shuriken; I wasn’t able to find much on why, but it seems like it may have been in a 1983 movie called Krull. This usage of the term is common in video games and fiction, and I hate it.
I very much appreciate the fact that you decided to include even the names of these polearms in other languages: in fact, as an Italian, i didn't know some of the names in my native language and i knew them only in English, due to a more easy access to english sources about the argument (including UA-cam channels); so thank you very much Matt.
The swedish swordspear is pretty interesting in itself… you should do a video on norwegian 16 - 17th century peasant axes… much like dane axes, but with a kink
How do you not love this channel?
Just got back from hanging out with Tod, maybe thought I'd whip out a quick documentary length compendium on the finer points of roughly three hundred years worth of military staff weapons.
You are doing what Ian does, and it's right. Your channel is becoming a library for edged weapons of every available flavor and time period. Even outside HEMA. But what's cool about that approach is that by saving these things for posterity, is that your channel, aptly named School of the Blade, is in the process of becoming a historic treatises by itself. UA-cam is the new printing press, and repository of the past for future generations.
I didn't fight in WW2, but I can tell you all about most of it in detail. Why? Because of the books that were made available to me as a kid.
Thirty years from now we might not be making anymore books, but the world may have access to Matt's channel, and thus these things are passed on.
The only reason we have any martial art, is because someone thought it might be wise, in the interest of humanity, and his proclivity towards war, to write some of this stuff down. 'Other people may need to use this,' is a pretty noble motive.
Literally be a school.
You already are...
as you have mentioned many interesting names, there's one you've missed: a Roßschinder, could be translated with horse-mauler. It's used for Italian bills in (of course) the HRE.
First Rob Schneider was a Pike, then he was a Bec-De-Corbin. Now Rob Schneider is a Roßschinder!
(Yes, I know it's pronounced like a long S, but c'mon guys; someone had to make the joke, right?)
Obviously used to collect the raw material for mortadella ?!!
The morning Star. When you need a pole weapon but spent all your money on Wenches.
101 types of dagger/knife on a stick. Cheers Matt.
Isn't the flail not also derived from an agricultural tool for thrashing grains?
Yes a grain thrash was sometimes used like a polearm.
But I wouldn't really consider it one in the same way you don't consider a pickaxe or a felling ax to be one.
@@generalvictorironraven.1347
Actual farming bills being used in war almost always are accepted as polearms though, I always wondered why the same wasn't extended to mining picks and felling axes that also were pressed into service.
Kind of! But it's more like the grain thrash is an ancestor to the flail more than a relative. It's kind of like considering the hewing axe as the craftsman ancestor to the military bardiche. Same kind of idea of a wide axe blade with a lot of cutting potential, and was likely to be hanged on a longer pole to transform it into a makeshift pole weapon in times of war, but it had to undergo a substantial amount of changes to be fit for the military (thinner cross section, extra support at the base of the blade to allow more strength with a longer, curvier blade with a thinner cross section).
In truth, all the military weapons have some sort of origins in the trades and agricultural tools because that's what people had in their hands 12 hours a day, that's what they knew and could base themselves off of instead of trying to come up with entirely new weapon systems. Tradespeople were practical and pragmatic people. If something they already had could be only slightly modified to become a valid weapon system, they would not be likely to reinvent the wheel and would stick to what they knew how to make and tweak them until they were more suited for the military.
I just call them murder sticks. No need for complication.
That would be the so called "gutten tag"
They come in so many flavors.
The German word for pollaxe is murder axe (Mordaxt)
Isn't the Holy Water Sprinkler named after a ceremonial tool that priests used to sprinkle holy water?
That's what I thought as well.
I though its obvious but maybe nowadays people dont know about religious stuff
Perhaps I wasn't paying attention, which is very possible, but did you gloss over the guisarme naming conventions?
9:16 So glad you mentioned my favourite name of polearm!
I have been wanting a video about all the different polearms for some years now.
Somehow I knew that if someone from the community was to make this type of video, it was going to be you.
Long, comprensive, categorized and with comments. Thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
The winged speer is much older: there are many examples e.g: from around 700/750 (Frankish, in Württembergisches Landesmuseum Stuttgart) and also earlier surviving winged spear heads from Frankish Graves of the 7. and 8. century. The winged spear (Flügellanze) was a common typ of weapon used by the Frankish cavallery (and often depicted in period Frankish art)...
Bec De Corbin, which is just a Lucerne Hammer that has a spike opposite that is shaped specifically to resemble a Crow's Beak. Which is the French translation. It was prolific enough that it was standardized complete with drawings for a blacksmith to produce all portions of its weapons features. I believe that Fabrique Nationale still have surviving examples of the blueprints in their armament museum. Since they trace their origins back to being a Frankish armory, before Belgium existed as a separate country.
lmao 6:30 the abrupt cut as he starts rambling.
