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A halberd (also called halbard, halbert or Swiss voulge) is a two-handed polearm that came to prominent use from the 13th to 16th centuries. The halberd consists of an axe blade topped with a spike mounted on a long shaft.
Egill let his shield take the halberd, holding it aslant so that a piece was sliced away, then the halberd fell to the ground." [ 9 ] Even the late 13th century Karlamagnus Saga has a mention: "Þá lagði Oddgeir til hans ok í gegnum skjöld hans ok brynju, ok svá at á hol gékk kesjan " , [ 12 ] or in English: "Then Oddgeir struck him and ...
One of the earliest known appearances of the Ji in the historical record is the fangtian huaji (方天畫戟: "painted heavenly halberd") attributed to the warrior Lü Bu in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It is unknown whether the peculiarity of his weapon was a literary device used by Luo Guanzhong, the author.
The English increasingly transitioned to pike and shot formations from the mid 16th century, but kept the billhook in use in the same capacity as other armies used greatswords and halberds. In 1588, the English Trained Bands consisted of 36% arquebusiers, 6% musketeers, 16% bowmen, 26% pikemen, and 16% billmen.
A halberd (or Swiss voulge) is a two-handed polearm that came to prominent use during the 14th and 15th centuries but has continued in use as a ceremonial weapon to the present day. [30] First recorded as "hellembart" in 1279, the word halberd possibly comes from the German words Halm (staff) or Helm (helmet), and Barte (axe). The halberd ...
The halberd is still the ceremonial weapon of the Swiss Guard in the Vatican. [1] The Swiss armies of the late 14th and 15th centuries, used a variety of different polearms other than halberds and pikes, such as the Lucerne hammer. By the 15th century, the carrying of side arms (baselard, dagger, and degen) had become ubiquitous.
A smaller head concentrates the kinetic energy of the blow on a smaller area, enabling the impact to defeat armour, while broader halberd heads are better against opponents with less mail or plate armour. Furthermore, many halberds had their heads forged as a single piece, while the poleaxe was typically modular in design. [6]
Atgeirr is often translated in English as "halberd", however Germanic weapon names in gar designate a heavy spear, while geirr is just a common name for any spear in Old Norse, thus the atgeirr is "a weapon closely related to a spear – something long-shafted and thrust-oriented". [4]