Mid-Rennaisance (1500-1550) weapon and armor questions

[John Jessop]

Greetings ARMA board members! I'm coming to you guys as a long-time lurker on the forums and an enthusiast of medieval and rennaissance martial arts. It's good to finally be contributing to a community that I have respected and admired for so long.


That being said, I'm currently working on developing a pen and paper roleplaying game and want to ensure that the weapons and armor I include in the game are both represented realistically and appropriate to the time period that I'm seeking to emulate.

The game is set in a fantasy world with a technology level similar to the early to mid rennassiance, and much like that time period in our worlds history the way war is being waged (and the way in which individuals defend themselves) is shifting tremendously. The power and effiacy of heavy calvary is being challenged, and a new military paradigm is being recognized: that of massed pike backed up by light calvary and the power of dark magicians (who in this world, take on a similar role to troops who wield muskets, with hexes and pestilences taking the place of withering barrages of gunfire). That being said, there is still a wide variety of arms and armor to catelogue and design statistics for, and I would dearly appreciate the ARMA communities assistance in assuring that I do each weapon and suit of armor justice.

I've come up with a tenative list of some of the most common weapon and armor types for my game, and I'd love your opinions on the strengths and weaknesses of each (coming from either personal experience, observing sparring matches, or from scholarly research into the merits of each). I'd also really appreciate a sort of authenticity check, as I don't want to include weapons and armor that would not see use in a society like the one I'm describing.

Here's the list thus far, along with some of my notes on each weapon or type of armor:

Weapons

Dagger: Easy to hide, possessed by members of every social class, and deadly in a grapple. Most can be used to both stab and slash, but I'll deferentiate daggers such as rondels or stilettos that are principally made to stab through weak spots or openings in armor.

Rapier: This would likely, given the period I'm basing my game world off of, be a sort of "proto-Rapier" or early Rapier that still has some degree of cutting ability. From the comments I've heard thus far, these weapons are capable of extremely fast, deceptive, and deadly thrusts, are practically useless against most sorts of armor, and that when fighting with a Rapier it is of the utmost importance not to let your opponent get inside your point (assuming you aren't carrying a dagger).

Messer: From what I've read, it seems like a fairly broad bladed short-sword that in some cases comes to a slight curve (like a smaller Falchion). Reading accounts of fighting with messers, it seems like they're suprisingly manueverable weapons and capable of dealing extremely punishing blows to unarmored or lightly armored opponents, in several cases severing hands at the wrist.

Arming Sword: Included because during this period it'd still see use on the battlefield, the byword for this sword seems to be versatility. It can easily be wielded in one hand with a targe or buckler in the other, can be wielded in two for additional power and control, and can also be used for half-sword techniques for close-up fighting and getting to joints in plate armor. I have to clarify that by arming sword I'm referring to the more tapered version that developed in response to the popularity of plate armor.

Mace: A typical flanged mace used as a backup weapon by infantrymen and heavy calvary in need of something simple, fast, and with a measure of armor-piercing capability. One thing I'm curious about is how a mace handles in combat-I'd imagine that it'd be difficult to execute a lot of standard stances and strikes with it, and as far as I know there are no fight books that cover mace combat techniques (presumably because it's techniques are covered under the ones used with another weapon).

Light Lance: Obviously used by calvary, one point of confusion on my part is exactly what differentiates a light lance from a heavy one. Every reference work I've read seperates them into two different categories, but never discusses exactly what makes them different. Also, is there any essential difference between a light lance and a short pike?

Bill: Capable of tripping and binding strikes with the hook, stabbing attacks with the point, and slicing as well. All in all, a very versatile weapon as far as I can tell (and several notable masters praise it), but I'd love to hear about anyone's first-hand experiences with it.

Partisan: I've heard a couple of comments about how the partisan is capable of blows of power that exceed nearly all other pole weapons often "dividing the iron" of mail and being capable of cutting the heads off pike staves. While I wonder if that's borne out by test-cutting that's been preformed, I'm also curious to know how it handles in combat and what (if any) special cuts or strikes can be made with it.

Halberd: Yet another tremondously versatile weapon, I've heard some contreversy over whether it was commonly used for "chopping" cuts with the axe head, or whether such attacks would be too slow and predictable given the weapon's size.

Pike: A weapon which revolutionized the rennassiance battlefield that has an incredible reach but is limited by it's length. Getting inside a pike square? Extremely difficult, but if you can manage it seems (from what I've read) that you'd be able to run amuck amongst the pikemen until they managed to get out their swords.

