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Nathan Robinson
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PostPosted: Fri 25 Aug, 2006 5:44 pm    Post subject: Two-handed poleaxe from the British Museum         Reply with quote

This was posted by William M in another topic. I've split it into its own.



It is a two-handed pole-axe from the British Museum.

The museum card says this:

Steel two-handed poll-axe, the quillon block engraved with the arms of the Commonwealth
English, about 1619-53

Here is a photo I took of it last year:

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Shawn Henthorn




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PostPosted: Fri 25 Aug, 2006 5:44 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

WTF?! It looks like a really demented Tuck
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Keith Culbertson




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PostPosted: Sat 26 Aug, 2006 9:52 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I really like this very interesting warhammer---but do you recall its date? Has anyone ever seen it reproduced, or anything like it?
Keith
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Steve Grisetti




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PostPosted: Sat 26 Aug, 2006 10:04 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Shawn Henthorn wrote:
... It looks like a really demented Tuck
Actually, I think it is a neat idea, so maybe that makes me demented Big Grin . But point control when you use it as a tuck might be a little more difficult with all of that mass out near the tip.
"...dismount thy tuck, be yare in thy preparation, for thy assailant is quick, skilful, and deadly."
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Alex Oster




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PostPosted: Sat 26 Aug, 2006 1:11 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

It really looks like a civilian remount from battlefield debris.




The size dosen't seem long enough for a pole axe, but maybe as a tourney/joust weapon? I could see it as a that more.

The pen is mightier than the sword, especially since it can get past security and be stabbed it into a jugular.
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Michael R. Black





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PostPosted: Sat 26 Aug, 2006 3:22 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I can get some idea of size by the other items in the picture, but I'd be curious to know it's exact dimensions.

Michael
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Sean Flynt




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PostPosted: Mon 28 Aug, 2006 7:25 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Is that a tube welded to the blade? If it's for a panache, this might be some sort of odd bearing sword.
-Sean

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Russ Ellis
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PostPosted: Mon 28 Aug, 2006 11:09 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

There's always something new isn't there? It seems like this thing ought to be called a two handed hammer or something though, since I do not see an axe head there at all...
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Sean Flynt




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PostPosted: Mon 28 Aug, 2006 11:38 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

The length and shape of the hammer has me wondering if this is a one-of-a-kind cavalry weapon from the late 16th c. The Commonwealth mark and "panache holder" could have been added later as the weapon proved ineffecient or obsolete for field use. It would make an impressive bearing weapon.
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Nathan Robinson
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PostPosted: Mon 28 Aug, 2006 12:57 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Russ Ellis wrote:
There's always something new isn't there? It seems like this thing ought to be called a two handed hammer or something though, since I do not see an axe head there at all...


Poleaxes don't always have axe heads. In fact, most do not.

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Russ Ellis
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PostPosted: Mon 28 Aug, 2006 1:58 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Nathan Robinson wrote:

Poleaxes don't always have axe heads. In fact, most do not.


Really? I'd always thought a pole axe was a rather specific configuration. That is an axe head, a back spike or hammer and usually a top spike. A polehammer on the other hand would be something with a back spike, a hammer face and perhaps a top spike. Interesting. I will consult Waldman and see what he has to say on the subject as well as Oakeshott...

For the moment:

Poleaxe, pollaxe, polaxe: "A knightly staff weapon, its head being an axehead, usually balanced by a hammerhead, and surmounted by a steel spike. The shaft was protected by steel checks and the hand by a steel rondel. Used from the fifteenth century for foot combats and for war. The component 'pole' in the name refers not to the staff, but to the Old English word 'head.'"-David Edge and John Miles Paddock, Arms and Armour of the Medieval Knight.

Which seems reasonable since one would expect his axe to be an axe... Happy

Of course the definitions of any and all pole arms have always been a bit fluid I suppose. Do a lot of you all see a poll axe as often not having an axe blade?

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Russ Ellis
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PostPosted: Mon 28 Aug, 2006 2:16 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Hmm a little more online looking and I find Henry the VIIIs pollaxe armor supposedly displayed with a pollaxe...



Which I would have called a bec de corbyn.... curiouser and curiouser... it may be that I am merely a victim of our ancestors not bothering to get really very specific about things. A modern habit perhaps...

