Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/146

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appears; but in the subsequent inventories we fail to recognize it. In Viscount Astor's Collection at Hever Castle is another pole-axe very like the Paris example just mentioned, which was found in the north of France. A third—another type—a beautifully designed pole-arm, with both axe-blade and hammer-head, a most elaborate weapon, partly composed of latten, can be seen in the Royal Scottish Museum (Fig. 897). True Gothic mouldings, cusped arcading, and leaf tracery are all used with telling effect in the general composition from which the axe-blade and hammer-head spring. This specimen was formerly in the Meyrick Collection; but it does not figure in Skelton's engraved illustrations of that collection. Later it was in the collection of Sir Noël Paton. A fourth example of a latten mounted pole-arm, attributed to the bodyguard of King Henry VIII, a veritable pole-hammer, since it only possesses a beak and the mail-rond, used to be in the collection of the Hon. R C. Neville. It is described and illustrated in the "Journal of the Archaeological Association," vol. iii, p. 128, where it is stated to have come from Debden Hall, Essex, the seat of Sir F. Vincent. We much regret that we have been unable to trace its present whereabouts.

In Germany and in Switzerland long-hafted hammers with spikes continued to be used throughout the XVIth and well into the XVIIth centuries. Such an arm, the "Luzern" hammer, was indeed noted as being the favourite weapon of the people of Lucerne (Fig. 898). It was altogether a lighter weapon, being as a rule of indifferent workmanship, and, like the halberd of the soldiery, must have been made in great numbers.

Prominent among the defensive hafted weapons of the past intended for use on foot, is what is known as the halberd. Thousands of halberds of the commoner types are in existence; but this is not to be wondered at when it is considered that almost until the close of the XVIIIth century a hafted weapon of the halberd type was in use in almost every municipal guard. As in the case of every other class of armament the purposes for which they were employed and the style of their workmanship varied to a great extent according to the period in which they were used. First, we will subdivide this "halberd" class in accordance with present-day nomenclature. We then have—

(1) the glaive
(2) the voulge
(3) the partizan
(4) the ranseur
(5) the spetum
(6) the bill
(7) the guisarme,

all belonging to one family; but we must bear in mind that the true halberd