[Justin Pasternak]

Where the Individual "flanges" of maces ever sharpened to give the mace an effective cutting edge and are there any examples of flails with a flanged shaped mace head?

[Eric Allen]

On the handful of maces I've seen in museums and books, I've never seen one with sharpened flanges (probably because it was likely more trouble than its worth--the other flanges would prevent a deep cut).

[Chad Arnow]

Like Eric, I've never seen obviously sharpened flanges. After all, these are impact weapons, and the shape of the flanges and mass of the weapon would do the damage they were designed to do.

As for flanged flails, I haven't really come across any. I found one whose head had low roped ridges, but those were below the height of row of short spikes. They aren't really flanges.

[Richard Fay]

Hello all!

Justin,

I think a sharpened flanged mace would actually suffer damage from use pretty quickly. A sword is designed to cut, while a mace is designed to bludgeon. A mace sharpened enough to cut may not hold up for very long against the smashing blows delivered by such a weapon. The edge would probably suffer chipping, dentings, or rolling pretty quickly. To make it cut properly, the flange will be too thin to hold up against use.

Now, some maces had sharp spikes, but that's different than a sharpened edge. The spike works by concentrating the force at the tip. And, if the edge of one spike breaks or bends, there are usually plenty more that can still function, and it wouldn't detract too seriously from the bludgeoning function of a mace.

The mace flanges, or spikes, help to concentrate the force of the blow on a smaller area, but it can be taken to extremes. In A Knight and His Weapons, Ewart Oakeshott suggests that the pointed flanged maces of the later fifteenth century had the disadvantage of getting stuck in armour. The edges of the flanges reverted to a flatter form by the early years of the sixteenth century. The smaller, lighter maces with the sharply pointed flanges lasted only between about 1465 and 1490, at least according to Oakeshott. This may suggest that function, and not just style, played a role in the change back to a form with flatter, less spiked, flanges.

I hope this helped!

Stay safe!

[Justin Pasternak]

I was looking through a few of books and I acutally found an 18th Century Indian Mace With sharpened Flanges and A serated washer near the top of the mace-head.

It's from the book "Weapons: A Visual History of Arms and Armor".

And I don't know if this could be considered a flanged Flail

[Richard Fay]

Justin,

I would call the flail facetted instead of flanged, but it's close. I think someone posted a photo of an actual flail similar to that one in another thread.

Is the Indian mace truly sharpened, or are the flanges just exceptionally thin? I would take the information in the DK book with a grain of salt. The photos are lovely, but the text isn't always accurate. Still, the flanges do appear somewhat sharp, and it's an interesting example. Good find!

An Indian mace with somewhat sharpened flanges may be more useful in historical Indian warfare than in late medieval European warfare. It would encounter less plate armour than it's European counterpart. Just speculating on it's use.

Stay safe!