Recently I came upon this article that states there is little to no evidence of the one handed military flail being an actual weapon used in the middle ages.
In one of the sources cited (Kelly DeVries and Robert Douglas Smith, Medieval military technology) it is writen that there is some scholarly debate on if these things existed at all. They do not give any sources for this though.
My question to you Veeky Forums is wether any of you are familiar with this debate and what are your thoughts on this subject.
please provide sources to your claims, because the internet seems full of unfounded claims on this subject
No this is a thread about the historicity of a medieval object and scholarly debate about said object. Is this not a board to discuss the science of history and other humanities
Ayden Wood
Makes sense.
There isn't a lot of advantage in terms of kinetic energy, and it makes it harder to hit.
Lucas Hall
There's very little evidence for them, the one handed spiked ball sort. It makes no sense from a physical perspective, you'd actually lose force compared to a mace.
Aiden Howard
So, the issue I tend to take with this claim is that Medieval depictions of one-handed flails exist. This is an illustration from 1410. While I don't think contemporary illustrations are usually great sources for obvious reasons, it does seem a little strange if the one handed flail is a 19th century invention. I realize the article attempts to address this by (rightly) pointing out that medieval illustrations contain all sorts of weird shit, it would be incredibly strange for them to make pretty dead-on-balls accurate pictures of a pretty nondescript weapon. Beyond that, the article claims that a flail would have been worse "than useless" in the 1500's because of its short reach. They must have never heard of Spanish Rodeleros and Ottoman Jannisaries who used swords to great effect during that era (A weapon with similar reach).
Jack Powell
1410 would actually be fairly late for the period where maces were used, wouldn't it?
I think by that time you were starting to see pikemen coming back.
Lucas Parker
Is there any idea when these weapons became part of the popular image of the Middle Ages.
Adrian Wright
Much earlier, but we have depictions and artifacts from that era.
Joshua Edwards
flails did exist as granary tools, for beating grain off stalks of wheat. Thing is, they looked far different than that.
Might the one-handed military flail have existed? Very possibly. Did it have a purpose that was not better filled by another weapon? Doubtful.
IIRC Rodeleros weren't that great because they couldn't flight pikemen or cavalry, which were common formations of the era. There big claim to fame was that soldiers in the Americas were largely classified as Rodeleros, and just by virtue of having steel armor, a good shield, and a sword were better off than the natives.
Chase Jenkins
theater productions also, a flail like that would still be very menacing from one commoner to another. It's basically a weaponized chain, and people have been beaten to death by bicycle chains before.
Julian Green
>considering art a valid source of history
Don't do that.
Benjamin Stewart
are you trying to prove something with your picture?
You do realize that a fair amount of accepted historical conclusions are based on period tapestries, things like swords breaking fairly often in battlefield conditions and gambeson and mail being one of the most common sets of armor?
you come off as a kid who has just learned about photoshop, and thinks it applies to historical documents as well. If you were as intelligent as you think, you'd realize that now is the time to defer to what actual trained historians and researchers have concluded.
Nathaniel Sanchez
I don't know much about history but they've always seemed wildly impractical to me.
If the target is missed on the swing the ball will come back and smack the person who's wielding it, the only exceptions being if you bring it down in a chopping motion or spin yourself around to let the kinetic energy disperse, which both seem like very inefficient methods to use in combat. You could make the chain longer to reduce the likelihood of this happening, but then it becomes a nuisance to lug around and requires a greater amount of strength to use effectively.
You can miss with any weapon sure, but penalty for missing with a flail seems way too costly for it to be of any use in any real combat scenario.
William Brooks
But Mustangs kill people every day
Mason Rogers
Played with one, made out of carpet, duct tape and rope in the SCA. Used it with a 24' round shield with good effect. It hit as hard or harder than my stick mace that had a pound of solder wrapped around the head under carpet and tape. Plenty of energy.
It, as a Tourney weapon, was banned for fear of the components separating and injuring onlookers.
It was like a two handed weapon in it's recovery time from a miss. You had to be careful you didn't let the momentum carry you out of line. or you gave your opponent a free shot.
Nicholas Davis
this fucking retard
Andrew Bell
The Japanese practiced with a two handed flail called chigiri, but it was not a battlefield weapon, it was a dueling weapon
Logan Myers
I don't know why people feel the need to be so contrarian, one-handed flails absolutely existed and are very useful for fighting armored enemies who have shields. Sure that's a pretty niche use, but they were never a popular weapon, probably for this reason.
Aaron Richardson
Honestly a mace would be so much more effective. No unreliable ball of metal that could hit your head just as well as the enemy. Hard to use, so untrained peasant levies can't use it. Effective against armor maybe but why not just use any other blunt weapon that can attack much faster? Provides no improvement over a mace besides looking cooler.
Aiden Miller
>No unreliable ball of metal that could hit your head just as well as the enemy.
there's this thing called "practise" where you learn how to use a weapon BEFORE you put your life on the line with it. The flail is a rhythm weapon, as long as you keep it moving it's not difficult to swing, but it /is/ very difficult to predict, and nearly impossible to parry.
>attack much faster?
this only matters in video games. In actual fighting, you can do this thing called "move" to "position" yourself so your weapon smacks the enemy at the right moment.
>Provides no improvement over a mace besides looking cooler.
Except the parrying thing, and the fact it hits harder, and the fact that it's actually less exhausting to use than a normal mace, provided you keep the head moving.
