[Eamon Bisbee]

I was discussing the use of various polearms recently, and a friend of mine said that knights didn't use pollaxes, but did use halberds. can anyone point me to specific, historical depictions of knights using pollaxes? I found a fresco of Godfrey of Bouillon, but other than that I'm having trouble tracking anything specific.

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Tom Wolfe]

The poleaxe was very much the knightly weapon of choice, alongside the sword, especially in the 15th century.

I shall have a look out for some specific contemporary references to back this up for you, but in terms of this discussion in recent literature I would point you to George Goodwin's "Fatal Colours" (Battle of Towton), or Juliet Barker's "Conquest" (Hundred Years War).

Further evidence to this is to be found in accounts of jousts and tournaments where poleaxes were used. Look in Tobias Capwell's "The Real Fighting Stuff" or "Masterpieces of European Arms and Armour in the Wallace Collection" for examples of poleaxes for both the field and tournament. The quality of the arms, the provenance of their makers/ownership and the uses they were put to are all indicative of their knightly use.

[Tom Wolfe]

From the Peter Falkner Fechtbuch (fighting manual):

[Dan Howard]

The term is 'pollaxe" - an axe with a poll. If it doesn't have a poll then it isn't a pollaxe. Most of the above images don't show pollaxes.

[Graham Shearlaw]

Really where was the line drawn separating poll axes and halberds?
There both poll weapons with an axe shaped blade and often a top spike or blade and rear spike/ hammer face.

Sure pollaxes tend to be shorter than halberds with a thicker blade profile but there no hard rules.

[Dan Howard]

Halberds don't have polls. Most of the above so-called pollaxes are actually halberds.

The words "poll" and "pole" are not just variant spellings of the same term. They are completely unrelated. "Pole" refers to the weapon shaft - hence the term "polearm". "Poll" literally means "head" and refers to the business end of the weapon. The main problem is that the word "hammer" has changed meaning over the centuries. When describing a warhammer, it was the pointy spike that was the hammer. The flat bludgeoning part was called a "poll". Another word for warhammer is "pollhammer".

What we call a pick or spike was originally called a "hammer"
What we call a hammer was originally called a "poll"

A pollaxe is an axe with a poll on the back.

[Graham Shearlaw]

I didn't know that, i all ways thought that it was just another funny medieval spelling.
So pollhammer is hammer spike in modem English, not pole as in shaft and a hammer face.

Well the name does make more sense that way defining an important part of the weapon and not that there's a shaft.

[Tom Wolfe]

[Luka Borscak]

[Dan Howard]

Pollhammer is another term for warhammer.



The "hammer" is the pointy spike.
The "poll" is the flat bludgeoning part.

[Dan Howard]

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

Note that Dan's typology here differs from other established typologies. John Waldman, for example, describes the pollaxe as having an axe blade, top-spike, and back-spike/beak, with the hammer as an alternative to the beak. I tend to follow Hugh Knight's definition here.

[Dan Howard]

Waldman didn't research the etymology of "poll" and he confused the modern definition of "hammer" with the medieval definition. If the axe doesn't have a poll then it can't be called a pollaxe. I'm not sure why it is such a difficult concept to grasp.

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[Henrik Granlid]

Isn't there a text where English soldiers "polled their maces" or somesuch? I.e. Poll refering to whatever head you stick on top of a haft. Thus, a pollaxe might just as well be a headed weapon in the axe category, probably of a certain size or height if axt has been used to describe a two handed weapon.

Also, if you look at other European languages and their naming conventions, there is no reference to the hammer aspect at all in some of them, for instance, Sweden uses Spjutyxa, or, translated to English, Spearaxe. This refers to pretty much anything with a striking head (most commonly an axe) and a speartip and would be used for so called lucerne hammers, 15th century pollaxes with hammers or spiked backs etc.

I know different languages have different words for different things, but when they bother naming different styles of swords and daggers, then naming different forms of hafted weapons (if they had different names before being imported) would have been the norm, no?

It's a sidetrack. Slightly irrelevant, but my first point can stand without it.

[Andrew Gill]

Two questions for Dan:

First, I know that the word poll originally meant a head (as in the pruning technique pollarding, or the more recent opinion or political poll, which probably originated meaning something like "headcount"), but did it necessarily refer to the head of a striking tool or weapon during the middle ages and early renaissance (rather than a generic weapon or tool head as we use it today - for example axe head, spear head or arrow head)?

Secondly, are your definitions for pollaxes and halberds intended to represent a modern classification system or one used by the people of the period of pollaxe usage? I ask becasue Fiore de Liberi refers to a pollaxe-like weapon as "azza" which I've usually seen translated from the medieval italian as "axe", even though those illustrated in his manuscript have no axe-blade, but rather a spike opposite the hammer [in the modern sense], As far as I know, he did his own illustrations, so [if that is correct] we can't blame an ignorant hired illustrator. Conversely, Paulus Hector Mair refers to his halberds as "Hellenparten" and his pollaxes as "mordagst" or murder axes, but the two are illustrated as having nearly identical heads (admittedly by hired, but probably well paid, illustrators who took considerable trouble to get other details correct). I can accept that your explanation could be for the original distinction, but if it was it seems to have blurred somewhat with the passage of time, even among the people using these weapons. So is it sensible to talk about correct definitions (unless we really narrow down the time period)? Obviously this problem goes away if the distinction is a modern convention.

Thanks in advance

Andrew

[Tom Wolfe]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

"Poleaxe" and "pollaxe" are both largely modern designations. English sources from the period when these weapons were really popular simply called them "battle-axes," apparently including variants that didn't even have axe-heads at all.