Are Medieval Maces BAD Weapons in Armored Combat? with
2024 ж. 7 Қаң.
124 457 Рет қаралды
Are maces bad weapons in medieval armoured combat? Short maces were widely used from the 11th to the 16th centuries, but perhaps not in the same ways across that period. This video is inspired by @dequitem video response to me ( • Mace or sword | the be... )
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One thing to note is that men-at-arms in the age of plate didn't necessarily prefer the mace/axe/hammer to the sword. In the middle of the 16th century, Juan Quijada de Reayo instructed to use lance, estoc, arming sword, hammer, & dagger, in that order. He wrote to target the gaps & weak points of armor with the estoc & arming sword, & indicating attacking the head & the hands with the hammer. From this perspective, short cavalry impact weapons weren't better than swords for facing other men-at-arms but they were another backup option that was relatively easy to carry because of the modest dimensions. Weapons did indeed break or get lost. On the other hand, in the early 17th century, John Vernon did write that mounted arquebusiers could do little against cuirassiers by using swords, so they needed to carry pollaxes. (I assume these pollaxes were short cavalry versions.) Vernon's cuirassiers wore three-quarters harness plus a buff coat that offered some protection to the lower legs, while his mounted arquebusiers wrote only a breastplate, backplate, & helmet. Based on these two sources, period soldiers may simply have had different opinions about whether swords or impact weapons worked best against armored cavalry. It's also possible that partially armored cavalry facing heavily armored cavalry did best with impact weapons, while men-at-arms against men-at-arms could potentially do more with an sword thrust aimed at gaps & weak points. Trying to target gaps & weak points with a thrust when your foe can simply cut your unarmored arms doesn't sound fun. Going back to the end of the medieval era, Pietro Monte highly praised using a hammer in both hands from the saddle. He didn't, however, say such a hammer was better than a sword/estoc, & mentioned estocs as commonly used weapons by men-at-arms. Earlier still, Bertrandon de la Broquière wrote that he thought the maces he saw Ottoman cavalry carrying could knock a person out through a helmet if swung freely.
Thats so interesting, Thanks for that comment! Great research!
A) Harnisch is spoken ,harnish', a german sch is usually ,sh'.B) In 18th century still some cavallry officers still carried short maces or warhammers, but not so much as real weapons, but for ceremonial use or as a sign of authority.
A small correction is that Vernon's mounted arquebusiers wore a buff coat as well as breastplate & backplate, so their arms weren't completely unprotected (assuming their buff coats had sleeves). But a buff coat probably isn't enough to keep the arms safe from sword cuts on horseback.
Dam its so interessting, i allready watched the other Video and it completly turned my knollege. And you provide some more proof and inside, thanks for that. I allways thought the estoc to be a really cool weapon hoever i thought it was for dueling only, mostly. Like i thought that swords where the last resort against armour after maces, not before. So thats really interessting. I didnt thought that going for gaps, using a sword would be that effective.
@@giftzwerg7345 It is not just the sword's ability to go through gaps. It's one hell of a lever, which is why I love learning it in harnischfecten. It is just more versatile than a hammer or mace could hope to be in the clinch.
I find the mace a smashing weapon.
Pun of the day!😂
@@Baron-Ortega Thanks! I can make a sharp comment about swords if you’d like.
@@user-oo6ty1yq2lYour riposte was to the point.
Excellent Dad joke👌
Excellent for stiff necks and hard heads.....
Here's a real life example. In the late '80s I was fighting in the SCA. So one day I was fighting an opponent with a mace. It was padded but, did weigh pretty much a realistic weight. My opponent was much bigger than me (and more skilled). I was wearing full plate arms and legs, brigantine, and a sallet. Hits to the arms and legs hurt but didn't leave bruises. However, one time my opponent hit me with a wrap shot to the back of the neck. The sallet no doubt saved my life. However, I was lifted off my feet and saw stars. I weaved around and fell over. Inspection showed the sallet dented significantly. I was concussed and, my neck has not quite been the same since. Without the sallet I'd no doubt been seriously injured or killed. But, it convinced us all that the mace was very dangerous even wearing armor. That weapon was retired as too dangerous for future use.
Jesus Christ, hits at the back of the head/neck are extremely dangerous. It's a good thing your sallet did it's job properly
@@TeutonicEmperor1198 Yes. It was a good helmet. But, the event did sober us up.
@@btrenninger1 you are wise to learn your lesson from this incident. farewell!
I too was concussed twice, while fighting in the SCA I the 80’s. Once with a mace and once with what turned out to be an “illegal” axe. It was made with a plywood blade with minimal padding. So not really too different from a blunt metal axe. The mace was like the one you dealt with, full mass, but padded. A typical SCA mace. The helmets were different, one was a 14 ga. Spangen helm, with roughly the coverage of a barbute. The other time a Japanese kabuto with a hidden wrapper, so rather like a burgeonet. The axe hit me over the ear and dropped me instantly. The mace, was a wrap to the area behind my ear. That one left me woozy and I called a hold, Marshall’s said my pupils were uneven and sent me to medics. So I have a healthy respect for heavy impact weapons like that. I prefer Glaive’s and Naginata myself. But Maces and Axes do really well at knocking people out, even if we’ll armored. A well executed mace blow, from horseback, with some of the inertia of the horse behind it, would be devastating.
@@evanmorris1178 That wrap sounds just like what got me.
First and foremost, thank you for this great video response. I completely agree with nearly all of your new arguments. I love that you've given our discussion a clearer framework and now look beyond the borders. For example, how you discuss the use of maces in different centuries. And you also make a point that I completely forgot in my video, that can change everything. Yes, it can be really difficult to get through the mail sometimes. In my knight fights we don't stop from sword thrusts to chainmail, and we normally don't count them, because we know it is only potentially fatal and you never know the result in a historical fight. I really forgot to mention this as a minus point in my own arguements for a sword. I cannot and do not want to contradict this point. But I'm not sure whether you can accurately estimate the effect of a mace on your opponent. Sometimes you only stun him for a short time and it's not always easy to hit a follow-up blow. But I have to admit that your argument makes me doubt my own statement. Personally, I would still pick up a longsword if I was in a duel to the death. Of course I also know what I have to do with a sword or a poleaxe. But maybe it's not a bad idea to give a mace to someone who is completely inexperienced. Otherwise he ends up without knowing how to "push" when the blade gets stuck in the mail and how to move his legs and arms so that he will not get stabbed in the process of pushing the blade into the mail with his full body weight. You did a great video response, I hope that @Arne Koets, @Zac Evans or @Jason Kingsley answer to the field of maces from horseback. But you also address something very interesting for me. The Question: is the poleaxe or longsword more effective in a duel? The video will take some time as I have to record a few fights before I can put out a video, but I think there might be something to discuss. 😉 Greetings Dequitem
bro you explained in one of your videos as a comment that knights didn't use the blunt end of the poleaxe in armored combat except to finish off an opponent on the ground. I don't think you know what you're talking about
@@jeydonfal1I'm sorry, who are you? Just some guy?
@Primalintent iM sOrRy WhO aRe YoU??? Gtfo. Dequietem is primarily a buhurt sportsman, so he's coming from a place of ignorance, probably due in part to dunning-kruger.
@@Primalintent jeydonfal1 was rude, but this is not the response. Like only popular youtubers are allowed to discuss martial arts? If you think they were rude and should back off/apologize, say that. If you think they're wrong, argue back or ask for supporting evidence. Don't tell someone they aren't allowed to talk because you don't know who they are.
@@combogalis I responded that way because he took a single statement from Dequietem and then just insulted him without providing any evidence or real commentary of his own. I therefore didn't think his comment warranted a rebuttal besides a genuine "do you even fence or are you just a dick" question. You don't need to be a popular KZheadr, but you need to demonstrate your knowledge or perspective, which he doesn't do. Dequietem and Easton are KZheadrs, which means they have videos and sources cited displaying their knowledge of the contents of the discussion. I don't know who this random commenter is, so I asked if he's just some armchair critic troll. Take me. I have not done harness fencing. I study Fiore's Longsword, Manciolino's system, and Verdadera Destreza. I am primarily knowledgeable in unarmored fighting and so wouldn't throw my weight around as a practitioner on this subject. By identifying myself at least within those parameters, I make it clear that Easton or Dequietem probably know more than me on the subject, and would defer to commenters who cite sources or speak to their own experience in harness fencing. That's not what that guy did. He just ran his mouth with nothing to back it up, and mocked someone who puts himself out there and shows his fights for others to assess and enjoy. It's very easy to be some lurker who is going to act like they know more and give no indication for why. I wasn't asking him his subscriber count. Couldn't care less. I was asking him if he actually knows anything about what HE is talking about. If he does and can say his background in the subject as a scholar or fighter, great. If not, maybe he can self-reflect and not be such a keyboard warrior next time.