Greatsword: Nearly as tall as the man who wields it and used for guarding banners and slicing through pike staves, it's used for devasting sweeping cuts in war that can fend off multiple opponents at once and for spear-like techniques that can be utilized when half-swording. I'd love to hear more about the handling and technique of this incredible weapon from individuals who have practiced with it.

Quarterstaff: While not commonly seen on the battlefield, it was a commonly utilized weapon in cities and for travelers on the road fearing bandits. Capaple of long spear-like thrusting attacks, sweeping blows that can fend off multiple attackers, and quick deceptive feints, the staff is the weapon which George Silver declared the odds-on favorite even in a fight between a staff-wielding man and two wielding sword and dagger. I will of course, split this weapon entry into Short Staff and Long Staff, but am curious about how the two types of weapon handle compared to one another.

Longbow: While I've unearthed a huge amount of information on the use of the longbow, I'm curious about two things on which I've received a lot of contradictory info: rate of fire (for a trained longbowman), and the amount of armor penetration one can expect (from both a standard arrow and a bodkin point) on various types of armor.

Crossbow: This would be the heavy winch drawn crossbow, and I have the same questions regarding it as the Longbow: armor penetration, and rate of fire. On a related note, were hand-drawn crossbows as well as lighter machinery-opperated crossbows still in use during the time frame I'm drawing inspiration from?

Cudgel: Not a serious weapon of war obviously, but used in judicial battles, in sport, and for self-defense. I'm thinking this would use very similar techniques to the mace, but I might be wrong on that.

Falchion: Obviously it's a cutting instrument of great power, but I'm curious about it's handling, the techniques used to handle it, and it's ability to penetrate various sorts of armor with a cut. I'd imagine one would use techniques similar to those used in the handling of, say a katana when using a falchion but am unsure. Did any of the masters every discuss it's use, or had it fallen into disuse by the time plate armor came onto the scene?

Flail: I've heard the greatest variety of opinions on this weapon compared to almost every other on this list (possibly excluding the rapier, which seems to be a perennial source of contreversy). Some say it was hardly used because it was utterly useless in war, and restrict it's applicability to warriors too poor to afford anything else, or to judicial duels while others say it was a viable weapon in it's own right, but complex to learn and utilize effectively.

Obviously the chain grants it some measure of advantage when confronting a shield, and the erratic path of the head can make effective parries difficult, but does that by itself make it an effective weapon?

Armor(this one is much shorter-I just essentially need to know how widespread each was, and it's durability against various sorts of damage).

Cloth Gambesons: One minor note-which was more effective as armor: a Cloth Gambeson or hardened leather?

Brigadine: Was this still in use during the time period I'm discussing, and if so how effective was it?

Mail: Was this still in use as stand-alone armor, or was it always layered under plate?

Plate Armor: While I know that there's a vast continuum of prices and quality, I'd love to get some hard figures on how much both a serviceable and a top of the line (complete with the bullet proofed) suit of plate armor would cost (not counting gilt, design work etc). Also, what level of protection did it most often provide against bows, crossbows, and the weapons in use during that time?

Thank you so much, in advance for all of your help and I hope that I haven't overwhelmed you with my torrent of (possibly ill-informed) questions.
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[s_taillebois]

"Dagger: Easy to hide, possessed by members of every social class, and deadly in a grapple. Most can be used to both stab and slash, but I'll deferentiate daggers such as rondels or stilettos that are principally made to stab through weak spots or openings in armor."

Look up Welsh daggermen, they were feared partially because of the manner they operated. Somewhat noted for night raids, and coming out in the fights to dagger to death downed knights (which irritated men of qaulity to no end). Considere dishonorable by the armor plated aristocracy, but very practical killers some Kings like Henry 5th made sure to have them on campaign.

"Rapier: This would likely, given the period I'm basing my game world off of, be a sort of "proto-Rapier" or early Rapier that still has some degree of cutting ability. From the comments I've heard thus far, these weapons are capable of extremely fast, deceptive, and deadly thrusts, are practically useless against most sorts of armor,"

The rapier developed from several sources, one of which was the estoc. This was a piercing weapon designed to work into the joints and other weak areas of the armor. The estoc was not a cutting weapon, to the extent that some were basically diamond section blades with no real cutting surface.

"I'd imagine one would use techniques similar to those used in the handling of, say a katana when using a falchion but am unsure."

Very different, one reason is that many falchions were used as a single handed weapon.

"Light Lance: Obviously used by calvary, one point of confusion on my part is exactly what differentiates a light lance from a heavy one."

