THE JAVELIN, SPEAR, AND LANCE.
This family of weapons is somewhat extensive, and of very great antiquity. The earliest forms were often used as missiles, and have been briefly alluded to in the introductory remarks. We have the authority of Procopius that the Frankish darts had barbed iron heads, and were used for both cutting and thrusting. Agathias refers to double axes and argones (spears). The Anglo-Saxon spear was a narrow, long-bladed weapon, while their javelin differed from that of the Normans in being shorter. The Bayeux tapestry shows Anglo-Saxons with bundles of barbed javelins in their hands. The Norman cavalry was armed with long lances, as well as swords, at the battle of Hastings.
Up to the end of the eleventh century, the lance continued of a comparatively uniform thickness about twelve feet in length, and the knight’s pennon waved from it, as shown on the Bayeux tapestry, while the head was lozenge- or leaf-shape, and sometimes barbed—all these forms appear on the tapestry. The Daubernoun brass (1277) furnishes a good example of a thirteenth century lance; it is five feet long, and bears an emblazoned pennon.
The tilting-lance was from twelve to fifteen feet in its extreme length, first of uniform girth, but later thicker at the base, gradually tapering towards the point, and the swell at the grip does not occur before the fourteenth century. Ash was preferred for the shaft. The early tournament lance was required to be blunted, but owing to the many evasions of this rule an ordinance of the fourteenth century enjoined that the head be furnished with a tip in the form of a coronal.
The length of the lance was often much reduced in the fourteenth century, and was then sometimes used as a dart, but this was considered so dangerous to the king’s peace that its use in this manner was forbidden by statute. The tilting-lance of late in the fourteenth and during the fifteenth century was often made hollow, so that it was more apt to shiver at the moment of impact, and the shaft was grooved; it differs at this time in form and bulk for the different courses. Those that were used with a view to “unhorsing” were stronger, heavier, and thicker in the stem than those made with the object of being splintered; the former were provided with a pointed head, while the latter often bore a coronal. The lance used for running at the ring was shorter and much lighter than the two first-named, and was tipped with a cone; there are specimens of most of these varieties at the Tower. Froissart mentions a spear with a hook or spur at the base of the blade, used for the purpose of dragging an adversary from his saddle, but this feature might refer to one of the other weapons otherwise enumerated. A good example of the lance of the second half of the fifteenth century may be seen on “The Tapestry of Berne.”
It was common for knights fighting on foot, or those dismounted by any accident, to cut down the lance to a length of five feet, for use as a spear; this was done at the battle of Poitiers.
The vamplate, a steel plate for keeping the lance in position, began as a small rondelle, but attained larger dimensions in the fourteenth century, becoming very large in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; the German tilting vamplate covered the shoulder and half of the arm.
The importance of the lance in battle became greatly reduced in the sixteenth century, and even earlier.