Why Did Medieval Soldiers Use Halberds?

Since ancient times, soldiers have been using spears and pikes with enormous success. So if these were such dominant and successful weapons used for centuries, then why did so many medieval soldiers instead use things like halberds and pole axes? Let's dive into the context. Hi folks, Matt Eaton here, scholar gladiatorial. So weapons like spears and their longer cousins, the pike, were hugely important right the way through the classical ancient world, all the way through the middle ages, and even into the renaissance. And in fact, they had their second wind really in the age of gunpowder, but we'll get to that in a minute. So why was it that in the high medieval period and the late medieval period particularly, things like halberds and pole axes and bills, their cousins, were so popular in warfare? Frankly, if the spear or pike was so effective, why did they even need these things? So let's delve a little bit further into the history here. So in the ancient world, spears were absolutely the primary hand weapon. Obviously there were bows and other forms, slings and things like this, for shooting arrows or shot at the enemy. But in terms of hand weapons, spears were absolutely dominant. The Romans changed that a little bit with their large shields, and you can check out that in my Roman playlist. But overall, spears right the way into the middle ages were the dominant weapon. And even if we look at the Bayeux tapestry, for example, used with shields, the spear, either underhand or overhand, was the primary weapon. But as we get into the 13th century, we start to see lots more appearance of cutting and thrusting and bashing weapons in addition to the spears. We can actually argue that warfare started to see the earliest forms of these in giant axes used in the 11th century, most famously featured at the Battle of Hastings and Stamford Bridge around this Norman conquest period. So in the late Viking era, large two-handed axes started to be used. And again, we've looked at that in previous videos. So why was it that so many medieval soldiers started using things like halberds and bills in the 13th and 14th centuries? Well, before I give you the answers to that question, I'm going to give you some answers here. I'm not just going to end up with conjecture. I want to point out that a lot of these weapons are offshoots of the axe. And so that's why I would argue that really it's these 11th century, 10th, 11th century axes that first start to be prominent in warfare, used by lots of people, particularly in Northern Europe, why they are probably the genesis of this. And we see bills, halberds, weapons like this, which are very, very similar in function. Now, if I just put this axe down for a second and go to my poleaxe. So this is a 15th century poleaxe. Now, this shares many similar features to a halberd. So we've got halberds, poleaxes, bills. Essentially, they've got choppy, bashy, spiky bits on both faces and a top spike usually, and very often a bottom spike as well. And what's very important to note about them is even the longer versions, the longer versions of bill and halberd are usually nowhere near as long as a spear and way shorter than a pike. So they are shorter weapons with multiple different bashy, choppy, spiky options to them. So if pikes were so effective, the long versions of spears, why were medieval soldiers even bothering with weapons like this? So I guess most of you who know a bit of history are probably at this point immediately thinking of the answer being knights and cavalry, horses, the heavy horse. So there is a change in warfare which happens really after the Norman period. So we're talking about into the 1100s and into the 1200s, the absolute dominant or certainly most noticeable aspect of high medieval warfare is the heavy cavalry horse, the mounted knight. So the first question has to be, of course, are these things for taking down horses? Now I myself have argued that in fact these Danaxes have a lot of advantages taking down horses over and above what the simple one-handed spear can handle, because if you're a one-handed spear you only have a certain amount of reach, it's not a particularly long amount of reach because you're also holding a shield at the same time so you've only got the spear in one hand and it's relatively weak so it's not going to stop a horse. If a horse comes charging at you and the rider, the knight, has a lance then you can't necessarily outreach the lance with your one-handed spear unless you throw it and indeed you can't stop the horse with the spear thrust, you might stab the horse but the horse will plow over you because it's a big old strong robust animal. Whereas the two-handed Danax is probably going to have a more immediately fatal or incapacitating effect on a horse, okay, so there is an argument to be made that that's the case. However, one thing that happened quite early on, certainly in the high medieval period, is that spears started to get longer and, this is important, started to be gripped with two hands and this is when we really start to get the basis for what we now call a pike. So not only, have to be careful because this almost doesn't fit in this room even though it's a high ceiling, not only do we start to get spears which are 10, 11, 12, 14, even up to 16 or 18 feet long, in other words, pikes, but because you're gripping them two-handed and they are made of thicker wood because you can make it thicker and heavier because it's a two-handed weapon, you can now stop a horse. Even more so when there's a whole bunch of you and you're forming a pike block, we could call it a phalanx, you could go by various other names, but let's call it a pike block. So if you are a block of pikemen, you're fantastic at stopping horses. So we come back to the question, if pikes are fantastic at