It looks like a rather efficient polearm. A volgue is basically a meat cleaver on a pole. I think the hinge contraption aids the cut by sliding the edge slightly. Then like the multi-purpose Swiss army knives, you can turn the polearm around to deal with plate armour by using the thick spike (similar to the early halberds shown by Fernando above) instead.
These kind of ”peasant arms” tend to have fairly basic decorations at best. They were intended to be cheap and functional. The inscriptions (if that’s what they are) don’t look like Gothic letters to me although I can’t decipher them. It could well be very faded letters in a Romance (evolved from Vulgar Latin) language like medieval Italian?
