Halberds - why were they that shape?

in this video I'm going to talk to you about how birds and how I think they were used and I must say thank you to my sponsors it the great courses plus more about them later now the halberd is a weapon that came into common usage in the 15th and 16th century it's a from a time in which the men doing the fighting are professionals wearing professional kit and they've got lot of armor by and large they're not using shields in this period so it's the very late medieval actually early Renaissance period is that is that the high point of of halberd use and there are a number of characteristics about the how but that make me think that they were perhaps used in a particular way and I've got a theory which I'm going to explain now before I go much further and I'll say that I'm going to be talking about the common types of halberd the shapes that recur again and again and again the shapes that I see in all the museum's often on quite plain and very practical looking weapons that look to me as though they were used by normal soldiers in actual battle because there are yes lots of weird and wonderful exotic Hal birds with really bizarre heads on them that were perhaps only used in parades or were perhaps used differently but in that case I'm not talking about them because if a weapon is so differently shaped that it had to be used differently than it's a different shape and it's being used differently so it's a different weapon I would argue so I'm talking about the common common common sort of halberd now I don't actually have I'm afraid an actual Halbert to show you but I do have a couple of bits that I've got for mug pollaxe which is similar but not the same the pole axe and the helmet are different weapons now this haft of ash I've had made for me specifically to become the haft of a Pollock's and so you can see that I thought maybe this sort of length was suitable this is definitely the maximum length if I want it shorter I will cut it down from here and here is the pole axe head now it'll go into that socket so it'll be that tall when it's put together I'm not actually completely enamored with this particular head that may use a different one anyway couple of things I want to point out first these strips of metal that go down the shaft and protect it are called Lange it's the fact that they're called language isn't the thing it's just about you to notice that where they are and what they do there is a spike at the top now this spike as you can see is that long and that's quite typical for a pol X but on a halberd they're much longer they're at least that long and sometimes like that long really long spikes on the top of a halberd another thing about halbert's is that they are much longer overall a halberd czar at least this sort of height and and sometimes they're more like that sort of height so they're much longer they've got a longer spike on the end there's something else about the ax head that I'll point out later and talk about that separately now they have a long shaft with a long spike on the end and they're used as a group fighting weapon by men wearing lots of armor so it's my feeling that the principal killing bit of the weapon is actually not the axe head but the spike it is principally a weapon that achieves what it achieves by thrusts you find a chink in the armor and I slit the groin the inside of the elbow the armpit some little place that's not as armoured as it could be and you thrust in the spike and the spikes on the made for real battle halbert's are substantial things there is thick as your finger and very very strong and wickedly sharp at the top there clearly though not for chopping yes some of them have got a spearhead a shape or a sword blade shape and so they have a bit of an edge to them but I don't think that they're for chopping in fact I think they would positively get in the way of chopping so you've got a long weapon one of the things you need to be able to do is fend cavalry off so a long pointy thing is pretty good for that you're also using this weapon in a dense formation now in advanced formation there can be guys standing very close to me there can be a guy here like a big guy here and I can thrust there I can thrust there I can thrust there usefully without getting in their way and if something is thrust at the guy to my left I can knock my opponent's weapon out of the way with my halberd protecting my friend so I can usefully defend myself and my neighbors and I can thrust if that's how I use my halberd but if I decide to swing my helmet about in big sweeping hacking movements that I can't really pull off in my room here because I'm not the camera or or the habitat globe which is just out shot then I'm going to be sweeping a big area in front of me which is going to make it very difficult for all my friends to fight properly there there they are trying to do stuff with their halbert's and perhaps if they're swinging theirs around we're going to get horrible clashes with each other and if I try to bring the halberd back like this in order to bring it down with a great crash then well I'm bound to hit someone behind me in a dense formation aren't I if I go haha then I'm off that guy's Christmas list straight away so I don't think then you're going to expose yourself here it come with the big I like it and then bring it down with a great big crash because it's a bit telegraphed and it gets in the way of your fellows so I'd