Jake Williams Better for sure but I still think you’d be insane to use anything but a bow or javelins (or spears which you’re comfortable throwing). (P.S. unless it’s specifically a monster where you need to chop things off, like a hydra, but that’s the exception plus you ought to choose your weapon for the target)
If I were some fantasy world adventurer, my go-to weapon would be some 2-handed axe. When you make a living killing, sometimes it needs a good clean poke, and sometimes it needs to be cloven to pieces with more heft than a sword can give. You know, large pieces being severed completely, lest the wounds repair.
Jokes aside, I totally could see a poorer man-at-arms using a thick woolen shirt/tunic in place of a proper gambeson for economic reasons. Can't say anything defending the jeans though lol
"sweater gambeson" Actually, why not? It's warm, cheaply made, breathes well, fire resistant. Plenty of advantages for your typical garrison duty. The gambeson was surely an expensive piece of kit, you wouldn't want to wear out unnecessarily. When I started writing this post, I thought I'll find "a" reason why sweaters could sometimes be worn under armor. Now I'm almost thinking that common clothing like sweaters was what was usually worn, while a proper subarmails was kept safe in a drawer stuffed with bug repelling herbs.
The Pollaxe is probably my favorite weapon, it somehow manages to look both brutal and stylish at the same time and it's just a beautiful example of weapon design and really underrated when it comes to fiction, be it stuff like DnD to movies to books. Although I guess I can kinda understand the reason they may not be used much in movies/TV is due to the same reason they don't fight much with them in reenactment.
I had (still have one) but my old man cut the shaft in half, thinking it would improve it (it didn't) he let it get all rusty too.. One of my favourite archaic weapons, the force you can get even into strikes that start with a feint is incredible
The poll poleaxe was once more commonly used, but as the demographics of poll-workers in Western Europe and the Anglosphere have changed, the need for a smaller, handier pollaxe has meant that the larger, heavier poll poleaxe is mostly a ceremonial item in this day and age. In Eastern Europe, however, the poll poleaxe has remained at the forefront of polling culture, and among Western aficionados of poll memorabilia of that region, Pole poll poleaxes are highly sought-after collectors' items.
Good thing too. I am glad it turned out this way. We also have flying cars as well now, and smart prosthetics for disabled people. It's quite good really.
I used to think swords were the coolest when I was a kid, and as I grew older and started watching Matt, Lindybeige, Metatron and Shad I really started appreciating the spear and eventually a poleaxe. Now I just want one. Also I want books and fantasy works where the hero uses one and dunks on sword wielders.
Best weapon for a Dwarf, devastation with reach. It makes more sense for them to have spears but hammers and axes are more iconic. why not all 3 in one?
I used to be big on that, too, but I've grudgingly come to accept that swords usually make the most sense, given that most fantasy takes place in the context of a journey, or else in a civilian context. Poleaxes are great, but I wouldn't want to be lugging one up the slopes of Mt. Doom or dragging it around the Red Keep, you know? ... actually, now I _do_ want to see a story where the protagonist is constantly hauling a poleaxe around. Getting caught on the dungeon roof, knocking over the duke's pot plants, awkwardly resting it on the table when they're trying to eat...
As he describes, poleaxe is a knightly weapon though so it's on the cool scale of swords unlike regular 'plebian' axes. I'm not an axe person normally but poleaxe gets a carte blanche from me.
Excellent video, Matt. And full marks for managing to say "it's going to stop your hands being able to easily slide up and down the shaft" without smirking. That's dedication!
That bit about the weapon breaking about a third of the way from the head looks to be related to the way chimneys tend to break about a third of the way from the bottom, and pencils doing the same thing if pressed too firmly. The term to Google is "bending moment". I loves me some physics with my weapon critiques. ;>)
@HAYAO LEONE As someone that has tried to save 3 bucks by using a random bough on my farming billhook instead of a straight machined handle I'm afraid I have to say that no, they don't.
Where he gestured looks too be more of 1/4 the way down the shaft to me. Either one could easily be a node of vibration, where the shaft flexes most when you hit something with it.
i mean, when you chop wood you can miss and hit the shaft instead of the blade, and if you use a lot of a force you might create a weak point in the wood. I imagine with a much longer poleaxe and with a lot more force, if a simple wooden shaft hit something solid you might easily damage it
You see pollaxes with no langets snap at that exact spot in sparring, from heavy swings that are blocked. The momentum of the axehead can break the weapon thats why those are there.