stopping horses, which they are, then why do you need halberds and bills? Well there's another important element to that horseman who's charging in at you and it's not just the horse, it's also the knight sitting on top of the horse who is armoured. Now when we're going back to the Battle of Hastings period, the Norman Conquest, knights at this point are only wearing mail, commonly known as chain mail. Now you can actually stab through mail with various types of spear and even sometimes with certain types of sword and dagger. However, as we get into the 1100s and 1200s and eventually the 1300s, we find that knights are getting more heavily armoured as time goes by, particularly in the 1200s. So in the 1200s we start to see certain armour starts to appear, such as the coat of plates, the great helm becomes more prevalent, start to be plate defences on the arms and legs at the end of the 13th century, and by the 14th century we start to get what would commonly be called plate armour, in addition to the mail worn underneath. So essentially there's an increasing prevalence of armour and indeed in some cases even the horses start to be armoured. This was very expensive but even already in the 13th century we start to see references, and sometimes it appears in art, of armoured horses, usually with mail or chain mail or just padded fabric comparisons at first. Obviously later on in the 14th century we start to see plate armour applied to the head and neck and sometimes the chest of the horse as well. So given all of that meaty context that I've just given you, we're now going to look at the four main reasons, according to me Matt Easton, the four main reasons why I think that halberds, bills and poleaxes, weapons like this, were so important and so popular in the late medieval period. The first is that even though pikes might technically be the best weapon for dealing with cavalry, protecting your longbowmen or your crossbowmen or your gunners from them, actually these weapons are also still pretty good. Not only are they still two-handed stiff heavy weapons that can oppose, potentially stop or divert or shy away a horse, but in addition to the use of the point, either end of course, you can of course also bash and injure in a way with these weapons that far exceeds what you can achieve with something like a sword for example or in some cases even a one-handed spear. So in a nutshell, these are still effective against cavalry, even if two-handed spears and pikes are technically better and technically longer, these are still pretty good at defending against cavalry. Now the second reason is what I consider to probably be one of the most important reasons for why poleaxes, bills and halberds and things like this were so popular, specifically in this period. So we're talking here from the 13th century to the beginning or first half of the 16th century, and that is because they're really good against armour. Now if you don't know about late medieval and early renaissance plate armour, the thing that you really need to take away from this video is it's incredibly protective. Some breastplates and helmets can even stop pistol bullets, whether modern or historical. It's incredibly protective, most arrows, most crossbow bolts will glance off it, not get through. Sword blows generally speaking don't do anything, it's all about finding the gaps. However, certain weapons like the big old two-handed poleaxe have enough percussive force that they can fell someone in armour. They might not necessarily kill that person, but they will knock them over, put them out of combat, knock them out, daze them, enable other people to take advantage. So these types of very powerful two-handed swinging weapons, as well as being able to thrust into gaps, can also hit with so much force they are one of the most effective weapons, apart from cannons, of the most effective weapons that you can use against late medieval armour. And it's no coincidence that this period from the 13th century to the 16th century is the one period in all of history, in all of human history, when we see the absolute most protective, heaviest armour really ever worn by humans. So what other period would we expect to find weapons like this? So the next and final two points about why these sorts of weapons were so popular at this time, you have to think a little bit more tactically now on the battlefield. So if I put the poleaxe down for a second, if you imagine you have a big block of men with pikes, okay, so they have long long spears and they're forming a hedgehog, much like the Greeks, Macedonians and the early Romans did with a big old block of spearmen. And you think, well isn't that a perfect defence because you've got lots of hedgehog points, spikes going outwards, upwards, even to the sides in some cases as well. You teach these men to be able to reverse to defend themselves to the rear, so you bring the pike, I can't do it in here there's enough space, upwards and then you come down the other side, so even if they get attached in the rear they can quickly deal with that. And with each rank of men behind, the points come a little bit further back, so you've even got a depth of defence as well, it's not that all the points are at the same level, you have layers. However, various people throughout history came up with ways of opposing pike blocks. Two examples I'll give you, one is the Romans. So the Romans used a very large shield, I've got one just here. Now the scutum is so massive it can cover you from head down to your shins, such that you can close into and enter, penetrate, the pike block. And that's why the short gladius, the short stabbing sword, is so important for the Romans at the first stages, because they're able to close in on the enemy phalanxes, the Greeks for example, move into them and get into stabby distance. Now we can