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Fig. 916. Guisarme
Late XVth century Tower of London, Class VII, No. 820
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Fig. 917. Guisarme
Late XVth century Collection: Baron de Cosson
8, 26, 27, 63, 64, which brought the history of these arms down to the late XIIth century. They were essentially the hacking and crushing weapon, and terrible indeed must have been the wounds they inflicted when the blow got truly home. One has but to turn to the chroniclers of the time to appreciate this fact. The Irish received the axe, their principal weapon, as a legacy from the Vikings and Norsemen, and the way in which they used it is accurately described in Giraldus Gambrensis: "They make use of but one hand to the axe when they strike, and extend their thumb along the handle to guide the blow from which neither the crested helmet can defend the head, nor the iron folds of the armour the body: Whereas it has happened in our time that the whole thigh of a soldier, though cased in well-tempered armour, hath been lopped off by a single blow of the axe, the whole limb falling on one side of the horse, and the expiring body
