| |
The head formed of a wide,
convex-edged axe blade extending rearward to a downward-curving fluke, the
junction between blade and fluke with scallop-cut edges, and a flat,
leaf-shaped spike, all upon a socket with long shaft langets. The head, except
the langets, decorated overall in blueing and gilding, the decoration
incorporating the Arms of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, a coroneted oval
enclosing the cypher LR, and foliate tracery. The base of the head bound with
gold lace strips from which depend green and yellow silk fringes. The wooden
shaft fitted with an iron base spike.
Overall length 109”, width of
head 13”.
In 1717, Ludwig Rudolf of
Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel was aged 46 and was the heir apparent to the duchy
of which his father, Duke Anton Ulrich (1633-1714) had been duke and to which
his elder brother, August Wilhelm, had succeeded three years before. He had his
own court and his own bodyguard: halberds such as this flamboyant example would
have been carried by staff officers of that bodyguard. By the early eighteenth
century the use of staff weapons or polearms on the battlefield was, while in
slow decline, still current. The spontoon, or half pike, was still carried by
junior officers of Foot but the halberd was the international symbol of the
sergeant, that most reliable and ubiquitous of non-commissioned officers. The
halberd was also an universal symbol of punishment: to be sent “to the
halberds”, meaning to be sent for a flogging - the least unpleasant of
many very unpleasant forms of military punishment exercised in European armies
at the time. For a flogging, three halberds would be bound in an upright
triangle, with a fourth tied horizontally across at chest height; the soldier
sentenced to be flogged would have his wrists tied to the horizontal halberd,
the triangle of halberds being often the last thing that a soldier in the midst
of a flogging would see before insensibility released him from his agony.
Halberds retained a battlefield use
until the middle years of the century, being used by sergeants to straighten
the ranks from which rolling volleys of musketry would issue on command. In a
mêlée with cavalry, the halberd in the hands of an experienced
non-commissioned officer could create havoc, hamstringing horses, unseating
riders and dispatching floored enemies with bloody ease. The parade halberd was
ubiquitous in the Courts of Europe at the time when this example was made, some
sovereigns and rulers having bodyguards equipped only with halberds. Most
parade halberds followed the style of this fine example, the cypher, or
initials of the ruler - or of the owner of the body to be guarded - appearing
on the blade, together with his personal heraldry. Most parade halberds were
fitted, as this example is, with richly decorative silk and gold tassels but
few of these survive in the superb condition shown here. While halberds
continue to be carried by the bodyguards of sovereigns on State occasions
today, they are now a symbol of sovereignty that is truly antique. When our
example was made, there were soldiers fighting with, and dying by, halberds
that looked little different from this parade version of its ancestor, the
medieval fighting axe.
Image reproduced by courtesy of Peter
Finer |
|
