_The Guisarme._--This may be claimed with all confidence to be one of the most ancient of weapons, as its first inception occurred in the Bronze Period, and from that remote age down to the seventeenth century it was more or less in evidence (Fig. 428). It terminated generally in an extremely strong and sharp point; the two sides were approximately parallel, and both brought to a keen and almost razor-like edge, while a short way down the blade a hook was fashioned. During the Mediæval Period, when it was known by the name of the fauchard, an agitation for its abolition occurred in consequence of the deadly and ghastly nature of the wounds inflicted by this weapon. There are many forms, and additions of various hooks and spikes occur in varieties of the guisarme; the point also was at times modified, and instead of being straight partook more of the form of the curved bill-hook of modern times. The blade lent itself to elaborate ornamentation, and many examples of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries exhibit splendid specimens of the work of the engraver. It was used in England as late as the battle of Flodden (Fig. 429). [Illustration: FIG. 429.--1. Pole-axe. 2. Fauchard (guisarme). 3. Halberd. 4. Glaive, 1550.] _The Pole-Axe._--The battle-axe and the pole-axe may be claimed as one and the same weapon, simply differing in the length of the shaft, which necessitated the use of both hands in the case of the pole-axe, whereas one was sufficient for the other. It is essentially a weapon of the northern nations of Europe, and in its primitive form was the flint axe of the Stone Age, subsequently fashioned in bronze in the succeeding period. The form was as a rule very simple from the Saxon Period to the fourteenth century, consisting merely of an axe-blade upon one side balanced by a spike upon the other; in that century and also in the following it became one of the most important weapons of war, and saw many alterations and modifications. The blade, for example, became enormously lengthened, broadened, and flattened, and the spike occasionally became lance-shaped, or falcon-beaked, like a military pick, while the head of the shaft developed into a spike or a short, double-edged sword-blade. In the fifteenth century it became the favourite weapon for encounters on foot, when the pole was furnished with one or two guards for the hands, and was strengthened with iron splints; the lateral spike developed into the shape of a war-hammer having a broad head furnished with rows of pyramidal studs or spikes, the vertical blade at the head being retained. The earliest preserved in the Wallace Collection dates from _c._ 1350, and is similar in form to a pole-axe delineated in Roy. MS. 16, G. VI., which shows a straight cutting blade rectangular at the base, and with the top edge forming an acute angle with the cutting edge. Another, of date _c._ 1420, has a strong semi-circular axe-blade balanced by a hammer with pyramidal