Much of that is whether the lance was counched or not. A couched lance with a draper is by its nature a much more specialized weapon.


"Cudgel: Not a serious weapon of war obviously, but used in judicial battles, in sport, and for self-defense. I'm thinking this would use very similar techniques to the mace, but I might be wrong on that. "

Cudgel is a relative term. The English yeomanry used to use lead 'lumps' on a handle, or what amounted to as a mallet. These were mainly used for setting the wood stakes used as a defense and to trap calvary. However in melee the longbowmen were quite willing to use these mauls, mallets and cudgels to kill others.

"Longbow: While I've unearthed a huge amount of information on the use of the longbow, I'm curious about two things on which I've received a lot of contradictory info: rate of fire (for a trained longbowman),"

Look up Mike Loades "Weapons that made Britian-the longbow"

"Mail: Was this still in use as stand-alone armor, or was it always layered under plate? "

Plate begins to develop in the end of Norman period or the immediate post Norman period. Mail was used but by the later middle ages predominately as a accessory to plate. One of the reasons the people at Wisby had such heavy casualties is that some were using mail as armor, though it was several generations dated.
I'd be reluctant to use these people as a source, because they do fall into nonsense occasionally...but look up the "Deadliest Warrior" show about Jehanne d'Arc, they did do a good comparision of the mobility of mail or plate. And back to Mike Loades again look at his program about armor.

[John Jessop]

Thank you so much for the information thus far! Another question I had, although admittedly this goes into hypothetical is this:

Had muskets and similar primitive firearms been as difficult to learn to use effectively as the longbow, then would the longbow have disappeared from the battlefield?

I ask because I want my world to be solidly grounded in realistic cause and effect-in essence, I want every weapon and every type of armor used in my game to be there for a reason (avoiding the "let's throw random crap in there from 4 centuries" problem that most fantasy RPGs fall victim to). One would imagine that magic would have similar demands to being taught to wield a longbow (a long period of training, along with constant practice to keep one's skills sharp), and the ease with which individuals could be trained in the use of a gun was arguably what took the longbow out of commission...

It might not be an appropriate question for the ARMA forums, but I want to know your honest opinions on the conundrum of what exactly was the main reason why the longbow was gradually retired from war in favor of the gun. Was it the difficulty of training longbowmen, the superior armor-penetrating power of guns, the intimidation factor when they were used near calvary? I know it's easy to say it's a combination of factors, but for the purposes of my game development I need to focus on a single variable if I'm to create something that flows from a logical premise.

[s_taillebois]

"Had muskets and similar primitive firearms been as difficult to learn to use effectively as the longbow, then would the longbow have disappeared from the battlefield? "

Hand cannons/gonnes were specialist weapons and early on quite expensive. We hold firearms to be simple because the technology is established, and some 600 years of familiarity. However a modern 'gunner' would have some trouble with the loading and firing of the early guns. For example the powder was often mixed from components on site, and could be very problematic if not mixed properly. Corned powder is a later invention. And one had to have some knowledge of metals (for example how much heating it could take)...hence many of the early gunners/cannoners were German's as their area was also a major metal smithing area.

However it took years to train a longbowmen, and training with the longbow literally altered these men's bodies. Look up the morphology of the dead at Towton (Blood Red Roses) they knew several of these men had been longbowmen by changes to the arm/shoulder.

One of the reasons the longbow went out of use was political. Henry 5th and his successors had over utilized these men, and although some had gained fame and fortune. Many ended up being hacked up on various battlefields, especially after the hardened Italian armor became more common...and the longbowmen could not consistently shoot into it.
Basically the yeomanry were demoralized, and Joan of Arc compounded the problem, and so was less inclined to go out and get slaughtered, or even train at the butts. The last major period for the longbow was the Wars of the Roses and many of the longbowmen were slaughtered in battles like Towton. Longbows did stay in lessened use into the late Tudor era.

By the time of the decline of the longbow cannons had been a common element on the battlefield, so these may not have been as intimidating to cavalry as assumed. At that time the cavalries problem was becoming the childron and later Pike Sqaure.

If your going to write about all this, might get a sword, dagger, pollaxe or etc and train with it. It could give some experience and additional veracity to the writing. For example many do not know how exhausting intensive use of these weapons were, and even trained men would fatigue out. In some cases they fought as 2 man+ teams to try to mitigate this problem. So the sole swordsman thing...more in movies than anything else....against multiple opponents and without a hench or etc to back up such a man would have died quickly on a battlefield.

