[Dan Howard]

[Jean Thibodeau]

Dan;

Well I guess it depends on how many bronze maces you are talking about: A few pieces made as needed with available bronze or are you planning on making one each for 20,000 troops ?

Also if we are talking of the economics of a bronze age culture at the beginning of the iron age or a few bronze maces in eastern medieval countries, when and were it is not a critical logistic need!? About the same could be said for using steel or bronze for sword guards or pommels: You would use either for economic reasons or for esthetic reasons or simply having some on hand.

I don't know the economics with certainty, but with cannon I'm not sure if cast iron was chosen more for economic reasons than being a supperior material for muzzle loading canon.

Actually, I think bronze gave you a stronger canon with less barrel wall size and total weight than cast iron, but the lesser cost of cast iron made using more iron to have a safe and heavier canon economically advantagious.

Might be wrong here but at some point in the 18th century better cast iron technology and the high cost of bronze reached a tipping point were cast iron became the better choice.

As far as using bronze for maces I think we can agree that bronze can make a perfectly good mace.

[Alexander Hinman]

Well, now. Wrought iron itself may not be superior to bronze (except for the whole being-able-to-eat-with-it thing, and not having to be cast, which is often an advantage) but wrought iron is the closest thing you get to pure iron in Mediaeval and modern standards (because it's so damned rare I exclude laboratory-made iron) so it's comparatively ductile, but also very tough. It's why you'd rather have a wrought iron nail than a bronze one. Forging is much faster than casting when you haven't got any welding to do (and sometimes even then), and bronze is really bloody difficult to forge.

If you want hardness, however, you're better off with steel, which is why armies with steel weapons trumped those with bronze. Because bronze lacks this hardness, bronze helmets are always thicker than steel ones to prevent deformation, but this adds to weight, even more because bronze is, as mentioned, heavier than steel.

Now, as for bronze vs. iron 'knobbed' maces they both have their advantages. Cast iron is very, very hard, and subsequently very brittle. Bronze, on the other hand, is not as hard, and heavier, which is why it is more common, but it also will warp or break after a number of beatings, and assuming bodies were looted, you'd eventually end up with a mace that wasn't much of a mace at all.

[Dan Howard]

[Patrick Kelly]

[Adam Daubney]

Hi all,

I've been looking into knopped mace heads for some time now since we discovered one here in Lincolnshire, England. They are rare items in England, but much more common in eastern Europe and in Scandinavia. You can read a bit on what i've done so far in the portable antiquities scheme annual reports & the latest Med Arch journal.

Basically, I believe that this type (knoppped) was not used as a functional weapon, rather it was a ceremonial item. They were held on a wooden haft ~ the one we found still had wood in its socket as it was preserved in a peat deposit. Others from Scandinavia also have wooden hafts. I've never heard of one containing lead either ~ certainly none of this variety have been found with a lead interior i'm aware of.

Some of this type develop short collars below the head. These collars are often openwork and highly decorated and would certainly not have been used in battle. Indeed, on some examples the decoration covers the head too.

Their iron counterparts were the real article of warfare ~ not the bronze. A few bronze mace heads have been found in graves in Gotland too. They are not found with any other type of fitting either, suggesting that they are placed on a simple wooden staff.

Their distribution and development tends to go north and then north-west through europe. At the moment I think that the dates follow the spread of christianity, for example Christianity on Gotland was significantly influenced by the Eastern Christianity of Russia. Perhaps these staff terminals (maces) hint at the work of undocumented missionaries, after all, the mace was the weapon that was used by the church ~ perhaps this is symbolic to the spriritual battle?

Interesting thread!

regards
Adam Daubney

[Boris Bedrosov]

Hello, Adam!

I have some objections about that, what you wrote.

