Info Favorites Register Log in
myArmoury.com Discussion Forums

Forum index Memberlist Usergroups Spotlight Topics Search
Forum Index > Historical Arms Talk > looking for photos of poleaxe Reply to topic
This is a standard topic Go to page 1, 2  Next 
Author Message
Tomas B




Location: Ireland, Wales, Canada...I'm transient
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Reading list: 3 books

Posts: 84

PostPosted: Mon 06 Oct, 2014 8:44 am    Post subject: looking for photos of poleaxe         Reply with quote

I am looking for more photos of the Wallace and Higgins poleaxes. I'm also interested in photos of any other similar poleaxes.

http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMus...detailView

http://myArmoury.com/feature_higgins_pole.html
View user's profile Send private message
Eric S




Location: new orleans
Joined: 22 Nov 2009
Reading list: 8 books

Posts: 805

PostPosted: Mon 06 Oct, 2014 12:52 pm    Post subject: Re: looking for photos of poleaxe         Reply with quote

Tomas B wrote:
I am looking for more photos of the Wallace and Higgins poleaxes. I'm also interested in photos of any other similar poleaxes.

http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMus...detailView

http://myArmoury.com/feature_higgins_pole.html


Tomas, the Wallace link is a war hammer,are you looking strictly for pole axe images?

European (France) war hammer, circa 1450, iron and oak, Width: 15.5 cm, hammer and beak, Length: 9.5 cm, top spike, Weight: 1.22 kg, Length: 71 cm, total length.
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Sean Flynt




Location: Birmingham, Alabama
Joined: 21 Aug 2003
Likes: 10 pages
Reading list: 13 books

Spotlight topics: 7
Posts: 5,981

PostPosted: Mon 06 Oct, 2014 1:00 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

note this as well: http://www.myArmoury.com/feature_higgins_pole.html
-Sean

Author of the Little Hammer novel

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Hammer-Sean-Flynt/dp/B08XN7HZ82/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=little+hammer+book&qid=1627482034&sr=8-1
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Tomas B




Location: Ireland, Wales, Canada...I'm transient
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Reading list: 3 books

Posts: 84

PostPosted: Mon 06 Oct, 2014 1:10 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

The Wallace length is assumed to have been shortened. The Higgins shows sign of being shortened. Due to size of the head of each weapon it seems more likely they would have been on a 5 foot long pole. Since nobody uses the term polehammer they are generally referred to as poleaxe (at least in my experience).
View user's profile Send private message
Tomas B




Location: Ireland, Wales, Canada...I'm transient
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Reading list: 3 books

Posts: 84

PostPosted: Mon 06 Oct, 2014 6:01 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

There is also the Worcester Art Museum entry on the Higgins weapon. I was hoping somebody might have other photos of these or know of similar weapons and have photos of them.

http://vqs61.v3.pair.com:8080/emuseum/view/ob...74f9bea036
View user's profile Send private message
Aaron Hoard




Location: Seattle, WA
Joined: 01 Sep 2009
Likes: 4 pages

Posts: 176

PostPosted: Mon 06 Oct, 2014 7:55 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

This is the best I have - I had a hard time getting good shots while I was there.



Glass cases + plenty of windows + sunshine = arg!
View user's profile Send private message
Radovan Geist




Location: Slovakia
Joined: 19 Aug 2010
Likes: 5 pages

Posts: 399

PostPosted: Mon 06 Oct, 2014 11:22 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

There are some pictures of the hammer head in the Carl Kopperschaar´s gallery from the Wallace Collection:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/98015679@N04/sets/72157634514763041/page3/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/98015679@N04/sets/72157634514763041/page4/

He has nearly 600 pictures from Higgins, too, but I haven´t noticed among them the piece you´re looking for. Just FYI:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/98015679@N04/sets/72157634690912644/
View user's profile Send private message
Eric S




Location: new orleans
Joined: 22 Nov 2009
Reading list: 8 books

Posts: 805

PostPosted: Tue 14 Oct, 2014 7:51 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Tomas B wrote:
The Wallace length is assumed to have been shortened. The Higgins shows sign of being shortened. Due to size of the head of each weapon it seems more likely they would have been on a 5 foot long pole. Since nobody uses the term polehammer they are generally referred to as poleaxe (at least in my experience).


Tomas, they really should be "polehammer / pole hammer" in order to differientiate from other pole weapons. While going through some images from The Royal Armoury (Livrustkammaren) in the Royal Palace Stockholm, Sweden I came across these excelllent examples of pole hammers labeled as "stridshammare" (war hammer).

This image comes from Wikimedia Commons, I cropped and edited the original, there are a lot of other sword related images from the same museum that have not been properly described in English yet, here is a link.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Sword_images_from_Livrustkammaren

View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Tomas B




Location: Ireland, Wales, Canada...I'm transient
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Reading list: 3 books

Posts: 84

PostPosted: Tue 14 Oct, 2014 8:18 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Eric S wrote:
Tomas, they really should be "polehammer / pole hammer" in order to differientiate from other pole weapons.