[Benjamin Abbott]

I think the gun's superior penetration served as the primary reason for its adoption over the bow. Period sources emphasize the gun's raw power and ability to ignore defenses. The bow's awkwardness when shooting from fortifications forms the second factor. When defending a position or conducting an ambush, you want your shots to count more than you want a high rate of fire. Gunners can shoot handily from behind cover and don't need to worry about what their victims are wearing. Folks with longbows, on the other hand, have to expose themselves and might well see their arrows deflected by armor or even dodged.

[John Jessop]

Thank you all for your incredibly informative responses and for your patience!

That being said, the more opinions that I get the better job I'll be able to do with my design-if anyone has first hand sparring/test cutting experience with the weapons I've listed, please let me know about your experiences! How they handle, how they do in combat both against an opponent wielding an identical weapon, as well as mixed-weapon bouts (say Quarterstaff versus Rapier and Dagger).

I myself am trying to get the money together to purchase a good length of Hemlock or Oak so that I can start practicing Mair's quarterstaff and peasant staff material. I feel as if the humble quarterstaff (and it's close cousin the spear) get short shift in RPGs and in less educated martial arts circles that might focus on "glamourous" weapons like the sword.

@Benjamin-I hadn't considered a longbowman's relative inability to utilize cover while using a bow. It's been a while since I've practiced archery, but I recall my instructor always telling me how proper posture and stance was important for drawing and aiming the bow.

That being said, I was under the impression that at the vast majority of Plate Armor in use during the rise of the first effective and reliable hand guns was proofed against small arms fire at all but the closest ranges. Indeed, I think it was in a book by Sydney Anglo that I read a description of the maximum Joules of impact energy high-end plate armor could absorb without harm to it's wearer, and based off of that such plate armor would be able to take much of the sting out of even modern hand guns using 9mm ammo. Muskets and their ilk could pierce plate reliably, but hand guns could not, unless the gun man was brave (or stupid) enough to get really close to the wearer of the armor. Am I off base here?

[s_taillebois]

"How they handle, how they do in combat both against an opponent wielding an identical weapon, as well as mixed-weapon bouts (say Quarterstaff versus Rapier and Dagger). "

Staff some similarity to a spear or other pollarm. Once a swordsmen can get past the point, then the staffman either has to retreat, or try for a halfwarding.

If a swordsman can get past the 'point' or use the quillions to take the staff down and away in a bind the staff bearer is in trouble.

Rapiers do not have quillions in the same sense as a longsword. And regarding rapier type weapons it does need to be noted Peake in his combat with the Spanish in the court (where he was captured) bested several Spanish swordsmen and killed some.

Movie stuff...the average longsword is not going to cut through a decent staff. Later on the Germans had swords intended to get into Pike sqaures but these were not intended as general function weapons.

Staffs in the hands of the yeomanry were not to be taken lightly. Usually the reason that staff bearers lost against trained troops was cavalry as happened in the end for the peasants revolt.

However have to remember that a very effective weapon for the peasant was the Billhook, which could be used against cavalry either to pull the man off the mount, kill the horse, etc. Look up the Tony Robinson program about the peasants revolt and find the section where Mike Loades is explaining peasant weapons.

"but hand guns could not, unless the gun man was brave (or stupid) enough to get really close to the wearer of the armor. Am I off base here?"

The hand gun in the modern sense did not exist until much later. By the time handguns became more common (Mainly the matchlock) armor was fading from use anyway.

With the hand cannon hitting anything was a matter of luck and some skill. But these were almost as much of a pysch weapon as anything else.
But have to remember it is not possible to fully armor the horse-and most of the people with full armor were mounted by preference. so it would have more been a matter of killing or disabling the horse (even by making it panic) and then having someone run from the lines and beat the fallen man with a mallet or sink a roundel through the joints of the armor.

Knights were more mobile than many think on foot...but at places like Agincourt many were killed as a result of the downing of the horse rather than by direct wounds. In the 100 years war they did have cannon, but these seemed more important as siege equipment and pysche weapons than perhaps as anti-personnel.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

Mace: A typical flanged mace used as a backup weapon by infantrymen and heavy calvary in need of something simple, fast, and with a measure of armor-piercing capability. One thing I'm curious about is how a mace handles in combat-I'd imagine that it'd be difficult to execute a lot of standard stances and strikes with it, and as far as I know there are no fight books that cover mace combat techniques (presumably because it's techniques are covered under the ones used with another weapon).