@@rolfs2165 - OK, I rewatched and I see what you're saying. I think he really knew the reason, but in the moment he forgot the precise lingo of the physics principle going on there. I think it was on the tip of his tongue. Or on the edge of his blade, so to speak. ;)
That said, I am fascinated how the langettes and rivets can do such a great job at securing the weapon head to the haft, precisely because so much dynamic inertia does build up during a swing. Do they get loose and have to be re-tightened often? Do they strip out the wood regularly?
My guess is you replace or reshaft the pollaxe after any major combat event and likely with other polearms too. You can’t really fix a wood shaft and have it be as reliable as a new one, minor cuts/chips in it or slight stripping of the outter layer of wood can be a liability, especially a liability you don’t need when your life depends on your weapon working properly. It’s likely a big reason why swords are brought along as sidearms because your pole weapon will likely be lost or break during intense combat. Long story short my assumption is that the Rivets or langets themselves realistically only need to secure the axe head for a single event of combat ie. two armies clashing in the field or a foot combat tournament event.
Check out the channel “Pursuing the Knightly Arts.” They do a lot of armored pollaxe combat, including a really great series on Le Jeu de la Hache, my favorite source.
Great video, Matt! Thank you very much! Two questions, if I may: 1. How breakage-resilient would the wooden shaft be against blows by a) swords (should be fine, I guess) and b) other heavy-headed pole weapons? 2. (in line with the 1st) Were there historical examples of full-steel poleaxes?
I have never seen a fully steel pollaxe - the shaft would have to be hollow, else it would be so heavy that it would be too slow to make an effective fighting weapon. The shorter maces, axes and hammers that have steel shafts are normally either very narrow, or they are hollow. Wood can be broken, but in normal use it would be unlikely for a pollaxe shaft to break - probably more likely for a sword blade to break (as they sometimes did and still do).
3:04 His style of joke delivery always catches me off guard. It's so fluid and doesn't sound like a joke before or after he says it. There's no lead up and no pause afterwards, just in and out with no mess.
With that kind of lever arm, a full blow would be more akin to a car accident where the brain is actually bounced around inside the skull because of the rapid acceleration/deceleration of the bone in relation to the soft squishy bits. 😁
No, more like a really good punch. Huge difference between a maybe 1 kg piece of iron being smashed into your head at maybe 100 km/h and your entire body weight being propelled like a projectile at 50, 80 or 100+ km/h. If we're talking about being hit by a car that's a tonne and a half wall of steel slamming into you at about the same speed as your 1 kg poleaxe head. A full force hit from a polleaxe can produce just enough force to slightly alter your balance mostly if it's landed on the side of the face. The acceleration of the head would be comparable or lower than that of a punch depending on well braced the target's neck was for the impact. The length of the polleaxe allows it to be swung very quickly but provides poor leverage, you're relying basically on the weight of the head almost throwing it like a projectile. If the head is well braced it could overcome most of the polleaxe's momentum, if the person is caught off guard the greater velocity of the polleaxe might allow for greater acceleration of the head. The most powerful blow with the polleaxe is the thrust but it's also the slowest, a good thrust can push someone onto the ground.
@@eddard9442 What do you believe 300 kg of force means, why do you believe that? 'the leverage with this would be substantial'. No. Good leverage happens when effort is used to move one end of a lever a long distance to push something a very short distance. The poleaxe works in the opposite way, you shoulder which is bearing the entire load moves a very short distance to move the poleaxe a very long distance. The further away you move from the shoulder the less leverage you have. If you don't believe me put 100 kilos all on one end of a barbell, grip the opposite end of the barbell and try to lift those 100 kilos. This represents striking with a poleaxe. Now place both hands just underneath the weights and lift the barbell, this represents a punch. Remember what I said about levers earlier? The further away something is swung from the shoulder, the larger it's arc will be. The outstretched tip while swung will always be traveling faster than the hand that is swinging it. This is not true for thrusts, the hand and the tip of the weapon travel at exactly the same speed.
Hit a limb and it probably knocks it out for a while if not cause a break or dislocation. Torso impacts would probably knock the wind out of you. Head impacts from the top may lead to skull fractures and spine compression while side head impacts make me want to throw up just thinking about it.
