The terms
morning star,
goedendag, and
holy water sprinkler are used to describe medieval club-like weapons which included one or more spikes. Each used, to varying degrees, a combination of blunt-force and puncture attack to kill or wound the enemy very effectively.
Morning star
The
morning star is a
medieval weapon consisting of a spiked
clubA club is among the simplest of all weapons. A club is essentially a short staff, or stick, usually made of wood, and wielded as a weapon....
resembling a mace, usually with a long spike extending straight from the top and many smaller spikes around the particle of the head. The spikes distinguish it from a mace, which can have, at most, flanges or small knobs. It was used by both
infantryInfantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of the Combat Arms they are the backbone of armies...
and
cavalryCavalry were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback in combat. Cavalry were historically the second oldest and most mobile of the combat arms...
; the horseman's weapon had a shorter shaft. The mace, a traditional
knightA knight was a "gentleman soldier" or member of the warrior class of the Middle Ages in Europe. In other Indo-European languages, cognates of cavalier or rider are more prevalent suggesting a connection to the knight's mode of transport...
ly weapon, developed somewhat independently, became all-metal with heads of various forms, while the morning star retained its characteristic spikes, with a usually wooden shaft, often found in longer two-handed forms measuring up to six feet or more, was popular among troops.
The morning star first came into widespread use around the beginning of the fourteenth century, and the term is often applied to the military
flailThe Military Flail or simply Flail is a weapon commonly attributed to the Middle-Ages but for which only a limited amount of historical evidence currently exists for most of this era. There is evidence for the long-handled flail as a weapon of war from Germany and Central Europe in the later Middle...
(
fléau d'armes in
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
and
Kriegsflegel in German) which consists of a wooden shaft joined by a length of chain to one or more iron balls or an iron shod wooden bar, in either case with or without spikes (heavy
swordA sword is a long, edged piece of metal, used in many civilizations throughout the world, primarily as a cutting or thrusting weapon and occasionally for clubbing...
pommels have also been used as weights).
Although it is often assumed that the morning star was a crude
peasantA peasant is an agricultural worker who subsists by working a small plot of ground. The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district A peasant is an agricultural worker who subsists...
weapon, that is not entirely correct. There were three types in existence, all differing in quality of workmanship. The first was the well crafted
militaryA military is an organization authorized by its nation to use force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. As an adjective the term "military" is also used to refer to any property or aspect of a military...
type used by professional soldiers, made in series by expert weaponsmiths for stocking in town arsenals. The second and much simpler type would have been hand cut by peasant
militiaThe term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
men, rather than turned on a
latheA lathe is a machine tool which spins a block of material to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, or deformation with tools that are applied to the workpiece to create an object which has symmetry about an axis of rotation.Lathes are used in woodturning,...
, from wood they had gathered themselves (for which reason forests were often known as "arsenals of God") and fitted with nails and spikes by the local
blacksmithA blacksmith is a person who creates objects from iron or steel by forging the metal; i.e., by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut. Blacksmiths produce things like wrought iron gates, grills, railings, light fixtures, furniture, sculpture, tools, agricultural implements, decorative and religious...
. The shaft and head were usually of one piece but sometimes reinforced at the top with an iron band. The third type was decorative in nature, usually short hafted and made of metal (one sixteenth century example being of steel and
damascenedDamascening is the art of inlaying different metals into one another-- typically, gold or silver into a darkly oxidized steel background-- to produce intricate patterns similar to niello...
with inlaid gold and silver, in the
Wallace CollectionThe Wallace Collection is a museum in London, with a world-famous range of fine and decorative arts from the 15th to the 19th centuries with large holdings of French 18th-century paintings, furniture, arms & armour, porcelain and Old Master paintings arranged into 25 galleries.It was established in...
of
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
).
Two impressive examples of the military type are housed in the museums of
ViennaVienna is the capital of the Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 10th largest city by...
, both from the sixteenth century. The first measures 2.35 m (7' 9") in length including the top spike which is 54 cm (21"). The head is a separate wooden cylinder slipped over the top of the shaft and reinforced with steel bands, with five metal spikes in symmetrical arrangement. The second example has an all steel head of complex craftsmanship with four V-shaped spikes mounted on a long shaft that measures slightly less than two meters in length. A twisted and braided steel bar joins the socket to the base of the top spike. There are also 183 surviving specimens in
GrazGraz , with a population of 291,574 as of 2009 , is the second-largest city in Austria after Vienna and the capital of the federal state of Styria....