Why "difficult?" A mace might be heavy, both in general and in terms of a point-forward balance, but it's fairly short and as such it's quite a handy weapon for close quarters. This very short range also dictates the ind of fighting you do with it--intense and repetitive, more like dagger-fighting than swordfighting in many ways.

Light Lance: Obviously used by calvary, one point of confusion on my part is exactly what differentiates a light lance from a heavy one. Every reference work I've read seperates them into two different categories, but never discusses exactly what makes them different. Also, is there any essential difference between a light lance and a short pike?

In the 16th century the difference between light and heavy lances was largely a matter of shaping. A heavy lance was thicker around the vamplate (the part just ahead of the hand holding the lance) and because of that it tapers more dramatically towards the point. A light lance is thinner overall and normally has an even taper from butt to point. The light lance also rarely seems to have grown any longer than 10 or 12 feet (and 8-feet examples aren't that uncommon if we judge by the illustrations), whereas heavy lances could sometimes go up to 16 feet or something like that (especially among the Italians, whose lances were said to be lighter but more fragile than the Frenchmen's. I forgot who said it, though. Maybe Commynes.)

A light lance would probably have been perfectly usable as a short pike. By the time we're talking about, though, my impression is that pikes that short would have become quite uncommon.

Partisan: I've heard a couple of comments about how the partisan is capable of blows of power that exceed nearly all other pole weapons often "dividing the iron" of mail and being capable of cutting the heads off pike staves. While I wonder if that's borne out by test-cutting that's been preformed, I'm also curious to know how it handles in combat and what (if any) special cuts or strikes can be made with it.

In terms of its usage, the partisan wasn't really that unique. Contemporary manuals group it together with either spear-based weapons or halberd-like weapons and teach general techniques for the group as a whole rather than treating each weapon individually.

Halberd: Yet another tremondously versatile weapon, I've heard some contreversy over whether it was commonly used for "chopping" cuts with the axe head, or whether such attacks would be too slow and predictable given the weapon's size.

What controversy? The massive chopping cut was certainly one of the strikes available to the halberd-user, and it doesn't have to cause unnecessary exposure if it's used in the right context (such as after the opponent has been tripped down to the ground, or after a preliminary attack that knocks the opponent's weapon out of line). Of course, it was just one option among many (butt-strikes, thrusts with the point, hooking motions with the beak or the bottom of the axe-head).

Pike: A weapon which revolutionized the rennassiance battlefield that has an incredible reach but is limited by it's length. Getting inside a pike square? Extremely difficult, but if you can manage it seems (from what I've read) that you'd be able to run amuck amongst the pikemen until they managed to get out their swords.

Alone? Not likely. The pikemen would have been mob you all to easily. Cracking a pike formation and breaking inside is only worth doing if you have a lot of friends ready to charge into the breach behind or alongside you--and the most plausible way of ensuring this was by operating within the supporting reach of a friendly pike formation to begin with. The Renaissance "push of pike" was in reality a microcosm of combined-arms warfare where all the components of a "pike" formation (pikemen, halberdiers/sword-and-target men, handgunners/arquebusiers, etc.) played a part.

Greatsword: Nearly as tall as the man who wields it and used for guarding banners and slicing through pike staves, it's used for devasting sweeping cuts in war that can fend off multiple opponents at once and for spear-like techniques that can be utilized when half-swording. I'd love to hear more about the handling and technique of this incredible weapon from individuals who have practiced with it.

While the devastating potential of this weapon is not in doubt, it doesn't appear to have been frequently used as a pike-breaker in the way you mention. In a massed pike formation the two-handed swordsmen were more likely to have served as guards for the officers and the colours.

(Never mind that the term "greatsword" isn't necessarily appropriate for the Renaissance two-handers; as far as I see it actual sword researchers tend to use "greatsword" for the earlier (mostly Oakeshott types XIIa and XIIIa) cousins of the longsword.

Crossbow: This would be the heavy winch drawn crossbow, and I have the same questions regarding it as the Longbow: armor penetration, and rate of fire. On a related note, were hand-drawn crossbows as well as lighter machinery-opperated crossbows still in use during the time frame I'm drawing inspiration from?

By the 1500s crossbows were on the way out, but you'd still see them in some quantity. By the 1520s you'd rarely expect to see them in military contexts, and their use would largely have been relegated to other purposes like assassinations (pretty brutal affairs on the street, not the snooping and sniping depicted in popular culture) and civilian home defense.