The period term seems to be closer to pollaxe then anything else. Unless this blog post has been proven incorrect.
http://talhoffer.blogspot.ca/2009/05/what-is-pollaxe.html?m=1
View user's profile Send private message
Eric S




Location: new orleans
Joined: 22 Nov 2009
Reading list: 8 books

Posts: 805

PostPosted: Tue 14 Oct, 2014 10:35 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Tomas B wrote:
Eric S wrote:
Tomas, they really should be "polehammer / pole hammer" in order to differientiate from other pole weapons.


The period term seems to be closer to pollaxe then anything else. Unless this blog post has been proven incorrect.
http://talhoffer.blogspot.ca/2009/05/what-is-pollaxe.html?m=1

While it is nice to know the period name no one is forbiden from using another name that describes an item in a more understandable way, if I told you I had a "poleaxe" you would not know exactly what I was describing, if I said I had a polehammer" you would. The forum has an article on these weapons titled "The Medieval Poleaxe", maybe it should be called "The Medieval Pollaxe" instead. http://www.myArmoury.com/feature_spot_poleaxe.html

View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Lafayette C Curtis




Location: Indonesia
Joined: 29 Nov 2006
Reading list: 7 books

Posts: 2,698

PostPosted: Tue 14 Oct, 2014 1:12 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Eric S wrote:
Tomas, they really should be "polehammer / pole hammer" in order to differientiate from other pole weapons.


It depends on the viewpoint. To collectors and museum curators, it makes sense to distinguish axes from hammers. However, to a martial artist the two are virtually identical since surviving manuals on the poleaxe do not distinguish an axehead from a hammerhead; as a matter of fact, most of them call the weapon an "axe" or "battle-axe" while their illustrations clearly depict hammers instead of axe-heads. In other words, the "typical" poleaxe is a weapon with a hammerhead.


Tomas B wrote:
The period term seems to be closer to pollaxe then anything else. Unless this blog post has been proven incorrect.
http://talhoffer.blogspot.ca/2009/05/what-is-pollaxe.html?m=1


Not so much proven incorrect as never being proven correct in the first place; it failed to provide enough evidence to support its (unnecessarily pedantic) thesis. Note that there is no quotation given of a medieval or Renaissance text that supports the idea of "poll-axe" being the original term that was later corrupted to become "poleaxe." As far as I can tell both terms coexisted and there's no way to tell which one is more correct since contemporary sources overwhelmingly used "axe" or "battle-axe" anyway. "Poleaxe/pollaxe" only became the dominant name for the weapon in the modern era, when it has fallen out of use and people feel more need to distinguish the weapon from such things as utility axes and Dane axes.
View user's profile Send private message
J. Nicolaysen




Location: Wyoming
Joined: 03 Feb 2014
Likes: 32 pages

Posts: 795

PostPosted: Wed 15 Oct, 2014 10:48 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Quote:
However, to a martial artist the two are virtually identical since surviving manuals on the poleaxe do not distinguish an axehead from a hammerhead; as a matter of fact, most of them call the weapon an "axe" or "battle-axe" while their illustrations clearly depict hammers instead of axe-heads. In other words, the "typical" poleaxe is a weapon with a hammerhead.


Do you mean also that techniques of using them are essentially similar?


I love poleARMS and recently got this little book: http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...mp;start=0

It has quite a bit of halberds and varieties of other bladed weapons, but there are a couple of hammer weapons.
View user's profile Send private message
Dan Howard




Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
Joined: 08 Dec 2004

Spotlight topics: 2
Posts: 3,636

PostPosted: Wed 15 Oct, 2014 2:21 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

"Pole" and "poll" are completely different words - both of which are still in use today and have unrelated meanings. Pollaxe is not an archaic term. The word "poll" means "head" and the word "pollaxe" refers to the buisness end of the weapon and has nothing to do with the shaft. Calling it a "poleaxe" misses the entire point. Most of the above photos are of warhammers, not pollaxes. The weapon is essentially an axe with extra bits added such as a hammer head (the poll) and a spike. The length of the shaft is irrelevant.


Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
View user's profile Send private message
Ralph Grinly





Joined: 19 Jan 2011

Posts: 330

PostPosted: Sat 18 Oct, 2014 2:55 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Maybe some-one more knowledgeable than I can comment, but I believe the term POLLaxe originally referred to an instrument once used to slaughter cattle in an abbatoir. Similar implements were also part of the British army ( and I assume other armies) Farriers Corp equipment, used to despatch wounded horses on the battlefield.
View user's profile Send private message
Dan Howard




Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
Joined: 08 Dec 2004

Spotlight topics: 2
Posts: 3,636

PostPosted: Sat 18 Oct, 2014 3:43 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

That's where the verb "pollaxe" comes from. Originally, to be "pollaxed" meant that the animal was hit with this weapon and felled immediately. Today it implies being felled by one blow but the type of attack is irrelevant. When we say that someone was "pollaxed" we mean that they fell as if hit by a pollaxe. The noun "poll" refers to the hammer-like back of the weapon. It doesn't matter whether it is on an axe or another type of weapon.