Back in the '70's in Arizona the SCA was started by folks with experience in karate and kendo, so we practiced as if we were in a dojo practicing a martial art form. My specialty was the mace, I owned two steel maces and practiced with them, often using an armored man as a pell. We experimented with the steel weapons to see what actual effect they had on armor. We also consulted with a medical examiner to get information on wounds and deaths caused by things like machetes, blunt force trauma, stabbings etc. I allowed men to hit me with swords, knives, axes and maces, lightly at first with me in mail and steel plate, then harder. Here's the thing about a mace and plate armor: armor follows weapons. People dress for the type of weapon they expect to face. Then the weapons evolve to clear the armor. The fighters in full plate would more likely face a war hammer than a mace. BUT a mace does not engage/damage the armor, it goes for the soft red meat inside. If I hit your helm on the side nice and hard your vision will sudden flicker and the visor will be moved to one side, obscuring your vision more. The balance of the mace is the opposite of the sword but quite often I saw men used to the sword try to use the mace like a sword, frontal attacks, short combinations and not a lot of force. By studying the physics of the path of the head of the mace you can deliver such force to the helm as to knock a man unconscious. I have done this more than once with my padded SCA mace. You are trying to deliver as much force to as small an area as possible, preferably the helm but I can also cripple a man with my SCA mace by striking the side of the knee and smashing that nerve. There are several spots like that which will cripple a fighter by force delivered, not by damaging the armor. Finally, axes and swords have "flats" where you can hit as hard as you want, no damage will occur... oh it will feel like a rebar hit you, but it won't cut. The mace has no flat. Any part of the head is as good as the rest. You can twist your wrist to deliver a spiraling blow to the back of the helm and immediately go for the kidneys. It's a great weapon and that is why kings carry maces. Just my take on it.
I made this point in dequitem's video, too. But in period sources in Sweden around the 14-15th century, flanged maces, morning stars, and warhammers became known as 'helmetcrushers'.
In dequitems previous video he also mentioned that morgenstern might pierce through helmet visors
@@wolfensniper4012piercing trough a visor is not the same as being a “helmet crusher”
Indeed. Sometimes people assume history must be wrong because of their experience with modern re-creations
But why
@@jarrodbright5231and just because the helmets fine doesnt mean the squishy brain inside of it isn’t hemorrhaging from the blunt force
Armor in Bohurt is usually also overbuilt relative to historical armor, specifically to make bludgeoning safer. With maces underbuilt, a mace is going to have much less effect, and overbuilt hacking 'swords' much more relative to said reduced bludgeons. The slow recovery speed of a bludgeon is also less of an issue from a horse, since you are often out of reach for any follow-up attacks. Decreased probability of getting stuck might also be a factor.
GOOD point about the recovery on horseback. You are going to get that one shot and then pass by them.
The Buhurt maces are very, very light, to the point they cause almost no damage, and that's very intentional. And Buhurt armor is of course very thick and heavy, safety is the most important factor, but of course it would not be so good in a battlefield scenario, they can barely move properly in it, and they can't last very long either.
Also, their maces are shorter, which makes a huge difference in how much force they produce. Buhurt uses mace and buckler and they grip it near the head and box with it.
@@Anegor Not only by design but by necessity. It is easy to make swords safe because they operate not on sheer energy but bifurcate through a thin edge and point. Take away that penetrative capacity by dulling it and adding armor, and you effectively have an ineffectual club, thus, you can make an object with similar range and harmonics without the danger. While Bohurt swords are often very inaccurate, this is because it is ultimately a contact sport where optimizing your bludgeoning capacity gives you the greatest proverbial edge. Bludgeons are precisely the inverse. They damage by sheer energy via inertia, which is a product of their weight and harmonics. To reduce the inertia to safe levels requires changing their weight and/or harmonics such that they no longer handle as the real weapons do. It is the same fundamental problem of polearm and greatsword analogues; anything that handles accurately to the historical weapon is genuinely dangerous and thus untenable for recreational sport.
@@manfredconnor3194 I have long suspected that this same rationale partly the reason for single-handed flails, which are also commonly depicted by cavalry in period art.
"Armoured fighting" changes depending on the armour used. Even in the height of the "age of plate", not everyone was in full all-encompassing plate on a battlefield.
The vast majority were not, which is why the people in full plate carried several weapons, and used the most appropriate for who they were fighting at the time
@@davidioanhedges Yep. Plate armor in various forms did become pretty common in the late Middle Ages. But many times infantry is depicted with just a helmet and breastplate, sometimes without even a maille shirt underneath that. In the early Modern period where plate was more optimized we do see more armored infantry for a while, but even then this trend was not constant because it just so happens that guns were also getting optimized at the same time.
Also that historical plate armor was thinner than modern sport focused armor. Any one that seen tods bow vs armor video saw how thin the arm plates where.
Why was the mace popular among cavalrymen? Because in a battle against armored infantry, it is very convenient to hit enemy soldiers in the head from top to bottom. The most convenient and vulnerable target is getting closer. Also, chopping a helmet with a sword is a dubious activity. But stabbing with a sword while riding a horse is quite difficult.
I couldn't imagine trying to hit a small hole in the helmet while being on a nervous horse. having the head and shoulders be the target would be a lot easier
@@kyle18934the thing is, knights in most cases fought peasant masses or ill equiped peasants and cutting down for few hours of battle is much easier than swinging brick on a stick
@plazmica0323 I have a couple swords. from swinging them around, it would still get quite tiresome, I think a mace wouldn't be that much heavier than a sword. my swords are a little above 3 lbs. a mace is problably also around 3 lbs. I have a medium small axe with a 2 lb head, with a 1 lb handle. it's still similar to the arming sword in heft idk, if i were slashing on horseback I would want a mace, even against peasants
@plzmica0323 I don't think knights would fought much against peasants, and if they did, those would be free men, which are usually wealthier.
@@kyle18934 Plus when you are quite tired, using the weighted head of the mace and the movement of your horse to carry the swing is probably easier/more effective consistently than a sword.
With a mace, I don't require precise edge alignment which might be difficult with a gauntlet. I only need to hit an armored opponent hard enough to stun them, causing them to fall down, and then follow up with a Rondel dagger to finish the job.
Yeah, taht was my first thought. it easier to hit somone in helmet even useing onehanded mace that thrust thrue the gaps. ewspecially if your oponent defend himself
@@fistsofsnake5475 It depends because someone with a longsword have more reach and more leverage with their weapon
@@typerez8132 More reach definitlly, more leverage only while doing big cuts not cuts from wrist
You'd just keep hitting them with the mace. Who's gonna let you switch to another even shorter weapon, roll around on the ground and tryna slip it into a gap? This isn't a duel. Infantry formations were dense with lots of dudes wielding polearms. If you're somehow down to being polearmsless, shieldless and are now grappling with just a rondel dagger, your priorities would be fleeing to friendly lines to fetch a proper weapon.
If talking about the mace on horseback don't forget that usually the speed of the horse provides a lot of the force inflicted.
both you and dequitem made great points. i especially liked the observation that in hema its not really possible to tell how effective your 'poke' was, relative to the mace where you can see the effect, and if you land a head strike.... you might begin to chain an incapacitating sequence.
This is actually an important point that I completely forgot during my shoot. In my free fights we don't stop from sword thrusts to chainmail, because it is only potentially fatal and you never know. For me, the fact is so commonplace during training that I completely forgot about it in my video, but it can change everything, but on the other hand, that's the same with the blows from maces to the head, you can't always be sure whether you needs a follow-up blow or can execute it quickly enough.😅
@@dequitem In diesemFall, auf Englisch "imporant POINT" ist ein lustiger Wortwitz. Aber dein Satz" In my free fights we don't stop sword thrusts to chainmail because it is only potentially fatal and you never know." hat mich schwindlig und verwirrt hinterlassen als ob man mir mit einem Streitkolbe über mein Kopf gebraten hätte? Ich gehe davon aus, dass es verboten ist oder?Das ist nicht so ganz klar von deinem Satzbau. Sorry. 😊 Vieleicht: "In my free fights, we forbid sword thrusts to chainmail, because it us potenially fatal and you never know." Nur ein Tipp. Wo macht man sowas in Deutschland? Ich wohne am Arsch der Welt in Bayern seit 2015. Hier ist nichts aber vielleicht seid ihr nur ums Eck, denn keiner sagt mir was hier. 😂
@manfredconnor3194 I see the confusion. What Dequitem means is that they sometimes keep fighting for a while after being hit instead of stopping the fight immediately after a successful hit is made. This is because a person in a real fight might be able to fight on in those circumstances.
@@brianhowe201 That is nothing like what he wrote. How do you claim to know what he means?
@@manfredconnor3194 "we don't stop from sword thrusts to chainmail, because it is only potentially fatal and you never know" plus... actually watching the videos does provide enough context clues to say thats what he meant
I would also add that a big impact from a top heavy weapon not only has a percussive effect it is also likely to actually physically move the opponent out of position or even knock them down which would leave them vulnerable to another immediate attack
And open a gap in their line making the guys on their left and right more vulnerable too.
