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”!
THE BILL, SCYTHE KNIFE, AND GLAIVE.
This class of weapons is often confounded with the gisarme, because they sometimes have a spur at the base. All have their prototype in the scythe of agriculture.
The bill occurs in the poem of Beowulf as part of the armament of a ship of war, and it is often mentioned in Anglo-Saxon chronicles, but it must be borne in mind that old chronicles used the phrase “bills and bows” in the sense that the former word applies generally to all long-shafted weapons. According to Silver, the bill ought not to exceed six feet in length.
Bills were in general use by footmen in the eleventh century, and indeed continued to be so until the advent of the pike. This class of weapons was largely superseded in the fifteenth century by halbards, partizans, and pikes, but the bill survived long in England. There are some particulars of this weapon in the Brief Discourse on Warre, written by Sir Roger Williams in 1590, in which the proper proportion of bills to pikes in battle-array is set forth as one to five. The length of the bill-shaft should not exceed six feet.
The glaive has a much larger blade than the bill. It has its edge on the outside curve, and has side branches of various sizes. The term “glaive” was often applied to the lance, and in France “le fer de glaive” denoted the sword of chivalry, as well as the headman’s blade.