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Early XIVth century Showing a warrior armed with a shield and a hafted weapon of a type we might now term the voulge

a.

Late XVth century Ex collection: Baron de Cosson

b.

Late XVth century Ex collection: Baron de Cosson, now Tower of London

enrolling of smiths for "the making of two hundred Welsh glaives"—twenty shillings and sixpence being the charge for thirty glaives with their staves, made at Abergavenny and Llanllowel. But we have to remember that in the XVth and XVIth centuries many types of hafted weapons were termed glaives—indeed, under poetical licence the sword itself was thus described; so we can hardly accept the theory of the Welsh origin of the glaive. Chaucer, indeed, differentiates, even within poetical licence, for he writes:

And whet their tongue as sharp as sword or glaive,

thus indicating clearly that he made a distinction between the two types of