Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/165

for the guard; and of 4s. paid per "hawberd" in 1530. In the short chapter dealing with the enriched pole arms of the latter part of the XVIth and of the early years of the XVIIth centuries we shall note the variations of form that prevailed and the methods of decoration employed on the halberd heads of those times.

 

Fig. 927. Military flail. Late XVIth(?) century. Collection: the late Sir Nöel Paton, Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh

Fig. 928. Holy water sprinkler. Swiss, late XVIth century. Collection: M. Charles Boissonnas, Geneva

Fig. 929. Morning star. Late XVIth century. Found in the valley of Conches (Haut-Valais) in 1912. Collection: M. Charles Boissonnas, Geneva

The final group of hafted weapons to which we shall allude, includes peasant implements of offence such as the war flail (in old German the Drischel, in French the Etrière), the "holy water sprinkler," and the "morning star." All these varieties of hafted weapons certainly appear to be of peasant origin; but while as weapons they can claim very considerable antiquity, from the point of view of the serious student of armour they