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Nathan Robinson
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PostPosted: Mon 28 Aug, 2006 2:20 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

A bec de corbyn is a form of poleaxe. I'll dig up further detailed info for you in about a week.
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Russ Ellis
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PostPosted: Mon 28 Aug, 2006 2:23 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Nathan Robinson wrote:
A bec de corbyn is a form of poleaxe. I'll dig up further detailed info for you in about a week.


<thumb up> Cool Nathan thanks!

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Fabrice Cognot
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PostPosted: Tue 29 Aug, 2006 4:20 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I lectured last October for the second IAAC in Vienna about the history of the poleaxe.

And I must say Nate is right Happy

Even in the Burgundian treatise Le Jeu de la Hache, the weapon used has a hammer head, back spike (called bec de faucon) and top spike. Also, in the earlier Fior di Battaglia by Fiore dei Liberi, his Azza is of the same type. In Talhoffer too...

Same again, nearly all the poleaxes mentionned in the various Pas d'Armes that took place in Burgundy in the XVth century were of the 'hammer' type.


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Chuck Wyatt





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PostPosted: Tue 29 Aug, 2006 7:17 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I saw something very similar at the Tower of London a couple of years ago.
Sadly no description was next to it.

[url]http://home.comcast.net/~c-wyatt/fullhammer.jpg [/url]

[url]http://home.comcast.net/~c-wyatt/hammerhead.jpg[/url]
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George Hill




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PostPosted: Sat 02 Sep, 2006 6:55 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Russ Ellis wrote:
Nathan Robinson wrote:

Poleaxes don't always have axe heads. In fact, most do not.


Poleaxe, pollaxe, polaxe: "A knightly staff weapon, its head being an axehead, usually balanced by a hammerhead, and surmounted by a steel spike. The shaft was protected by steel checks and the hand by a steel rondel. Used from the fifteenth century for foot combats and for war. The component 'pole' in the name refers not to the staff, but to the Old English word 'head.'"-David Edge and John Miles Paddock, Arms and Armour of the Medieval Knight.

Which seems reasonable since one would expect his axe to be an axe... Happy


Russ, the correct term isn't pole axe. It's Pollax, which isn't english and roughy translates as 'head crusher' or some such. (Can someone here give us a better translation?)

But as we so often do, we have modified the term to modern english, 'pole axe' since that does describe what many of them were. The term pole axe is a good term, but we should know the root isn't the same term.

To abandon your shield is the basest of crimes. - --Tacitus on Germania
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Al Muckart




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PostPosted: Sat 02 Sep, 2006 3:35 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

George Hill wrote:

Russ, the correct term isn't pole axe. It's Pollax, which isn't english and roughy translates as 'head crusher' or some such. (Can someone here give us a better translation?)

But as we so often do, we have modified the term to modern english, 'pole axe' since that does describe what many of them were. The term pole axe is a good term, but we should know the
root isn't the same term.


Fascinating. Do you know which language pollax comes from?

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Geoff Wood




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PostPosted: Sat 02 Sep, 2006 4:19 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Poll is english for head, as in poll tax, redpoll, polling etc.. Ax is english for axe (or a metathesis for ask, but the former version seems more probable in this context). As for not having an axe blade as we conventionally recognise it now, neither does a dagger axe. Maybe it was some reference to a 'nasty bit that you use at right angles to the shaft', or maybe they all started with axe heads and the name stuck when the blade didn't. We still call people plumbers, though copper and plastic have long since replaced lead.
Geoff

Edit: and then there's the pickaxe ............
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George Hill




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PostPosted: Sat 02 Sep, 2006 9:28 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Al Muckart wrote:
George Hill wrote:

Russ, the correct term isn't pole axe. It's Pollax, which isn't english and roughy translates as 'head crusher' or some such. (Can someone here give us a better translation?)

But as we so often do, we have modified the term to modern english, 'pole axe' since that does describe what many of them were. The term pole axe is a good term, but we should know the
root isn't the same term.


Fascinating. Do you know which language pollax comes from?


Er, Strike that, it is English, but it's old or middle Engish, which isn't like modern English.

Bear in mind that "ye olde whatevere" isn't old, but middle English. Middle is much MUCH closer then old.

To abandon your shield is the basest of crimes. - --Tacitus on Germania
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