[Jean Henri Chandler]

I'm suspicious of the idea that the Vikings wouldn't have used anything and everything which gave them any advantage in warfare, for the very same reasons they assimilated so quickly and so thoroughly in places like Russia, Normandy, Britain, and Ireland. They were extremely pragmatic people and very open to new ideas IMO.

There could be any number of reasons why we don't see a ton of mace heads in Viking burials or other excavations. First of all, what percentage of their kit or weaponry overall do you think we have actually found? A minor weapon (or armor) type might not show up in that overall sample. And think how many major discoveries have been made only in the last 30 or 40 years... in the last ten years even. Just because it's not in the archelogical record yet doesn't mean they didn't have it. Another likely possibility is that some weapons were less prestigious in burials than others, or there might be other reasons not to bury items like the desire to re-use them. What is the ratio of axe heads and spearheads to swords in burials for example? I don't know. We know they used mail yet very little mail was found. Why? Probably because it was being re-used. A sword has a finite combat life, eventually it can kind of get 'used up' as a weapon, and yet even swords were often passed from one generation to the next. Mail obviously also was, as discussed in some other recent threads, perhaps mace heads were re-used in this way, they don't seem likely to me to wear out like a sword blade could.

Two other factors which occur to me is that the maces we were discussing from the most likely source for Vikings, from Central Asia, seem to be associated with cavalry as weapons and with kings as symbols of office. Well during the Viking period the Norse don't seem to have used that much cavalry, they were mainly infantry fighters, and they also didn't have the same kind of Kings, if at all, until really after the establishment of Christianity when the burials of any kind of weapons rapidly tapered off. The pagan Scandinavians had their kings and jarls but this was a kind of a different thing, literally lording over your 'subjects' with various fancy symbols of office may not have gone over well in those days, there was much more of a pretence of equality between free men of some rank, particularly in the personal entourage. One thinks of the famous anecdote about Gange Rofle and Charls the Simples foot. I'd suspect scepters and gowns and the like probably didn't come in until later when more 'proper' medieval type Monarchies were established.


J

[David Stephenson]

The original picture looks more ornamental, although, I have no doubt it could do some damage. I suggest that the incredibly sparse info we have on Vikings + maces suggests they did NOT use them a lot, or if they did, didn't think much of them.

And why would they?

It takes a lot of valuable metal to make a mace that could instead be used to make an axe.

Did the foes of the vikings usually wear a lot of armour?

Wouldn't an axe be better for hacking down your unarmoured (and perhaps, often unarmed) foes, and also doing ship repairs?

Furthermore, if I was around then and had a metal mace, why the heck would I throw it at my enemy? Bye bye expensive lump of metal.

Wooden clubs on the other hand, are a different story.

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Dave Womble]

Even more things to think about. Why did it take us 3 pages to arrive at some of this? Since we're talking about maces, whic are a mass weapon, I'd like to venture out on a limb here and bring up something a gentleman at a pagan event I recently attended said to me. I wont quote him directly, but as we were playing with boffer weapons, we started discussing our preferences in weaponry and our various studies, and as I was talking about my Norse infatuation and the types of arms and armour they utilized, I mentioned how I thought it would be interesting if the Norse used hammers in war, given the fact one of their chief dieties, Thor used on. Well, upon saying that, this gent assured me that they of course used hammers in battle. He went on to tell me that they most assuredly used warhammers. Now, me being the kind of person i am, I let himself dig quite a hole for himself before I started calling him out on his sources. He had none. So we argued about it for around 10 minutes, the entire time he was getting more agitated at me because he had no ground to stand on. After awhile I got bored of the issue, and thats when he decided to change his story and say he was talking about mauls and mallets, not warhammers.

Even so, IMO the likelyhood of either being used to any extent in viking age warfare is pretty iffy. What do the rest of you think? Are there any known instances of a maul or the like in any Sagas, art, or the archeological record? Hammers figured into their mythology/religion to an extent, and of course they used them as tools in the forge and the shipyards and on the farm, any other comments or theorys?