"No! Not enough! More polearms!" - Gary Gygax
Matt "... it carried on right on in into the age of pike & shot, hinse the name, where you have..."
Me "An obvious jump cut!"
Lol
Hey, have we met in the comments before? I know I've seen your name, but I can't remember if you've seen mine...
@@cyrilgigee4630 i think we have
Wait, I need to make coffee for this video!
Hi, awesome work! I've got a little comment on agricultural tools becoming weapons. The long flails that was used by Husites were originally used for beating the wheat to separate the corn, if I'm correct. Cheap ready made peasant weapon to start your uprising :) Just spice it up with some spikes and there you go.
So basically, if something existed, someone, somewhere probably put it in a pole and added a topspike.
Or a form of wings (one could even see the disk guard of the Ahlspiess as a form of wings)
Great Video Matt, Pole-arms never get enough love in media! Just an honourable mention, but Jeddart staves/axes from the Scottish borders in the 15th to mid 17th centuries are fun. There are only one or two surviving examples, though they are mentioned in legislation and other records fairly often. Its like glaive in that its basically a staff with a sword on the end with a handguard and langets, but the blade seems to have been quite long and slender for most glaives. I've seen some speculation that they were maybe intended to be used on foot and on horseback like a sort of lance, but i don't know of any sources that describe them used that way and we know borderers used lighter lances on horseback too, so I'm a bit unconvinced.
the wings of the wing spear was the cross guard of it.
Lol that transition at 6:30. That was a whole tangent that got cut, wasn't it?
Extremely helpful video as always. I’ve enjoyed your content for a long time now. May I recommend having the terms appear on screen, however? Had trouble spelling a lot of these.
re:glaive as sword - growing up and reading Asterix comics in French, the roman gladius was always referred to as "un glaive", and so I was confused when I recently started watching channels like yours and hearing "glaive" refer to the polearm form.
And don't even start on video games and movies where "glaive" seems to mean some sort of multi-bladed thing that is often thrown.
@@Nerdsammich ah yes I believe Warframe is guilty of that
@@bassemb In WoW, a "warglaive" consists of a small buckler-looking thing with a large blade at top and bottom.
"Every medieval polearm categorized"
I think the youtube algorithm figured out I'm an aspie
Wow! What an undertaking and in less than an hour!! Well done, sir, you have my utmost respect, as always!!
Bills are sometimes also known as Will or William. Some famous Bills or Willaims were Shakespears and Shatner,. I'll see myself out now.
You deserve to get shafted for those jokes.
Matt Easton doing god's work once again 👏👏👏
I surprised he didn't include the many different types of man catchers or at least count them amongst the other polearms.
I thought about including man-catchers, but in Europe they seem to have been really rare compared to the main types of polearm.
About the morning star:
- the name holy water sprinkler comes from the fact that it looks like a giant version of the holy water sprinklers used in catholic church service.
- Nowadays in Germany Morgenstern is mostly used for the chain and ball version of the flail and not for the club.
About the glaive:
- Kuse comes from the polnish word for scythe (kosa).
One tip:
- If you do not know the pronunciation of a foreign word. It seems that google translate may help you: simple select the correct language, enter the word and click on the listen button.
The Bohemian Ear Spoon differs from the winged spear in that it has spikes pointing straight out rather than short blunt lugs. The spikes would be the ears. I think there's an example labeled as such in the Wallace Collection. It's while since I've been so I might have seen it somewhere else.
Error in translation. "Kitten morgenstern" was a long club that someone tied a cat onto. Fortunately this practice did not last terribly long. Hissing cat fury has no place on the battlefield. The weapon was evemntually shortened and more cat-heads added to make a cat o'nine tails, which is a bit of gallows humor, as it was nine cats fastened at the tails that was an implement of torture. Please note: I am joking. I do not advocate cruelty to animals.
... A single known, thus rare engagement was recorded between a German mercenary company wielding Kitten Morgensterns (the unit was known as Kopfstoß) and Flemish irregulars from a small border village - under the command of the local magistrate Luid Bastaard - fielding a local variant of the national weapon called a 'Guten Daug', which turns out to have been a rat terrier threaded through the elongated tines of a common pitchfork. After a nearly 20 minutes of snarling and swatting, the battle had to be called a draw due to a sudden downpour.
The Katzbalger sword has possibly its name from Katzenbalg/ cat's fur.
I’ve been keeping this video in my backlog since it came out and definitely worth the wait. I sure wouldn’t mind more longform videos like this, Matt.
Thanks for a very informative video! I especially liked that you placed a lot of the weapons in an approximate historical time frame, although I'm sure it is difficult to find reliable sources for all the specialized or regional weapon variations out there.