Yes! Yet a thrust through a gap other than the face and neck can leave you potentially vulnerable. Because while it might penetrate and leave a wound, the level of its stopping power depends heavily on the individual. There are people that did suffer multiple shots into their limbs and torso and kept fighting, some even survived (and I will argue that modern bullets have much more stopping power than a stab through a gambeson and a mail). The adrenaline might completely overpower the pain and if you are not careful enough, the one you are stabbing might just smack you on the head a few times. Dequitem missed this point when explaining that swords have multiple potential attack targets and maces have just the head. Yes, they do, but how effective the attack to that particular target is to stop the opponent? There are accounts of people getting stabbed to limbs and even groin area and continuing to fight in duels. A life or death situation does not mean the opponent is going to stop at all when stabbed through non-vital gaps. However, a good smack into a helmet and it does not matter how much adrenaline you have in you.
Whenever people compare plate armor to the efficacy of medieval weapons, they usually do it anachronistically. Like saying "why didn't my grandpa just drone strike hitler?"
Maces were widely used till 20th century
Also, full plate was the equivalent of MBTs. Most armored targets on the medieval battlefield weren't that fully armored. Plenty of armored spots to hit.
@@tedarcher9120 Considering that many trench-raiding clubs _were_ pretty much improvised maces, and that people are still getting beaten to death in various countries with various blunt instruments, I'd say that the mace is still being used even into the 21st century in some form. You could even argue that telescoping batons are a form of late 20th century mace, and those still see use to this day by law enforcement.
I do like those "video response" series, because you can follow a discussion about a topic between ppl over the world. When all are open to it ofc, like Matt XD We should have more of those, because in the historical/HEMA segment, one person can´t fill every angle to a toppic. at 10 min, thats it! and getting hit in your hip sucks too, with a brigandine. Btw: In Buhurt, the Helebard/Poleaxes etc can knock you out, even when you wear a thicker padded helmet. 13:00 min and yes that happens. I do fight longsword in armour and did break two swords in 2023. Thats mostly because of micro damage to the steel, and then they snapp! Why does no one think about the falchion as an "vs unarmored sharp side" and an "blunt backside to bash armour"? would make sense on a lot of variants 1h/2h
That use of a falchion would be very intersting. Its very sad there there are no fighting instructions to falchions. 😥
It makes me miss the old video reply feature youtube had, which made this sort of thing substantially easier to follow. Of course, it was ruined and abused by less scrupulous people, so I get why it's missing, but the convenience was so nice.
Hi Matt, I remember a short section of a Turkish manual that Terry Brown posted, in which the instruction was "strike with the mace on the nose", it was meant for lighter armor fighting than full plate BUT I think there is the rate of fire factor to consider here: how many thrusts into gaps can a swordsman in armor try to get in 10 seconds? How many swings on the face can the man with the mace throw in ten seconds, when he's in measure? Will his opponent's neck hold a 1-2-3 combination of mace swings, even if the helmet holds up? The man with the mace still has a free armored hand to use to deflect thrusts or use a rondel dagger in close. I wouldn't underestimate a good mace.
You make a great critical point. I used to use axes, hatchets, and various sledge hammers in real life work; and I'd say in 10 seconds I could have made about 15-20 swings (on target with full block-crushing force) with these 1-handed weapons. The newtonian rebounce of the striking head actually helps set up the next swing, so once you know how to work the rhythm it resets quickly. Nobody's neck or brain is holding up to much of that. Even concrete blocks and field stones don't hold up to that.
Maces don’t get stuck and because they are smaller, can be pulled out of your belt and used faster than a longsword and a swing can cover more defensive area than a thrust. You can also have full control of your horse while using it if you are on a horse. Also, cus it is ondirectional, you can just do an altered angle swing after a missed or failed to knock out swing instead of a pull back. IMO, maces are better is close melee armored brawls.
@@animistchannela katana that's folded twelve bazillion times will cut right through, you know.
heroic 😅😂😂 @@davidpa9266
I saw a video recently where they tested some armor. And what I took away was that it seemed very effective when it was in good shape. But as soon as it was starting to get battered it seemed to leave the wearer a lot more vulnerable. Segments bent and that would impede articulation as well as open up gaps. And bulges designed to give strength and protection would start to cave in and so on. And this video also states that plate armor is generally very good. So maybe the key to defeating it is not to try to instantly defeat it or bypass it but rather to damage it and break it until it doesn't work as intended anymore?
Making some better bracers is probably easier these days than getting to making scales or a shield, though some opponents might make one consider a kajinara or kajinawa hook rope, if you don't have a stabby polaxe or metal stake on the bottom of your weapon, though it would be odd to fight someone wearing plate armor these days. I'd wonder that even musashi might consider a sword and shield over two swords or a spear if he spent alot of time around that warhammer though.
Polish Husaria recruited from nobleman of Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth loved blunt weapons . Polish nobles almost always carried a " nadziak" spiked hammer perfect for smashing heavily armored enemies ( polish polo version lol) And their commanders carried symbolic mace in their belt also used for smashing helmets lol . Arms and armor race eventually got to a stalemate when armor was unpenetrable by swords and blunt weapons were the answer . Also heavier sabers were introduced to deal with armor of enemies of our country . As well as " koncerz" a rapier like lance used to combat enemy after they smashed their lances ( made to break upon atack and made to penetrate armor )
A couple of things I could think of on top of what you mentioned. Using a mace/warhammer is as much about damaging the armour as the person inside it imho. Rivets can be popped, lames can be bent out of shape, and particularly fingers can be smushed into oblivion with a mace. 2, you mentioned the metallurgy of modern blades, but i think it would be more important to mention the metallurgy of medieval armour, particularly the stuff worn by the lower classes. A big swing into either mild or poorly hardened armour with a mace would do damage to it, moreso than modern reconstructions made with uniform steel. Sidenote about buhurt maces, the weight rule is a bit archaic, but essentially comes down to skill. its much harder to land an accurate blow with the edge aligned on a falchion or an axe than it is with a flanged mace, the result would essentially be the same as any blow from an axe (limited to 1.3kg). Warhammers however are completely banned for safety, and after taking a couple of big hits in the helmet from someone with an "axe" with a 10mm width blade (there was no rule limiting the maximum width of a blade at the time) I can absolutely see why.
One interesting thing to point out regarding fighting against an opponent in full plate - they are more valuable incapacitated than dead. A knight or noble in full plate can be ransomed back to their family for a lot of gold. A big hit on the head with a mace is more likely to knock them down and keep them alive than a thrust which could get infected or lead to bloodloss. Most medieval battles were not to the death but just to put your opponent out of the current battle. A
And at the Battle of Agincourt the big mallets used by the English Longbowmen helped to fell many an armoured French knight. (Although they were killed rather than being ransomed as they outnumbered the English).
It depends who you are fighting, the man in custom full plate armor, you knocked out and ransomed back both him and his armor, the vast majority did not have full plate, and you took them out in any way possilbe
Wrong. You seem to assume most medieval battles were just scuffles between knights, when they were the minority in most armies. Most medieval armies were composed by infantry levies, professionals or mercenaries. Most of the men in armor were NOT knights but men at arms, which were not always worthy enough to be ransomed due to not being noblemen. Even among knights, ransoming the other dude was not the objective. They did try to kill each other as long as they could. It was only if one clearly surrendered or survived the battle cornered that they might have been kept as hostages for ransom...but that also depended on their captors' good will, if they did not break any oaths, if they were not considered dangerous...etc.
Another consideration with blunt weapons is that they allow for non-lethal incapacitations. A concussive knockout blow to an armored aristocrat you wish to capture is preferable to having to stab your arming sword point through his eye socket
Another point in favor of the mace is if you fail to penetrate through the gap and especially if you miss and hit the breastplate, the point has a high link hoof of dulling, which means you would to extert even more effort to get lethal amounts of penetration. The design of the mace basically means that kinda doesn’t matter. It is an energy transfer weapon. It a good hit landing, damage to a mace head wouldn’t make a good hit any less of a damaging hit unless the flipping head breaks or breaks off.
How much does it hurt to wear dented armor? Yeah, exactly .
I see this argument or discussion as one coming from a person (not Matt) that knows a little about combat sports but not understanding the key word is sport. I see this all the time by people that know a little bit about something but not the whole story. "The long bow is better than a musket because it could fire faster" "lightly armoured troops are better than heavy armoured troops as the are faster and can dodge blows" "Aimed accurate fire is better than accuracy through volume". This is a massive disservice to the people there, at the time period, using that weapon system. To think they just didn't know better because some one did a little research on the subject and has an opinion is crazy. Things that don't work don't last centuries, specially if you die by getting it wrong. Yes, maybe if you get it 100% right and are skilled, a sword in gaps might be better. But in a general melee where the other guy and his friends (as he's not alone) can just body check you and overwhelm you with blows and there is no ref to call foul is a completely different animal. If you lose because the less skilled dude just beat you to death means you still lost and you are DEAD. No do overs, no coming back next week to try a different technique... you are dead. Let's give the people actually doing the killing the benefit of the doubt on what works. They had their lives on the line to be right.