say that most of all I'm not saying that no one would ever chop with a halberd in some circumstances perhaps one good and you could threaten till you could stand there on the chopping this either topping with this and if you did have the room that could perhaps force the enemy into doing something that you wanted but most of the time in a dense formation thrusting is going to be more effective thrusting against armoured targets is usually more effective as a killing method and it doesn't interfere with what's going on around you and it allows you to use the full length of a long weapon so the thrust is I would say the main killing thing if you can get someone to come forwards out of the protective line of troops and perhaps fall forwards onto his face then loads of you could thrust at him from all sides perhaps one just pinning him down whilst the guys behind you they could reach around your waist and that they could stab at him and the guys either side of you could go hey it's Christmas and they could all be stabbing at him to finish him off I don't see it as particularly likely but if a man falls within range of many men in one formation that they're going to try to chop at him because they're all going to get in each other's way and the guy's well-armored that it's much more difficult to finish someone off with a chop then the case with a good stab you can put an awful lot of force and body weight behind a stab and you can do it quickly so the first thing I'm going to say then is it I think they're principally for stabbing and part of my evidence is the length of the spike on the end of a halberd now if someone is chopping at you with a Howard this isn't a hell but remember you gotta imagine it got a much longer spike on the end of it you could try to parry now I'm not saying the best way to defend yourself against a chop from a halberd is with the sword but just just imagine that you are going to go hat like that and put a sword somewhere to block the blow so where would you best do this well you could try to block the axe head itself yeah right and yeah you're actually trying to to block the the main chopping part of the other guy's weapon it's a smallish target and it's a very very powerful target that might not be the best bit to go for um then again you could write below it couldn't you see go out ha well you can you see that the leverage problem here is is not good he's got a longer heavier weapon and it's heaviest bit it's just there and I'm not sure but you know I'm going to win this this battle of strength so maybe that's not such a great way to parry it plus I have to step up tip I have to have to be brave enough to step close to as he's swinging I got to step in past his head and getting close but I said it's a group fighting weapon if that's how I'm going to parry his weapon by getting in close to him then yes great if we if this is a duel I can then haha knocking miss na kita his weapon aside and stabbed and so forth but if this is a battle I get to here and I'm now definitely within range of all the guys next to him and perhaps a couple of guys standing behind him so now I'm fighting six guys suddenly and I'm going to lose so this isn't a great way but if there's a great long spike on the end that comes out to here or something well then I've got a much easier time because if I put my my salt there then it's going to go clang there is it and now now the leverage is really good now I can throw his weapon aside quite easily because the leverage is for anything in my favor and I can be stepping backwards moving backwards and I can be moving backwards to safety I much prefer that enter also it's a very big target that long spike at the end if it's coming at me in a swinging motion is a very big thing I can aim for to bring up my parrying weapon again I'm not saying that doing that is actually a great way to defend but if you were I'm just trying to show you that that long spike on the end if you're using the Halbert there's a chopping weapon it's actually a bit of a liability and it's a liability in another way too because um imagine you've got a long spike on the end so how that comes in and what is attended intending to do is this I think you'll agree al but let's imagine that I see it coming and think Oh flinch a bit and just step back a little bit like this okay now if it's got a very short spike on the end what will happen is I step back and instead of being hit there I get hit Oh lower down and it's still it's it packs a punch that the big weighty choppy bit of the weapon hits me solidly where I would prefer it not to but if it's got a long spike on the end which actually makes it harder to swing anyway because it's going to make the head heavier and more awkward now if I step back instead of being hit in the chest I'm going to get hit on the shoulder by the side of a thin probably blunt spike and remember I'm wearing knocked Obama so actually it saved me I don't feel so bad now and whilst that's happening I can now perhaps grab his weapon try to pull it out of his hand um I'm actually in not such a bad situation if I just get plunked on the shoulder by the spiky bit the long spike on the end of a halberd is a liability if you're trying to chop in the way that it's often supposed that people chopped with other weapons like axes and pole axes now I said I was going to say something about the great Quartus plus and I shall the great quarters plus is an Internet this that provides