, made in series and delivered to the arsenal in 1685. They are comparable in length to the previous examples and have three rows of spikes around the head. The wooden shafts of most morning stars of the military type are reinforced with metal langets extending down from the head. Still others can be found in the
SwissSwitzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 states named cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities...
arsenals of
LucerneLucerne is a city in Switzerland. It is the capital of the Canton of Lucerne and seat of the district with the same name. With a population of 57,890, Lucerne is the most populous city in Central Switzerland and a focal point of the region...
and
ZurichZürich or Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. The city is Switzerland's main commercial and cultural centre and sometimes called the Cultural Capital of Switzerland, the political capital of Switzerland being Berne...
.
These types of morning stars are also depicted in
medieval artThe medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art history in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa...
. For instance, one is shown being carried by an
armoredArmour or armor is protective covering used to prevent damage from being inflicted to an individual or a vehicle through use of direct contact weapons or projectiles, usually during combat...
knight or soldier in the Caesar
TapestriesTapestry is a form of textile art, woven on a vertical loom. It is composed of two sets of interlaced threads, those running parallel to the length and those parallel to the width ; the warp threads are set up under tension on a loom, and the weft thread is passed back and forth across part or...
in the Historical
MuseumA museum is a building or institution which houses a collection of artifacts.Museums collect and care for objects of scientific, artistic, or historical importance and make them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary...
of Bern, depicting
Julius Caesar'sGaius Julius Caesar , , was a Roman military and political leader. He played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
battle against the
GermanicThe Germanic peoples are a historical ethno-linguistic group, originating in Northern Europe and identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Common Germanic in the course of the Pre-Roman Iron Age...
leader
AriovistusAriovistus was a leader of the Suebi and other allied Germanic peoples in the second quarter of the 1st century BC. He and his followers took part in a war in Gaul, assisting the Arverni and Sequani to defeat their rivals the Aedui, and settled in large numbers in conquered Gallic territory in the...
. These tapestries were woven in
TournaiTournai is a Walloon city and municipality of Belgium located 85 kilometres southwest of Brussels, on the river Scheldt, in the province of Hainaut....
between 1465 and 1470, and taken as plunder from Charles the Bold after one of his defeats during the
Burgundian WarsThe Burgundian Wars were a conflict between the Dukes of Burgundy and the Kings of France, later involving the Old Swiss Confederacy, which would play a decisive role. Open war broke out in 1474, and in the following years, the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, was defeated thrice on the...
against the Swiss. In the poem
Le Chevalier Délibéré written by
Olivier de la MarcheOlivier de la Marche was a courtier, soldier, chronicler and poet in the last decades of the independent Duchy of Burgundy. He was close to Charles the Bold, and after his death held the important position of maître d'hotel to his daughter Mary of Burgundy, and her husband, and was sent on a...
and first published in 1486, there is an anonymous
woodcutWoodcut — formally known as xylography — is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
depicting a knight carrying a rather simple morning star with spikes mounted in an asymmetrical pattern as well as a flail equipped with a single spiked ball, known in German as a "
KettenmorgensternThe Military Flail or simply Flail is a weapon commonly attributed to the Middle-Ages but for which only a limited amount of historical evidence currently exists for most of this era. There is evidence for the long-handled flail as a weapon of war from Germany and Central Europe in the later Middle...
" (literally
chain-morningstar) which is technically a military flail.
Goedendag
The
Goedendag,
Godendac, or
Plançon, was a
FlemishFlanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France, and the Netherlands...
weapon which is often described in modern sources as similar to the morning star. However, this is a misconception; it was an infantry weapon in the form of a thick wooden shaft between 1.2 m to 1.8 m (4 and 6 feet) in length, slightly fluted toward the top, topped with a stout iron spike, mostly squared in diameter. The name itself is thought to be a sarcastic reference to the
revolt of Bruges in 1302The Bruges Matins or Brugse Metten was the nocturnal massacre of the French garrison in Bruges by the members of the local Flemish militia on 18 May, 1302. The title of the massacre was an analogy to the Sicilian Vespers. The massacre has been compared to the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre...
; as
Goedendag (or "Godendac" in the French account) is
DutchDutch is a West Germanic language spoken by over 22 million people as a native language, and over 5 million people as a second language.
"1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language...
for "Good Day", and the guildsmen of Bruges took over the city by greeting people in the streets, and murdering anyone who answered with a French accent. Most likely, all derivations of the name are spurious, as this name only happens once in a French account from shortly after the Battle of the Golden Spurs.
