Details

LOT 1425

Iron Spiked Macehead

CIRCA 16TH-17TH CENTURY A.D.

3 1/2 in. (829 grams, 89 mm).

Comprising a globular flail head with large suspension loop above and sixteen spiked projections to the sides. [No Reserve]

Provenance

From a collection acquired on the UK art market from various auction houses and collections mostly before 2000.
From an important Cambridgeshire estate; thence by descent.

Literature

See Sturtevant, P.B., The military flail, in Medieval Warfare, January/February 2017, Vol.6, No.6, pp.50-53, for discussion.

Footnotes

The medieval flail was a weapon mainly used in Eastern Europe, probably created among the Steppe people and used by the Mongols, adopted by the Slavic people under the name of kisten. Such a weapon probably saw little use in Western Europe, where it is first represented in the 14th century in a fresco depicting the battle of Nineveh painted by Piero della Francesca, as a chain with three maceheads. In the poem Le Chevalier Délibéré written by Olivier de la Marche and published in 1486, there is an engraving representing a knight carrying a rather simple morning star with asymmetrically mounted quills and a single-ball flail of quills. It is thought that in the Middle Ages the nailed mace in general was used to break through and dismantle the armour of enemies who were then 'finished' with swords or daggers.