@@rotwang2000 'knocks it out for a while'...how do you think that works, wtf? Sure a fracture to the shins or forearms especially seems plausible with a really solid poleaxe hit. 'torso hits wind you' ehhh, you really need to dig in to wind someone and the armour prevents that. The injuries you suggest to the head are plausible if unlikely. Hits to the side of the head will be little more than uncomfortable unless they cause a fracture, eye damage, cuts or make you groggy. A hard, clean solid hit could definitely do those sorts of things.
To be fair to The Witcher, a lot of the enemies use pole-arms. The sword-heavy thing is specifically a Witcher thing. They aren't fighting people in armor, remember, for the most part. Theyre fighting monsters. (They aren't soldiers). The soldiers in the setting tend to use pole-arms (particularly in the games, the soldiers you see almost always have a polearm as their primary weapon).
Thing is, almost by definition, a _monster_ tends to be something larger than you, with superior strength and longer reach... You generally want to fight monsters with spears, or other really long pointy bits. People killed boars and mammoths and other big furry monstrosities with spears, not swords.
The witchers have to travel a lot to find their monsters though, I imagine carrying a long old polearm everywhere would be fairly impractical. Though I suppose a witxher could carry a spear head and have it fixed to a shaft in whatever town he finds a contract.
Brilliantly explained, much appreciated when you underline they were not necessarily new inventions, but just something getting handy for the new age/situation/armour
Wow I was searching frantically for Pollaxe techniques and your video came up 😅 Thank you so much and I really look forward to your video on “Weapons of 15th Century Common Soldier” to complete your previous video on “Armour of 15th Century Common Soldier”.
One thing I really love about Matt's videos is how he's totally serious and informative the whole time. The. Whole. Time. I watched this video to get information about the pollaxe. And he delivered it without any tomfoolery. Even though he at one point was talking about sliding your hand up and down the shaft. He kept it serious and informative.
Another important factor in the development of poleaxes being used more commonly in Europe was the proliferation of the arquebus and musket. Formations such as the Spanish tercio square relied on the defensive power of pikes in order to compliment the offensive power of the firearm, poleaxes were just as good as pikes at keeping the enemy at bay and handling cavalry attacks albeit at a more aggressive and close quarters manner.
I think he should be one of the consultant for the show or maybe other proper armor experts (like Knyght Errant channel), so we wouldn't get awful over the top armors just because it's a fantasy series.
@scholagladiatoria - Adam Savage did a great tour of the Met's Last Knight exhibit of armor connected to Emperor Maximilian. In it there were these almost clockwork mechanisms that would launch a knight's shield airborne and bursting into pieces when he was struck in the joust. If you have any more information on that kind of thing I'd love to see a more in depth video on it. Here's a link to the part I'm talking about: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XY_RldJvCWs.html
When I was involved with the SCA I served as a retainer to a pair of south paws who fought in shield walls with poleaxes. These were rattan with closed cell foam, duct tape and bicycle tire "edges" since live steel wasn't allowed (this was before the prominence of HEMA). Blows weren't pulled and armor requirements were strict.
25:37 Slightly off topic, but a good note for comparison: In Sengoku period Japan, we see the exact same thing. The Samurai would carry a primary weapon (often a spear or a bow), and then a katana and wakizashi/tanto as their backup weapons. And again, wrestling would be an unarmed option as well (in their case, jujitsu).
Someone may have mentioned this before but in Chaucer's "Knight's Tale" the King bans the use of pollaxes and swords with narrow points in order to prevent unnecessary wounding in a tournament. Whether this actually happened in history I can't say, but it shows that Medieval people in Chaucer's time viewed the pollaxe as a particularly dangerous weapon.
The metal barbs on the axe head and the plate over the shaft are not for decoration. The polearm shaft is slammed on the top of a shield. The polearm user then steps back dragging the shield away while tilting the back of the polearm up as to make the polearm horizontal. Now with the spike between the shield and body the polearm user lunged forward thrusting the spike into the body neck or head of the off- balance defender.
Halbard: spear iteration cheap to build, mass produced and designed to be wielded in formations, so the staff is usually fairly long. Pollaxe: hammer/long axe iteration expensive to craft designed to be wielded by armor plated knights against similar armored foes in cqc, therefore the shorter shaft.
