Hi,
I'm curious to know if there are any surviving examples of pollaxes similar to those depicted in Talhoffer? I've looked through the pollaxe article and historical weapons album but there is nothing that quite matches.

I've included some pics of the pollaxe heads that i'm particularly interested in from the mark rector talhoffer. There are a wide range of rather exotic pollaxe and polearm designs in talhoffer, some seemingly less plausible than others.

Is it likely that the pollaxe depicted in talhoffer was an actual historical weapon know to the illustrator or was it "artistic license" and not meant to represent any particular weapon, but a "generic" pollaxe? Is it possible that the style of pollaxe depicted was reserved for judicial combat or dueling; a specialised item only used for a specific purpose, like the dueling shields?

Does the pollaxe depicted in talhoffer appear to be a practical and effective weapon? If it was likely to be a historical weapon would anyone care to attempt a plausible graphic reconstruction (i'm somewhat graphically challenged)?

Christopher

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I think it is meant to represent a Bec De Corbin, Which is a type of poleaxe war hammer as opposed to a type of axe blade.
http://www.myArmoury.com/view.html?features/p...eaxe18.jpg

Ha! The Pollaxe--my favorite. Very good topic.

I've never seen an extant pollaxe anywhere that exactly matches the ones in Talhoffer 1467, but there are some that come pretty close, such as the two on the far right in this picture:
http://www.myArmoury.com/view.html?features/p...eaxe18.jpg

Medieval art doesn't show too many, either, but then that's not surprising: Of the three rough categories of pollaxe (Axe+Hammer, Hammer+Spike, and Axe+Spike), the Hammer+Spike version is almost universal in the Fechtbücher but the Axe+Hammer is much more popular in the general art (and, I would argue, is used the same way as the Hammer+Spike version anyway, but that's another topic).

Still, it's very clear that the major Fechtbuch sources (except Codex 11093 and Mair) universally refer to (even when they don't show) the Hammer+Spike version (and that they called it an "axe" in spite of the fact that it didn't have an axe blade: Le Jeu de La Hache refers to it as a "Hache" and Talhoffer refers to it as an "Axt" or "Streitaxt"). That, in turn, answers your question about their functionality: They were *very* functional, and it could be argued that the pollaxe was the premier knightly weapon of the 15th century for foot combat. I focus on pollaxe combat in my Schule and I can tell you the techniques are effective and elegant.

What are you trying to figure out?

Fiore also calls it the "azza" despite the fact that he only shows the hammer + spike version.

check this book to see if its in there:

The halberd and other European polearms, 1300-1650 (Historical arms series)
by George A Snook (Author)

# : 32 pages
# Publisher: Museum Restoration Service (1998)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0919316387
# ISBN-13: 978-0919316386

i have a bec de corbin for my 15thc reenactment. love it. its a wicked tool!

I believe that pamphlet is now out of print, but available in pdf format. Here is the link.

http://virtuatheque.free.fr/The%20Halberd%20a...learms.pdf

many survive, i'll put up pictures of a few for you.

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Thanks, but that is from another sellor. It looks to be out of print. I did buy one several years ago from an amazon sellor for $10.00.

Chad Arnow wrote:

Mike West wrote: I believe that pamphlet is now out of print, but available in pdf format. Here is the link. http://virtuatheque.free.fr/The%20Halberd%20a...learms.pdf Amazon has a copy for $8.95. It's worth picking up.

Thanks. That is the first time I've seen the rest of the titles in that series. Some interestring stuff. It would be nice if they added some other types of weapons, such as medieval longswords, single handed swords, single edged swords, etc.

That book is a great indroduction to polearms. I purchased the John Waldman book, which is a much more in depth study
of polearms. It's about $139.00 currently, but I managed to see it for sale by one of amazon's sellors for $80. I'm glad I happenbd on that because I would have likely never paid the current price.

The book is called "Hafted Weapons in Medieval and Renaissance Europe." If your interested in polearms, I know of no other book that covers the topic in such depth.

Here's another surviving example, this one from the Keinbusch collection in Philadelphia:


Jeff

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Out of curiosity, are there any decent modern makers for these?

Hugh,

Why do you think the head is sperated into four on the Bec de corbins' usually? I have wondered about it for some time. It would seem a flat more hammer like head that some has would be more effective. I thought the reason the heads on jousts were seperated like this was to dissapate the energy? It would seem odd to do so with this weapon.

On a number of the pole axes I have looked at that are historic the langets are seperate slats that run under the head and the same rivits that connect the head to shaft pass through them. Does this seem to be the more common form of manufacture?

I got to work with one that was likely late 15th or 16th where I worked. Not sure if the haft was original as it was a good 7 feet or so long but the feel even with such a long shaft was that it could be a very quick and devestating weapon from just a few simple (and careful) manuvers with it. I still have pictures of it once it was cleaned and remounted.

RPM

Hugh,

I had not thought about giving the head grip. That does seem to make sense. Especially as you mentioned that some have the small waffle faces on them.

I have seen the connection where they are integral langets as well but it seems sperate ones are more common from the ones I have seen. Thanks for the picture. I think I had seen it long ago but looking at it now that is exactly perfect for an answer.

Here is a close of of two poleaxes we have and an interesting halbard. Sorry the pictures are so bad. Not sure what happened. If anyone is ever in York it is worth going into the Castle Museum by the way. They have tons of pole weapons from 15th onwards! I am not up there right now but I have taken a few people to see some of the cool stuff before, some Armoury friends included. A very nice store for early modern stuff.

RPM

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Here is a picture of a surviving example of a pollaxe similar to those depicted in Talhoffer in an antique shop for old weapons:

http://www.fricker-historische-waffen.de/html...n__44.html

some poleweapons in the backround to see:

http://www.fricker-historische-waffen.de/html...raume.html