Hip (weapon)
| Hip (weapon) | |
|---|---|
|
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| Information | |
| Weapon type: | Cutting weapon |
| Designations: | Hip, Kriegshippe, Kriegsheppe, Bill hook, Roncola |
| Use: | weapon |
| Creation time: | middle Ages |
| Working time: | Early Middle Ages to the 18th century |
| Region of origin / author: |
Europe , peasant armies |
| Distribution: | Europe |
| Overall length: | up to 270 cm |
| Handle: | Wood |
| Lists on the subject | |
The Hippe is a European, medieval polearm of the infantry and arose from the forestry tool Hippe , which is used to cut branches from tree trunks. The bearers of the weapon are called hip bearers.
Description and use
Derived from the tool of the same name, the hip has a curved cutting blade that is mounted on a wooden shaft. The shape is reminiscent of a hook and was therefore called bill hook in English . There were many varieties of the hip. English hips were relatively short and had a wide cutting blade, while Italian hips ( roncola ) had long shafts. The English made a distinction between different variants such as the black , brown and forest bills . The differences between them are not fully understood to this day.
George Silver , an English fencing book author , wrote in 1599 that the (military) black bill (black hip) should be five or six feet long , while the (possibly civil) forest bill ( forest bill ) or Forst-Hippe) should be eight to nine feet (approx. 2.70 m) long.
One advantage it had over other polearms was that it had the man-stopping power of a spear and the power of a battle ax . If hippopotamuses in battle with cavalry couldn't kill the horse or get the rider off the horse with the sheer force of a blow, the hipster was ideally suited to using a weak point in the opponent's plate armor to eliminate him. This property also made them effective against heavily armored infantry. The hip, like a halberd with a punch , could pierce plate armor or helmets with the point of a hook.
history
The hip was first used militarily by Vikings and Anglo-Saxons in the Viking Age . The hip was used continuously until the 16th century and occasionally until the late 18th century. In addition to the longbow, it was an English national weapon, but it was also popular in Italy . The hip resembles the halberd in terms of function, occurrence and size. English terms for military Hippe were English bill , bill hook or bill- Guisarme .
During the 16th century, when most of the European countries used the pike and arquebus , the English preferred to fight with longbows and hips. The Battle of Flodden Field in 1513 was a classic exchange of blows between Scots pike formations and English hippopotamus (English Billmen ).
Aside from the pike, the hip was one of the main weapons used by the Irish rebels in Ulster during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 .
literature
- Auguste Demmin : The historical development of war weapons from the Stone Age to the invention of the needle gun. A handbook of armory. Seemann, Leipzig 1869.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ George Silver - Paradoxes of Defense (1599)
- ↑ a b Auguste Demmin : Die Kriegswaffen , pages 453 ff.
- ^ AT Q Stewart: The Summer Soldiers. The 1798 rebellion in Antrim and Down. The Blackstaff Press, Belfast 1995, ISBN 0-85640-558-2 , p. 215.