learn a lesson from that, I just want to throw in a renaissance example as well, because Machiavelli, Niccolò Machiavelli, who was writing in the early 1500s, he came up with a similar solution of using shields, mixed troops he had, to basically counter pike blocks, which were very popular at this time in Italy. So if you can get past the pikes and enter the pikes, theoretically you can kill the pikemen, and pikemen tend to be more likely armoured and more vulnerable, and at that distance a weapon like this would be really, really useful, wouldn't it? However you think, but they're not using this with big shields, they're not, but this is the age of armour. So even medium level men-at-arms with a brigandine and a sallet, and they'd have arm harness, arm armour, they'd have leg armour, they're really well protected against pikes. So one of the problems with pikes is they're pretty rubbish against armour, we'll come back to this point in a second. So because these are quite rubbish against armour, it means that if you are well armoured and you have a weapon like this, you can basically walk into the pike block, come to a distance whereby you can start carving up pikemen, and there's not an awful lot that they can do about it. So this third point is that these sorts of weapons, halberds, poleaxes and bills, not only are they very effective against people in armour, but of course they're also effective against people in light armour, such as pikemen, and once you're inside the pike block, if you've got armour, then the pikemen are very vulnerable to you now. So this final point, you have to start thinking about this like a game of chess. Let's say you have a pike block, and you know that your pike block is really vulnerable to enemy knights, or people with shields, or well armoured men-at-arms who have maybe halberds or bills, but they've got a decent amount of armour, like the lance connects, and your fear is your pike block, which is really useful on the battlefield, is really vulnerable to this one type of enemy. It's not vulnerable to cavalry, it's really vulnerable to really well-armoured people with weapons like this closing you down. So what do you do? You get some of those people to protect your pike block. So these sorts of soldiers using these sorts of weapons, the halberdiers, the bills, the knights using poleaxes, they are really useful at strengthening your pike block. You can have 500 men with pikes, and then maybe 100 men with bills or halberds to protect the pikes against similarly armed billmen or halberdiers. Indeed, you can even mix them in, so you can put some halberdiers mixed into the pike block to help protect against the enemy who might try and get in close with your pikemen. So it's a perfect combination, and we could turn this into a sort of joint operations. You've got your missile troops, you've got your gunners, your crossbowmen, your longbowmen, you've got your pike blocks, which are very good at protecting them from cavalry, and then you've got your people with halberds and bills and poleaxes and armour to protect the pikemen. So these are my four points, I think, for why these sorts of weapons, halberds, bills, poleaxes, were absolutely so popular, particularly in the 14th, 15th, 16th centuries, and of course they started to appear and come into their own in the 13th centuries. I think the primary points here are armour-related, essentially. Both the people using them and using them against people. These weapons can do things that pikes can't. Pikes are amazing weapons. Pikes have been around for an enormous amount of history. Classical world, you know, Alexander the Great loved them. Loads of people used long spears or pikes and they were incredibly important all the way through, even in the 17th century, so we're well into the gunpowder age. But I'm going to leave you with this thought. In support of, as a sort of parting thought, in support of my argument for my reasoning for why these were so popular in this period for the 13th to the 16th centuries, let's have a look at the 17th century when these sorts of weapons start to disappear. Why do they just start to disappear? I would argue because armour starts to become less important. So what we see by the, essentially, the invention of the bayonet, so by the middle of the 17th century, is lots and lots of people armed with muskets, lots and lots of people armed with pikes, and then lots of cavalry. So we've boiled it down from all of these different troop types that were really still massively important and massively popular in the 16th century, when they were still wearing quite a lot of armour, to by the 17th century when they'd started to shed the armour for numerous reasons, including gunpowder, you no longer need billmen and halberdiers. So billmen and halberdiers start to disappear, and in fact these weapons start to only be carried by sergeants and people, essentially NCOs, sometimes officers, as a badge of rank, as a knightly weapon essentially. So poleaxes still exist in tournaments, amazingly, in the Elizabethan period and after that all the way into the English Civil War. But as battlefield weapons, halberds and poleaxes and things like this really start to disappear, and they just become symbolic. And that is all connected, in my opinion, to prevalent armour. Yes, pikemen had helmets and a breastplate, but they didn't have arm armour and leg armour, so they were very vulnerable to conventional weapons, including pikes. However, in the 15th and 16th century, pikes weren't as effective because people wore a lot more armour. Hence, these were very important. What do you think? Do my theories hold water? Do you agree? Are there points that I missed? I'll be interested to see your comments down below. As always, I have been Matt Easton and I hope I see you back on the channel really soon. Cheers folks!