LANDSKNECHT PIKE

[Matchlock]

Hi Samik,


Hearing of you has become so rare - thank you!


To your queries:

Sadly I do not have any statistics on the original length of the pole arms you asked. We should go to Vienna and measure some fine and originally preserved Hapsburg pieces there - they won't do it for us!

When comparing the relative lengths of such arms in original Maximilian illustrations, though, both the pig and boar spears seem to have been significantly longer than their bearer in those days - which of course I realize is v e r y relative ...

As to Swiss and Austrian/Maximilian pikes / Langspiesse in the 15th and 16th century, they were considerably longer. In my thread

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7123,

I quoted that the given length of the vessel for boiling the ash hafts for first-half to mid-16th c. Swiss infantry long pikes was 18 'Schuch' (ft). in 1554. We know that these raw anatomic stats greatly varied from country to country, and even from town to town, even as late the 18th century, when, e.g., a Prussian foot was 25.0 cm but a Saxon foot was 42.95 cm!

As I stated in my former post, we may safely assume that 15th/16th c. infantry long pikes/Langspiesse measured ca. 5 m in average. My two Hapsburg/Salzburg pikes from the mid-16th century measure 4.51 and 4.6 m respectively, and they may have been somewhat shortened. The longest pike I have ever measured, from the first half of the 61th c., is preserved in the Fortress of Coburg/Bavaria, and its lavishly knobbed ash haft is the original. This pike measures ca. 6 m in length! I will try and get images.


Sorry for not being able to more precise ...

Cheers, and best,
Michael