Weapons Hand

Hand Weapons

Foot soldiers armed with hand weapons were the third principal component of medieval armies, along with cavalry and missile troops. Mêlée infantry fought hand to hand and were important both in pitched battles and during sieges. Infantry consisted of peasants, common soldiers, and dismounted knights.

Hand Weapons

The Franks of the Dark Ages fought with a throwing axe called the francisca, from which their tribe took its name. Their neighbors, the Saxons, fought with a large, one-sided knife called a scramasax, from which they took their name.

With the development of the heavy cavalryman came the heavy sword, which was used in hand-to-hand fighting on foot as well. Variants of the sword included a two-handed version that required a lot of space to wield. Men-at-arms employed a variety of weapons on foot, including axes (both one-handed and two-handed), maces, flails, and hammers. A variant of the mace was a spiked ball fastened to a shaft by a chain. As armor improved to reduce the effect of sword blows, crushing and puncturing weapons became more favored.

Pole Arms

The basic spear was a useful weapon throughout the Middle Ages because it was cheap to make and simple to use. Common foot soldiers and peasants could be armed with it and pressed into battle service. In most cases such an expedient was of little use, but with experience and some training large bodies of spearmen could be effective.

Pole arms evolved through the medieval period and eventually reached a point where formations of foot troops skilled in their use were extremely effective. Advanced pole arms consisted of a spear point with one or more weapon faces below the point. This additional weapon might be a large long blade, an axe, a billhook, a hammer, or a spike.

Long pole arms evolved in response to the mounted knight and resulted in a revival of a formation something like the ancient Greek phalanx. Horses would not charge a disciplined formation of men that bristled with extended pole weapons. A dense formation of pole arms held high also served as some protection from arrows.

Foot soldiers first learned to stand behind wooden stakes set in the ground to ward off cavalry. They then learned to deploy spears, pikes, and other pole arms to ward off cavalry. This allowed the formation to move and take its anti-cavalry stakes with it, in effect. In a mêlée, the various attachments at the end of the pole were used to pull horsemen off their mounts, push them off, or cause wounds to the rider or horse. Although armored men were not helpless when prone on the ground, as some have thought, they were at a disadvantage, at least temporarily, to men wearing little or no armor before they could rise.

As the towns grew in the second half of the Middle Ages, they built up their own militias of troops for defense and for feudal military service. Pole arms were popular weapons with the town militias because they were relatively cheap to provide and effective for the cost. Town militias trained with these weapons and developed useful battlefield tactics. In time, formations of pole-armed men learned to be aggressive, not simply defensive. Massed formations of pikeman could physically attack other infantry and even cavalry. The Swiss lacked the pastureland to support horse armies but became famous as pikemen. They often served as mercenaries in other continental armies. The lowland cities of Flanders and the highlands of Scotland also fielded pike units that were highly regarded.