Dion Cassius refers to the armament of the Caledonians as being a buckler, dagger, and lance; while Tacitus says that the Britons used large blunt swords and small bucklers.
Excepting for a few specimens found in peat mosses and burial mounds, we are indebted to monkish chronicles for all our knowledge regarding the weapons of the “dark ages” of our era, together with a few glimpses and suggestions obtained from the “Sagas” handed down, partly vivâ voce, from generation to generation. There are many errors in the best classifications of arms, and many weapons in museums and private collections scheduled as belonging to the “iron age” are really of mediæval origin; still, this state of things has vastly improved of late years, and some of the newer museum catalogues leave but little to be desired, having been compiled by men who have made a close study of the subject, and who have had the advantages of ample opportunities for comparison in their surroundings.
Procopius, the secretary of Belisarius, gives some account of the arms of the Franks of the sixth century, whose weapons were the sword, the axe or francisca, and the spear. The ordinary battering-ram and the testudo, which was a movable shed containing a ram, were in use in this century, as well as a machine for boring walls.
The sources of information available from the seventh to the end of the tenth century are very scanty as far as Britain and the Germanic peoples are concerned; but more has been preserved relating to the Franks, a race also of Germanic origin, whose country, more than any other during the “dark ages,” seems to have been imbued with the continuity of Roman methods and traditions. This was indeed a barbarous nation, with the corrupt remnants of the Roman Empire grafted on to it; and the Frankish kingdom only became consolidated some time after the introduction of Christianity, which provided a much needed common platform in the teachings and example of the monastic orders. The monks wrote and preserved the manuscripts, without which the “dark ages” of our era would have left but little trace behind them.
Double axes and the lance or javelin appear in the seventh century, and indeed up to the age of chivalry the weapons of the ruling class of the more civilised nations of Europe continued to be the axe, the lance, and above all, the sword; while those of the yeomanry or peasantry were the bow, the sling, and the fustibal or staff sling. The axes differed in shape and length, some blades curving like a halbard, of which it is evidently the prototype, while others were long and narrow. The form of the lance or javelin varied greatly, and some were barbed. Two kinds of swords prevailed—the true sword and a shorter weapon. The true sword was worn by leaders only; it was flat, double-edged and sharp, two and a half to three feet in length, with an obtusely pointed blade. The shorter sword was in general use, also the battle-axe and a dagger.
The Anglo-Saxon thane carried a sword, then solely a horseman’s weapon; while the footman was armed with a spear, an axe, a shield, and a dagger. The Anglo-Saxon spear was long in the blade, and the pole-axe narrow bladed and single edged.
Among the valuable Anglo-Saxon records we have, the Ælfric MS., which is profusely illuminated, and contains a good deal of information about swords, mentions the tri-lobed hilt; but the richest mine of contemporary history, for delineation of the weapons of the eleventh century, is undoubtedly the Bayeux tapestry. The arms given in that invaluable record are the lance, the sword, the mace, the axe, and the bow. This bow is shorter than the weapon known as the English longbow, which was not used in battle much before the reign of Edward I. Some of the Anglo-Saxons appear with javelins.
The weapons used by the Normans at Hastings still retained traces of their Scandinavian origin. Their army was rich in cavalry and archers, while their Anglo-Saxon adversaries were but ill-provided in these respects.
The sword was used in conjunction with the dagger as early as the reign of Edward I. As the great advantages of the use of infantry became more apparent, the yeomanry began to play a much more important part in the warlike combinations of the age; while even the peasantry had now become indispensable in all campaigning on a large scale. It was mostly, however, the freedman who went to the wars, while the serf remained at home to till the soil. This it was which brought the bow and other footman’s weapons so much to the fore. Bills and scythe-knives34 appear to have been in use early in the eleventh century, indeed probably long before, as this was the class of weapons most easily extemporised from the implements of husbandry. The goedendag, the weapon of the guilds and boors of Flanders, and later of the lower orders in France, is by some considered to have been a ploughshare mounted on a pole or staff; but this is a question which will be dealt with in the more detailed descriptions of the various weapons covered by these notes. The flail also, with its military adaptations, contributed its quota at a very early period towards the armament of the masses; and the English longbow was the arbiter of victory in many a stricken field, and was the main factor in breaking down the inordinate power and oppression of the English, or perhaps more properly speaking, of the Norman barons. English archers carried stakes pointed at both ends as part of their equipment. When driven into the ground with their points towards the enemy they formed an efficient stockade against a charge of horsemen, as the horses impaled themselves upon them. The mace and its kindred weapons, with their common prehistoric ancestor the club, and the long line of the more rudimentary axes, from the remotest times, all played their part in the wars of the earlier “middle ages.”
The weapons of the fourteenth century differed but little in form from those of the thirteenth, and it was not before the fifteenth century that organised infantry became an indispensable contingent of the “establishment” of every army in the field; by which time halbards, pikes, partizans, and their kindred weapons were all in use. These weapons, with the glaive, voulge, holywater-sprinklers, and morning-star, continued more or less in vogue until the beginning of the eighteenth century. It is frequently affirmed that gunpowder was known to the Chinese before the Christian era began, and the embrasures in the Great Wall, erected 200 B.C., are often cited as proof that artillery of some sort or other was used in China at a very early date. However this may be, it is certain that there must be an extraordinary wealth of facts and suggestions lying buried deep under the soil of that “old world empire” and Japan. In this age, so hungry for new developments, it will probably not be many years before some enthusiastic antiquary begins to look more closely into the possibilities of this virgin soil by digging investigation.
