Commoners and weapons in medieval times -- myArmoury.com

James Head · Posted: Sat 24 Oct, 2009 7:04 pm Post subject:

Hi Eric. I love your 'peasant weapons'. I've been studying the Two Handed Flail myself. You might want to check out my www link to see some videos of stuff I've worked on. Let me know how your weaponizing of a Scythe blade is going. I also intend on mounting a Scythe blade soon. I have some ideas on some cutting methods, based on how the blade is traditionaly made very thin and sharp for mowing.

Adam D. Kent-Isaac · Posted: Sat 24 Oct, 2009 7:10 pm Post subject:

This discussion goes a long way in explaining why the pike became so popular - it was very cheap and very effective. Sometimes the simplest weapons are the best.

Eric Hejdström · Posted: Sun 25 Oct, 2009 7:14 am Post subject:

James, very interesting videos! I posted a link to them on my local fencingclubs forum too and I hope I'll get some responses soon. Your trainingversion does look a bit safer to use than mine. Guess I have to make some practice flails too.
I was actually unaware that there were techniques for flail in Mair, thanks a lot for the enlightenment!

Guess I'll bring my good camera and not the cellphone only next time I'm at the forge. The schythe I have is a really old early 20th century one, possibly older, that I bought in an "antique" store where I live for the enormous sum of about $3. I'll post pictures again soon. Someday I wish to do some "cutting" tests with these weapons... Would be lots of fun...

Eric Hejdström · Posted: Tue 27 Oct, 2009 10:27 am Post subject:

There.. got some time off today and went to the crummy old forge me and some friends have access to here in town. Here asre some pictures of the scythe-project as promised! The weather was not reallt pleasant and it got dark outside way too fast so you will have to excuse the bad pictures.

Here is the original scythe I found at the fleamarket/antiquestore for a mere $3. As you can see the tip was very worn out and had been ground down quite a lot. This made me decide it had to come off!

After a few heatings I had straightened out the tang and cut of the top of the scythe I noticed a small crack about 4" trom the point. Well, ti's going to be a simple farmers weapon so I didn't really care more about it. I have another one I might mount in a similar way. And anyways, if it brakes off I can just re-shap the point quite easily.

As you wan see here it's finally mounted on the ash pole. I drowe it down a bit to hard the frist time with t he following result of a crack in the top. A removed the blade and then made one extra iron ring and skrunk it on the top. Another heating of the tang and is was finally in place! As you can see the point is a bit off centre but it works very well for thrusting anyways.

And here some more shots ot the blade. Not the fanciest of craftmanship but the idea was to make a simple weapon in short time. All in all it took me about two hours to make it but that included making the pole. For pole I used a peice of ash wich I shaped with a plane to a flattened circular shape. Very good grip due to the shape of the pole. In all a very light weapon with nasty cutting capabilities. Had to prune some of the trees in the garden, ha ha...

Randall Moffett · Posted: Wed 28 Oct, 2009 8:01 am Post subject:

Eric,

That is just too awesome! I envy you greatly. That turned out a very fine tool.... Wink

RPM

B. Fulton · Posted: Wed 28 Oct, 2009 11:41 am Post subject:

Two handed flail, 1500s.

Photobucket image

Nasty stabbing polearm of unknown type, same age.

From the armory at Graz, Austria. Hands are mine. Big Grin

Eric Hejdström · Posted: Wed 28 Oct, 2009 12:22 pm Post subject:

Nice pictures Mr. Fulton! The spiked clubs are very similar to ones I've seen in Sweden too. Guess simplicity does it heh? The flail is very cool too and if I'm not mistaken, that's the same as Manfred Pany made a replica of. The reinforcments with iron strips along the sides makes me belive it was made as a weapon from the start. The flail I made was intended to look as if it was an ordinary agricultural flail that's been modified for war.

A bit off topic perhaps but is it hard to get access to the armoury in Graz? It would be awesome to go there, I can tell from the armours in the background!

Does anyone else have pictures of simple/improvised weapons for commoners? As stated earlier in this thread, in Sweden, the different laws usually list quite numerous weapons for each man to have. I hardly belive everyone had them, in that case we would have had an insane amount of armed men during the middle ages in Sweden...

B. Fulton · Posted: Wed 28 Oct, 2009 1:39 pm Post subject:

We were at the nearby castle (name escapes me) for an SCA crown tournament, and about 30 of us went to the Armory on the last day. Being that all of us were either SCA fighters, armorers or historian types, we had special permission to handle stuff (with gloves) as shown.

Rare to get to go to a museum and the curator says "wanna open up that suit of armor?"

Couple of the guys in the group nearly had a collective happy heart attack that day. Being as someone with a love of polearms, able to pick up a 300-400 year old halberd off a rack of 40 of them (with four more racks above/below it) with nothing more than the instruction "Don't drop it" to test the balance, heft and swing......awesome.

I have approximately 4 pages of Photobucket pics from the trip, as well as one of the museums in Vienna i hit the week earlier from my 2006 trip there, i may post some.

Jean Thibodeau · Posted: Wed 28 Oct, 2009 9:30 pm Post subject:

B. Fulton · Posted: Thu 29 Oct, 2009 6:29 am Post subject:

Less "one end heavy" than I expected. Rather balanced, similar to a musket with bayonet though I didn't get to swing it around more than a tiny bit (no room). Very solid feel, and I bet it recovered quickly, more so than some axes. It had a smaller axehead, longer spearhead and I believe it was a hammer back, not as "ornamental" as a Vatican Guard's but very, very functional.

Some of the armor there had definitely seen action going by scars, dents and scrapes, one had a hole in it, that if the owner was wearing it when it happened, he didn't survive it.

Douglas S · Posted: Fri 30 Oct, 2009 10:57 am Post subject:

Pikes were field weapons and not used for personal protection. I think that the OP was asking more about swords and sword analogs.

It's likely that seaxes and messers were the European equivalent of the Japanese wakizashi: "What? It's not a sword, just a grown-up knife!"

Bob Burgess · Posted: Tue 31 May, 2011 1:00 am Post subject: Billhooks and edge tools

Hi

Just joined the forum, so a little late in contributing to this thread... One tool almost all peasants would have and know how to use was the billhook - this has been common in all European countries since the Iron Age and was ceratinly being made and use in Britain prior ro the Roman invasions... Short versions, known as handbills (the use of the word billhook did not become common in the UK until the early 19th century) and longer handled versions, the hedging bill, or modern day slasher were easlily converted to a pole arm by the addition of a back hook Indeed many regional variations do still have a back hook for pushing branches back ointo the hedge), or a spike and by fitting to a longer handle...

There are also a multitude of other tools that would easily make weapons - the marc knife or vinyeard axe, used in cider and wine regions for chopping uo the residue from the press, coupe prés, used for cutting through turf (common in France), ditching and hay knives etc.... There is cetainly no need to fit a scuthe balde to a long handle - that tool already existed in the thatcher's eaves knives - those from Norfolk having up to a 3 ft long blade on a 4 ft handle...

Many tools are erroneoulsy classified as weapons , even by the experts and the msueums, because they are unfamiliar with the tools of the farmers etc...

See also: http://www.livinghistory.co.uk/forums/viewtop...p;start=30 and http://outils-anciens.xooit.fr/t2510-Outil-ou...htm?q=marc