Why were MEDIEVAL Pollaxes & Halberds BLUNT?

Why were MEDIEVAL Pollaxes & Halberds BLUNT? Certainly lots of original examples in museums and private collections are quite blunt, sometimes with a very definite blunt edge that has not been sharpened.

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#medieval #knight #fighting

[patrickwilliams]

This brings to mind US military sabers from the 1800s. So many of them are blunt that people actually started to insist that they were "meant to be blunt" and never sharpened. Of course, the majority of military sabers that survived were the weapons held in armories that were never issued, and therefore, had never been service sharpened. I wonder if something like that is going on with halberds? Pollaxes were more knightly weapons, though and probably weren't amassed in armories, so maybe the tournament guess is good.

[Timmysteve]

"This is genuinely going to be a brief video"
>checks runtime
Well I'll be

[thunder]

Weapons were kept blunt so Matt would have an opportunity to make this video.
They were very thoughtful back in the day.

[Kolchakk]

Can I just say that the existence of copyright restrictions on photos of antiques is outrageous? That kind of knowledge should be in the public domain.

[mr_mayhem]

Depending on the context in which they're found (on the battlefield vs stored in an armory), I wonder if the reasoning is similar to that of 19th century military sabers, where they were left blunt until they were expected to be used, and then sharpened.

As per usual, I'm sure the reality is that there are a few different reasons for it.

[farkasmactavish]

A scholagladiatoria video under 6 minutes? Miracles do happen!

[timrr]

My guess is as they are for fighting armoured opponents, it could be possible the damage caused by the axe is more to crease. They may have found this was more likely to cause problems with articulation of the armour or something similar.

[mrben]

I have to imagine that a sharpened poleaxe would get blunt pretty fast in actual combat against armored opponents. As others have stated, I think the hammer was for creating dents in armor, the axe for creating creases in armor, and the spear/spike for exploiting gaps in armor. With all three you could compromise the enemy's armor and then exploit that damage.

[borjaslamic]

And then people are weirded out when you tell them that you usually don't spar with pole weapons.

[Myzelfa]

I applaud you for achieving what few YouTubers can: promising a brief video and then delivering.

[mattlentzner]

You covered all the possible explanations I could think of.

Personally, I favor the single flanged mace explanation. It's consistent with a concept of a pole axe as being a two handed war hammer, really. It explains why hammer, fluke, and "axe", heads were treated as more or less interchangeable by the contemporary users.

As far as tournament use goes, my recollection of that sharpness complaint was about the spike being too sharp and also too long. The spike got into someone's gauntlet and severed all their tendons resulting in permanent loss of use of use of their hand.

[Dragoon]

I've wielded a halberd as part of a spear line in LARP events (okay not historical context but bear with me) and found myself using it to hook enemy weapons to give my friends openings more often than striking. And I was hooking from both points of the axe blade (pushing into the enemy with the upper hook if you can picture it). Dunno if it's any valid input but might be a clue so I figured I'd mention it.

[squarewheels]

Understanding what each type head was for seems pretty difficult. It could be that the 'Axe' blade wasn't used for striking at all. It could have been solely for push/pull catching surfaces. You could hook legs/shoulders with it or catch an control an opponents weapon while never being intended to actually damage armor. Basically, the hammer would be used for heavy swings and the axe is more for wrestling to get a spikes point in.

[dequitem]

I like the idea of compare them with a flanged mace. But there is no way to prove it.

[cx]

Your report was very blunt about that!

[sandervesik]

I think this calls for at the very least a couple of rounds of poleaxe vs armor testing with both blunt and sharp edges.

[Fatueable]

As a counterpoint - remains of over 1500 victims of Gotland Massacre ( Battle of Visby 1361 ad ) display multiple traces of limbs being cut and in number of cases cut off by pole-arms of various types - that was confirmed by forensic study of skeletal remains. The victims in this case mostly had only partial protection - brigantines, partial chainmail, helmets and shields. So this practice of 'blunting' you refer to can only been developed much later - when full body protection become available to wider range of people - when iron&steel became mass-produced and thus cheaper

[shotgunridersweden]

The primary function of the axeblade, in my experience from halberds, is to controll the opponents weapon and limbs (including neck). The thrust is the primary injuring element, asside from the fact that they are 2meter pieces of heavy wood, which would hurt a lot regardless of what is on the end if used percussively (is that even a word?). Anyway as most modern and many historical weapons used for police duty are made to subdue and not kill, might this be a reason for blunt halberdblades?
For halberds that were used in patrolling/city guard duty might

[johnmcgovern]

I have two thoughts, firstly a sharpened edge has more of a chance of getting stuck if you hit it into armour and secondly if the purpose is for use against armour then sharpening would be largely pointless as you're just going to blunt it anyway after the first few strikes.

[sebastian_meier]

the can opener on my pocket knife is rather blunt as well - I guess the reason is that the sharpness doesn't help penetrating armor, but makes it more prone to chip and break - on the other hand if it's not mainly for armor penetration, it still would be ideal for breaking bones