The Viking Age Compendium wiki provides a useful illustration of these types, check it out here. In his seminal 1919 work "The Norwegian Viking Swords", Jan Petersen lays out a typology of spears that provides useful observations for distinguishing between varieties of spears. For example, long Pikes of the Renaissance, which were often over five meters in length, often featured a shaft that tapered substantially toward the point nad butt, thereby reducing weight and making the weapon much more wieldy. These spears tend to have thicker shafts than throwing spears, though this isn't always the case. But rather that for the most part these spears were retained and utilized as a primary weapon. This is not to claim that these larger spears were never thrown, they surely were. The other major category of spears are those made to be used primarily in the hand. Check out this video examining our javelins here, and a video of them in use from Kult of Athena (the larger spear they are testing is a Celtic Spear we will be introducing soon). The former, pictured below, features a head of diamond section, making it very durable, while the later has a head with a leaf shape. Here at Arms and Armor we make two varieties of throwing spears, our Javelin and our Greek Javelin. Sometimes throwing spears were fletched like an arrow, and sometimes they were not, depending on when and where they were in use. This means that they are usually smaller than two handed spears and with thinner shafts. Throwing spears must be light enough to throw and balanced for accurate flight. The first useful distinction might be between spears made for throwing and spears made for use in the hand or hands. When we set out to examine the variety of medieval European spears there are a few categorizations we can immediately make to help us consider their variation. Though we occasionally make items from antiquity as custom pieces for clients, including Greek and Roman spears, we will save those for another day. In this post we explore medieval spears through an examination of some of our products at Arms and Armor, all of which are historically accurate reproductions. From the earliest stone spearheads, to the pikes of the Renaissance, the spear was a preeminent weapon of war and an essential hunting tool.Ĭlovis culture spear points, North America circa ~12,0000BC In distinction to the early knives and axes that were both tools and weapons, the spear is purely a weapon - whether for hunting or warfare it is for killing. In addition to being one of the most ancient tools created by humans, the spear was also arguably the very first dedicated weapon.
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