Double axes and the lance or javelin appear in the seventh century, and indeed up to the age of chivalry the weapons of the ruling class of the more civilised nations of Europe continued to be the axe, the lance, and above all, the sword; while those of the yeomanry or peasantry were the bow, the sling, and the fustibal or staff sling. The axes differed in shape and length, some blades curving like a halbard, of which it is evidently the prototype, while others were long and narrow. The form of the lance or javelin varied greatly, and some were barbed. Two kinds of swords prevailed—the true sword and a shorter weapon. The true sword was worn by leaders only; it was flat, double-edged and sharp, two and a half to three feet in length, with an obtusely pointed blade. The shorter sword was in general use, also the battle-axe and a dagger.
The Anglo-Saxon thane carried a sword, then solely a horseman’s weapon; while the footman was armed with a spear, an axe, a shield, and a dagger. The Anglo-Saxon spear was long in the blade, and the pole-axe narrow bladed and single edged.
Among the valuable Anglo-Saxon records we have, the Ælfric MS., which is profusely illuminated, and contains a good deal of information about swords, mentions the tri-lobed hilt; but the richest mine of contemporary history, for delineation of the weapons of the eleventh century, is undoubtedly the Bayeux tapestry. The arms given in that invaluable record are the lance, the sword, the mace, the axe, and the bow. This bow is shorter than the weapon known as the English longbow, which was not used in battle much before the reign of Edward I. Some of the Anglo-Saxons appear with javelins.
The weapons used by the Normans at Hastings still retained traces of their Scandinavian origin. Their army was rich in cavalry and archers, while their Anglo-Saxon adversaries were but ill-provided in these respects.
The sword was used in conjunction with the dagger as early as the reign of Edward I. As the great advantages of the use of infantry became more apparent, the yeomanry began to play a much more important part in the warlike combinations of the age; while even the peasantry had now become indispensable in all campaigning on a large scale. It was mostly, however, the freedman who went to the wars, while the serf remained at home to till the soil. This it was which brought the bow and other footman’s weapons so much to the fore. Bills and scythe-knives[34] appear to have been in use early in the eleventh century, indeed probably long before, as this was the class of weapons most easily extemporised from the implements of husbandry. The goedendag, the weapon of the guilds and boors of Flanders, and later of the lower orders in France, is by some considered to have been a ploughshare mounted on a pole or staff; but this is a question which will be dealt with in the more detailed descriptions of the various weapons covered by these notes. The flail also, with its military adaptations, contributed its quota at a very early period towards the armament of the masses; and the English longbow was the arbiter of victory in many a stricken field, and was the main factor in breaking down the inordinate power and oppression of the English, or perhaps more properly speaking, of the Norman barons. English archers carried stakes pointed at both ends as part of their equipment. When driven into the ground with their points towards the enemy they formed an efficient stockade against a charge of horsemen, as the horses impaled themselves upon them. The mace and its kindred weapons, with their common prehistoric ancestor the club, and the long line of the more rudimentary axes, from the remotest times, all played their part in the wars of the earlier “middle ages.”
The weapons of the fourteenth century differed but little in form from those of the thirteenth, and it was not before the fifteenth century that organised infantry became an indispensable contingent of the “establishment” of every army in the field; by which time halbards, pikes, partizans, and their kindred weapons were all in use. These weapons, with the glaive, voulge, holywater-sprinklers, and morning-star, continued more or less in vogue until the beginning of the eighteenth century. It is frequently affirmed that gunpowder was known to the Chinese before the Christian era began, and the embrasures in the Great Wall, erected 200 B.C., are often cited as proof that artillery of some sort or other was used in China at a very early date. However this may be, it is certain that there must be an extraordinary wealth of facts and suggestions lying buried deep under the soil of that “old world empire” and Japan. In this age, so hungry for new developments, it will probably not be many years before some enthusiastic antiquary begins to look more closely into the possibilities of this virgin soil by digging investigation.
The honour of the invention of gunpowder is claimed, however, by several of the European nations. It is often stated to have been a fortuitous discovery in 1320 by Bartholdus Schwartz, a monk of Friburg; but there is a recipe for its production as far back as the ninth century of our era, the component parts then being six parts of sulphur to two each of saltpetre and charcoal,[35] but this acted by fusing and not by detonation, and was probably a form of Greek fire. The properties of gunpowder were thus more or less known long before its application as a motive force for projectiles. This did not take place, however, before the fourteenth century. It is often stated that gunpowder was not made in England before the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Henry VIII. bought gunpowder largely in Spain, but as he also purchased saltpetre and sulphur it seems certain that gunpowder was made in England during his reign. There are records at this time of payments for gunpowder to people with English names; and Carlo Capello, the Venetian, writes in 1532 that Henry made powder in the Tower then. Its adoption for application to projectile warfare gradually revolutionised both the armament and tactics of the middle ages and of the “renaissance,” especially in the direction of gradually discrediting the use of the bow in all its forms. The introduction of the epoch-making bombard and hand-gun changed the face of history.
Weapons may be divided into two classes, those made for the rank and file being plain and coarse; while an immense amount of artistic skill, frequently of the very highest order, was lavished during the later middle ages and the “renaissance” on the decoration of swords, daggers, crossbows, and staff weapons generally, as well as on armour of proof, for leaders and the higher classes. The hilts of both swords and daggers were richly chased and decorated in high relief with mouldings and even statuettes, while the blades were often inlaid as well as engraved. Even artists like Holbein and Albert Dürer exercised their utmost skill in designing for such work. A beautiful example is given in [Fig. 40] of a sword that belonged to the Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol.
Fig. 40.—Enriched Sword, second half Sixteenth Century.