Falchion: Obviously it's a cutting instrument of great power, but I'm curious about it's handling, the techniques used to handle it, and it's ability to penetrate various sorts of armor with a cut. I'd imagine one would use techniques similar to those used in the handling of, say a katana when using a falchion but am unsure. Did any of the masters every discuss it's use, or had it fallen into disuse by the time plate armor came onto the scene?

If you put a falchion in the hands of somebody trained with the one-handed sword, he would have noticed that the difference between the two wasn't really that significant and that the techniques for the sword would have been perfectly applicable to the falchion.

Flail: I've heard the greatest variety of opinions on this weapon compared to almost every other on this list (possibly excluding the rapier, which seems to be a perennial source of contreversy). Some say it was hardly used because it was utterly useless in war, and restrict it's applicability to warriors too poor to afford anything else, or to judicial duels while others say it was a viable weapon in it's own right, but complex to learn and utilize effectively.

Obviously the chain grants it some measure of advantage when confronting a shield, and the erratic path of the head can make effective parries difficult, but does that by itself make it an effective weapon?

In actual warfare, the peasant's flail--a short stick or weighted sack hinged or chained to a long staff--appears to have been much more common than the short-handled ball-and-chain flail that modern popular culture likes to put in the hands of knights. Much safer to the user, too.

Cloth Gambesons: One minor note-which was more effective as armor: a Cloth Gambeson or hardened leather?

Was hardened leather ever used as a standalone armour in medieval or Renaissance Europe? I don't think so....

Mail: Was this still in use as stand-alone armor, or was it always layered under plate?

Look for contemporary illustrations of Landsknechts and pistoliers/reiters. You'll see plenty of mail being worn on its own among the common soldiery.

Muskets and their ilk could pierce plate reliably, but hand guns could not, unless the gun man was brave (or stupid) enough to get really close to the wearer of the armor. Am I off base here?

Which gun and which armour? Both firearms and armour underwent rapid development during the period in question, and you couldn't reliably say that armour would defeat firearms or vice-versa until the very end of the process, where the development of musket-proof armour resulted in suits too heavy to be comfortably worn for more than a few hours at a time (and thus making soldiers less willing to wear armour, giving an indirect win to the firearm).

[Benjamin Abbott]

I appreciate this project, John. Your list shows considerably more knowledge of historical combat than almost any published roleplaying system. It reminds me of my own fantasy worldbuilding. I conceive of magicians standing in for artillery rather than muskets, but it's a similar idea.

I have a few notes on the weapons from this period. All of the sixteen-century military manuals I've read assign the mace strictly to cavalry if they mention it at all. I don't think infantry commonly fought with maces at this point in time.

Though crossbows had mostly left military usage on the continent after the first quarter of the sixteenth century, Fourquevaux still recommended them in 1548. He gave a specific account of a crossbowman at Turin in 1536-1537 who killed more enemies in five or six skirmishes than the five or six best arquebusiers did during the entire siege. The crossbow had advantages in accuracy and reliability over the gun.

As far as how different weapons compare with each other in the context of single combat, I suggest George Silver's hierarchy. Various other masters - such as Joseph Swetnam and Antonio Manciolino - concur with Silver on the notion long weapons grant advantage. Choose the partisan over the two-handed sword, as Manciolino wrote.

[s_taillebois]

"Pike: A weapon which revolutionized the rennassiance battlefield that has an incredible reach but is limited by it's length. Getting inside a pike square? Extremely difficult, but if you can manage it seems (from what I've read) that you'd be able to run amuck amongst the pikemen until they managed to get out their swords. "

As M. Curtis noted pike formations were not a passive defense, a cadre of trained pikemen could move forward, thrust and etc with these weapons. And pike formations had depth, these weren't just one primary line. Very good chance that a swordsman, especially alone would get stuck with a pike well before getting in amongst the formation.

Pike squares were also a form of pyschological warfare, pike formations closing on each other often had the unit with the best discipline (less likely to flinch) see the lesser unit off the field. In some pike units the men in the first line of pikes were often paid better and given higher rank for that ability to keep advancing despite the incoming line of enemies pikes.

If one unit did not break then it was often artillery which was used most effectively against pike formations. Earlier on, arrow storms (a form of artillery in some ways when used in volley and arched fire) were used to break chiltrons or pike formations.

One of the reasons the aristocracy often hated pikemen (although by the Renn, they had to use these formations) was that the pike took the dominance of the mounted knight away...especially when combined with various early firearms. Plus being a unit defense, pike squares could compensate for the limitations imposed by diet, and not spending years in martial training (pike sqaures were often manned by burghers and townsmen, and to some degree it was one of the first manifestations of real power by the middle classes)

And it is admirable that M. Jessop is willing to put some research into his project.

