Armour & Weapons

CHAP. VII WEAPONS 103 actual stabbing. The Anelace and Cinquedea are broad-bladed short weapons used for stabbing only. The Baselard was the short sword carried by civilians in the fifteenth century. Of staff weapons the principal is, of course, the Lance. At the time of the Conquest and up to the fourteenth century the shaft of the lance was of even thickness with lozenge- or leaf-shaped point. During the fourteenth century we find the shaft swelling just above the grip and then tapering below it. Plate XI, 14, shows the lance provided with a vamplate or shield, which pro- tected the hand and made the right gauntlet unnecessary. Tilting lances are sometimes as much as 15 feet in length, and one specimen in the Tower weighs 20 lb. An engraving by Lucas Cranach (1472- 1553), which depicts a tourney or mêlée of knights, shows the combatants preceded by squires on horseback who support these weighty lances till the moment of impact, when, it is presumed, they moved aside out of danger. The lance-point was sharp for active service, but for tournaments it was supposed to be blunted. This practice, however, was so often neglected that ordinances were framed enjoining the use of the Coronal or trefoiled button, which is shown on Plate XI, 15. The other long-shafted staff weapons may be divided into those for stabbing and those for cutting. The Gisarme is a long- handled weapon which some writers consider to have been much the same as the Pole-axe. From Wace we learn that it was sharp, long, and broad.1 It was in all probability a primitive form of the Bill. This was also a broad-bladed weapon and was used only by foot-soldiers. It seems to have been evolved from the agricultural scythe. The Godendag was the name given by the Flemings to the Halbard. It had an axe-blade with curved or straight spikes at the back and a long point to terminate the shaft. In this detail it differed from the pole-axe. The halbard proper was used as early as the thirteenth century and appears in the designs from the Painted Chamber at Westminster figured 1 ‘. granz gisarmes esmolues’ {Roman de Ron, 1. 12907). ‘ . gisarmes lunges è lées’ (ib., 1. 13431).