When was the flail invented

Ever hit a solid object with a bat and get anything from the tingles to complete temporary loss of the use of your arm? A section of chain between the impact surface and the handle would damp that out completely.

Looking at the design of the flail, one could suppose that when it was no longer needed, it may have been scrapped and turned into a more civilian tool, or simply discarded, which would have meant that there might not be very many if any left, if they were not common to begin with.

We have few surviving falchions, despite that being a -VERY- popular weapon, which is named in numerous sources. Think about it like a cavalry saber. Regular swords were seen as hard to use on horseback due to the fact that cutting into someone with a regular sword on horseback causes your sword to most likely catch.

However as we began to have more and more units that were mounted only, they used curved swords since after cutting a target it makes it much easier to pull the sword out from a target. Transferring that logic over to a flail, look at is counterpart the mace.

Although a flanged mace is strong hitting it against a target while on horseback would really hurt your arm since most would have armor meaning that the impact would be even harder. But a flail would deal even more damage for the first part, since you would also have the momentum of swinging it as well as the momentum from the horse.

The only real flails that were used in period were threshing flails that the peasants had because, well, what else did they have other than pitchforks? Well, the also had axes and pruning hooks, and even spades, if it comes to that.

There were all kinds of agricultural implements that could be suitably sharpened and turned against people; that, indeed, is what happened. I do not attest to their existence, but I am reasonably confident that they are so named.

Very interesting article. Food for thought. It would be interesting to see an actual metalugical study done on existing examples. I remember a book series some years ago called Falcon which related the adventures of a former crusader named Draco DE Montefalcon who was a leader of a band of mercenary warriors, one of the book characters carried a flail of the ball and chain variety with the spiked ball.

His usage of it was unique he would either work in tandem with another soldier and use the ball to stick to a shield pull it down while the other soldier cut the fellow down. In personal combat he used a buckler and instead of swinging the flail he would snap it it out and back much the same way you would work a bullwhip. The author of the series described how he trained in a few paragraphs to make it read more realistic. The article made me remember about the weapon and the series.

If anyone else goes looking for this, it appears to be by Mark Ramsay a pen name of John Maddox Roberts. I make no claim to being anything like a weapons expert just interested and I may have missed this in my quick read but although this article is about European weaponry bluntly stating that they were impractical leaves out a valid melee weapon of the East.

Thanks for your interest. However it is also my understanding that there is quite a bit of controversy over the extent to which nunchaku were ever used in warfare, with apologies to Bruce Lee and Michelangelo.

Just like with some weapons of nazi germany, these flails most certainly HAVE existed, but most certainly did not become mass produced and were not effective in combat, thus they were often abandoned to rot in the field. If people went to battle with rocks tied to a stick, they most certainly used a primitive weapon like this at a certain point.

The problem is thats its neither cheap to produce, nor effective to use. I can see where some cheaper variants may be easier to build than an axe or a hammer. But the main selling point of some of these fancy weapons was their ability to disguise as farming tools. The flail was just not able to do this. Military flails are pretty well documented in China from the s, and textually even further back. Take for example, this illustration based on the famous Song Dynasty compendium of military knowledge that was rich with illustrations of military equipment of the day.

What can be said? Widely used in Germany, particularly during the 16th Century Bauernkrieg. Also an Asian weapon. That said, some of his work is flawed and should taken with a few grains of salt. His estimations of the utility of some Chinese weapons, for example, suffer from a Eurocentric lack of understanding of their use. Interesting points, somewhat akin to those made about some medieval torture instruments like the Iron Maiden and Victorian inventions of chastity belts. A couple of points to make about the morgenstern though.

While you are doubtless right that it is unweildy, there are other cultures that use flails in battle: notably the Japanese where peasants, forbidden from carrying swords, used variants of rice flails and threshers e.