Agreed. I find it amusing how dequitem keeps saying that if he were in an armored "fight to the death" he would prefer the longsword over the poleaxe because "the sword is more effective". I guess the actual history of 14th-15thC armored foot combat showing the battlefield preference for the poleaxe was wrong all this time, lol.
Amen wise words Words that are guided towards the truth not guided to prove or disprove any thesis
@@xenoaltrax485 are you saying there was no swords used? what is more "effective" can come down to just preference.
@@codyyh9421 Where did I say there were no swords used? I don't believe history is based on "preferences" but rather on what actually works better in mass battles. The poleaxe gives better reach to the individual and his friends around him against someone trying to come in with a sword. The thread starter specifically cites "in a general melee where the other guy and his friends...". Maybe in a 1v1 tournament it can be just a matter of "preference", but in the context of this thread starter's mass melee situation, history shows it's not "preference" but what actually has been proven to work better.
@@xenoaltrax485 wasn't dequitems whole video about 1v1 duels to the death? battlefield is obviously different story
Yeah, asking why do objects exist, Matt got it right. That's proper archeological thinking right there!
One small issue I can see with using HEMA and Harnissfechten (pardon my poor spelling, I haven't studied German in nearly 20 years) for insights is that it is ultimately a sport, not actual, mortal combat and safety considerations are thus "double-ended." This is equally true of mediaeval jousts, in which they generally didn't want _anyone_ dying or getting seriously hurt, and thus both sides would spare no expense in choosing weapons and PPE to ensure that no participants are seriously injured or killed. These considerations may influence or even restrict particular design, selection, and usage of weapons and armour. Compare that to actual battlefield combat or even judicial duels, in which the goal *was* for one party or the other to end up seriously injured or killed. Safety considerations in actual, lethal engagements tend to be one-sided. You want to keep _yourself_ safe, but you obviously want to inflict severe, incapacitating, or even lethal harm on your opponent. He is thinking likewise--he wants to keep himself safe whilst inflicting severe damage on you. As such, the conclusions one may draw from HEMA on the efficacy of certain weapons and armour/PPE may not apply 100% to how they were actually used on the mediaeval battlefield. This does *not* mean that HEMA is a useless resource, because even knights and men-at-arms back in the mediaeval era did have to train via methods quite similar to modern HEMA, with safety precautions to ensure that nobody was badly injured or killed, and they'd translate those same techniques they practised in the training ring to the battlefield. In fact, HEMA provides us with invaluable, empirical evidence as to how certain weapons may have been utilised in the mediaeval era, as there's an unfortunate lack of clear, realistic visual evidence from that time period (the artwork tends to be typically more fanciful than realistic in its depictions, and is often rife with anachronisms). But I do think that it means that we should take some lessons from HEMA with a grain of salt, since trying to incapacitate or kill someone who is also trying to do the same to you at all costs is a bit different from engaging in full contact sparring against someone in an environment with strict rules on conduct and behaviour.
I wanna see dequitem and Matt duke it out in armour.
It would be very cool to have a gentel fight one day.
With maces, right?
How about mace and shield versus long sword, best 2 out of 3, switching weapons each bout. Spreads out the variations in skill, and you’ll both learn both sides.
Matt Maceton VS Stabby Dequitem
@@dequitemGauntlet thrown! C'mon, Matt, don't be a puss!
I think when he was talking about "longswords are easier to use in armor" it might have been an ESL moment where he instead meant something along the lines of "it is easier to be more effective with a longsword in armor than it is to be effective with a mace" I don't disagree with him if that is the case, at least in the context of a duel and not a pitched battle.
I agree with him in a duel. The range and nimbless advantage, being being able to thrust, compare to short top heavy weapon is very large. Also, a longsword can also being used like a mace. So a one handed mace versus longsword is kinda like a one handed mace versus a delicate poleaxe.
No, I agree with his phrasing completely. Half-swording is much more reliable in a close melee than a mace. The two hands on the weapon create structure and make the weapon feel very light, whereas swinging a mace requires much more precise distance and gets tiring very quickly. With the sword, the basic threat is either presenting the point or pushing the opponent away, which are very easy actions. With a mace you either need to hold the weapon high as a threat, or swing it and then recover, neither of which is easy in prolonged combat.
Is it easier for a strong man to defeat an opponent in plate armor by striking with a mace or a hammer at the parts of the armor that are vulnerable to blows than it is to pierce a gap in the armor? Would a knight of average arm strength be better off thrusting a gap in armor or using sword wrestling? In the case of a one-handed mace, did you often guard with your left hand or grab your opponent and strike?
@@smokerxluffy In super close combat, pulling your sword might pose a problem cus it is still a much longer weapon. Also, point play doesn't much of a defensive value as swinging does and unless you manage to stab someone straight through the eyes, even if you deliever a fatal stab, it might not being instantly fatal and you have to pull the think to use it as a defensive object. The mace basically doesn't have this problem. Being shorter, it would easier to pull out, being a bludgeon, if you don't deliver a knockout, you can just yank it back and block and parry with it easier and it is more durable has a swinging than a sword. To go into the horseman point, you'll want to have rein control has much as possible to use your horse a weapon, turn, and get out of the brawl as quickly as you can and alot of low targets like the crotch voider would be covering by the saddle and the armpits could be covered by besagews or pauldrons, cutting off a half sword target to just the eye slot or face.
@@PJDAltamirus0425 What do you mean by pulling? Unless you mean a wrenching action to break an opponent's posture, hooking their arm somehow etc. then there really shouldn't be any pulling going on. Defensively half-swording is ridiculously effective. The reason Matt Easton seems to think it's not as effective offenively is because he's thinking half-sword vs half-sword, where the defensive capability is so high that in tandem with armor it turns into an extremely technical fight. Outside of a couched lances or a high-power firearm, there really aren't any instant deaths in harnishfechten... You know, I'm not even going to bother reading the rest. Good day.
The colaboration I needed. There's so much talent in this place.
To look at it from another angle, Apaches for example prefer a war club(Mace?)to even a Tomahawk when fighting either on horseback or on foot. Because it doesn't penetrate the body and can't get stuck. Also another Lakota Indian(according to their own accounts)method is to strike at an enemy's weapon from horseback to dislodge it and then hit his head with the back swing while galloping past him. I wonder if this was done by European/Janissary horsemen as well?
Why is the pole axe straight when the Dane axe behind you curved?
Yes! The video- conversation i have beeen waiting for!
love to be a part of it :D
Love the Armor videos Matt!!
Good response. I was waiting for you to bring up the fact that the maces/hammers was used on horse mostly. That is also my understanding :) It is also the sign of a good community, that we can correct each other and become more precise. My impression looking at the 14th century manuscripts is that they really value a good spear as the best weapon against armor. But that is obviously up for discussion as well.
Great that you went into the aspect of time line and arms&armour changes! Made a similar point under Dequitem's vid. As for not being able to carry poleaxes while mounted though... Some Demigryph Knights would probably disagree with you :D
These videos have been very interesting, i am always curious about what situations specific weapons are designed for.
Mace + Rondel dagger = VICTORY!!! Stunned opponent falls down, stab with dagger. Vulnerable areas are easier to target up close and personal.