[Christopher Lee]

This is only a half formed and vague thought, so anyone please feel free to correct me; i've been reading a few different things lately such as The Battle of Maldon, the Battle of Finnsburh, Beowulf, The Battle of Brunnanburh, etc. all nice heroic verse and stuff. I also realise that i've strayed a little from the strictly scandinavian viking context. However one thing that i noticed was (apart from no mention of maces) the constant emphasis upon the heroic nature of the combatants, their strong well made armour and shields, their long, sharp spears, their sharp swords and so on. I'm just wondering if we are lacking an important insight into the viking and their contemporaries mindset: is it just possible that, while they were well aware of the mace as a weapon, they regarded it in some way "beneath them", or not the sort of weapon that a "real man" would use? I know that there is probably no way to determine a cultural bias from this distance in time but perhaps maces were in some way regarded as an inferior sort of weapon, the sort of weapon not used by an self respecting viking warrior. In this respect though there are surely other examples of cultural biases towards or away from certain classes of weapon? For example, and once again feel free to correct me, but i am not aware that the romans ever used maces? For that matter, did the etruscans, greeks or carthaginians? So might the lack of viking maces be based more around a cultural aspect of their social or military mindset rather than if it was effective or not?

[Dave Womble]

Well said Christopher. I've speculated as such myself, and not just with the Norse. In another forum, quite awhile ago, Dan Howard (I believe he frequents this forum as well) presented the very same notion about why there doesnt seem to be any mention of any other body armour except mail in a viking age Scandinavian context. Sure they used it in Byzantium, probably along with scale, but I guess you could say that's because when in Byzantium, do as the Byzantines do...and he's probably more correct than I want him to be on that .

Going with your line of thought, I wonder then if there are any artistic or literary mentions of servants or thralls using such weapons...either clubs, maces or mauls/mallets. I believe it was unlawful for a thrall (and perhaps the next class up) to posess "arms"....what exactly defined "arms" in their culture, I'm not sure. Wether that would mean swords, axes and spears only, or just about everything excepting maybe a staff or small utility knife. Then again, spears and bows were hunting tools as well

I'm not up to par on Viking Age law code...i'm still learning.

[Merv Cannon]

[Jared Smith]

I did a fair amount of reading of established academic authors (Norman Cantor, David Crouch, much older texts by Barber, a good 2 ft high pile of books, etc.) regarding the 12th century tournament in Western Europe. I came across the statement at least twice that there was an occasional mention of maces, but that they were "still regarded" as an "Eastern weapon" during the 12th century.

This could be relevant to the theory above about maces being regarded as "foreign weapons."

Undoubtedly Western European warriors would have seen them during crusade journeys and trade expeditions that went deep into Russia, and Syria (modern day reference, but at 11th and 12th century time frame if you can excuse how I am trying to say it.) I think its a reasonable question rather they would have adopted maces as primary weapons at a time when their cultures really expected the lance/spear and sword as primary weapons.

[David Stephenson]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

I suspect the whole Thors hammer thing goes back to earlier periods when they did use hammers, and probably various types of throwing clubs. Richard Burton's Book of the Sword, while dated in many respects, has some very interesting analysis of the early use of hardwood clubs and throwing sticks of various types and how these may have evolved into swords, axes, maces, hammers and various other weapons.

Sword- and axe-like clubs can be seen in various examples from Native Americans and Pacific Islanders, but they definitely did exist in Europe as well. Classical writers mentioned celtic boomerang-like thrown weapons like the cataea and we have Germanicus speech describing German kit as being clubs. There have been some artifacts of this type excavated IIRC, I haven't looked at any research on that in quite a while htough.

[Elling Polden]

Thor's hammer is a blacksmiths hammer; After all, its main "effect" is making thunder, and a blacksmiths hammer was one of the most noisy things known to dark age man.

There are mace heads from medevial scandinavia, and there are mentions of maces and clubs in the sagas, but they are rather rare.

As for throwing maces, they have a few obvious advantages. First of all, they have a handle, which makes for a swift and hard throw. Second, they have quite a lot of mass, and are thus less susceptible to which end hits first than throwing axes.

