Polearm

Halberds doe properly belong unto the serjeants of companies
    —Gervase Markham

Curious forms ... which could have been used only for special purposes, like animals whose teeth were suited for a particular kind of food
    —Bashford Dean

Many a time, but for a sallet, my brainpan had been cleft with a brown bill
    —William Shakespeare

A polearm or pole weapon is a close combat weapon in which the main fighting part of the weapon is fitted to the end of a long shaft, typically of wood, extending the user's effective range and striking power. Polearms are predominantly melee weapons, with a subclass of spear-like designs fit for thrusting and/or throwing. Because many polearms were adapted from agricultural implements or other fairly abundant tools, and contained relatively little metal, they were cheap to make and readily available. When belligerents in warfare had a poorer class who could not pay for dedicated military weapons, they would often appropriate tools as cheap weapons. The cost of training was comparatively low, since these conscripted farmers had spent most of their lives using these "weapons" in the fields. This made polearms the favoured weapon of peasant levies and peasant rebellions the world over.

Polearms can be divided into three broad categories: those designed for extended reach and thrusting tactics used in pike square or phalanx combat; those designed to increase leverage (due to hands moving freely on a pole) to maximise angular force (swinging tactics) against cavalry; and those designed for throwing tactics used in skirmish line combat. The hook on weapons such as the halberd was used for pulling or grappling tactics, especially against horsemen. Because of their versatility, high effectiveness and low cost, there were many variants of polearm, which were much-used weapons on the battlefield. Bills, picks, dane axes, spears, glaives, guandaos, pudaos, pikes, poleaxes, halberds, harpoons, sovnyas, tridents, naginatas, bardiches, war scythes, and lances are all varieties of polearms.

Polearms were common weapons on post-classical battlefields of Asia and Europe. Their range and impact force made them effective weapons against armoured warriors on horseback, unhorsing the opponent and to some extent effective to penetrate armour. The Renaissance saw a plethora of varieties. Polearms in modern times are largely constrained to ceremonial military units such as the Papal Swiss Guard or Yeomen of the Guard, or traditional martial arts. Chinese martial arts in particular have preserved a wide variety of weapons and techniques.

Quotes

• Put not thy spirit unto too much paine,
  In searching secrets farre above thy skill:
  And know a halbert from a hedging bill.
  • Nicholas Breton, The Mothers Blessing (1602)

• Whither is Europe’s ancient spirit fled?
  Where are those valiant tenants of her shore,
  Who from the warrior bow the strong dart sped,
  Or with firm hand the rapid pole-axe bore?
  • Mark Akenside, "An Ode to the Country Gentlemen of England" (1758)

• Among our pole-arms we find curious forms developed which could have been used only for special purposes, like animals whose teeth were suited for a particular kind of food. Such pole-arms we find, too, did not long survive, disappearing just as specialized animals did when their special kind of food gave out.
  • Bashford Dean, "The Evolution of the Pole-Arm", The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 11 (1916), p. 154

• Halberds doe properly belong unto the serjeants of companies.
  • Gervase Markham, Souldiers' Accidence (1625), p. 4
  • Reported in: W. S., "The Halberts", Notes and Queries, ser. 9, vol. 6 (8 September 1900), p. 181

• Halbard is the arms carry'd by the serjeants of foot and dragoons; the head of the halbard ought to be a foot or 15 inches long; one end ought to be hollow to receive the staff, but the other broad, ribb'd in the middle, edg'd on both sides, and drawing to a point, like the point of a two-edged sword. On one side of the head is likewise fixed a piece in form of a half-moon or star, and on the other a broad point of four inches long, crooked a little, which is very commodious for drawing fascines, gabions, or whatever obstacle happen in the way. The staff of the halbard is about five foot long, and an inch and half diameter, made of ash or other hard wood. Halbards are very useful in determining the ground betwixt the ranks, and for dressing the ranks and files of a battalion, and likewise for chastising the soldiers.
  • The Gentleman's Dictionary (1705)
  • Reported in: Notes and Queries (8 September 1900), p. 181

• The billmen and pikemen wore salades and morions. Steel caps were made to the shape of the head and sometimes called scull-caps; a woollen cap was worn within. The bill-men were called also halberdiers; their chief weapon being a sort of double battle-axe or bi-pennis, called a bill; when affixed to long staves, as usual for infantry, they were termed alle-bardes or cleave-alls. The halberd or bill had a long slender blade or spit, and a side blade or blades, with cutting edge, sometimes crescent form with a concave side sharp, at others with a convex side outwards and edged. The opposite blade terminated in a sort of beak or pick, for splitting. The partizan was a sort of broad-bladed bill, terminating in a crescent with concave blade. The blackbill was so called from its blades being blacked, instead of being kept bright.
  • John Harland, The Lancashire Lieutenancy under the Tudors and Stuarts (1859), p. 36 (note)

• Staff-weapons in Medieval or Renaissance England were lumped together under the generic term "staves" but when dealing with them in detail we are faced with terminological difficulty. There never seems to have been a clear definition of what was what; there were apparently far fewer staff-weapons in use than there were names to call them by; and contemporary writers up to the seventeenth century use these names with abandon, calling different weapons by the same name and similar weapons by different names. To add to this, we have various nineteenth century terminologies used by scholars. We must remember too that any particular weapon ... had everywhere a different name.
  • Ewart Oakeshott, European Weapons and Armour (Lutterworth Press, 1980), p. 52

• Four Knaves in Garbs succinct, a trusty Band,
  Caps on their heads, and Halberds in their hand;
  And Particolour’d Troops, a shining Train,
  Draw forth to Combat on the Velvet Plain.
  • Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock (1714), Canto III

Shakespeare

• Come, stand by me; fear nothing. Guard with halberds!
  • The Comedy of Errors, V. i. 185

• Many a time, but for a sallet, my brainpan had been cleft with a brown bill;
  • Henry VI, Part 2, III. iii. 172

• Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills
  Against thy seat: both young and old rebel,
  And all goes worse than I have power to tell.
  • Richard II, III. ii. 118

• Unmanner'd dog! stand thou, when I command:
  Advance thy halbert higher than my breast,
  Or, by Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot,
  And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.
  • Richard III, I. ii. 40

• So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,
  He smote the steeled pole-axe on the ice.
  • Hamlet, I. i. 63–64
  • Variant: The corrupt text is usually rendered "sledded Polacks"
  • Reported in: F. A. Leo, Shakespeare-Notes (1885), p. 81

• Bring up the brown bills.
  • King Lear, IV. vi. 91

• I bring my fraught unto the wished port,
  My Summer’s hope, my travels’ sweet reward:
  And here, with humble duty, I present
  This sacrifice, this first fruit of my sword,
  Cropped and cut down even at the gate of death,
  The king of Boheme, father, whom I slew;
  Whose thousands had entrenched me round about,
  And lay as thick upon my battered crest,
  As on an Anvil, with their ponderous glaves:
  • Pseudo-Shakespeare, Edward III, III. iv. 89