Not very easy to dagger fallen people when they have buddies defending them. Daggers are much more effective in 1v1 combat not large scale battles
Great video...can I add that in mounted vs foot soldiers, the easiest target is the head and the concussive damage has an advantage. If I was mounted and charging into foot troops, I would choose the mace with a sheathed sword in case I become dismounted
Extremely tight video! It's an incredibly pertinent point wrt to the effectiveness of a weapon, when reinactors have to develop specific rules regarding use in order to avoid serious injuries. If anything there should probably be a kind of HMA index for just how impractical any particular combat art is to model. E.g there are extremely competent fighters very tentatively modeling pole-axe fighting against each other, there's some fairly enthusiastic mace bashing albeit with a weight limit - a fairly reasonable one, given that a kilo of head is probably enough for any weapon - and fucking nobody in their right mind or even in their wrong mind is ever doing a hoplite charge vs another hoplite charge (you can't even get that sort of thing in movies really, it's just too dangerous and chaotic to organise, you just know some stuntman is going to end up minus an eye or with a shattered knee-cap). I also suspect that there's an historical issue with the skill-cap on various fighting styles. Not every single one of your 30,000 knights on a battlefield was a highly motivated life long professional, but also, medieval times were, ah, fairly immature when it came to sharing information widely. Guides hoarded information about processes, sometimes entire techniques were lost because someone died, and meanwhile in an honour culture where dueling was a thing (however uncommon IRL) immediately teaching all your friends your new half-swording idea could potentially be a fatal mistake. That plus repeated observations from even semi-modern contexts where guys *with swords*, who have been *trained to thrust* still end up hammer bashing at enemies in the stress and chaos of a real battle, because it's just such a natural instinctive human motion. All of which serves to narrow the difference between indisputably 'better' techniques - I mean actively using a sharp blade and looking to exploit a gap in someone's armour is genuinely trying hard to create a win, while mindlessly bashing plate and heavy chainmail and just hoping for the best is not really doing that nearly so much - to the level that comparatively artless bashing can remain viable, albeit less compelling, for at least some participants. (Which possibly has its own corollary, since everyone in heavy armour seems to be basically trying to wrestle everyone else already - just grab the mace while stabbing mindlessly at more or less the right area with your rondel dagger. A mace that requires a good solid swing to hit a plate hard enough for a K.O or broken bone isn't going to do much in a crush of bodies.) I like to think that you can probably gauge the skill level of any particular era via a kind of artistic index - i.e there's nothing about painting that requires any particularly modern implements, it's basically just skill (I guess you're limited a little by types and quality of brushes, but not to the degree that separates 13th century artworks from renaissance masters!) So if people in a certain era are painting to a certain skill level, it somewhat stands to reason that this is probably about the absolute level for anything else they might be doing during that era. i.e not everything has been invented yet, and certainly not widely shared enough to become standard for every single practitioner. Or to put it another way, you and your friends all hitting each other with sticks in the backyard every day is going to result in *some* level of innovation and improvement in technique, especially if you do it for generations and generations. But there's also tremendous potential for stagnation and conformity, which medieval cultures were *extremely* good at, horrifyingly so to modern readers. Granted, nothing spurs innovation like losing a battle - that's kinda what the entire grief process is for - and foreign styles of fighting and weaponry have proven enduringly popular with *some* people down the ages. Just so long as they're not actually shown to be better than the local stuff. Because if they are, that's a real test of a culture's ability to embrace change vs. their ability to fight on anyway via sheer bloody-minded determination in the face of overwhelming odds. And while one of those things is actively better, the other is far more romantically appealing, especially to the more insular types who are dead set the main group that ends up being highly enthusiastic about fighting foreigners. =/
@scholagladiatoria regarding the use of edge blows with the sword against armor, at least two manuscripts show it, albeit in diffident context. Reichsstadt "Schätze" Nr. 82 062v (Antonius Rast) shows someone making a two-handed edge blow against someone in armor, but the accompanying text is just someone parrying the blow and then pushing their elbow away. No mention of the efficacy of the blow. But it is depicted. In the 1560 manuscript of Joachim Meyer, when discussing the "sabre" in armor, he mentions the following plays: "push from you and don't let him come away and draw the sabre with the right [hand] and work at his joints[85], or with lower hews." Working at the joints could mean anything really (one could thrust with the sabre depicted in the illustrations, but it wouldn't necessarily be the easiest thing), but "lower hews" (unter hawen in the manuscript) seems to imply a cut. Earlier, Meyer uses "hew" to describe what he elsewhere calls a "thunderbolt" (i.e. a mordschlag with the pommel of the "rapier," i.e. estoc), but given the sabre looks ill-suited to this work and he doesn't describe it being held by the blade in this fashion (which is not really known in any other part of the German fencing tradition either), it seems clear he means you're meant to strike with the edge against their armor (possibly to the joints of their leg, or at their groin? Both targets he mentions elsewhere). He advocates something similar here (and elsewhere): "when you have weakened him with Thunderbolts[76], as taught above, grasp your sword like next/nearest[132] in the Oberhut and thrust[58] in above. In the thrust[58], let go of the grip [of the sword] with the right hand and draw the sabre. As soon as he also draws his, hew[110] at his hand." It's unclear if he means "hew" at the with the estoc or with the sabre, though I think it likely he means the sabre given the context. Of note is the target: the hand. Gauntlets are one of the targets I reckon make most sense for edge strikes with the blade of a sword: even overbuilt buhurt gauntlets can't protect hands perfectly from strikes with swords, and if someone was wearing finger gauntlets, for example, you might be able to seriously injure them or get them to move their hand in order to set up another attack, like a throw. Which is, by the way, how this play ends: you hit their hand, then grapple them and throw them. Using strikes like this to make an opponent move so you can set up a throw is a common practice across the harnischfechten manuals, and is also very common in modern buhurt. And finally, on the subject of edge strokes against armor, particularly helmets: they were very common, both in literature and accounts of battle, during what we might call the age of mail. Indeed, a sort of stock phrase for combat between two knights involves them battering each other with sword strokes until they "bleed from their mouth and nose." So, for a relatively long period of time, working with the edge against the armored head was considered normative. One could point out that steel production improved over the course of the middle ages, sometimes quite significantly, but even into the latest period, we see untreated steel and even wrought iron used. I'll leave you with an account that doesn't disprove your point at all (and indeed, highlights how edge strokes with the sword might leave one weaponless), but does illustrate that even that armor worn by the very highest lords of rich countries was not, perhaps, as invulnerable as we might nowadays think. This is an excerpt from a combat fought between Antoine, the Bastard of the Burgundy, and Edward, the Lord Scales, in 1467. Translated by Ralph Moffat: "And so they came brandishing their swords very proudly. Lord Scales twice cried out loud: “Saint George!”, and my lord the Bastard who was on the fourcourse, if he had wanted, turned his horse’s head (without using his hands) towards his man and dealt him a stroke with his sword on the helm. It was so strong that afterwards it could be seen on Lord Scales’s helm, on the side of the visor that had been split, that it was three inches wide, and a grain of wheat could pass through the gap. By this stroke the sword was fractured in two places."
As for mounted combat: It was used against footmen way more than against other mounted troops in many cases. As such you want a short heavy bashing weapon that is not likely to get hung up in the footmen you are charging through. Momentum is your best friend when charging from horseback. Swords suck in that fashion. I love how Matt always thinks of combat one on one at equal footing with each other. So chivalrous. Unfortunately that isn't the case in actual combat many times. Great points on the mace however. Personally I've always liked a good bludgeoning tool.
I doubt Matt thinks that. 😂
@@manfredconnor3194 well I don't know. He only ever talks about it in that way. You've never heard him talk about how devastating mounted warriors are against footmen on a charge. He doesn't seem to think very much about this at all, or he's just not willing to talk about it lol.
@@aubreymorris9183 Well, my understanding is that, formations like the schiltron, the hedgehog, the pike-block and even the shieldwall were by all accounts quite effective against mounted troops of their day, as long as they did not break ranks (e.g. route, get suckered in by a feigned retreat, get hit in the flank or rear while their formation was disrupted, etc.). Of course if infatry was not supported by missilers (e.g. archers, crossbowmen, gunners, peltests etc.) or if they were not armed with the right weapons, they would have worse cards too. I have never heard Matt say anything to the effect of a footman being on equal terms with a horseman. He'd be a fool to believe that and I do not think he is a fool. I suspect that maybe you've misinterpreted something that he said or perhaps taken it out of CONTEXT. Feel free to provide some links or supporting facts to back your opinion. I am not saying you are wrong. I just have not seen/heard that from Matt and can't imagine him saying something like that, unless it was just some flippant remark. People, who fo not know horses DO tend to underestimate them, but a lot of people, who think they know horses tend to overestimate them.
@@manfredconnor3194 look I'm not trying to get in a comments battle. I'm simply doing the same thing Matt does sharing my opinion about how combat works. There's lots of information out there and you make excellent points. I'm not sure you or Matt understand that rules, methods, and plans go completely out the window as soon as the fight starts. All the treaties do is talk about how you should behave. When people are actively trying to kill one another none of that crap is worth the paper it's written on. Matt is a HEMA guy which is basically the advanced version of LARP. These guys don't actually try to kill each other. The blows are pulled, the equipment is not really dangerous. Comparing that to combat is like comparing driving a racecar and a horse drawn buggy, you really shouldn't because they are nothing at all alike.
@@aubreymorris9183 You sure? Ok. Fair enough. I don't know where anyone is still battling it out with medieval weapons.
Very interesting about the Mace and Swords. Is there any chance you could talk about the Ball and Chain weapon. Keep up the good work.
I think the important point made about armored combat sport being adjusted for safty is key. They also aren't gunna allow a big spike like a morning star style head or a beak shaped hammer. They also stop fights when someone is on the ground. Imagine how much more powerful a hit from a mace is if the target can't move or flex. Think hammer and anvil
"Fall to the ground and be my anvil, feel the evil of Hammerfell, the Strong! Buhahaha!"
Matt references fighting with multiple blows connecting, not just one. Not just two. Five maybe. Remember that even good armor has fastenings, joints, straps, places it must slide, places that a deformed surface will handicap the wearer even if it did not break his bone underneath. Then the fourth or fifth blow strikes something no longer the same as the first. As that fight progresses, details of the armor can get smashed up. The fight changes, as the armor is smashed up, and may handicap the wearer or leave him vulnerable. What matters is the final effect of the last blow delivered, did the last blow kill or disable?
I wonder if the hammer would be considerably more effective than the mace at transferring nonlinear energy into a concentrated point. I can't help but imagine that being hit in the head with a hammer, helmet or not, would hurt like hell.