loads of lectures on all sorts of topics I've been looking principally at the history ones but there is science and maths and photography and other things too I notice for instance there's a course on the Etruscans and they couldn't resist that they couldn't resist pulling it the mysterious Etruscans now I grant you it's true the Etruscans are mysterious in that considering how much we know about them we know really mysteriously little about them they had writing for instance and yet we can read almost none of it which makes them quite mysterious and they were a prominent civilization that influenced the Romans and yet we still don't really know all that much about them so yes they are mysterious in that sense but I just I don't know whenever I hear the word mysterious applied to a people of the past like that I always think that you're suggesting that the actual people themselves were mysterious and acted strangely I'm sure if there was a new trust and bricklayer getting on with you know laying Etruscan bricks and you said oh he would say something like yeah in reply you know he wouldn't act all mysterious because he was just just a guy people in the past were generally quite mundane and ordinary most of them but I suppose the mundane Etruscans isn't such a seller for a lecture course I've digressed slightly anyway they have loads of these lectures online typically a course is twenty four lectures each one lasting half an hour sets 12 hours on all sorts of topics which I hope are of great interest to you and if you want to try them out you can because if you click the address in the link of this video or if you much prefer typing things out for reasons I don't completely understand you can type out WWE great courses plus.com stroke linda beige yes I think I got it right that time and then that's another way of getting to a landing page where you will be given a free offer of one month's free trial so you can can see a lot of lectures in one month and if you don't like it well then unsubscribe but I am interested to know if people are liking it because have I found a good sponsor is this the right company that I should have sponsoring my videos so please if you tried out the great courses plus because you've seen me talk about them could you say so in in the in the comments and and tell me something about how it went and how good and experienced or heaven forfend bad experience you had yeah please I'd like a little bit of feedback on this ah what I couldn't do with a bowl of fake pomegranates like that ah yes look at that outfit even his tie is beige I like this guy now back to halbert's now remember that I said there's an important other difference between the shape of a pole axe head or certain other axes and a halberd and that is to do with the axe choppy bit now you'll see that the face of this is set sort of at right angles to the shaft okay so the straight edge of it here is parallel but it's set such that if I swing at with this to hit you the perfect angle is at right angles to the the shaft the perfect angle for hitting you so you would imagine that this is swung with that sort of sideways chopping motion because that's the way the the blade is set but on a halberd if it's got a straight edge and many of them have straight edges far more of them have straight edges or concave edges which you don't see on other top sort of axe they have straight edges and concave edges and not convex edges which you would normally expect hmm probably a reason for that and they're set at a different angle so instead of the axe head pointing that way it points that way it points towards the user towards the holder of the weapon not towards the enemy or sideways and if it's got a concave blade which many of them have the concave blade is not set in a symmetrical Crescent like that but in fact it's an asymmetrical one with the top the top part of the Crescent overhanging the smaller bottom part like that so again it seems to be set as if you chopped towards the user and I think that's why I think that's because you chop towards yourself so why would you chop towards yourself well there are several reasons okay one reason is if you are fighting in a battle with lots of other people next to you you're kept safe by staying in line the main bit of the fighting is going to be done by the guys right at the front in the front row and if I swing at my my enemy with a big forwards chop to hit him like this whack like that I'm putting myself in danger I'm having to move forwards out of my line and if I swing and it glances off his armor or he deflects it or what whatever it doesn't work I've missed there's always going to be a certain amount of work extra forward movement and then I have to recover from that and then retreat to my line again which is a delay it may only be a delay of one second but the delay of one second can get you killed so if I have to expose myself by chopping and going forwards to hit properly with my axe head then it's dangerous but I can actually do more damage just by thrusting I've got better ranges I don't have to step so far out if I use the big pointy bit but what if you chopped towards yourself what if I thrust perhaps and I've missed and as I come back I chop towards myself with a go I put in a chopping movement as I come back well there are several advantages one is that as I chop I'm retreating at the same time there isn't that delay I get back to safety of my fellows very very quickly