As it does so the chain shortens, accelerating the head, and allowing you to smash the arm holding the shield. Possibly it had a somewhat specialist use in this fashion? Seriously though, I used one and it seemed really unwieldy. I can see it causing a lot of damage if it connected, but if you missed, it could be a disaster. One characteristic of a weapon like this is the angle at which the impact would be delivered. If there were a large difference in what parts of the body were being armored—breastplates vs.

However, it would require the user to get pretty close. So, if these weapons were in fact used in any large number, it would likely be as a form of armor-avoidant weapon for short range fighting. If there were an older version using rope instead of chain, a sharp bladed edge to cut the rope along the edge of helms or other armor might be an artifact to look for to identify both the use of and the origins of this sort of weapon.

Assuming armor more likely to make it into the museums compared to weapons. All good and dandy, but the main aspect of the ball on chain, from a mounted position, is that I can hit the head of my shielded opponent, and or, grab the back of his shield and pull it away from him….

The flail reaches where the spear and sword and mace, do not. You could certainly wrap it around a sword, but a shield is broad and has nothing to tangle the chain. This is how you use a flail. Some of these look as if they could be used as a bolo, a fling and forget weapon that would take down a horse.

I can see this being banned from tournament. And the flail was used to get around the face of the sheild,and hopefully braking arms of the sheild holder. Maybe it was just a metal club though.

Always quite liked the way medieval clerics evaded restrictions on their activities and thought the use of maces would be fairly typical behaviour for worldly churchmen. These weapons almost always used a leather belt or a rope instead of a chain, but besides that, they were very much like the flails that you described here. Many such weapons had a bone head or a lighter metal head, and were primarily for civilian use. It looks that in the military use the weapons were intended as a cavalry secondary weapon, so they were one of the array of weapons to choose from for a particular situation.

Also, having many backup options, using a leather belt instead of a stronger chain was non-critical and economical. There are literary sources which describe them. Most are Russian, but one of them is from 16th century by an Austrian baron from modern Slovenia who has visited Moscow is of the particular note. He gives a very particular description of the kisten: as opposed to a lance, axe, bow, which are just named, kisten is described as if it would not be familiar to his readers.

So it may very well be a rarely-used or non-existing weapon to the Europeans to the West of Poland, supporting your article.

However, the claims about the practicality of this weapon are probably misplaced, as it had seen a lot of use in some parts of the world.

The italian version shows more correct information. If you are interested in it I can translate something more about, maybe from official site of Giostra del saracino. Thus why it is shown in those illustrations as being something characteristic of the exotic East. If that hypothesis is true then it would mean at some level the Chinese weapon was not totally unknown in Europe as a concept. That would further lead to the possibility or likelihood that some weapon smiths would have tried to replicate it.

Then the various practicalities mentioned would be reasons for its lack of popularity. I think a good case could has been made for it never being standard issue, or even that popular.

While use in tight formations was certainly impractical, that says little about the use in single combat. Well, yes. Maybe because it is actually a weapon? Your second example is the most terrible exemplar of how terribly myopic historians are. Well, no. Any historian worth their salt should know perfectly well that the assumedly Western European armies of were far from uniformly equipped. That many of the poorer troops went to war with weapons that ranged from long knives to agricultural implements, while many of the richer ones carried equipment that would not have been out of place in armories of centuries before.

And then, you have the temerity to produce a bunch of what are most definitely fakes, created specifically AS fakes, and then claim that their provenance some how disproves the existence of the actual weapons they were purposefully created to imitate. If anything, they add more likelihood to the existence of actual military flails otherwise why bother making them but that aside, trying to suggest that something from five or six centuries later provides a historical argument for a given period is the worst kind of historical dishonesty.

The addition of fantastical beasts does not in any way invalidate the other content. It will blow your mind to hear this, but the folks back then had different ideas about how communication — and the world — worked. Now, the ONLY point you have that has anything approaching historical validity is the lack of mentions in records and armoury inventories. For this to hold any water, you would first of all need to analyse the regularity of which various weapon types were mentioned in these sources in the given time periods, then you would need to cross reference that with the actual uses of these weapons, paying close attention to purpose, cost, social standing and other factors that would impact upon their likelihood of depiction.

