Few terms used in the study of medieval combat are as often confused or misused as the word “pollaxe.”
Partly, this is due to the fact that modern people want to apply modern
rules of logic to medieval subjects, something which is not supported by
actually reading what medieval men wrote.
They also tend to ignore the root forms of words and focus only on the
modern forms, ignoring the shifts of language so apparent to the historian.
For example, in period, the term was not “poleaxe” as people
use it today, but “pollaxe.” This makes
little sense to the modern reader
because he doesn’t know what a poll is, and since he just sees an axe on a
pole, “poleaxe” makes sense to him. Unfortunately,
as Kettering’s Law says, it is often true that:
“Logic is an
organized way to go wrong
with confidence.” In fact, in the Middle Ages “poll” meant head
(as in our modern term for counting heads, or “polling"), and the term refers to
the head of the axe and not the shaft of the weapon. Thus, the modern term “poleaxe” represents a
gross misunderstanding of the real word.
The poll (or pole) is not the greatest lexicological
problem, however; in fact, most non-English-speaking sources don’t use the term
pollaxe, simply calling them “axes.” The
real problem is that people think an axe must have an axe blade—after all,
isn’t it logical? As a result, when they
find examples of “poll weapons” which do not have axe blades, they decide they
can’t be pollaxes and invent fanciful
names for them. The great Ewert
Oakeshott is a good example. In his European
Weapons and Armour, he seems to have invented the term “Lucerne Hammer” to
describe this kind of weapon because there were many of this style found in Lucerne,
Switzerland:
http://www.myarmoury.com/images/features/pic_spot_poleaxe09.jpg
http://www.myarmoury.com/images/features/pic_spot_poleaxe09.jpg
I cannot find who coined the term Bec de Corbin, or “crow’s
beak” for this kind of weapon:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Ms.Thott.290.2%C2%BA_132r.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Ms.Thott.290.2%C2%BA_132r.jpg
The ignorance displayed thereby is appalling, and yet its
use is almost universal among living history folks. In fact, “crow’s beak” is never used for axes
in any source; rather, the term “falcon’s beak” is used to describe the hook on
the back of an axe, not the weapon in whole:
“And immediately place the dague of your axe between his bec de faucon
and his hand…” (“Et incontinent mettre
la dague de la vostre entre son becq de faulcon…,” Le Jeu para. 16). Moreover, neither bec de corbin nor bec de
faucon is an appropriate term for describing an axe.
Some people call these kinds of weapons—with a hammer head
backed by a spike—“pole hammers,” demonstrating (and compounding) their
ignorance about the terms being used. In
reality, the weapons shown above, both the so-called “Lucerne hammer” and “Bec
de Corbin,” are called “axes” in most medieval sources, or pollaxes in English
sources. The French call them “Hache,”
the Italians “Azza,” and the Germans “Axe” (or axt), with no mention of
hammers. And indeed, with just a single exception
(Codex 11093) all of them show only
this kind of axe (the hammer head backed with a spike) and none show axes with an
axe blade (Mair shows something with an axe blade and some wild spikes on the
back, but it appears to be a specialized weapon for unarmored combat, if,
indeed, it ever existed—Mair was sometimes somewhat fanciful). So every time a Fechtbuch says something
about an axe, azza, or hache, it always means a hammer backed with
a spike for hooking, and never a weapon with an axe blade (again, except Codex
11093). Here are some examples:
“The first bind with the axe.” (“Das erste anbinden mit der axt,” Talhoffer
1467 fol. 41r.)
“The way you will confront someone with the axe.” (“Wie dú dich gegen aim[e] anndern schick[e]n
sollt mit der axe,” Kal fol. 37v.)
“The first bind with the axe.” (“Das erste anbinden mit der Axe,” Kal fol.
38r.)
Then, there is the question of weapons with an axe head and
a spike (bec de faucon), such as this one (pardon my use of a reproduction, but
the design is accurate):
http://www.medievalcollectibles.com/images/Product/large/600640.png
http://www.medievalcollectibles.com/images/Product/large/600640.png
Most people call these pollaxes or axes, today, and yet they
are not. I do not blame people for this
misunderstanding; indeed, if you read my pollaxe book, you will see I include
this weapon among the pollaxes because at the time I did not know to question
the “common beliefs” on the subject. It
was not until I published a translation of the Peter Falkner Fechtbuch section covering axes and halberds that it was
possible to know that these weapons are actually halberds, and not axes at all. The Falkner Fechtbuch is explicit about this,
and it makes sense when you think about it.
What is a halberd but a blade with a top spike and a back spike on a
shaft? It is only that some of these
weapons are very elaborate, as if for use by real men at arms (i.e., knights)
and not common troops (i.e., billmen and halberdiers), and we associate the
pollaxe with men at arms, not with common troops. This can excuse those who got it wrong before
we learned what Falkner had to say, but
there is no excuse for those who ignore
this and cling in ignorance to the wrong term.
One has but to look at Falkner’s plain text and pictures, and it becomes
impossible to confuse them.
“If you have a murder axe or halberd…” (“Merck hastu ein mordtagst oder hellebarten,”
Falkner fol. 62v.)
“Wind to him the blade of your halberd in front to the neck.”
(“wind ym das platt diner hellenbarten,”
Falkner fol. 63v.)
“Note, this piece is plain and simple: If you have a halberd
and he likewise…” (“Merck das stück ist schlecht und gerecht hastü ein
hellenbarten vnd er einen,” Falkner fol. 64r.)
Note that the weapons above from Falkner are axe blades
backed by a spike/hook, making them halberds. The only exception is the one on the left in folio
62v which shows a hammer backed by a spike, making it an axe, and the reader
can see the master was explicit about this in the text.
It is popular today to ignore historical fact in an effort
to appear hip or trendy or something,
because people fear—fairly dread—being thought of as pedantic, or, god forbid,
a scholar. Even when you teach them the facts, they tend
to ignore them because they fear the disapprobation of the reverse snobs among
their fellows who laud ignorance; weaklings always care more about the opinions
of the popular crowd than they do about facts.
This issue, however, is not open to doubt. Put most simply, an axe, within the context
of historical combat, must have a hammer head.
That hammer may be backed by a spike/hook (and they are only
used for hooking, never for striking in any Fechtbuch), as they are in almost
all Fechtbücher, or by an axe blade, as seems more common in the non-Fechtbuch
iconography, but it is the hammer head which defines it as an axe, not an axe
blade.
Sources Cited:
Hans Talhoffer 1467: Cod.icon.
394a
Le Jeu de La Hache: MS
Français 1996
Paulus Kal: Cgm 1507
Peter Falkner: MS
KK5012
