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Adam M.M.





Joined: 02 Aug 2014

Posts: 54

PostPosted: Sat 01 Nov, 2014 10:54 am    Post subject: Most common polearms in the Late Middle Ages         Reply with quote

I know that the English preferred bills and the Swiss used pikes and halberds but what were the most common polearms in other parts of Europe?
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Marik C.S.




Location: Germany
Joined: 16 Feb 2010

Posts: 163

PostPosted: Sat 01 Nov, 2014 11:34 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Well that depends how large or small you want to draw your categories.

Bills, pikes and various sorts of polearms which all can be called halberd make up quite a lot of the arsenal in many late medieval regions in Europe. However they will always have slight local variants, different names and some might be more common in some regions than they are in others.
However while there are some local preferences or weapons people from a particular region were known for using (either rightfully or allegedly) it's by no means mandatory for people from a particular region to favour their "local" weapon of choice.

The Flemish, just like the Swiss, were also known for their pikes and many regions, for example the French and the Italians, have their local variant of bill - guisarme or ronche. I'm not going into Polearms used in Germany because that's a topic I find deeply confusing.
There is a huge number of terms and names used, most of them used so inconsistently that you find people applying the same name to two entirely different weapons while using different names for the same weapon. However that's just names and at the end of the day most of those things will either be Bills, Pikes or Halberds of some sort or variant.

If you are looking for entirely new categories to add to your list and not just iterations of the ones you already have listed, I'd suggest adding Glaives. However I don't know if they were particularly popular in any specific region. Same goes for the various types of spear that were around at the time.

Europe - Where the History comes from. - Eddie Izzard
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