I would say that a hammer concentrates the force more accurately on the small area of impact. This comes with losing the great advantage of symmetric maces which is not caring much about edge alignment. The strength of the maces lies in its simplicity and the ability to turn even the most inexperienced peasant into a vicious killer.
@@laszlomatyasovszky7696 Even for mounted professionals, the symmetry of a mace is still very useful. Particularly for mounted combat where movement is even more important, and even more pronounced with the movement of the horses adding an extra layer of unpredictability. Which is no doubt why we see so many professional armoured horsemen using maces historically while hammers were an option.
Kind of like a mace?
It does, I just checked.
Watching Dequitem video was wondering, why he states that mace hit to armor has no effect, but hitting gap with sword, for some reason, will result in instant death, like there is no mail underneath. Also, he is talking explicitly about duels.
Kind of surprised you didn’t mention the effect that a mace would have when transferring the energy of the rider and horse but I guess that’s also a given.
I'd love to see Matt review El Cid, the movie. Especially the scene where El Cid is battling another knight in a jousting arena to settle an argument over land. I think a lot of what he discussed here and in his last video on maces would be important as the movie has a lot of medieval combat (obviously) with maces, swords, lances, etc, etc.
Interesting discussion. Definitely something to think about.
I would almost wager that durability was the main reason they were used. Having a back-up that has very low chance of breaking could be very attractive for some kinds of fighting .
CTE is a probelm in SCA armored combat, and we use rattan sticks. I know I've been stunned by one before.
I think in both cases, I mean both @scholagladiatoria and @dequitem ignore the weigh of a mace. The Ottoman cavalry (Sipahi) did carry maces with them; and these were heavy cavalries, clad with armor and barded horses. It is a heavy and longer type than the infantry ones, called "şeşper" (literally 6 pieces/wings as it had 6 slices on them). Though those weren't the main weapon which is "kılıç", the Turkish sword. I can imagine a battle case where you can start off with the maces on the front lines who are often the weakest to tire the enemy and is less armored against whom the mace is effective; using it also saves your blades edge. Once you start fighting the heavier armored opponents, you can draw your sword. Also and mace wielder on horse against foot soldiers would really be deadly. By the nature of the height difference, the head is already the primary strike zone. I should add, the full plate was in use by the 1400's and the Ottoman Empire was at it's height at the 1600's. So the use of the maces did indeed coincide with the use of plate armor. I have the feeling that, while I mean no offense, both @scholagladiatoria and @dequitem ignore the strength of the wielder. There are texts outlining the practice of janissaries ("Yeniçeri", lit. new soldier) as they are drafted as young boys, are given wrist wears that start at 5 kg (~11lbs) and go up to 20kg (~44lbs) as they grow into the role of actual soldiers. During battle, they remove those and don their weapons. The developed arm muscles allow these guys to deliver very strong blows to the enemy. Now... The authenticity of this is up for debate however, I will strongly argue that the average medieval guy was far stronger than me and I am beast of a man :D So legend or not, wrist wear or not, I would argue that the blows any medieval soldier deals is consequential no matter the weapon. NB: I am just an enthusiast and a student of history (leisurely) and in no shape or form and expert. :)
I feel like people ignore the spike of polaxes quite a lot. They effectively stuck a mail breaker at the end for a reason. Hook someone, force them down, use that hammer to _keep_ them down and spike them when the opportunity arises rather than taking the time to pull a dagger out, drop to the ground and possibly get stabbed yourself because your opponent was just a better ground fighter than you. A sword, specifically... there's a reason why mail breakers were developed. A sword just isn't sturdy enough for thrusting with that much force the way a spear is. I imagine if it worked at all it worked because some soldiers wouldn't bother with mail underneath. Rather heavy and uncomfortable, and buying the plate alone would be expensive enough.
Great video. One tid bit I wanted to mention- Jousting was not done with normal tipped lances. Real lances were very much deadly to knights. Would pierce straight through a breastplate if hit clean. Also it would be sick to do a collab with him. Would definitely watch.
Matt, I think you summed that up well. I agree especially about the durability issue. Also consider if you are expecting to be away at war for an extended period makes the mace all the more attractive. I have a few points to add. Mace on foot might have been good in the sense of double teaming an opponent. One guy knocks the enemy senseless while the other stabs into the gaps with a sword. On a horse it might be better to concus your opponent than hit him with a sword as he might be more likely to fall from the saddle. Agree disagree?
Imagine how powerful an underhanded strike with a mace to the head of an unmounted troop (perfect height) as the rider is going by at full speed would be… sallet or no that would have to be fatal
In the response video he did mention he was talking about round bohurt maces, and that they get deflected very effectively by plate armour. Spiked or flanged maces are a different story.
The Morningstar is my favorite mace; its spikey and blunt and, in DND, its the most versatile blunt hand weapon you can get. There are a few different styles, but I've yet to see a chart of them like with the different types of longswords and falchions. Great weapons for crushing skulls, breaking bones, and dispatching skeletons😂. The mace has been effective for literally hundreds of thousands of years. It was one of the first melee weapons we ever created during our tribal era.
Yeeeessss thank you just got to the mounted part ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️❤❤❤❤ Right a handy secondary at the pommel, great for bashing an infantryman trying to pull you down! 😊
This is the real key. The greatest threat to a mounted knight is anyone or anything that can unhorse him. This is how they decide which backup weapons to carry. The idea they would always use the same weapon in every situation is crazy. They get their orders, they know how the enemy there're facing will most likely be outfitted and they grab what they think will be the most effective to offend and defend against that enemy.
This is coming from the perspective of a cool and epic gamer. I'm talking from my experience in playing and designing competitive games; I do not have any experience in HEMA. (Still love both of you two's videos, though!! :) ) So, having watched both the original video and Diquietem's response when they both came out, this argument had a striking parallel to things I see a ton in competitive games. There are high reward weapons which require a lot of skill to effectively utilize - analogous to the longsword and its complexity - and there are lesser weapons which are really beginner friendly - analogous to the mace. In games like these, the weaker but easier to use weapon is more common because there are many less experienced players running around. When these less experienced players use the complex weapons they lose a lot because it's too difficult for them and so they stick to the weapon that is effective and useable. However, when a player becomes proficient with the more challenging to use weapon, they begin to see better success. Eventually, even a moderately skilled player with the more complex weapon can beat even the best players with the simple weapon. This paradigm is because the complex weapon has a few features that lend to it dominating over the easier weapon in exchange for demanding way more effort from the player. They either deal more damage, are more versatile, or do something that counters the simpler weapon. Their complexity inherently allows for more unpredictable gameplay which easily overwhelms the simpler weapon and marks it as top tier to use. The mace is absolutely easier to use than a sword on a technical level. However, I think the point Diquietem was making was as such: to fight in a high skill level duel, it is *far harder* to be *as effective* and deadly as the sword with a mace. Your options with a mace are limited and easily exploitable, so you must put in far more effort to even keep up with the versatility of a sword. Diquietem isn't arguing that maces are a more complex weapon than swords, but that fighting a proficient opponent with such a simple weapon is more difficult than evenly matching them.
17:30 “I’m trying to work out where to stick my poleaxe.” Giggity
I think that one important piece of context that is missing from many discussions is "Who is doing the fighting"? There would only be a relatively small number of full-time soldiers and knights, and the rest of the army would be common labourers called up as needed for a campaign or for defence. These men would not be practising daily with swords but would be using axes and hammers daily as part of their trade, chopping wood for cooking and heat, etc. I suspect that a pre-industrial revolution farm labourer swinging a hammer/mace/axe is quite different to a modern man doing the same. Their entire world ran on muscle power.
one thing I remember from the military. when we were tought using truncheons. one thing we had to unlearn. was the reflex to use overhead strikes to head and collarbone. If I have to fight someone in on foot. that has full plate armour. I would go for Pole axe, mace or dagger in that order. if i have no choise. sword. but I have no training in Hema.
Steps to victory in military truncheon warfare: 1. Affix bayonet.
I would love a chart of each weapons effectiveness against each armor type in each general scenario.
In my eyes, percussive weapons like maces kinda revert foot combat in armor to be more like unarmored, chiefly that hands and forearms become high priority targets. Metal used for gauntlets and other arm armor was very thin, looking at museum examples, and a whack from a mace would probably have little trouble breaking the fragile bones underneath. Buhurt examples are very misleading because their armor is much better metallurgically than medieval armor ever was and also much more overbuilt.
The mace having a lower skill floor makes perfect sense. It's a more accessible weapon.
We need a little demonstration: Weapon grade mace vs modern HEMA helmet. :) I think the point of "backup weapons" is very important. Eg, the king of weapons is the spear. It has to be light enough and available/cheap, so usually it is made with a wooden shaft. Now imagine a battlefield scenario. How many times can you use one spear? You would have to bring more than one... Or insert lances for horsemen. A terrifying weapon, but the better (longer, heavier)it gets, the harder it is to actually bring to a fight.
Great content!
