The quarterstaff

I have here two bits of wood that I've had made for me this one is destined to be the handle of a pole axe and this one much longer and thinner will become a spear shaft but before I attach the ironmongery to turn them into those weapons I thought I'd use them for a while to illustrate quarter staffs or perhaps I should say quarter staves now some people will say that it's it these weapons are actually called quarter staves and not called staffs and some people say that it no it's one quarter staff but to plural quarter staves thank goodness such sort of drivel doesn't matter in videos like this you know what I'm talking about big sticks that you hit people with right so quarter staffs because that's the word I'm used to they are associated with the English Oh England marry England the stout yeoman of England from about 1500 to the end of the 19th century the English took great pride in their skill with the court staff and they trained in it wrote things about it and had competitions in it and very very proud of themselves and there are heartwarming stories to warm the cockles of any English woman's heart over men armed with these beating up loads of Spaniards armed with rapiers and stuff um but before we get too carried away with the Oh Englishness of the quarter staff can we just remind ourselves that we're talking about a big stick and I don't think the English can really claim to have invented the big stick nor be the first people in the world or the only people in the world ever to think to themselves hey Gino you could hit people with these now a style of kung-fu that I studied for some years was Wing Chun and that had a pole form granted it's not a very ancient pole form but I think we should just remind ourselves it's a big stick um now just how big a stick is it and is there anything else we should know about it what's it made out of well this one's made out of ash and ash is definitely one of the words that was used you want something pretty solid pretty hard and got a substantial would have weight to it because you're going to hit people with it you're going to swing as well as thrust and so you want something that's fairly substantial and fairly stiff now I've seen it in many thick representations of course staffs and some historical attempts and reconstruction someone is pictured holding something that's got bark on it and little nodules all down it where twigs have been cut away it looks like a copyist pole or I perhaps a sapling and yes you could make a quarter staff just by cutting a sapling or Poppy's pole to length and trimming off the twigs but it wouldn't be very good better than nothing but not anything like as good as something taken from a solid tree trunk a couple of reasons one is that you want the outside to be smooth you want to be able to change grips slide your hand round as you fight and that's difficult if it's rough and nobly another thing is that a copyist pole these young wood it's largely SAP wood which is soft and springy and that's not what you want a court staff to be you want it to be hard and stiff you want you want that movement to be accompanied by a sort of Frank and crunch sound as your opponent's skull crushes rather than sort of bowing and laughter noise so the fact that these are made out of tree trunks is a possible reason for why they are called quarter staves which could then become quarter staffs in the first place because if you wanted to make a bit of Dowling from a tree you don't actually use the center of the tree where the rings are concentric you don't use that middle bit of the tree because then when it seasons when it dries out it'll warp and crack instead typically what you do is you cut the tree trunk in half because that's the easiest single big split to make and then half again again it's the next easiest big split to make and then each quarter of the tree trunk can be turned into one quarter staff and then when it seasons it shouldn't crack and it'll not walk very much so that's one reason that they may be called quarter staff it's the quarter of a tree trunk or made from and the rest wouldn't be wasted because ash is excellent firewood so that's a quite a feasible way that they were made another reason that they might be called quarter staff or quarter is the way you hold them so for instance one way of holding them is you hold put one hand smack in the middle and the other one about quarter of the way up so you've got a quarter the length of court at the length and then a half court stuff dribbling is that's not the only way to hold one you can also hold one by the side of the quarter mark there or with one hand on the end and the other one about the court of the way up the length so that's three variations of a hold that might explain quarter staff but there are plenty of other ways of holding a quarter staff as well for instance at one-third and two-thirds mark so if there are loads of ways of holding the thing and everyone's calling it a quarter staff I suspect that's not the reason I if we do know the reason and we don't for sure I think it's probably the it's a quarter of a tree reason right so how thick are they well you I would say want it to be a little bit thicker than a spear shot now this spear shaft is an inch and a quarter in diameter which is quite typical for a spear shaft and I would say that's a little bit thin for a court stuff I'd want to be able to whack some someone with a little bit more weight this on the other hand which is about an inch and 3/4 is overkill this is too heavy and slow so somewhere in the region of an inch and a half in diameter seems to be about right however some illustrations of course staffs and show them as surprisingly thin from the period powerless Hector Myers quarter staffs are really quite small stick to more like that like broom handles they're quite short too quite clearly a lot shorter than the user and yet there are plenty of sources that will tell you that cord are should be six feet long or the height of the user but there are plenty of others but we'll say although they should be much longer than that 89 feet long is a proper course staff length hmm well if something varies that much in length from really quite a lot bit shorter than the user to a lot too taller than the user and then presumably the technique with which it was used would vary as well and once a weapon is so different in size that it's used radically differently you could say it's actually a different weapon rather than just a different size of the same weapon anyway perhaps Hector Myers stuff is not really core stuff it's some sort of foreign thing like a proper English Yeomans quarterstaff they seem to have been the weapon of preference for the travelin man you've got a big stick with you and with this you can you can see off brigands were they ever used in battle I've heard people talk about the battlefield version but I know of no evidence that they were actually used as or regarded as a viable battlefield weapon if you're going to go into battle you may as well have something that's quite specialist as a weapon with a divine mungry on one end of ax heads and spiky bits and so forth rather than just a stick I've also read many times and even seen Illustrated quarter staffs leather iron shot at either end with a sort of tube of iron that's perfectly feasible yes if the court staff is your preferred weapon then why not clad the end in iron give it a bit more punch but I've never seen an example from the period I don't know if any survived and I don't have any evidence to back that up it seems feasible but it might not actually have been true so how long were they well as I say it depends on how you use them now the Victorians were quite keen on competitions and they tended to use these and kayak paddle technique and there seem to have been a little bit shorter rounds of six foot when I did reenactment we trained with quarter staffs and we found that about a foot taller than the user or about 7 foot summer around there was ideal it was partly to do with the technique we were using however so how long it how long it should be I would say varies of what technique you plan to use it with I'll be making another video about technique and now I'm beginning to run out of things to up yes nothing I can say that was actually part of standard would you believe Boy Scout training until the early 20th century Scouts were Scouts in those days they learned how to track each other with sticks and they got to carry proper knives they did responsible things and all that's been lost but anyway um the corner staff yes it's sort of an English weapon but let's not do carried away by the initiatives of it it seems to have reached its peak at a time when in battle gunpowder was being used as the main battle winning thing guys were wandering into battle with muskets and if you've got a really big heavy musket perhaps with the musket stand put it on you've got a couple of things right there to hit some with so you're very unlikely to carry a quarter staff as well but if you're just journeying on your own down the road and you get beset by brigands in skilled hands a really big stick is pretty difficult to beat Linda Mae you you

Channel: undefined

Views: 1,078,358

Rating: 4.9232244 out of 5

Keywords: Quarterstaff, quarterstaffs, quarterstave, quarterstaves, stick, england, medieval, combat, weapon, renaissance, fighting

Id: F4bXBDvN9Wc

Length: 9min 50sec (590 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 29 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/IronOxide42]

I love Lindybeige, but he gets reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally pretentious sometimes. Not all that present in this video, but I've noticed it with more than a few of his videos.