First the knobbed maces were widely used in battle, especially in the Eastern Europe.
Second if you read my first post, which opens this topic, you will see that we are talking about maces, made fully from BRONZE, to which Mr Alexander Hinman added those made from lead with bronze cover. So, I think, you can't deny these types of maces, made fully from soft metals and alloys.
Third you are absolutely right, writing about the iron counterparts, BUT what about maces without them. What about these maces, which I saw
And last the mace wasn't a church weapon because of its spiritual symbology. It was adopted by church officials, because with it they shouldn't spill human blood in battle.

Best regards!
Boris

[Dan Howard]

It is a myth that the mace was used in battle by clerics because they were forbidden to shed blood. Once again I think we have Victorian scholars to thank for this misinformation. The weapon was used as a status symbol by bishops and rulers alike, though, so some of these bronze maces could have been symbols of office rather than practical weapons. However, it does seem that at least some of them were intended for the battlefield.

[Boris Bedrosov]

Hi, Dan!

Are sure about that?
The number of bronze maces, found elsewhere in the Eastern Europe, is likely to prove the opposite - they were widely used as COMBAT weapon.

Best regards!
Boris

[Dan Howard]

[Boris Bedrosov]

Hi, Dan!

OK!
My question was exactly about combat bronze maces.
About their use as a status symbol of power I agree with you. There was even a word in most of the old-slavik languages "bulava" or "bulawa" (preserved in the modern Polish, Russian and Ukrainian), which means exactly that and also is widely used as a term, identifing mace or spiked club.

Regards!
Boris

[Alexander Hinman]

[Boris Bedrosov]

Hello everyone!

This topic is getting more and more interesting for me (I hope, for you too). Do you want to expand it not only for the particular bronze maces, but for all of them? We can add flails, also

If "Yes", my idea is at first to set a common terminology for all of us. I think this is necessary, because in Bulgarian language, for exaple, we have only one word for all of them "bozdugan" (and rarely used the old "shestoper" and "bulava", usually by weapon historians or fans), but it doesn't show the exact type of the weapon. That's why sometimes I'm getting little confused - what is "knobbed", what is "flanged", what is "gothic". I know generally what these terms mean, but sometimes... . I know this is easy for you, but it's not so for me.

I'm sending a picture with different types of maces. All are lettered. Please, write what, on your opinion, are their names.

[Adam Daubney]

Hi Boris,

I too am talking about maces made purely from Bronze. The ones that I have studied are literally a lump of decorative bronze on a wooden haft.

The type that i am referring to are clearly not functional as weapons, rather they are symbolic ~ status symbols if you like. Even ignoring the softness of the metal, the small diameter of the wooden haft would mean that it would snap everytime it was used.

We might be talking on different lines though. None of the maces in your picture are the ones that I am talking about. The following links will take you to the ones I have written up:

http://pas.toadhms.com/hms/pas_obj.php?type=f...8732101EF7

http://pas.toadhms.com/hms/pas_obj.php?type=f...774190160A

http://pas.toadhms.com/hms/pas_obj.php?type=f...777CC01ABA

The type shown above are the ones that I call 'knopped'.

[Adam Daubney]

...as for your image:

I would argue that A B C F G & H are flanged maces. These are the iron examples used in battle, although they do have ceremonial counterparts.

D & E are spiked maces. Again used as weapons ~ I don't think they were ever used in a ceremonial context though

None of them are knopped ~ see my examples above for that! The knopped ones are, in my opinion, purely ceremonial.

[Eric McHugh]

[Boris Bedrosov]

Hi, Alex!

Thanks for the picture. I need some clarification.
Do you have any general idea about the technology of the flail's "ball"? Is the lead core cast firstly and after that covered with the bronze cover (which I don't generally believe to be), or the lead is cast in the bronze "nut", which has been already made?

Regards!
Boris

[Dan Howard]

[Alexander Hinman]

Boris,

It is probably as you suspected. The hole in the bronze suggests that to me. The way it could have gone was: Bronze nut, and iron pin, first, iron pin inserted into nut, lead poured in, pin rivetted over. Sadly, the book does not discuss the possible process of making the suspended club, so I have no 'official' answer to give you. It only says:

[Dan Howard]