Mace use amongst heavily armoured warriors before the early medieval period was also seen with the use of the mace by the cataphract heavy cavalry used by both the byzantine and Parthian / Sassanid empires
I would love to see a video about the differences between maces and hammers, why were they developed and when was one favored over the other? When would you use the blunt side of the hammer vs the pick or spike side? Why did the mace transition into this all metal, flanged form while we often see hammer retain their wooden handle? And how would the hammer differ in use when it is on the reverse side of a pollaxe instead of being a one handed, cavalry oriented weapon?
These are good questions. Period folks seem to have freely mixed these terms. Pietro Monte, for instance, wrote about the "mace" or "club" but described his preferred version of this weapon as more like what we'd call a hammer, with one end like a pollaxe head & the other like a little lemon (?). Many pollaxes weren't axes at all, but had a hammer & a spike/beak.
They still are fine. All that matters is that I hit you, not which end I hit you with. If we are this far along, I'm really not thinking about it. Take a claw hammer. Does what side matter? 😮 No. One side will just be rather messier.
@@davidpa9266 I know that either side, or just either weapon, will hurt either way. My question is if they're basically interchangeable why did these weapons develop that way, why would they bother to implement these differences? With swords we have thorough analysis and speculation of how each little change to its shape, proportions, cross section, etc would change its function, yet I can't find anything about this recurring pattern in both one handed and two handed weapons offering a blunt side and/or a spike side. (Besides some of the longer spikes being used as hooks, but these tend to be less stout, and only show up on polearms where you can get enough leverage to hook and pull things proper). Of course, both a Type III and Type XV sword will cut if they hit you, but the specific physical properties of each will offer different advantages/disadvantages.
The notion of the squire following along with a heap of weapons for the Knight to choose from always puts me in mind of the scene in Terry Gilliam's Jabberwocky (1977) where Michael Palin's character is trying to pass everything to the knight who is in combat with the beast while avoiding getting killed. I think something to always have in mind when considering armoured fighting from horseback is that the opponent is not necessarily also on horseback or even armoured and a mace as a defensive melee weapon would be of some considerable merit. Lastly, if we have established that the mace is not bad, is it mad or dangerous to know?
What questions me about those one handed maces (as a total noob) is: why are their shafts so short??? Without going up to polearm (a.k.a 2 handed) size, but a longer shaft would mean more reach (even if I understand that in armour in the middle of the heat, it's a weapon for close quarters fight) and more leverage and therefore more damage. And even more when on horseback, it must be so hard to reach a target on foot with such a poor reach, isn't it??? By the way, thank you Matt for all your super interesting videos. 😊
Great question. Grab a 3lb hammer and give it a longer handle. Swing it a few times before you do, wild swings to one side. If you can manage it get a barrel or rail to sit on while swinging. Now, try it with a longer handle. The fact is that 3lb weight out 18-24inches (handle length) is barely manageable. If you made it longer it gets unreasonably hard to manage. And then you swing it. From horseback where you have little footing to lever the weight around it's tough to manage the leverage. Remember every foot out from the fulcrum doubles the weight. So at 1ft its already 6lbs, 2 = 12lbs, 3= 24lbs. Plus momentum modifiers.
@@darrinrebagliati5365 OK, thank you. So it would be a limitation because of the weight of the thing making it unwieldy. ... And then, what about a slightly lighter head on top of a longer shaft, to have the same "damage effect" but with a bit more reach?
Pietro Monte did recommend carrying a slightly longer club/mace (hammer) & wielding it in both hands from the saddle. (He called it a club or mace but described more of what we'd call a hammer.)
@@KamiSeiTomaces came in many lengths, shapes, and weights. It would’ve been personal preference.
And the fact that most blunt medieval weapons found has short handles would be an indication that it's more effective than a long handle. Being aware that historical finds are not necessarily a accurate representation of what was most commonly used.
Something you've mentioned before (and maybe also with Tod Todeschini) is the damage done to articulated plate sections, which Tod showed in his arrows versus armour series. I wonder what a good mace blow to a plate elbow would do to the armour wearer's mobility?
Hurt like a mother. Imagine it to the head?
The thing that is often forgotten about weapons used on horse, is the added momentum of the animal. We're talking at least 500 Kg of added mass that is not stopping, when hitting something. So any weapon used form horse has way more htting power and it keeps carrying on no matter what, the horse will keep moving forward, and the rider and his weapon with it. So sword or a mace will hit way harder than on foot, since the horse won't stop dead on its track, and usually fighting on horse is carried out at a slow canter, so we're talking about 25 Km/h at least. And this is just assuming a rided hitting a stationary target on foot. If the rider is meeting another rider, everything is doubled, as you have to account for their own speed and mass of their animal. Hence maces and warhammers with sturdy short shafts make lots of sense, as they can bear the impact better than a sword.
16:40 a spark of inspiration for a medieval European themed band name
What i got from their explanation is the mace was poor as you have to get in close to use but you also have have a fair distance from your opponent to get a decent swing for it to work, hence his action of having to retreat to swing it, where as a sword you can go in close as its a thrust action so closer the better.
The difference between a battlefield where the goal is to literally Kill or Concuss your enemy and scoring a point by hitting a spot. Like you said, having multiple weapons on the historical battlefield was a good idea, if I had the money, I'd have a Poleaxe/Halberd, Sword in a scabbard, Mace on my belt and a dagger as a final option.
Polish nobles apparently preferred the mace to the sword for personal defense when going out alone, as they could be hung in a belt or sash and easily withdrawn in a pinch if necessary. Swords typically had to be carried in scabbards to avoid cutting the wearer, and had to be withdrawn more slowly. Poland for so many centuries was one large battlefield, so it shouldn't be surprising that the nobility developed a preference for weapons that could be withdrawn quickly. Now, the Hussars specialized in the curved cavalry sabre and the mace, and became quite formidable with both. Flanged maces could be used to crack open armor, whereas brigands could use the solid-head maces to beat armored opponents senseless (probably after first disarming them of longer-range weapons), beat the dents out of captured armor, and sell it on the market at a profit. The defeated and badly injured noble could, if he survived, be ransomed back to his household or country. So the effectiveness of maces compared to swords depended on what situation you were likely to be in. For personal defense or capturing armor more or less intact and salable, you employed a mace. For cracking armor, you wanted a flanged mace. Swords would have been used more for armies with chaotic melee fighting, for duels, and for horseback. Maces were basically glorified clubs, so instances requiring the use thereof were probably preferred.
i love anime where some of these hammers or maces are enchanced with tech that makes them more deadly. Alita battle angle the doctor has a rocket powered mace. Which seems cool. I know adding electrical attacks to a mace i think were used in a few movies and anime. A gun sword from final fantasy series. The grenade tipped lance that meant to explode on contact. from rough riders in 40k warhammer. Flame sword from fallout series. I was wondering if you would make a few videos on some of these examples. I like your show and hope you make more.
My personal take on maces and ball and chain weapons are that they are excellent weapons in some circumstances. I've never done HEMA fighting, but SCA heavy combat, where ball and chains are completely banned for safety reasons. I think their best use is in the high medieval period, not the late, exactly as you say. And that they would be awesome from horseback where you are facing footsoldiers. You dont have to worry about striking with edge, just bash away. A bit like you see with horses and riot police.
