THE HALBARD.
The first mention of this weapon occurs in the fourteenth century. It was used by footmen only, and is somewhat varied in form. It usually has a somewhat square or crescent-shaped blade, with a sharp hook-like projection or forks on the back, and sometimes a spike from the face, but always a spear at the top. In the fifteenth century the nearly straight form prevailed, with a spur behind, while the crescent-shaped blade appeared early in the sixteenth; and the hinder spur became broader and more blade-like, and with a downward curve, while the spear at the point became much longer.
Double-bladed halbards were not uncommon.
The length at the end of the sixteenth century was about five feet, and being shorter than the pike was better adapted for hand-to-hand fighting. Silver says the length ought not to exceed five or six feet.
The halbardiers had charge of the standard.
The halbard and the partizan were the great infantry weapons before the pike came into general use. They were still to the fore in the reign of George I.
The pageant halbard is usually perforated, engraved, and otherwise ornamented.
Hewitt gives a figure, from Holbein’s “Costumes Suisses,” of a Swiss halbardier of the first half of the sixteenth century.
THE PIKE, PARTIZAN, SPETUM, RANSEUR, AND SPONTOON.
The pike is a footman’s weapon used greatly in conjunction with the halbard and harquebus; and these three were pre-eminently the weapons of the infantry of the later “middle ages” and the “renaissance.”