Two well-read recent threads and an epiphany.
While we talked about our awl-sword or Panzerstecher or whatever the thing was, and then talked about the new repros of the Mispronounski choppers, did anyone happen to notice the surprising similarities between
THIS:
[ Linked Image ]

AND THIS?
[ Linked Image ]

Three hundred years of seperation and a slight migration in form and function, but the similarities are surpising, don't you think?

Before, when talking about the two-handed Maciejowski chopper, it would be written off as a broken glave because we had nothing else to compare it to. We also had nothing to compare our 16th century armor-piercer to, either. That is no longer the case. :cool:

We have a new weapon on our hands, one that (very interestingly) follows the same migration from wide, thin-bladed chopper to narrower, thick-bladed piercer that virtually all swords do during the same period. And I have to wonder if we won't find more of these fellows burried in the iconography sometime in the future. :D

You may be able to find something of interest in this thread: http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...light=falx

I remember that thread -though I remembered it being a little shorter when I read it last. :p

But at that time, we hadn't come across anything that so closely resembled the maciejowski weapon in blade profile and --more importantly-- in grip-to-blade proportion. Reminds me of the... how was it called in japan... nakigama?

nagamaki naoshi was a kind of shorter shafted pole arm. Looked not dissimilar in purpose to these European ones, bit like a Japanese naginata but blade shaped more like katana and short 2-4ft pole. I think they were mostly used pre-1500. Don't know whether they were designed for horseback or foot though.

Were the ones depicted in the first picture for tournaments or trials of arms ?

There's a point to be made about the overall dimensions, but I think we're looking at vastly different "blades". The chopper is clearly a sword-like cutting blade, while the other weapon is clearly a spike of square or triangular cross-section (notice that we can see two facets or faces of this "blade" no matter which side we view it from).

I agree with Sean they seem to different in blade form and handle. The top ones look more like a type of tournament weapon. The bottom ones look different in style.

Thank you for that comment, Thomas. Yes that makes sense on the shortening, 'naoshi' being from 'naosu'. Some shorter (maybe shortened ? ) polearms I've seen have been marked as nagamaki naoshi rather than blades converted into swords. Perhaps that's an incorrect label or maybe the handle or tang was shortened in some way but still a polearm? Are all the ones descibed as naoshi you've seen converted into a different type of weapon ?