The honour of the invention of gunpowder is claimed, however, by several of the European nations. It is often stated to have been a fortuitous discovery in 1320 by Bartholdus Schwartz, a monk of Friburg; but there is a recipe for its production as far back as the ninth century of our era, the component parts then being six parts of sulphur to two each of saltpetre and charcoal,35 but this acted by fusing and not by detonation, and was probably a form of Greek fire. The properties of gunpowder were thus more or less known long before its application as a motive force for projectiles. This did not take place, however, before the fourteenth century. It is often stated that gunpowder was not made in England before the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Henry VIII. bought gunpowder largely in Spain, but as he also purchased saltpetre and sulphur it seems certain that gunpowder was made in England during his reign. There are records at this time of payments for gunpowder to people with English names; and Carlo Capello, the Venetian, writes in 1532 that Henry made powder in the Tower then. Its adoption for application to projectile warfare gradually revolutionised both the armament and tactics of the middle ages and of the “renaissance,” especially in the direction of gradually discrediting the use of the bow in all its forms. The introduction of the epoch-making bombard and hand-gun changed the face of history.
Weapons may be divided into two classes, those made for the rank and file being plain and coarse; while an immense amount of artistic skill, frequently of the very highest order, was lavished during the later middle ages and the “renaissance” on the decoration of swords, daggers, crossbows, and staff weapons generally, as well as on armour of proof, for leaders and the higher classes. The hilts of both swords and daggers were richly chased and decorated in high relief with mouldings and even statuettes, while the blades were often inlaid as well as engraved. Even artists like Holbein and Albert Dürer exercised their utmost skill in designing for such work. A beautiful example is given in Fig. 40 of a sword that belonged to the Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol.
The pageant weapons of a prince’s guard, though formed like those used in actual warfare, were especially rich in this respect; and the stocks of crossbows, which afforded great scope for ornamentation, were not only beautifully inlaid with bleached stag’s horn, ivory, and mother-of-pearl, but often adorned with mythological, historic, or biblical legends, carried out with rare elegance and finish. The great German smiths—Hans, Jörg, and Conrad Seusenhofer, Brockberger, Lorenz Kolman, Conrad Lochner, Swartz, Jörg Endorfer, Klemens Horn, Peter Munich, Wilhelm Wirsberg, etc., etc.; and the Italians—Antonio and Tomaso da Missaglia, Philippo Ciro, Giacomo and Francesco Nigroli, Ghinelli, Spacino, Antonio and Lucio Piccinino, and many others, vied with each other in the production of consummate creations of workmanship and art, some of them in armour of proof, others in offensive weapons, and many in both; and if the palm of excellence may perchance be awarded to the latter nation for originality and delicacy in design and finish, surely the Germans were but little if anything behind their confrères beyond the Alps in all these respects. The swords of Bordeaux and Poitiers were now far behind those of Toledo in renown, and the great Spanish masters, such as Antonio Ruiz, 1520; Juan de Almau, 1550; Francisco Ruiz, 1617; Tomas de Ayala, 1605; Sebastian Hermandez, 1637; and hosts of others rendered their cities and country illustrious by the excellence and beauty of their workmanship. Still, strangely enough, quantities of Solingen blades were imported into Spain during these centuries; for it will be noticed that the majority of rapiers picked up by collectors in that country have these German blades. The marks used by these smiths and many others may be found in the Catálogo de la Armeria de Madrid, and in a work by the learned curator of the Imperial collection at Vienna, entitled, Meister der Waffenschmiedekunst von xiv. bis xvii. Jahrhundert, and in the excellent catalogue of the Königl. Historische Museum at Dresden, compiled by Herr Max von Ehrenthal, the accomplished curator.
During the “renaissance” the gunsmith and his coadjutors lavished all manner of ornamentation on pageant hand-guns and their accessories. Barrels were chastely engraved, and stocks inlaid with bleached stag horn, silver, gold, steel, brass, stained wood, and mother-of-pearl; but these highly decorated weapons were not so much for real campaigning as for the use of body-guards, palace troops, and purposes of display generally, and especially for the hunting-field. Fig. 41 represents three of these enriched weapons, inlaid with bleached stag’s horn. They are late sixteenth or early seventeenth century work.
The weapon of the Harquebusier and Musketeer was much plainer; and the matchlock was preferred to the wheel-lock by reason of its greater rapidity of discharge. There were, however, corps, especially cavalry, armed with wheel-lock weapons. The use of the longbow, which had for so many centuries played a predominant part in the combinations of English campaigning, had gradually languished with the greater mobility and precision of firearms; and the bayonet was soon destined to add new lustre to the British name. An order in Council of 26th October, 1595, ordains that the bows of the trained bands were to be handed into store, and calivers and muskets issued in their stead. In the year 1638 the stock of bows and arrows was omitted altogether from inventories of arms, thus showing that the weapon had become obsolete.