[John Jessop]

Thank you so much everyone for your intelligent and detailed responses-it's been a great help to me, particularly your discussion of the role of pikemen on the Rennassiance battlefield. If I could steal a few more moments of your time, I had a question regarding not the implements of warfare itself, but rather the process of learning how to use them.

While I've started practicing Mair's staff (already having snapped a few cheap curtain rods from Lowe's in half when I got a little bit too enthusiastic with a murder stroke to the tree I've been using for a pell), I know that my knowledge regarding HEMA is limited to say the least. Given the fledgling state of my own knowledge I have a question for those of you who are more advanced in your studies: do you find that you learn discrete methods of utilizing particular weapons that have limited overlap with other weapon groups, or general techniques that with some modification can be used with practically any other sort of weapon?

I ask because I'm having trouble designing a mechanic by which martially-inclined characters learn how fight. I've looked at the Riddle of Steel's system (as it's arguably the gold standard for a realistic medieval/rennassiance combat system) and it seems to break combat skill down into several "proficiencies" that cover specific styles of combat (such as rapier and dagger, or longsword and buckler) and that are of limited use with other sorts of weapons (granting penalties if they are used with dissimilar weapons).

This seems somewhat contrary to the spirit of the master's teachings which I've read, which seem to indicate that the vast majority of weapon techniques are usable in some form or another with practically every weapon. What's more, I've read on these boards of people executing polearm techniques with push brooms, utilizing rapier and dagger techniques using tomahawk and knife, and other seemingly strange combinations where the techniques for one sort of weapon are used for one that's entirely different. This is borne out by the words of John Clement, who in his short article on the riddle of steel's website has this to say about what distingushes a warrior from a non-warrior:

A warrior has fighting skill. A non-warrior does not. Once a person learns about how to fight in general and how to use a weapon, regardless of whether or not they have high skill with any particular weapons, they nonetheless know and understand the vital principles and concepts of combat. They have a higher sense of distance, timing, technique, and perception as well as the necessary martial attitude. This, presumably along with physical conditioning, is what defines them as a fighting character. Non-warriors don't work this way. So, virtually any weapon, from a chair to a sickle, can be employed by a warrior without their training with it first. They may not have expertise or mastery of that particular weapon, but whatever it is they can certainly pick it up and reasonably defend themselves using it. Fighting skill is an issue of not just of physical aptitude then, but neuromuscular preparation, i.e., training in understanding core principles. They same applies if caught unarmed. Identical concepts apply between weapons and unarmed fighting even if the warrior doesn't have specific training in unarmed techniques. Skill is what determines whether you can hit or be hit in melee. When it comes to using weapons, you really only have expertise and mastery (say, +1 and +2, for instance) and everything else is just know-how. But if you aren't a warrior, and have a sedentary non-physical nature, then you certainly would be unskilled in fighting (and get for example, a -1 or -2 to any weapon used). The bottom line is that there is "general combat skill" and then there is "weapon-specific skill." The two are distinct but interrelated.

Coming from one of the most talented and experienced students of HEMA in the world, those words stuck with me and seem to imply that with a few exceptions, it would seem reasonable to have characters in an RPG learn techniques such as Hooking, Winding/Binding etc that can be applied to a wide variety of different weapons rather than rigid styles that make it difficult to do what seems to be commonly done amongst the modern HEMA community: adapt the techniques of one weapon style to another.

To be more specific, my proposal is to have techniques the vast majority of which are useable with any weapon (with few exceptions-try hooking someone's leg out from under them with a longsword sometime), and a few of which gain bonuses for use with weapons particularly suited to that style of fighting. My question is would this system accurately reflect your experiences with learning various fighting styles or techniques?

[Stacy Clifford]

John, you're definitely on the right track. In ARMA we learn the longsword first because that is what the Renaissance masters used most often to teach the core principles of fighting before moving into other weapons, and it is around the longsword that we've built our main curriculum. We're also adding more and more wrestling to that as our understanding continues to evolve, and those two would have likely been taught at the same time back then. Between longsword and wrestling you can learn all of the major principles of timing, distance, footwork, feeling (fuhlen), judgment, etc. in a symmetrical manner, meaning you can do essentially the same thing on either the left or right side of your body. All of these skills can then be applied to asymmetrical weapons -- such as single-hand weapons or staff weapons, or combinations like sword and buckler or dagger -- that function differently on one side of the body than the other (assuming you don't switch hands). It's true that each weapon has its own unique requirements and capabilities (otherwise why bother having them?) that you can only learn by using it, but that is usually a much smaller body of knowledge that can be much more easily learned by someone who already knows the core skills. The quote from John Clements about "general combat skill" and "weapon-specific skill" is spot on in my experience as both a student and an instructor. I should add, however, that you don't have to start with longsword and wrestling to learn core skills, and not every master took that route. Many roads can get you there, longsword just seems to be the easiest one to travel. I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Giacomo Di Grassi, who doesn't teach longsword or wrestling at all:

