Of course, these examples cover only a few of the types of spear that evolved over the centuries, but they do give a sense of the variety of spears used during the Medieval period. The total length of the spear is approximately 6'10". On the hunting spear they were thought to keep the boar from becoming too deeply impaled on the spear. The lugs were used in the fencing style of the time, to help control the opponent's weapon. This style of spear is often called a lug spear that developed from the Carolingian period fighting spear. This stout socketed spear is incised with foliage, a shield, and the inscription "dux Federic". This is based on the ~1430 j agdspiessen (hunting spear) of Duke Friedrich IV, Ruler of Triol, that is currently housed in the museum at Innsbruck. Our Friedrich IV spear is also lugged, but features a straight blade geometry similar to Petersen type D2. This type of spear was popular for hundreds of years, from the Viking age through the medieval period. Our 12th Century Spear features a leaf shaped blade and wings, attributes that place it within Petersen type C or D1. Check out this blog post about our ash supply. All of our ash is hand selected, cut, and rounded. The shaft is 6' long and 1.2" in diameter. This detailed fitting is very tight and will not fall off easily (seriously, once they are mounted that thing is not coming off). The sockets are hand forged and each shaft is shaped to perfectly fit in the socket. Just like the historic original, the ash shaft is friction set in the socket without pins or nails. The approximately 16" head features cutting edges of about 7.5" and a very acute point. Based on its straight edge geometry and tapering socket, this spear is a good example of a Petersen type M spear. Our Norseman Spear is a replica of a 10th century original found in Norway. In the above photo you can observe, from left to right, our Friedrich IV Spear, Norseman Spear, and 12th Century Spear. Importantly, Petersen uses the presence or absence of 'wings' or 'lugs', and the geometry of the spear blades to categorize spears into groups.
The Viking Age Compendium wiki provides a useful illustration of these types, check it out here. In his seminal 1919 work "The Norwegian Viking Swords", Jan Petersen lays out a typology of spears that provides useful observations for distinguishing between varieties of spears. For example, long Pikes of the Renaissance, which were often over five meters in length, often featured a shaft that tapered substantially toward the point nad butt, thereby reducing weight and making the weapon much more wieldy. These spears tend to have thicker shafts than throwing spears, though this isn't always the case. But rather that for the most part these spears were retained and utilized as a primary weapon. This is not to claim that these larger spears were never thrown, they surely were. The other major category of spears are those made to be used primarily in the hand. Check out this video examining our javelins here, and a video of them in use from Kult of Athena (the larger spear they are testing is a Celtic Spear we will be introducing soon). The former, pictured below, features a head of diamond section, making it very durable, while the later has a head with a leaf shape. Here at Arms and Armor we make two varieties of throwing spears, our Javelin and our Greek Javelin. Sometimes throwing spears were fletched like an arrow, and sometimes they were not, depending on when and where they were in use. This means that they are usually smaller than two handed spears and with thinner shafts. Throwing spears must be light enough to throw and balanced for accurate flight.
The first useful distinction might be between spears made for throwing and spears made for use in the hand or hands. When we set out to examine the variety of medieval European spears there are a few categorizations we can immediately make to help us consider their variation. Though we occasionally make items from antiquity as custom pieces for clients, including Greek and Roman spears, we will save those for another day. In this post we explore medieval spears through an examination of some of our products at Arms and Armor, all of which are historically accurate reproductions.
From the earliest stone spearheads, to the pikes of the Renaissance, the spear was a preeminent weapon of war and an essential hunting tool.Ĭlovis culture spear points, North America circa ~12,0000BC
In distinction to the early knives and axes that were both tools and weapons, the spear is purely a weapon - whether for hunting or warfare it is for killing. In addition to being one of the most ancient tools created by humans, the spear was also arguably the very first dedicated weapon.
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