Wierd and Wacky Weapons of the PBI*

Betrayal of Christ; School of Pisa, second half of the 12th century. Florence, Uffizi Gallery.

Not only spears, but spear-length mace, billhook, sickle (!) and y-shaped military fork (which appears to have teeth inside the "y"). Note also the lantern.

Soldiers with a sort of billhook thingy - not unlike the old Dacian falx (and not at all like the rhomphaia - see The Varangian Rhomphaia - A Cautionary Tale here - note also, another lantern! From the French book Coutumes de Toulouse, which dates to about 1300.

From a ceiling panel depicting the arrest of Christ in the Church of Zillis (Grisons, France). Mddle of the 12th century. From right, a billhook, a single-handed axe, and a thing that must be a mace, but looks like a shapeless hunk of rock on a stick. The man on the far left carries a torch.

Then there are the strange weapons used (primarily by infantry) in the Maciejowski Bible (c. 1250) here,  here and here

(Disregard Samson with the Jawbone of an ass - I don't think this was standard military issue.)

And the goedendag used by the Flemish infantry at the Battle of the Golden Spurs in 1302.

From the Vie d'Edouard, English, c. 1250. Not only spears and two-handed axes (still in use this late!), but a military fork (it's the black one) and a trident. And what's that thing behind the right-hand axe? Looks VERY like a godendag See here . A better copy of this picture, and many others from this source, can be found by clicking on the picture above, and then  the button marked Fo. 5v. This opens up a picture - and you can zoom in by clicking on the bit you're interested in.

A forerunner of the Maciejowski Bible horror weapons? Soldiers of Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle. Codex Calixtinus, Cathedral Library, Santiago de Compostella, Spain. Believed to have been produced in Southern France about 1130-1140.

Betrayal of Christ, late 11th century, Cathedral of San Marco, Venice. Among other things, this shows two-headed axes used as polearms, a 'glaive", a "spiked ball" polearm similar to the top picture and and lanterns and torches similar to those in the first, second and third pictures above. And WHAT is that thing the soldier at the far left is carrying?

*PBI- "Poor Bloody Infantry" - World War 2 Australian army term.

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