Whereupon being forced, through a certaine honest desire which I beare to helpe others, I gave my selfe wholy to the contemplation thereof: hoping that at the length, I shoulde finde out the true principles and groundes of this Arte, and reduce the confused and infinite number of blowes into a compendious summe and certaine order: The which principles being but fewe, and therefore easie to be knowen and borne away, without doubt in small time, and little travaile, will open a most large entrance to the understanding of all that which is contained in this Arte. Neither was I in this frustrate at all of my expectation: For in conclusion after much deliberation, I have found out this Arte, from the which onely dependeth the knowledge of all that which a man may performe with a weapon in his hand, and not onely with those weapons which are found out in these our dayes, but also with those that shall be invented in time to come: Considering this Arte is grounded upon Offence and Defence, both the which are practiced in the straight and circuler lynes, for that a man may not otherwise either strike or defend.

[Benjamin Abbott]

Di Grassi also wrote the following:

Neither happelie is it thought ſhoulier or gentlemanlike, not to know how to ſtrike or defend, but onely with wepons framed to that end: for which cauſe, it may wel be ſaid, that the ſoldier differeth from other men, not becauſe he is more ſkilful in handling the ſword or iavelyn, but for that he is expert in everie occaſion to know the beſt advantage & with iudgement both to defend himſelf with anie thing whatſoever, and therewithal ſafelie to offend the enimie: In which & no other thing conſiſteth true ſkirmiſhing.

With regard to pike combat, see the blog I'm getting started for a number of valuable primary-source quotations.

I wasn't too impressed with The Riddle of Steel myself, but it's certainly closer to historical martial arts than the vast majority of roleplaying games.

You can actually hook someone's leg with the cross of a longsword. It's not recommended in an unarmored fight, though.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

One of the reasons the aristocracy often hated pikemen (although by the Renn, they had to use these formations) was that the pike took the dominance of the mounted knight away...especially when combined with various early firearms.

"Hated" pikemen? We can hardly say that when we see that the aristocratic men-at-arms, when they dismounted to fight but did not form their own separate battalions, generally preferred to join pike formations as a (much) better-armoured first rank. The appellation "Gentlemen of the Pike" is quite telling in this regard, and up to at least the mid-17th century service in the Pike was often (though not universally) seen as being rather more prestigious than in the Shot.

[s_taillebois]

One of the reasons the aristocracy often hated pikemen (although by the Renn, they had to use these formations) was that the pike took the dominance of the mounted knight away...especially when combined with various early firearms.

"Hated" pikemen? We can hardly say that when we see that the aristocratic men-at-arms, when they dismounted to fight but did not form their own separate battalions, generally preferred to join pike formations as a (much) better-armoured first rank. The appellation "Gentlemen of the Pike" is quite telling in this regard, and up to at least the mid-17th century service in the Pike was often (though not universally) seen as being rather more prestigious than in the Shot.

Depends on the period it seems. The Chiltron's of the Scots were a predecessor of the Pike, and at Bannockburn the English learned to dislike these, as did the knights of Charles when tangling with the Swiss. Part of the problem in perception of the Pike/Chiltron was also because of whom it was associated. Namely rebellious Scots, and Mercenary Swiss (Although Charles had procured his own mercenaries in armored mounted knights who lost up agaisnt the early Swiss Pikes). Likely the early dislike was much the same as expressed against the longbow-those weapons could take down the mounted knight and all his expensive kit.

The 17th century however as you noted, did have aristocrats with pike formations as did the English civil war. Early on though, proto-pike formations were somewhat disliked as these were closer to, and one of the elements ending the chivalric ideal which the aristocracy had invested so much of their pysche.

And by the 17th century, gentlemen could include members of the landed gentry, aristocracy and etc. In the earlier period to be 'gentled' was to be a member of the blooded classes.

So we have a general agreement, the difference is talking about different periods...the early development of the Pike and when it came to fruition.