Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/140



(a) Pole-axe, probably French, about 1480. Metropolitan Museum, New York

(b) War-hammer, Italian, about 1500. Noël Paton Collection, Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh

(c) Pole-axe, about 1480. The head of this weapon was found at Newbury. Collection: Mr. Godfrey Williams

massive hammer-head, together with the strengthening haft bands, forged from one piece of metal; but we are inclined to think that at some period the axe blade has been somewhat tampered with. It is with such an axe as this that, according to the Hastings MS., Sir John Astley was armed in his famous fight with Philip Boyle, Knight, of Aragon, that took place at Smithfield in January 1441-2, in the presence of Henry VI (Fig. 890). We illustrate three other pole-axes of varying types, but all of the same family of weapons and of about the same period—the closing years of the XVth century (Fig. 891, a, b, c)—one of them (Fig. 891c) closely resembling the pole-axe represented in the Douce MS., Bodleian, No. 271 (Fig. 892). The pole-axe and hammer in the forms we have illustrated was essentially the weapon of the unmounted knight in certain forms of fight; but in actual warfare its use was more or less relegated to the man-at-arms. There is