The Armour Archive

Got a replica made and returned to me after repairs last week. But I was sick. Now that I'm healthy, I mounted it up on a piece of bamboo, and whacked things with it.

Wow.

What is it, you ask? Well, imagine a superlightweight (5.5 oz) hammer head, on each side containing a stem running the length of a lady's thumb, ending in a rounded "button" like the end of a small ball-peen hammer on both sides.

It was a common weapon in the 8-11th century in Hungary. And on the end of a severely-messed-up piece of bamboo as a test piece, with which I was frankly afraid to put more swing than "let's switch our kid with a plum branch, but not too hard, because he's only sassing a little bit," I easily put dents in thick mild steel.

It wouldn't do much more than severely irritate a guy in a greathelm... (not that there were any of those around in 863...) but I have not even the faintest hesitation that this would seriously mess up the day of a guy wearing a period-thickness spangenhelm on contact "in earnest." It's about as cheap to make as can be made, uses very little steel/iron, and is a near-perfect backup weapon for a light horseman or a light-infantry guy.

So.... why'd it disappear?

Makes one wonder...

My best guess? Fashion! Of course a weapons system my be superceded by a more effective weapon, or made less effective by some subsequent advance in armor or tactics; but all things being equal, they can also lose popularity due to “unfashionableâ€Â

Maybe they said "You know, this would work a little better if it had an elongated spike on the backend, and the front was more like a hammer...Maybe we should forge the hammer end into four points..."

I consider the Bowie knife to be very similar (perhaps a derivative ) of some German hunting knives with strikingly similar profiles...

Prestige may have had somthing to do with it, true, since these forms pop back up in the renaissance just as soon as people bother documenting "little people" again...

Alcy, actually, the principle of the "fokos" weapons family in Hungary is that they're the anti-pollaxe... a pollaxe harms by being ponderous and cruel... the fokos does its damage by being a light, fast head on a long, long lever arm. (So if we square off, you with a knightly sword, I with a fokos, our weapons as used in one hand will be equivalent in reach and speed, and I may actually have more reach.)

The Ghurka knife is bent, but most commando knives are straight. Go figure.

As for the Hungarian warhammer mentioned above, I wonder if it was a hammer in common use for some construction or craft activity, and then rehafted as needed for battle? If the original hammer style fell out of common everyday use, then the warhammer would have to be either purpose-built, or they used some other implement.

I can't see why you'd want both ends blunt, if you could just as easily make one end with a spike for hooking and punching through plate or leather. Something like an English War Hammer.

Interesting. It never really occurred to me before reading this thread, but this is probably why a guy like Bertrand du Guesclin shows up as a historical figure of note.

Now there's a guy that I don't think would have paid more than lip service to what weapons or armor were in fashion at the time. I've read stories of him showing up at court and being mistaken for a woodcutter, as he was wearing nothing but a black tunic and an axe slung around his neck. Or showing up for a duel and having to borrow armor.

And then proceeding to throw his opponent off his horse with his bare hands, opening up his visor, and pounding the crud out of his face with his gauntleted fist, causing his friends to beg for mercy on his behalf...

I think if you weren't that kind of wrecking machine, you'd probably be as much a slave to fashion as everyone else.

This is just my theory. Most of the people on this board have sustained injuries that had a good chance of killing us in period. I think that with death being something that happens regularly to the non-aged, it would make you focus more on the here and now. If you had the money, and could get a weapon that not only was slightly more effective, but all the Joneses were using as well, wouldn't you?

It'd be better than being remembered as the guy who charged the enemy with a ridiculously out-of-date Hungarian weapon.