Why would anyone use the term "poleaxe" to define a weapon? It is superfluous - all axes are mounted on poles. If the shaft is of an exceptional length then it was called a "long axe" just like they did with swords. Maybe the term should be reserved for axes used in Prussia - specifically Warsaw Happy

Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books


Last edited by Dan Howard on Sat 18 Oct, 2014 11:00 pm; edited 1 time in total
View user's profile Send private message
Tomas B




Location: Ireland, Wales, Canada...I'm transient
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Reading list: 3 books

Posts: 84

PostPosted: Sat 18 Oct, 2014 8:10 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

So, according to the "poleaxe/pollaxe must have an axe" definition 4 out of the 14 historic poleaxes and 3 out of 4 illustrations in the spotlight article are wrong.
http://myArmoury.com/feature_spot_poleaxe.html

This entire article would be miss titled.
http://myArmoury.com/feature_higgins_pole.html

The reason I chose the Wallace and Higgins weapons as my example is that both weapons are believed by many to originally have been two-handed weapons and their hafts had been shortened at some point.

I am interested in photos of late 14th to early 15th century two-handed weapons which have a weapon head that combines the hammer, beak, and spike. Basically, I was looking for any other period weapons which had heads that looked like the two I showed as examples.
View user's profile Send private message
Eric S




Location: new orleans
Joined: 22 Nov 2009
Reading list: 8 books

Posts: 805

PostPosted: Sat 18 Oct, 2014 8:27 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Tomas B wrote:

I am interested in photos of late 14th to early 15th century two-handed weapons which have a weapon head that combines the hammer, beak, and spike. Basically, I was looking for any other period weapons which had heads that looked like the two I showed as examples.

So you looking for images of polehammers then Laughing Out Loud
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Dan Howard




Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
Joined: 08 Dec 2004

Spotlight topics: 2
Posts: 3,636

PostPosted: Sat 18 Oct, 2014 10:11 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Eric S wrote:
Tomas B wrote:

I am interested in photos of late 14th to early 15th century two-handed weapons which have a weapon head that combines the hammer, beak, and spike. Basically, I was looking for any other period weapons which had heads that looked like the two I showed as examples.

So you looking for images of polehammers then Laughing Out Loud

Only in Poland Happy They are generally called war hammers. I'd like to know why it would be called an axe when it doesn't have an axe bit. All of this stems from a misunderstanding of the difference between "pole" and "poll", and confusion between the medieval meaning of "hammer" and the modern one. What we call a hammer today was called a "poll" or "maul" in the past ("mallet" means "little maul"). They used the word "hammer" to refer to the perpendicular spike meant for punching through plate.



The "hammer" was the spiked part not the flat part. The flat part was called the "poll". Technically this would be called a "pollhammer", because it is a hammer with a poll. But we generally simply say "war hammer".

Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
View user's profile Send private message
Tomas B




Location: Ireland, Wales, Canada...I'm transient
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Reading list: 3 books

Posts: 84

PostPosted: Sun 19 Oct, 2014 4:23 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

That is a one-handed hammer without a spike on top. That weapon was used very differently then the ones I'm asking about. The Wallace example is larger then would be expected for a one-handed weapon. When A&A made their version of it they made it smaller then the original so it felt appropriate for a one-handed weapon. The haft on the Higgins weapon has also been cut down and the weapon head is larger then expected for a one-handed weapon.

You may call it a polehammer or pollhammer or warhammer to your hearts content but I will not. In academia they are frequently grouped with what you call poleaxes. In the fight manuscripts they are always grouped with the other poleaxes. All throughout this site they are referred to as poleaxes.
View user's profile Send private message
Eric S




Location: new orleans
Joined: 22 Nov 2009
Reading list: 8 books

Posts: 805

PostPosted: Sun 19 Oct, 2014 4:52 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Tomas B wrote:
. In academia they are frequently grouped with what you call poleaxes. In the fight manuscripts they are always grouped with the other poleaxes. All throughout this site they are referred to as poleaxes.
Yes and we know that Academia and this site are never wrong............. WTF?!
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website


Display posts from previous:   
Forum Index > Historical Arms Talk > looking for photos of poleaxe
Page 1 of 2 Reply to topic
Go to page 1, 2  Next All times are GMT - 8 Hours

View previous topic :: View next topic
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum






All contents © Copyright 2003-2024 myArmoury.com — All rights reserved
Discussion forums powered by phpBB © The phpBB Group
Switch to the Basic Low-bandwidth Version of the forum