THE GOEDENDAG.
The late Mr. John Hewitt, in one of his contributions to the History of Mediæval Weapons and Military Appliances in Europe, refers to the goedendag as being a foot soldier’s weapon of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; and he gives a drawing of a foot soldier armed with a long-shafted weapon thickening towards the head, which is surmounted by a short iron spear, firmly and thickly socketed on to the extremity.
This figure, with others, is stated by M. Felix de Vigne, in his Recherches Historiques sur les Costumes des Gildes, etc., published in 1846, to have been reproduced on a drawing by himself from a fresco that had long been plastered over on a wall in an old building in Ghent, since pulled down. The soldier wears a bassinet, with camail of banded-mail overlying the surcoat, and the general aspect of the figure is that of an armed member of one of the Flemish guilds of the beginning of the fourteenth century or thereabouts. M. de Vigne claims to have established the form of the true goedendag in the weapon carried by the soldier.
The late Mr. Hermann Van Duyse in his brochure, Le Goedendag arme Flamande sa Légende et son Histoire, refers to the old building in which the fresco was found as by tradition a chapel of the guild of the weavers of Ghent, known as the “Leugemiete.” The town records and archives of the Abbaye of St. Bavon both afford confirmatory evidence that a chapel was built very early in the fourteenth century on or near the site where the “Leugemiete” stood.
The figure mentioned by Hewitt formed one of a troop preceded by crossbowmen. The leader wears a visored bassinet, and bears a standard emblazoned with two triangular shields and five crosses argent. His sword is long and broad, with quillons curving towards the blade. The details of the drawing point clearly to the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century. M. Viollet le Duc, in his Dictionnaire du Mobilier, defines the weapon as a variety of the voulge or fauchard, while M. Van Malderghem considers it to be a ploughshare mounted on a staff, or a sort of bill.
In a poem by W. Guiart, written in the French of the period, in the Branche des Royaux Leguages, descriptive of the battle of “Haringues” in 1297, the goedendag mentioned affords many points of resemblance to the staff weapon shown on the De Vigne fresco; indeed, it can be no other.
The goedendag, whatever its form, was used with great effect at the battle of Courtray in 1302, and is called “goudendar” and “godendar” in an account of the battle in the Grandes Chroniques. Guiart mentions the goedendag as having been used in this battle in concert with the lance and guisarme, and the weapon is mentioned in French chronicles late in the thirteenth century.
Tradition says that the goedendag is the weapon of the fresco and poem, but garnished with spikes over the thicker portion of the staff towards the head; and there are several such weapons surviving, though this is probably a rather later variety of the weapon than that shown on the fresco, the only difference being the addition of the side spikes. Froissart mentions the weapon as being used at the battle of “Rosebecque” in 1383. Probably the true form of the goedendag is that of the poem and fresco, with or without side spikes. As to the etymology of the word itself, that is given in Guiart’s poem, where it says that it means “good day.”[45] The name doubtless took its rise from a brutal jest, as in the case of the holy-water sprinkler. The goedendag in the author’s possession has a staff seventy-five inches long, with a spike a little over seven inches at the end, and twelve short spikes dispersed in four rows round the head, projecting about one and a quarter inches from the staff, which bears the brand Z. I. In the Rotunda, Woolwich, are four similar goedendags, classed in the catalogues as “morgensterns” or “holy-water sprinklers”!