‘A Desperat Wepon’: Re-Hafted Scythes at Sedgemoor, in Warfare and at the Tower of London

Abstract

The Royal Armouries possesses two scythe blades of pre-mechanised manufacture, mounted axially on straight hafts to form weapons. An inventory of 1686 lists eighty-one scythe blades at the Tower of London (by 1694 described as booty captured from the Duke of Monmouth’s rebels at Sedgemoor) and the surviving pair was probably among them. The Duke’s shortage of standard-issue equipment made improvisation essential, and the choice of re-hafted scythe blades owed to their widespread, well known and effective use by irregular forces in Britain and Europe since the late Middle Ages. Monmouth’s ‘sithmen’, some hundreds strong, took part in skirmishes and in the battle of Sedgemoor itself. Of interest to the Tower authorities as curiosities and for their propaganda value, the scythe blades were displayed, in diminishing numbers, from the seventeenth until the nineteenth century, and these two until the 1990s. In the future they will be displayed again, representing Monmouth’s rebels and countless others, and a weapon type that deserves a greater level of study and recognition.

Fantastic Flails and Where to Find Them: The Body of Evidence for the Existence of Flails in the Early and High Medieval Eras in Western, Central, and Southern Europe

“…As long, unwieldy, two-handed weapons, these are nearly always depicted being used by infantry, with several "fight manuals", such as works of the Germans Hans Talhoffer (MS Thott 290 2o, 1459; see https://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Talhoffer_Fechtbuch_(MS_Thott.290.2% C2%BA), accessed on 25 October 2023) (Hull 2007;Talaga and Ridgeway 2020;Aveyard et al 2014;Grant 2020), and Paulus Hector Mair (mid-16th century, e.g., Amplissimum de Arte Athletica (Cod.icon. 393); see https://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Opus_Amplissimum_ de_Arte_Athletica_(Cod.icon._393), accessed on 25 October 2023) (Impey 2019;Moreno 2015) and a number of Spanish sources (Ortiz 2016) detailing their use alongside a plethora of other period weaponry (Tzouriadis and Deacon 2020). Flails of various types were also popular in Switzerland during the late medieval period (Carey et al 2006).…”