Something to consider simply based on "intent" for a weapon, is that not all weapons have the same purpose in terms of effect against a given target. While rigid thrust blades, daggers, and pointed pole-axe tips are intended to puncture or slide into a gap in the armor and cause bleeding injuries, blunt weapons can be used to concuss and cause impact trauma to less protected parts of the target like hands, elbows, and knees. Full Plate: If the discussion is limited only to full plate or similar levels of protection, the plates themselves can distribute the force of a blunt weapon strike over the surface of their wrappings and padding layers between the plate and the flesh of the target (though they likely would inflict joint and muscle fatigue from the force of the blow). In that scenario strikes to the head, hands, and knee can still transfer enough force to weaken, disorient or injure an opponent. The mass of the weapon itself likely is a significant factor in the effectiveness as well, with heavier two-handed weapons being capable of delivering concussive force through a plate, in particular to the head and limbs. Knocking an opponent hard enough to unbalance them, concuss them or trip them is enough to force the fairly commonly mentioned scenario of "grappling" with a dagger for the finishing blows. If the discussion permits mixed armor, three-quarters armor or half-plate, then I think the usefulness of the mace improves depending on how much chainmail is involved. Mixed Armor Protection: From observations, not treatise study or practical experience, I would make the conjecture that single handed maces would be similar to arming swords in terms of their purpose. They don't seem like the primary choice against heavy armor, but they might make a good back up or secondary specialist weapon against enemies in mixed forms of protection, as chainmail and gambeson would provide little to no protection from the concussive force, and against full plate such a weapon permits disabling or disorienting strikes in combination with acting as a short and rigid restraining bar for grappling. Since a somewhat short one-handed mace is more maneuverable than a poleaxe or great axe or two handed sword, it can be used while in closer proximity, tighter environments such as tower stairs or "right hand favoring" defensive L corridors. Mounted combat: A short axe or mace makes sense for horse mounted combat. The target is beneath the attacker, and their head is generally exposed. The video covers this pretty well. Economics: Another note would be the cost and quality required to possess such a weapon. As remarked many times on this channel and others, swords were not a commoner's weapon, but a solid piece of wood with a big hunk of metal on the end can be serviceable for conscripted forces while requiring less materials, effort and skill to manufacture and maintain. Storage and transport is simple, because it doesn't require a proper scabbard and the length permits it to be worn more readily than an arming sword. It also requires far less talent, training and skill to put the weapon to good use compared to a sword. Hitting a man really hard with a stick is fairly easy to train, and even if the weapon doesn't cause a severe injury with any given strike against an armored opponent, it will inflict fatigue and impact trauma that can be capitalized upon by better armed soldiers. There is also an added "simplicity" to the weapon in that it doesn't have binding issues since it isn't trying to penetrate, the user doesn't need to worry about the blunt getting stuck in an opponent when they need it to guard or strike elsewhere. Politics/Fashion: For maces that are of particularly high quality we have to make some assumptions about medieval fashion and politics. There have been prior discussions about how sometimes a weapon is also a status symbol or a measure of one's station. A regional noble or court official may have a finely crafted single-handed mace as a weapon of distinction to emphasize their station. Given the historical imagery we see with maces tend to depict a noble or night wielding the fancy maces, it may also be a symbol of governance or justice. Politically, if we accept that a mace is likely to disable rather than kill outright in the above discussions, it also makes sense that knights would use maces to subdue targets of significant value for ransom where bladed weapons would be more likely to result in a death. As an aside, I don't know that I would lead with any argument about lances being stopped by plate armor, specifically in jousting. Jousting lances are not war lances, they are designed to be brittle and to break for score keeping purposes, and aren't going to have proper steel spikes embedded in their tips. A horse with a proper lance should be able to generate enough force to severely injure a knight regardless of plate protection.
It tends to be other way around, really. Maces were typically cavalry weapons, so used by knights, wealthy men-at-arms and other people of means. We have comparatively little evidence of the use of maces on foot, as sidearms or otherwise. Swords and axes seem far more common. I'm also not quite sure whether a metal mace would be any cheaper than a sword. Putting enough weight in the metal head could actually require more metal than forging a relatively thinner sword blade.
i think you need to take the static out of the audio. most video software can do this. anyways this was a super great video
Absolutely with you, I think here you are right. So About harnisfechten, two things most HEMA doesn't think about. First, most of arming fighting teatrises speaks about armoured duelling, so that's the reason why there are a lot os swords there. Second, they tend to forget that the swords used in this teatrises are not normal swords, but stocs, swords design to penetrate male Armour of the gasps of the harness, used on foot and horseback, very mentioned in sources. So, swords not very good against Armour, and also need to be an stoc to maximize possibilities of penetrating, than being mail on gasps, are really low.
You have no idea how glad I am you clarified. Every medieval enthusiast seems to invoke you as the final authority on medieval combat
Im retired law. At first we used straight wood baton. Then ASAP came out, this is made out of metal, carrying it is pushed down to approx 8 in. When you pull out swing it down asap fully expanded. When STRIKING you want the round knob at the end. From the knob delivers so much power which now bad guy gives up fast. The straight stich it took so many strikes with little compliance because now the whole stick hits large area. When you watch the police stick being used it look horrible to ppl who do not understand. The asap you do not need to swing very hard, less hits needed and then ppl watching the appearance does not look as bad. Watching your channel about knights mace is same as the asap. The force from asap and mace balls at tip the energy is very high. I like your channel, i can see your research and how to inform public is great, keeep up with your channel to educate us.
Hi Matt, would it be a fair observation that a mace might be more useful in the press of battle where you may not have the space to use a sword properly?
maces require distance to swing properly
That's why a police truncheon is the length of your forearm, that and limiting the damage you can do in the stress of a brawl. Tonfa-type police batons are really for crowd control.
A mace needs space to swing too. Less sure, but its still not perfect. Daggers are you buddy.
Where are those shock stickers the Mythbusters used when you need them? I'd love to see a test where someone puts one of those stickers on a head, puts padding over it, a helm over that, then strikes with various weapons and see how effective it is.
In a world without power tools I imagine any weapon that was commonly used was probably pretty effective. It took a lot of work to make a mace and and I doubt they'd continue to be requested/made if they sucked too bad.
Especially one that spread for centuries across multiple cultures and landscapes. It was used everywhere from England to the Arabs to the Chinese even. If it were an ineffective or terrible weapon, it would have spread and lasted. No one is going to dedicate their limited metal, resources, and skilled craftsman creating a weapon that has repeatedly shown terrible field performance.
@@michael9433 Thing is, they're actually not THAT common. I don't think we even have much evidence for the use of one-handed blunt weapons on foot, and we don't even have any surviving combat manuals talking about mace combat. Swords and spears were definitely more popular by far, whereas maces seem more niche.
I would guess that a very common use of cavalry was to run down routing enemies. In this scenario, the logical target for the cavalryman is the head (we can assume the most heavily armoured part of the body) of the infantryman. In this case, aiming for gaps with a point doesn't seem a good option, with the added risk of the sword getting stuck. Maces and warhammers seem a more practical option. Regarding the efficacy of a mace for infantry in armor, I would assume that any strike to the helmet with some force is likely to hurt/stun/move the helmet and blind the wearer... During the time he recovers, his opponent can perhaps more easily bash him again with the mace, or pull his dagger and wrestle to stab.
Well said Matt but what about the concussive energy of a mace to the head even with plate on won't your neck brake especially when you get hit from mounted warriors
Curious about a comparison between bladed and blunt pole arms. A glaive versus a maul, for example.
Yeah. Me²!
On foot maybe but a handy secondary in the saddle
I love the discussion this has sparked. Also, 17:35 - the wallhammer is back in action! Yeah, baby, woo-hoo!
In Serbian Epic poetry, which is poetry in form only and in reality is a historical telling of actual events in most cases. In most cases when two men fight in a duel, all the weapons brake. First the spear, then the sword, then "шестоперац" - six feather mace, and then its down to bare hands and a dagger in the song "Princ Marko and Musa Kesađija". Princ and later King Marko was a historical and mythical Serb. In the song he has such strength that he can lift an entire ox cart together with Otomans and Oxes and.... end them rightly. This song is describing events around 14 century.
I found in buhurt I like the two handed mace better. Now this isn’t my take from a historical perspective but rather from a modern day sport practitioner. The one handed mace is mostly an auxiliary weapon unless your goal is to grapple and hold someone while a team mate can come in with a polearm or two handed weapon for the bonk. A two handed mace from 4’ to 6’ makes a fantastic weapon you don’t need to worry about edge alignment for, has amazing impact force and most importantly cheaper than a longsword to produce. That last point is more of a personal one. I understand the trouble of men-at-arms who could afford plate armor but didn’t have the coin for a sword after 😂
16th-century English armies used large numbers of 6ft spiked maces according to Venetian observers. The observers described these maces as quite impressive, fit to level cities & smash hard objects.
Do we have two handed flanged maces in history? I found that two handed spiked maces are more common
@@wolfensniper4012 That's what I've seen as well.
Concerning the length of the haft of a "horseman's hammer" or mace, I would think that a length of 36 inches, up to maybe 40 inches, would be fairly easy to carry on horseback and the additional length would give the wielder an advantage from horseback, with longer reach and higher mace or hammer head speed (just like in golf, where a longer club head speed is higher than a shorter one). A 40 inch long mace would still be a one handed weapon that could be hung from the saddle bow or held in a scabbard attached to the saddle.
I have a question/suggestion maybe for a future video that combines two different eras. How effective or ineffective would a well-made Roman Gladius be at poking through Plate/Knight armor weakspots. Either without comparison to other weapons or compared to the arming sword. Obviously the scenario would never have happened in the real world. But I think a little fun idea for a video to explore. Great videos and I have learned a lot from your content ty!
On horseback, a ride-by strike at high speed will hit with more force. I imagine that maces and hammers would benefit from this more than a sword would.
I think if you're fighing in full plate vs full plate, dual wielding an anti-armor dagger and a mace is a good idea. The idea being to use the mace to get in closer and bash them for a while to disorient them,to then get even closer and stab them with the dagger. It doesn't sound very logical explained like this but from melee combat experience this seems good if you're both mostly invulnerable. Edit: Evidently this implies you were on horseback and were dismounted or other such scenario or you would be using a two handed weapon.
A really big mace would be pretty dangerous, especially if you're unarmoured and fast on your feet. I used a two handed mage in the early days of buhurt when the rules were lax and it was devastating.
WHat is you opinion on Morning Stars? (To my belief - a spiked ball attached to a short to medium length pole by chain) Ae they even real to the time, not a modern construction? And do you think they could have been an effective siege or point defense weapon?