TY Swordfish for posting this. There's another illustration of these "hand hammers" in a Czech manuscript showing Jan Zizka with a date of 1424 under it.
As for the dispute between long or short bec de corbins. The martel remained in use long after the middle ages. Many nadziak husarski have these short beaks and were clearly weapons. The civilian versions of the nadziak (called Obuch) had their beaks bent down or even back.
I think the difference was between "stopping power" for the shorter beaks and "killing power" for the longer ones. A good rap to the head will stun must foes, effectively taking them out, allowing one to deliver more blows or capture them.
Dmitry that's not overkill. To kill quickly one needs to scramble the brain like that. Neither of those quarrel piles was a fatal shot, speaking as a hunter who has killed around 12,000 times and yes I have broken skulls with the back side of hatchets.
|