[Joshua McGee]

[Randall Moffett]

I think that is how it works generally but when you say pass by x and that is the full sentence it means stop there. No one is arguing otherwise.

[Greg Mele]

Fiore is not alone in stating that harness can be penetrated by polearms.

Di Grassi advises that the partizan will sunder the cuirass. (16th c English translation). The Italian verb is "scindere", which is literally separate but is also translated as "cleave".

You see similar examples in Manciolino and the Anonymous as I recall. The words are trapassare and penetrare, both of which mean "pierce".

Guys, armour is not weapon proof, it is weapon resistant. We are talking about a weapon designed specifically to combat armour. This doesn't mean that every thrust will go through like butter, but it does mean that the men who taught how to use these weapons believed them to be capable of piercing it.

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

Here's what I see from Giacomo di Grassi:

[Greg Mele]

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Scott Hanson]

I think you'd be better off with a thrust from this one: http://www.arms-n-armor.com/pole217.html

Just my opinion though. I'd love to have the money to buy some polearms and armor and do the testing. Alas, not going to happen anytime soon.

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Sean Manning]

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[Ralph Grinly]

One thing most folk tend to forget..even when Armour was in common, everyday use.it was NEVER intended to be invulnerable. The AVERAGE armour would provide adequate protection in AVERAGE battlefield circumstances. Even if it was 'proofed' armour..it was still not guaranteed..it just 'proved' that that particular segment of the harness had withstood ONE impact of whatever the proof weapon had been. Sure..it is theoretically possible to create a harness that rendered one invulnerable to all the hand weapons you cared to name..but who wants to be a mere immobile statue on a battlefield ?
Pole axes were designed for a purpose..to 'crack the nut' that was a man at arms in armour..and they did their job in the hands of a skilled wielder..it they couldn't, they wouldn't have been such a relatively popular weapon. Practically..it makes no difference to the combats ultimate outcome if the weapon gets through the breastplate., a really solid blow to the helmet, a chop through a leg or arm or whatever..incapacitate the opponant, even for a moment, knock him down..and you have an excellent chance to finish him off.

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

Again, Fourquevaux wrote that men-at-arms in full harness "can not be hurt by hand-strokes" and that the harness "defend a man from the stroke, of Pike, Halbard, and Sword, Crosse-bowe, Long-bowe, and from Stones, and from all other hurt, that may pro|ceede from the enemies hande."

Also note that Fourquevaux described men-at-arms and their barded horses as protected and advised them to target their opponent's unarmored horse rather than the armored men: "Haue you seene how our men of armes haue with their Launces galled the enemies horses in their breastes and sides? being sure that the enemies could neither hurt their persons nor their horses, because that they are very well armed themselues, and their horses are barbed and garnished with Chamfrings and Criniers, which the enemies do want: which is the cause that you do see so many of the enemies slaine, and so fewe of ours."

Fourquevaux wanted and expected fully armored men to feel close to invulnerable. I don't take his statements strictly literally, of course, but I conclude that Fourquevaux believed quality complete harness provided reliable protection against the weapons in question, apparently including even the couched lance.

[Jason G. Smith]

To get an answer to this, you have to look not only at fechtbuchs and manuscripts, but primary accounts as well. Talhoffer does indeed show a dague piercing the breastplate on one occasion, and Fiore mentions he can pierce a breastplate, along with other examples Greg mentioned. Since these are the men that were actually using the weapons, I have no reason to dispute their claims.

Except...

Most manuscripts are rife with selling points about the masters' skills, and these are no exception. Fiore is particularly boastful, and Talhoffer looks like he was constantly in need of work, thus the manuscripts not only are pedagogical in nature, (more Fiore's than Talhoffer's, mind you), but were meant to sell the master's wares and promote their skills.

Looking at primary accounts of pollaxe fights in the form of duels and pas d'armes leaves little doubt as to the nature of the weapon: you knocked your opponent down and finished him on the ground, or struck him down once a nice, big opening was created. This is borne out in the manuscripts, repeated in the largest pollaxe manuscript as nauseum (Le Jeu de la Hache), and confirmed by several accounts (the chronicles of Jaques de Lalain, among others). Injuries were sustained by blows to openings (occularia) and joints (wrists) as well as beating someone down through bludgeoning him into submission, with not one, but several, blows.