The weapon was used to great effect by the guildsmen of
Flanders'Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France, and the Netherlands...
wealthy cities against the
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
knights during the
Guldensporenslag or
Battle of the Golden SpursThe Battle of the Golden Spurs was fought on July 11, 1302, near Kortrijk in Flanders. The date of the battle is the official celebration day of the Flemish community in Belgium.-Background:...
or Courtrai on 11 July 1302. (Still now the celebration of the Flanders', Brabant's and Antwerp's independence.) It is depicted in the carvings on the Courtrai Chest (located within
New College, OxfordNew College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Its official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary", and is now almost always called "New College"...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
) being used against the French knights. There is also a now faded fresco in the main church of Ghent. These two pictorials are the only sources for the looks of the weapon. As to its use, speculation is rife.
Kelly DeVriesKelly DeVries is an American historian specializing in the warfare of the Middle Ages.DeVries is Professor of History at Loyola College in Maryland...
states in
Medieval Military Technology that it was used to spear horses or knights.
The thicker knob under the spike, a safeguard against the mount impaling himself and then go on running into the defenders on foot, served the same purpose as the cross barr on a boar-spear. The godendac was probably handled the same way: Set in the ground secured by the fighter's foot and aimed with both hands.
Once the rider was dismounted, the godendac itself or other clubs, maces, swords, knives, or whatever a guildman would have for a low-operating weapon, were used to crush skulls and bones or to pierce exposed flesh. The iron-ringed knob holding the spike was well suited as a club, hence this weapons confusion with the halberd, morgenstern or Zürcher hammer (a halberd with a hammer instead of an axe blade). The citizens' army consisted mostly of weavers and butchers, so heavy wood parts and all sorts of cutlery were abundant, whereas real weapons of war were not.
The Hammer of Zürich, halberd and morgenstern were expressly built for professional warriors, to rip a rider off his horse while he was charging or passing by. Such weapons were much more effective but also more expensive; they required greater craftmanship to make. They were the weapons of regular infantrymen. This is why the godendac saw limited service, used exclusively by the Flemish "burgers", while regular Flemish troops abandoned the weapon at the beginning of the fifteenth century.
Holy water sprinkler
The
holy waterIn Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Old Catholicism, Oriental Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and some other churches, holy water is water which has been sanctified by a priest or bishop for the purpose of baptism or for the blessing of persons, places, or things.Holy water is water that has been...
sprinkler (from its resemblance to the
aspergillumAn aspergillum is a liturgical implement used to sprinkle holy water. It comes in two common forms: a brush that is dipped in the water and shaken, and a perforated ball at the end of a short handle...
used in the
CatholicCatholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole...
MassThe Mass is the Eucharistic celebration in the Latin liturgical rites of the Catholic Church. The term is used also of similar celebrations in Old Catholic Churches, in the Anglo-Catholic tradition of Anglicanism, in many Lutheran Churches, and in a small amount of High Church Methodist parishes...
), or
goupillon in French, was a morning star popular with the English
armyAn army An army An army (from Latin armata "armed (things)" via Old French armée, "armed" (feminine), in the broadest sense, is the land-based Military of a nation. It may also include other branches of the military such as the air force via means of aviation corps...
from the sixteenth century and made in series by professional smiths. One such weapon can be found in the
Royal ArmouriesThe Royal Armouries is the United Kingdom's National Museum of Arms and Armour. It is the United Kingdom's oldest museum, and one of the oldest museums in the world. It is also one of the largest collections of arms and armour in the world, comprising of the UK's National Collection of Arms and...
and has an all steel head with six
flangeA flange is an external or internal rib, or rim , for strength, as the flange of an iron beam or I-beam ; or for a guide, as the flange of a train wheel; or for attachment to another object, as the flange on the end of a pipe, steam cylinder, etc, or on the lens mount of a camera...
s forming three spikes each, reminiscent of a mace but with a short thick spike of square cross section extending from the top. The wooden shaft is reinforced with four langets and the overall length of the weapon is 6' 2".
The term can also be used to describe a type of military
flailThe Military Flail or simply Flail is a weapon commonly attributed to the Middle-Ages but for which only a limited amount of historical evidence currently exists for most of this era. There is evidence for the long-handled flail as a weapon of war from Germany and Central Europe in the later Middle...
. Rather than a
steelSteel is an alloy consisting mostly of iron, with a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most cost-effective alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
ball on the end of a chain, however, it features a short
ironIron is a metallic chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. Iron is a group 8 and period 4 element and is therefore classified as a transition metal. Iron and iron alloys are by far the most common metals and the most common ferromagnetic materials in everyday use...
bar covered in sharp spines. It was (according to popular legend) the favored weapon of King John of Bohemia, who was blind, and used to simply lay about himself on all sides, as one does not need to see one's opponent. It is easy enough to just "flail" until hitting something.