CHAPTER XX
HAFTED WEAPONS IN GENERAL USE FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE XIVth CENTURY TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE XVIth CENTURY
Until now we have only dealt with the sword and dagger; but
there also remain for consideration auxiliary weapons of almost
equal importance if less knightly in their significance—the lance,
the mace, the battle- and pole-axe, exclusive of the various kinds
of hafted weapons for use on foot. It is to the lance that we
must first turn our attention. We have already spoken of its possible construction
in earlier times; let us now examine its features as they appear in the
XIVth and XVth centuries. In its complete form during the XIVth, XVth,
and XVIth centuries the lance or spear consisted of four distinct parts—the
"shaft," "truncheon," or "staff"; the head or "socket"; the "vamplate," and
the "grate" or "graper": all these terms we will explain by turns as we come
to them. In the XIVth century the war lance was much the same as that
which is used to-day in Oriental countries, though of considerably stouter
construction. The "shaft" or "truncheon," differing in this respect from
that of the succeeding century, had no swell in front of the place where it
was grasped, but maintained an even diameter of about two inches for its
entire length. There was no grip, which we can accurately so describe,
for the hand, but we find this spot termed by XIIIth century writers,
arestil, arestuel, or arescuel; Froissart in the following century calls it the
hanste, although this term is also used as an equivalent to "truncheon"
in its limited sense. In earlier times the shafts were made of ash; but
towards the close of the XIVth century cypress wood seems to have been
occasionally employed in their manufacture, for Chaucer says:
His spere was of fin cypres,
That bodeth werre, and nothing pees,
The hed ful sharpe y-grounde.
The head of the war lance or spear, termed in XIVth century English the "socket" from its resemblance to a plough-share, was generally leaf-*shaped, though varieties of forms have come under our notice. As in the