and that's how a lot of people fight if you've seen I don't know if you were I did all sort of school you went to but if you went to the sort of school that I went to when I was little they've got a few playground fights you know often get one gang squaring up against another gang and anybody actually really want to fight no one actually really wants to get hurt at all that much rather get on did but secretly don't don't tell you on that outwardly they're all really out for it and each one individually is so much braver than the guys next to him and yet you have guys going good come on and they ostentatiously stepped forward out of line putting their saves and selves in danger but as soon as anyone actually looks as though that they might actually take him on all right yeah come on oh I'm not what he just immediately nips back to the safety of his fellows and then says oh what I thought you were brave look but no one is suicidal no one wants to on his own go right into the middle of all the enemy and get beaten on from all sides so if I can retreat to my fellows really quickly that's handy and I'm only going to take a risk of stepping out for the shortest possible period of time so I I come out of the wall good and constant em coming back and what I didn't work and oh I've got an opportunity that I'm gonna go through art didn't work right and I want to come back again but I can do that pulling chop every time I come back I can do a pulling chop and why might I want to do that well Pell Birds I've got the hook on the back and the blade on the front is quite hook like and the chopping part of it if it's angled towards you pulls in a hooking manner towards you hooking someone forwards towards you is quite handy in a group fight particularly as everyone's standing forwards like this trying to get a bit of range and a walk getting back out of the way using footwork but a lot of guys will have their balance forwards and they're wearing heavy armor so if you just time everything just right with their movements you could as he parries your blow and then goes forwards to take account of blow use advantage of some opportunity he's seeing as you then pull towards and catch on him you could whoa pull him off balance forwards and he could end up going crunch forwards into danger as soon as he falls forwards they're going to be lots of guys around you within range of him stab stab stab stab stab he's very likely to be killed if you can get him to fall forward it doesn't even have to fall over if you could just pull in just one stride forward it's going to take in just a second or two to get back into formation and that's a second or two that the guy's either side of you have got to stab him so that's one reason you might chop towards yourself another reason is that you might hit his weapon because these weapons are mounted on wooden shafts and wood has a grain running up and down it so if you pull towards yourself you can chop at an enemy weapon and perhaps get into the grain get a grip it in strip away strip part of his weapon away you're not chopping like that against his weapon because you haven't got the angle and you're not going to chop through his weapon in one blow but if there are a lot of you constantly doing this constantly doing this and every time you come back towards yourself you chop and you've got a weapon that's that's shaped so that it can at an angle just catch the grain and just shave a little bit more a little bit more a little bit more off his weapon then that's gonna be weakening his weapon all the time and he won't want you to do that so he's going to have to take steps to move his weapons out the way so that that doesn't happen and as long as he's doing that he's not hitting you so it effectively is a defense it's an attack which also acts as a defense so that is how I think how goods were use now if you want to know how a sword was used my goodness there are so many treatises that if a noble wants to fight another Noble there are so many treatises he can he can look at four sword against sword sword against dagger sword against pollaxe sword again fish but there's precious little on how the ordinary man in a big group battle uses a group fighting weapon like a halberd so we have to do a fair bit more speculation anyway I think Hal birds were principally thrusting weapons were principally used held at one end and taking advantage of their their reach I think the stabbing end was what did most of the actual killing and I think that the chopping part of it was principally used to chop towards yourself and this was to keep you safe to have a go at his weapon and to hope that you can hook in forwards off balance that is how I think power birds were used [Music] Lindy man [Music]

Channel: Lindybeige

Views: 1,208,957

Rating: 4.8798547 out of 5

Keywords: halberd, halberds, polearm, halbard, glaive, poleaxe, pollax, poleax, knight, medieval, weapon, warfare, battle, fighting, history, hema, fencing, wielding, weilding, technique, practical, use, usage

Id: GsckeyktMS0

Length: 22min 6sec (1326 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 16 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/roastbeeftacohat]

TL;DW the primary attack was to spear the enemy, with the bladey bits to try to hook or cut the enemy while recovering to a neutral fighting stance. swinging the weapon around is absurd when used in a dense formation.

EDIT: also these things were really really long,