How pikes/lances were made 500 years ago

[Shakethetrees]

Originally Posted by Matchlock

Highly interesting information - thank you, kronckew!

It shows that all people in the world think alike in technical things.

Michael

Around the world, no matter what we hold important or what the driving philosophy behind each culture may be, we are all bound by the laws of nature as far as the materials we need to shape into weapons or everyday items.

Mastery depends on the understanding and obeying these rules!

[Matchlock]

Generally, all items of manufacture, of arts and crafts alike including weapons, convey the basic style of the respective period.

Between ca. 1480 and 1520, Landsknecht's long pikes measured more than 6 meters overall – reflecting the “Hyper Gothic” period sense of style when churches got built with lofty steeples seemingly touching the sky and humans, too, were pictured to be very tall and slender.

While newly made spike heads from the Early Renaissance period, ca. 1520-50, were often decorated with a roped ornament and brass inlays, the complete pikes were about 5 meters long, and the hafts of surviving Late Gothic specimens got cut back to that length.
Consequently, by the mid 16th c. spike heads became rectangular in shape, and the whole pike now measured ca. 4.5 - 4.7 meters. Cf. two samples suspended below the ceiling in The Michael Trömner Collection (see post # ... above).

In the 1620's, after the beginning of the Thirty Years War, they got cut back again to ca. 3.5-3.7 m, until most surviving specimens finally got reduced in length to about 2 m in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Discussed here is a truly singular South German Landsknecht's long pike still retaining its original length of ca. 6 meters.
The two brass friezes of the iron head, characteristically decorated with a punched roped ornament, together with the notches, all denote that it was made in ca. 1520-30.
Its ash wood haft is decorated in an incredibly profuse manner, with what must be hundreds of knobs.
My skilled friend Armin König copied it. It took him many hours to get that knobbing done effectively on the hard ash wood that he told me he would never submit to such a toil again ..

The attached photos depict the original pike in the collections of the historic armory at the Veste (fortress) Coburg.
Also attached are three similarly early spike heads the author photographed in the reserve collection/depot of the Historisches Museum Luzern, Switzerland.


Best,
Michael

The first three photos copyrighted by Armin König,
the bottom image copyrighted by Michael Trömner.

[Matchlock]

Another early 16th c. pike with brass inlays, the haft of usual round section; Hermann Historica, Munich, 8 Oct. 2009.

[Matchlock]

A mid 16th c. pike iron, the straps cut down to mere remnants, and mounted on a later haft.
Dorotheum, Vienna, 10 June 2014.

[Matchlock]

Two Styrian pikes, on later hafts.
The first of Frog's mouth" shape, 2nd half 16th c.; Bonhams, San Francisco, 20 Nov 2013;
the second ca. 1600, San Giorgo, Genua, 1st March 2009.

m

[Matchlock]

16th c. Styrian lances/pikes in the Landeszeughaus Graz, and Bonhams, London, 25 November 2008.

[Matchlock]

A Styrian Froschmaulspieß (frog's mouth pike), early 16th c., on its original but shortened haft of octagonal section throughout, overall length 2.86 m, and bearing an inventory stamp of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, N.Y.
The Michael Trömner Collection.