For example, a weapon that was rarely used and only by specific classes of people would only appear in certain areas of record as opposed to weapons in more common usage. All in all, well done in writing a clickbait article. But in terms of making any historical commentary, do not do these things again. This biased, lazy approach not only brings disrepute to the profession but creates a dangerous precedent that turns historical analysis into ideological fiction.

Your arguments would be stronger without the ad hominems. You have a strong argument, so leave out the personal attacks. Maces were often used by clergy ,as they did not spill Christian blood. I found straight armed blows with no fancy whirling as in hollywood! Would have been quite effective , and despite wearing a close helm for safety ,suffered no recoil or out of control strikes to my head or body , from horseback against lighter armoured infantry the results I believe would have caused shocking head and upper body injuries.

I suspect it was almost literally of whole cloth, being derived from the depiction of Bishop Odo with a club on the Bayeux tapestry. Contrary to that, there are numerous references to clergymen using edged weapons, e. I have the same idea using crossbows on Christians was frowned on at one time But there are many documented wars where this was ignored. Crossbows were forbidden to be used against Christians at the Second Lateran Council , with the prohibition being repeated at the Fourth Sturtevant mentions in passing, directly into an ornamental form as a symbol of authority not unlike the small flail carried by the Pharaohs of Egypt , showing that the commander?

IF they did exist they would not have been useful in formation… but in one on one combat they would be quite effective… a shield would have been almost useless against it, and you could entangle a sword, spear or axe quite easily.

If it was more of a duelists weapon that would explain why they were not issued to troops…. There is one more possible source, or inspiration, for the flail not explored here: the Asian martial arts weapon the nun-chaku. And Marco Polo would more than likely have either encountered them, or at least stories of them.

The nun-chaku is a highly effective weapon if you know how to use it properly, but it is also an incredibly easy weapon to defend against. But the result is the same, dead end. I had to re read that sentence a couple times.

As opposed to the other possibility that they are all fakes. Opinion opinions, so wrong opinions. Even if these weapons were rare like armor, swords etc they still existed.

It would be safe to assume I think, given the lack of provenance of the weapon that users of the flail would also be well-versed in its usage — like quite a few of the old weapons.

While many old weapons could be used without knowledge like a broadsword or a quarterstaff , they would be a times more dangerous if the user knew how to wield them. As others have pointed out, there are plenty of unvieldy instruments of destruction from old, and some of them are viewed as complete nonsense today — mostly because we fail to see how they could have been of any use.

As for the physics of the flail, I do think that those who comment on the usage from horseback, and that the rebound and such not necessarily would be that harsh, are quite right. The grip is topped by a ring and butted by a turned finial. This flail also exhibits a twisted link chain. This allows for the chain to move more freely and not kink as straight links may.

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After looking around, we'd appreciate 2 minutes of your time to answer 3 short questions about your experience. Contact aa arms-n-armor. Flails in particular were even adopted as a knightly weapon in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Mangual appears at seconds There has been some controversy over whether one handed flails were ever a weapon in common military use, or whether they were mostly a parade weapon, or even a bit of a collective medieval and Renaissance fantasy. Details from Passion of Christ, and a 14th century battle respectively Flails by Arms and Armor The Arms and Armor Spiked Flail is a reproduction of a 16th century German original in a private collection.

Nathan Clough. Facebook Email. Older Post. Newer Post. This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Flail weapon " , which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3. There is a list of all authors in Wikipedia. Login Email Address. Sign In. Remember Me. Forgot Password? Top Links. Social Share. PARTcloud - weapon.

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Hayo van Wolvega attacks the tower of Damietta with a flail during the 5th crusade. This website uses tracking mechanisms by using technically not necessary cookies in order to offer and constantly improve its services, and to provide individual offers.

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