Morning star (weapon)

A morning star is any of several medieval club-like weapons that included one or more spikes. Each used, to varying degrees, a combination of blunt-force and puncture attack to kill or wound the enemy.

The morning star is a medieval weapon consisting of a spiked club resembling a mace, usually with a long spike extending straight from the top and many smaller spikes around the particle of the head. The spikes distinguish it from a mace, which can have, at most, flanges or small knobs. It was used by both infantry and cavalry; the horseman's weapon had a shorter shaft. The mace was a traditional knightly weapon that developed somewhat independently; as the mace transitioned to being constructed entirely of metal, the morning star retained its characteristic wooden shaft. Many surviving morning stars are of a longer two-handed form typically six feet in length, with some longer examples. The morning star first came into widespread use around the beginning of the fourteenth century, particularly in Germany where it was known as Morgenstern. The term is often confused with the military flail (fléau d'armes in French and Kriegsflegel in German), which consists of a wooden shaft joined by a length of chain to one or more iron-shod wooden bars (heavy sword pommels have also been used as weights). However, there are few depictions of such a ball-and-chain flail from the period, so the weapon of this type appears to have been uncommon.

There were three types in existence, all differing in quality of workmanship. The first was the well crafted military type used by professional soldiers, made in series by expert weaponsmiths for stocking in town arsenals. The second and much simpler type would have been hand cut by peasant militia men, rather than turned on a lathe, from wood they had gathered themselves and fitted with nails and spikes by the local blacksmith. The shaft and head were usually of one piece but sometimes reinforced at the top with an iron band. The third type was decorative in nature, usually short hafted and made of metal, one sixteenth century example being of steel and damascened with inlaid gold and silver, in the Wallace Collection of London.

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