[Billman]

Ref billhooks and slashers - there is little historical record for the slasher in the Roman to Medieval period - many hundreds of billhook blades survive, ditto sickles, scythes and axes - but little or nothing that can be identified as a slasher blade. It is thus probable this, like sugar cane knives and many other tools used for cutting crops and fodder, developed from the billhook. It is also very probable that despite some history of 'live' fences that it did not develop in the UK until after the enclosures of the 18th century. 14th to 16th century manuscripts show many pictures of billhooks, but again little in the way of a long or long handled handled tool - except in some countries, where gardeners also carry a sword (a precursor of the machete???)

Illustrations from Opus Ruralium c 1495

The terms billhook and slasher were not in common usage prior to about 1800, the common terms being hand-bill and hedging-bill respectively.

Blakie c 1820 is one of the first to mention billhooks, also Loudon c 1831 who shows a switching-bill (staff-hook) and the heavier breasting knife (slasher). Henry Stevens c 1860 calls slashers cutting-bills.

Loudon also shows a long handled 'scimitar', a thin sword like tool used for dressing the faces of hedges, and Blakie mentions a 'slashing knife'...

The latter is similar to tools used in the vineyards of France for removing excess leaves from the vines, a process called relevage or épramprage. A straight, or only slightly curved, sickle, often made from an old or broken scythe blade, and known as a 'serpe à désherber' or 'faucille à épramprer'. Similar tools would have been used by the Romans, and presumably also in the vineyards of Spain and Portugal...

I know that today the billhook and slasher are regarded as different tools, but in reality they are two sorts of the same tool - one with a longer handle than the other (c.f. the Yorkshire billhook, where the same blade can have a 12", 24" or 36" handle) - all descended from the medieval bill...