A weapon featured in many of the sagas is the "Pålstafr", or polestaff, which appears to be a spearlike weapon consisting of a rock tried to the tip of a shaft. These where amongs other things used to knock away the enemy's shield during naval battles.
Long hafted maces might have been used in a similar fashion, in a "fire and forget" manner. Make a hard blow against the enemy's block, and hope it bounces through, or that he opens himself up to your firends.

As for throwing expensive stuff at people, there are accounts of people throwing SWORDS, in naval battles...
Scandinavia has a lot of available iron; smelting iron from local bogs was quite common.

[Hugh Fuller]

Correct me if I am wrong, but did not the mace come into its own in Western Europe after the shift to plate armor was largely made? The mace and similar impact weapons had the ability to crush the armor and any bones inside of it and that is why such things became popular at that point or so I seem to understand.

[Jean Henri Chandler]

Thors hammer was also a weapon which could be thrown and then returned. Of course hunting boomerangs from australia don't return, but there were a lot of apparent thrown weapons from the bronze age back to the mesolithic, for hunting or warfare. Certainly the egyptian Lisan and various African and Indian weapons qualify.

As for Europe here are also many Classical references to some weapons called Teutona and Cataea. The most famous of the several Roman texts includes these lines of Virgils from the aenead

“Et quos maliferae despectant moenia Abellae
Teutonico ritu soliti torquere cateias.”

Plus some curious if not conclusive archeological evidence, like this

http://www.rediboom.com/englisch/geschich/polen.html
http://www.rediboom.com/englisch/geschich/magdebg.html

And then you have the Sikh Chakrum, which did not return but it did wing into targets from the side, taking advantage of the peculiar aerodynamics that disks and bent, flattened sticks can have. It's possible there were toy or ritual returning thrown sticks and hunting or war versions, just like with the aboriginees.

[Christopher Lee]

[quote="David Stephenson"][quote="Jean Henri Chandler"]

[Nick Trueman]

Hi

Some pics, Khazar Saltovo flight maces.

I dont believe a mace was beneath any culture, I also dont believe Norse peoples came into any contact with maces during the Viking period. I exclude the Ruso/Norse who traveled into eastern Russia.

Bronze........ well its as hard or harder than forged iron and easier to cast.

N

[Nick Trueman]

another

[Nick Trueman]

These ones look used.

Remember these maces where in use well before the Khazar Khagante fell in decline due to Varangian Rus takeovers of the trade route, and the Qipchaq peoples pushing in from the steppe.

The Rus adopted many Asiatic styles, but in this early period they are still buried/cremated with western European swords. But there belts and archery equipment is of steppe origin ( Magyar/Khazar)

N

[Nick Trueman]

The Tagancha mace buried with a high ranking warrior. It is believed he was inturned at the height of the Kievan Rus's rule, and just before they were crushed by the mongols.

This is a cavalry weapon, the warrior was either Czarne Kloboki or Qipchaq. By the 12-13th c the Rus do adopt sabers and assorted steppe novelties for killing people, but this is way late for the Viking age.

N

[Merv Cannon]

Hi Nick.........Thanks for the pictures ! The first three were tied to the end of a rope much like a flail ? ........ correct me if Im wrong here. I wonder if anyone ( prob. Russians ? ) have reproduced them or train with them as a martial art ?
I have some more pics of them in my files however I have found that in German they just call them "Streitkolben" like all the other maces ( Lit.- Fight-piston ) ....I dont know if they have a separate name ?
There seems to be no shortage of original period small knob-like ones from East European sources........kind of like the Bayeau Tap. ones.
Speaking of the Bayeau Tapestry, the first picture that I posted when I started this topic was of one made here in Oz .....thats what got me started on this whole topic, but I found another reproduced one, just out of interrest, from "Tod's Stuff "in the UK. Its listed as a "Viking or Norman Mace", so I assume hes used the Bayeaux as a guide and assumed the Vikings used it also ?

[M. Wagner]