Knightly Axes? -- myArmoury.com

Matt Lewis · Posted: Mon 19 May, 2008 7:47 am Post subject: Knightly Axes?

I have been bumping into the odd mention of such and such historical figure using axes here and there eg The Bruce at Bannockburn and I'm pretty sure I had read that Richard the Lionheart used one at some point (possibly another English king) I don't have my reaserch books/notes to hand but I'm sure that Knightly /cavalry axes were in use.

Possibly something of around or a bit longer than a single handed sword with a 'crow bill' on the back (I was imagining a sort of bastard axe )

I was wondering if anyone had any images of period pieces or furthur information on the subjest as it is something I would like to reasearch further.

I'll dig out my notes when I have a chance and post some of the examples of it's use I have stumbled across.

I just thought it may prove of interest / use to collate the info in a thread .

Thanks

M.

Scott Kowalski · Posted: Mon 19 May, 2008 8:05 am Post subject:

Matt,
This is something that I am interested in right now as well as I work on putting together a kit for the year 1300. The axe I was looking to use for an infantryman is in the following post that I started.

http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=13234

Any information that I can gather from this would be great.

Scott

Thomas Watt · Posted: Mon 19 May, 2008 2:40 pm Post subject:

Statue of Robert the Bruce mounted, with axe in hand (overlooking Bannockburn):

Image - portrait of Robert the Bruce:

Hope those help.

Antal László · Posted: Mon 19 May, 2008 3:11 pm Post subject:

Greetings,
Saint Laszlo was a hungarian king in the second half of the 11th century. He was often depicted with a battle axe. At the moment I could find only two illustrations. I don't know when where these made, but obviously in a later period then the 11th century. I am not sure if this helps, but might be interesting. If you want, I could search the hungarian sites for more depicitngs.

Jeff Kaisla · Posted: Mon 19 May, 2008 4:00 pm Post subject:

The book "Battles of the Medieval World 1000-1500" has an illustration and caption of Richard the Lionheart with an axe. Also it states that Rober the Bruce broke his best battle axe while killing Sir Henry de Bohun at Bannockburn.

Hardly concrete evidence, but there it is.

Scott Kowalski · Posted: Mon 19 May, 2008 6:26 pm Post subject:

Thomas Watt · Posted: Tue 20 May, 2008 3:35 am Post subject:

I don't. And the statue is enormous, so getting a shot of it is very difficult.
However, it is well documented over the Internet, so I would imagine a Google image search for that should yield some other angles.

Scott Kowalski · Posted: Tue 20 May, 2008 6:00 am Post subject:

I did a cursory search last night Thomas and did not come up with many good pictures. I will continue to look though. Does anyone have suggestions on books that would cover axes for the Crusades up until the fall of Acre? Swords are of course covered in detail but not so much for the other weaponry that were used.

Scott

Kelly Powell · Posted: Tue 20 May, 2008 6:50 am Post subject:

Which ethnicity ? That is a lot of country to cover.

Scott Kowalski · Posted: Tue 20 May, 2008 6:54 am Post subject:

Thomas Watt · Posted: Tue 20 May, 2008 10:59 am Post subject:

Randall Moffett · Posted: Tue 20 May, 2008 11:17 am Post subject:

The Bruce axe link is from Barbours account in the book, Brus. It is perhaps not contemporary to Bruce but written soon after him.

I assume it is not such an issue to use an axe and be a knight.

RPM

Scott Kowalski · Posted: Tue 20 May, 2008 11:26 am Post subject:

Understood Thomas. Scotland has always been on my list of places I want to go anyways. Since my wife has worked as a photographer in the past I'm pretty sure she would be able to get the picture for me.

Scott

Corey D. Sullivan · Posted: Tue 20 May, 2008 12:16 pm Post subject:

While it's about 50 years before the period you're looking at Scott, the Maciejowski Bible has quite a few images of battle axes being used, and not a great deal changed in the intervening years regarding armour, (a few pieces of plate were added, mostly to knees, and helmets changed a bit), so it seems reasonable that weapons would not change a great deal either.

However, I could be wrong in this regard. What does everyone else think?

Anyhow, all of them seem be two-handed,.and look like an evolution of the dane axe.

Photobucket image

Kelly Powell · Posted: Tue 20 May, 2008 1:32 pm Post subject:

That classic style head with a small backspike welded to the socket would be pretty dead on.......With the advances in the quality of steel I bet they pretty much could tailor the axe to how the customer wanted it....I'd say a slightly thicker waist to the axe for mass and hollow ground down towards the edge for a good sharp shearing plane and have the spike not too long and more diamond in cross section then flat with false edges.....were langents common during the time period you want? Or wire wrapped?

Scott Kowalski · Posted: Tue 20 May, 2008 1:48 pm Post subject:

Rodolfo Martínez · Posted: Tue 20 May, 2008 6:54 pm Post subject:

Thank you for posting the pictures from the Maciejowski Bible Corey. I would hate to be the poor bugger in the second picture [quote]

A very open minded person indeed.

Do you know guys if Axes with the back pick were used during the XIII century?
And with the uper spike?

Mrak E.Smith · Posted: Wed 21 May, 2008 2:16 am Post subject:

James Barker · Posted: Wed 21 May, 2008 6:57 am Post subject:

Those Robert the Bruce images are 19th/20th century and not much use in this case. The manuscript images are a better source.

Lafayette C Curtis · Posted: Fri 23 May, 2008 5:48 am Post subject:

Wasn't the axe particularly popular in 15th- and 16th-century for mounted use? Alas, I can't remember where I got the information from....

(It's a poke to anyone who knows better than me about the subject, and I'm sure there are quite a few people around here who would fall under that category.)