In short, armour worked. Pollaxes worked. But you still had to work with a pollaxe to injure your opponent. Piercing a breastplate may have been possible, but not likely against a moving, resisting target.

Best,

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

A while back Hugh Knight convinced me that the two images from Talhoffer that kind of seem to show breastplate penetration instead refer to striking a gap, piercing perhaps mail but not plate.

[Kel Rekuta]

A number of us went round and round on this one a few years ago. In particular, Matt Easton defended his (or more likely Eleanora's) translation of "panceroni" here as breastplate. Matthew Strickland chose to translate "panceroni" as used in a late 14thc Italian context as "haubergeon" in his opus "The Great Warbow." As the term literally means "belly piece" it should not be conflated with breastplate, which appears in numerous Italian texts and inventories as "petto."

I have no doubt I could put my steel pollaxe spike through the typical early 15thC fauld which covers the belly. Through mail? Piffle.

Passare and its derivations, I leave to you Randall. I accept it in this context as defeating the torso armour.

[Kel Rekuta]

[Randall Moffett]

Kel,

But that is only one part of the two being penetrated. Even if they translated the one different than you would and the other is mail it still leaves a cuirass there which is being penetrated. From my understanding this is almost always some type of plate armour for the torso at this period in this region.

That said by that point I have been told it is less likely to mean mail than breastplate, So Matthew is might be wrong, not the first time, nor the last... not sure I have ever heard of him being a medieval Italian expert to be honest and when you get down to these little term issues that is what matters. The term is sort of like lorica, armor- usually torso armor. By the late 14th it almost always means a breastplate or some type but 100 years earlier it was clearly mail. Tricky part is in between the firm dates. He may perhaps be right, or wrong, I do not know.

And as I said earlier. If you or any can prove these terms mean what you are saying one way or the other and I will think about it for sure. But after all the reading and hours in translations with various supports- medieval latin, English etc. books covering these languages I can see the terms easily as Matt and CO. translated them. But as I said earlier I can only check a medieval latin handbook at this moment which has similar words that can mean very much what I think they are.... but who knows Italy is a different place and perhaps it is vastly different but I see little reason to shift POV as things stand.

And lastly, no one is saying fighting was without risks and gambles Kel. After all they all were gambling... with their lives and I am sure they did what worked, whatever our take of that is. The question does not relate to that though. His question was it there was any evidence and from my understanding this passage is the clearest I can think of to reply to his answer. Not saying this was his first move in a fight or how it was applied only he is indicating it was.

And I guess we will keep doing the rounds until some person can prove these terms means something than what they usually do mean by the late 14th into the 15th centuries...

RPM

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

I don't dispute the Fiore quotation. It supports my point about context and that plate armor varied by time, place, and quality. Even 1410, armor tended to thinner and/or softer than in Fourquevaux's or Smythe's time. If assumptions about Fiore's age are true, much of his fighting experience would have been with less reliable harness still.

[Greg Mele]

[quote="Benjamin H. Abbott"]I don't dispute the Fiore quotation. It supports my point about context and that plate armor varied by time, place, and quality. Even 1410, armor tended to thinner and/or softer than in Fourquevaux's or Smythe's time. If assumptions about Fiore's age are true, much of his fighting experience would have been with less reliable harness still.[/quote

But Benjamin, that's just it - context matters. You are largely looking at late 16th and 17th century sources. Of the fighting texts we have, only di Grassi is even close in period (1570), and we still have no idea if he means harness in general, pikeman's harness, knightly harness, etc. It is one comment, but it is a clear assertion that has precedence with other Italians. However,-the other Bolognese texts are from the first half of the 16th c, and likely represent experience relative to the 1520s or even earlier. Talhoffer is mid-15th c, Fiore is a turn of the 15th c text. So really, I don't see the relevance of Smythe, Fourquevaux, etc in this case, unless the discussion was specifically about Elizabethan era-armours. Further, again, nothing tells us that piercing the breastplate = running a man through. It simply means what it says, I can pierce your armour and cause you *harm*. Armoured combat is as war of attrition, and I think the real lesson the masters are trying to explain is that with these weapons and techniques, even your harness is no sure defense.

[Benjamin H. Abbott]