[William P]

essentially im looking for a glaive for mid-late 14th century footsoldier impression (and one blunted for fighting) and im trying to get some idea opf its history and evolution to give me an idea of what features to look out for if i were to come across a reproduction glaive
(im looking for a cut and thrust polearm and that includes the voulge but i also want to get an idea about the glaive)

I know some form of 'knife on a stick' glaive is in the macejowski bible but manuscriptminiatures examples of glaives arnt always that easily defined especially their 14th century manuscripts. so i thought id get the opinion of someone whose maybe looked at this a bit more. especially because i know medieval art can be a bit slippery with some details.


also while im here and as part of the question, i have noticed https://static.webshopapp.com/shops/032318/files/032517648/600x600x2/battle-ready-glaive.jpg this glaivelike thing, and idly wondering if it would be historical for that 14th century timeframe, or historical at all for the period

[Fisher Lobdell]

White well arms has a couple nice ones for the time frame. This basic form seems to be the standard(though not always with the round guard), though there is an other group which has a blade that has some forward leaning concave falchion looking scalloped blades and little hooks on the back (or front), and other configurations (including Bills).


And as for the Knife on a stick, I believe they were a simple Glaive type that WAS used historically. (just a simple version of the one I linked)


http://www.whitewellarms.com/page5.htm

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/3923/10743/

[William P]

[Mark Moore]

A nice Glaive and a Lochaber Axe are high on my bucket-list of things I want. There are just so few choices out there, aside from having them custom made. I may try to make my own from mild steel, as they will be just for display. ...McM

[J. Nicolaysen]

As far as roundel goes, there is a depiction of both a glaive and a vouge each with roundel from the Caeser tapestry, Historicshes Museum Bern, ca 1470. Hooks seem to be a feature of glaives earlier and throughout the 16th century, at least in artwork.

From the excellent book Hafted Weapons in Medieval and Renaissance Europe by John Waldeman, "There is documentation that glaives were in use in Italy shortly after 1300. A prayer book of approximately 1380 in the library of Parma, Ms Pal. 56, shows three scenes...in which long-shafted glaives are being carried by foot-soldiers.......(109)


The sketch in the book (fig 90a) look very similar to the later 15th century forms with a kind of hook on the back side(fig 90b, both page 110). The overall form of the glaive doesn't seem to change much from 1300 to late 1500s and then it becomes very ornate, gilded, etc, like many other polearms. They seem to be quite ceremonial and elaborate from that time on.

The book does describe the difficulty of the word Glaive and says "the word, in one spelling or another, is found in the English language as early as 1297, but then the word was used interchangeably for a lance or sword." (108). Also discusses the conflation/confusion between glaive, bill, fouchard, etc. for terminology.

The Marshall Historical and the White Well Arms examples linked earlier are all socketed polearms. I would trust White Wells' research that socketed examples of glaives exist but I could not find anything online in the Met Museum or the Wallace Collection databases myself. But many polearms started as sockets or wrap-around haft construction and later went to tangs, so this could be another example of that.

Almost all these are too late and too ornate to be of any use. But I tried to search a bit. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection#!?q=glaive&perPage=100&sortBy=Relevance&sortOrder=asc&offset=0&pageSize=0

[Craig Peters]

Here's a couple of other images from manuscripts around the time you were looking for:

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4360/9252/

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4056/11775/

You'll note that both of these images feature glaives with fairly long heads, and the first image at least one of the glaives has the metallic piece protruding from the back.

The main problem with the replica you've shown seems to be that the head is much smaller than 14th century glaives.