Wait...I have to dig out my AD&D 1e Unearthed Arcana to compare this with Gygax’s appendix on pole arms. 😀
"shall I strike at it with my Partisan?" - Hamlet
As you started talking about flails, for the first time I thought about them in formation as opposed to in one on one fighting. I wonder if the articulation helped in hitting over the top of the line? I'm thinking that with a downward swing the people in front could easily block (or even just be struck) by the pole. With a non-articulated weapon that would be the end of it, guy in front gets bumped with shaft but doesn't care much because of his armor. However, with an articulated shaft suddenly the bump in front causes the end to come whipping around and potentially injure a guy in the second rank.
Mr. Matt this is really great gift for tonight. One hour. Thank You.
I was waiting for this.
Any chance of doing something similar for Asian polearms in the future? Especially Chinese polearms, there's a lot of interesting ones that are completely absent from popular culture representations.
the part around 35:00 is pretty directly contradictory to shad’s bec de corbin video
who can i trust
Wow, that was awesome. Glad you put this together.
can we talk about reverse placed axe heads? looks like some Mordäxte were turnen into Anti Flesh Unit Weapons.
So is the “maul” another name for a mallet Matt? (Presumably from malleus)
Yes :-)
Yep, but it's the honkin' big version.
My eye has been injured for awhile and I have been listeninig and an occasionally looking up to see what I can with my good eye and I just wanted to say that I love your videos. They are so good and helpful right now. Thank you for them and please more
A masterpiece. I've been waiting for someone to do a video exactly like this.
on Azza, maybe I'm wrong, but it look like a combination between the italian words:
ASCIA (axe) and MAZZA (mace)
I though that too.
So curios and intriging but it's most likely the way of saying "ascia" in old italian. They had lots of word that nowadays seems so off and hilarios: "Zuppa" (modern italian for "Soup") for "Giubba" (jacket) refearring to "Zuppa d'arme" (Gambeson, litteraly Arming Jacket) or "Zengiaro or Zenchiar" for "Cinghiale" (boar)
Surely if a pollaxe doesn't have an axe blade, it should really be called a war pick or a bec de corbin?
It doesn't need to have a pick either. It does have an upward pointy bit, which differentiates it from war hammers en war picks.
there's another use for the term 'glaive'.
In the movie 'Krull', the protagonist has a glaive, but its a thrown weapon, which has been expanded upon in the game 'Warframe'.
Also WoW. Probably others. It's become a popular term for the thrown weapon.
I think that is entirely made up and they just nicked the name.
@@ArcanisUrriah yup. It's a complete fantasy weapon. And glaive sounded cool.
There were thrown weapons about the size of the Krull glaive that were rings, very much like Xena's chakram. There's also throwing sticks like the Aborigine boomerang.
@@coreys2686 True, there are multi bladed african throwing knives as well, but don't think there is anything more than vaguely close to the Krull glaive....
I really enjoyed this long format.
Makes me think of this comic: www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0136.html
That's a classic.
I want to see Matt do a video of the glaive-glaive-glaive-guisarme-glaive 😂
can u plz do this with japanese polearms
Japanese weapons aren't his area of expertise. You'd be better off asking Metatron.
Maybe yes, though there is much less variety in Japanese polearms. Chinese polearms on the other hand... they are as varied as European.
I stand possibly corrected lol
@@scholagladiatoria i just wanna learn more about the nagamaki and the kanabo
@@scholagladiatoria and then you can not mention the sode garami (sleeve catcher) on purpose. 😉
Really appreciate the time and effort you put forth. Fascinating as always.
Being a military history student, I read story about the defense of an English (?) castle whose wall had been scaled. Two men armed with halberds defended the exits from the wall allowing other defenders to reposition themselves. Based on the flowery verbage I envisioned ninja-twirling halberds. It broke up a rather boring text on the stagnation of tactical thinking due to the ability to avoid a field fight by locking yourself in a castle.
this is my shit.
This is a glaive. No it's a cabbage chopper.
Here's a glaive. No it's a couteau de brèche.
??
Who else watched this just to see if Matt would forget something?
The only polearms I can think of that didn't get a specific mention were the fauchard and broggit staff, but both of these could be seen as alternative names for weapons that were talked about.
The mancatcher, more a non-lethal 'police' weapon than a battlefield weapon, but still a pole-arm.
An earspoon was an implement rather like a very small spoon, similar in appearance to the scrapey bit of a modern tobacco-pipe tool, which people used to clean the wax out of their ears before the invention of q-tips. The weapon name was a bit of grim humor. Why Bohemian, I don't know.
Seems like a polish joke of antiquity …the bohemians were seen as being particularly under civilized