Having cleared acres and acres of brush and trees with an old, heavy (spine well over 1 cm thick), hand forged brush hook, I think I can form a hypothesis about handles breaking on pollaxes and similar sized arms. If you look at the pollaxe, or a brush hook, there is a lot of mass located beyond the point of attachment to the wooden handle. If you chop down trees with your brush hook, and the trees are too large to take down with a single diagonal swing (more than 2.5" or 6.3 cm for an open-grained sapling), you risk breaking your handle. Much of the mass of metal on a brush hook is well past the eye, and its inertia tries to carry it around the far side of the tree you're chopping. This will eventually stress the handle within 8" or 20 cm of the eye to the point that it snaps. The closer to the handle you engage the blade on a massive object, the sooner it will snap the handle. On the other hand, striking a solid tree too far out on the hook creates an abrupt application of leverage that stresses the handle. The direction of the slightly diagonal fracture in a brush hook handle lets you know two things: (1) The manner in which you misstruck. (2) You should have used a different tool for that tree. I would love to find a brush hook with langets, and see what difference they make when clearing saplings.
I would love to see someone do some sort of striking force comparison between that, a mace, hammer and something like a baseball bat for a modern context.
"Sometimes you have an axe and a hammer, sometimes you have a hammer and a beak, sometimes you have an axe and a beak." Check it out: Two Beaks. That's what's up.
About breaking wooden shafts: Can someone tell me how the grain of the wood should be orientated to minimize the risk of breaking? I got a rough idea, but rivets or nails don't fit my theory as they would create stress points. The worst example for me would be how a Naginata is hilted. I wonder how it survives the repeated impact.
I'd imagine that it would be similar to a tool handle, in which you'd want the blade or face in-line with the grain, or parallel with the applied force. A handle tends to split along with the grain, so you want the force spread as evenly as possible between the layers. Perpendicular would be worst as it imbalances the shear forces between layers the most.
HEMAists, re-enacters and other knightly LARPers: "Medieval European knights used complex and refined fighting techniques, brute force is a Victorian sterotype" Fiore, an actual knight: "Smash him in the head as hard as you can"
Does my head in that Matt doesn’t have as many subs as other historical/sword RU-vidrs when his expertise, delivery, humour and amiability are top of the fuckin game. Cmon people
Thank you for the information on pollaxes being knightly weapons. I'm a writer and I was looking for a weapon for my antagonist so this video helped me out a lot!
Looks like a weapon that can match with mitten type gauntlets. Versatility can be achieved simply by sliding the gripping hands, and the mittens can offer solid protection for your hands and fingers.
I was so disappointed when Henry V and Hotspur decided to duel with swords in plate armor in "The King" while infantry in background held some pollaxes. At least they used their swords almost realistically - only as a lever to grab and trip the opponent.
Great video, as ever, and it's good to see your presentation technique improving. The BBC will be calling soon. Have you done a video on the legalities of owning and importing weapons?
I have a poleaxe, not a great one, but it gives you an idea, the weight is huge, it's not a "nimble" weapon, it's really heavy and makes a Dane axe feel like a smallsword. It's really something that if you start to swing it whatever it hits is not going to enjoy it by any means. Right now I'd love to get my hand on a polehammer which I feel might have less impact but might be slightly nimbler in use.
Shit, now I wanna homebrew this for use in DnD. Actually, no wait, done: Poleaxe - martial weapon - 6lbs, 30gp - Two Handed - this relatively short polearm is an extremely versatile weapon. It can be used as a spear, a quarterstaff, a battle axe or a war hammer, though some examples replace the axe or the hammer head with a beak which deals 1d10 piercing damage. (This weapon qualifies for the Polearm Master feat)
I'm curious, do you feel like you ever pinch the skin of your hands on the ends of the langets when sliding along the haft without gloves on? thanks! I love your work
So langets also disperse impacting forces over a greater area of the shaft, helping preserve its integrity. I think I get it now, makes a lot of sense when you put it in *context!*
20:58 figuratively and literately I assume also from a Witcher perspective a poleaxe would have been so much better for defeating all that natural heavy armor the big critters like trolls and dragons possess, its basically a weapon made to slay monsters (ironclad or scaleclad)
