Ed Ranks Medieval Melee Weapons

 So medieval warriors killing each other is fun. Let's rank the fun-ness of melee killing weapons that they used. HUZZAH!!!

10. Club

Hit you with me Shillelagh, I will! A-hehehehe!

 I mean this one isn't only a "Medieval" weapon. It's also a cave man weapon. And a 19th-Century Irish Cop weapon (especially if you call it a "billy club" or something like that). And a modern weapon. You can find a club anywhere, pretty much. It's a pretty lazy weapon. I'm not that impressed.

9. Quarterstaff

Medieval Pimps, presumably.

Not quite as lazy as a club, but still basically just a stick. Still, it's a long stick. The people who use them also use all sorts of whirls and cool techniques. At least they do in the movies. I'm sure in real medieval warfare, the only people who used these were the super poor warriors who didn't have anything else. They probably were not trained to do all of that spinning Darth Maul stuff. They probably just hit people with it. Hard.  Although, if they came up to an opponent with any of the below weapons... they'd be done for.

8. Spear-Based Polearm

Glaives, my man. GLAIVES!

Okay, so this category is a little vague.  The term "polearm" itself is a little vague, and there is a lot of wiggle room for what exactly polearms include.  For this category, I'm essentially including all long, pole-like weapons which were primary used in a "stabby" fashion or for impaling.  This includes spears, lances, poles, partisans, etc.  I'm not ranking these that high because they're sort of just "meh." Sure, lances were cool in tournaments. But in a real battle, you'd probably want to get yourself something better than just a long stabbing stick.

7. Poleaxe-Type Weapon

Oh hell yeah. This will do some damage!

This is the other half of the Polearms.  In contrast to the above "stabby" polearms, I'd define these as the "slicy" polearms, e.g. instead of trying to impale someone with these long weapons on poles, instead you treat the weapon more like a long axe and cut.  This category includes bardiches, halberds, glaives, war scythes, etc.  Again, I know this is somewhat difficult to define, especially as many types of polearms are merged designes that include both "stabby" and "slicy" bits so you can do either.  However, if the weapon includes BOTH stabby and slicy, I'm going to categorize it as a slicy-type, and hence as this slightly cooler "poleaxe" melee weapon. Ranking this down at #7 does not mean I think that it's not cool.  Poleaxes are SWEET AS HELL.  It's just that the six weapons below are EVEN SWEETER.

6. War Hammer / Maul

This looks like a pleasant afternoon.

A big hammer that you fuck someone up with. This is awesome. Sometimes it's literally just a huge hammer that you bash people with, like Thor has. But most of the time, it's half-hammer with a blunt end and half-stabby with a sharpened pick end.  Both are super-duper cool as hell.

5. Sword

He looks generally sorry for stabbing that poor bastard.

You might think I'm ranking this surprisingly low. Swords are great and all. But a bit basic.  Besides, there are so many types of cool swords, I might just save further sword discussion to a totally seperate "Ed Ranks Swords" ranking. Yeah. I pretty much have to do that now. Swords rock, however you'll soon see what my particular sick medieval melee killing fetish is. Oh yes you will.

4. Battle Axe

Well, time to hack someone in half!

There is probably a little bit of a crossover between poleaxes and battle axes, but for purposes of my general classification, battle axes have shorter poles/handles and are more for general cleaving by cool-ass dudes spinning around all agile, like. I think of the people with the longer pole-axes being less mobile warriors. I've seen some definitions saying that anything with a pole/handle under 1.5 meters would be a "battle axe" while over would turn it into a poleaxe. Sure, that works for me.

3. Mace

Each and every one of these... awesome! COLLECT THEM ALL.

To some, a mace is just a fancy club that's more metal-based than wood (although the bludgeoning head itself isn't necessarily metal, and could also sometimes be stone or bone). The heads typically include flanges or knobs, which do much better at absolutely destroying whatever it is being bashed into (plate armor, skulls, ribs, arms, you know... all that good stuff).  Something about taking the basic concept of a club ("me hit you with stick") and fashioning it into an elegant, metal bludgeon is so appealing to me.

2. Flail

It was either this... or...

...This! But most likely, it was both.

Okay, this whole "flail" thing is surprisingly controversial. You might think of a flail as the "ball-and-chain" thing, where you hold onto a small wooden stick with one hand... which is connected to a chain...and connected to the other end is a metal ball (typically spiked). One would, hypothetically, swing this thing around and use mechanical advantage to absolutely DESTROY someone with this. Basically the concept is that it would be a metal whip with a mace's head on the end of it. Is this cool as fuck? Hell yes it is, my friends. Hell yes it is. Did it actually exist though? There isn't universal agreement. Many ball-and-chain flails that we often think of from museums wound up being more modern forgeries, leading some to believe they didn't exist at all, and were simply an imaginative weapon created later. Instead, the actual common "flail" weapon appears to be a two-handed weapon with a very short chain of a link or two connected to a long, cylindrical head that's more of a metal "bar" than a ball. This being "the" medieval flail would make sense, as the weapon we call "flail" is really named after a farming tool with the same name designed for threshing grain, and which looks like what this version of the weapon is.  Still, people who are "pro ball-and-chain" point to artwork that shows ball-and-chain flail-like weapons as proof they were real medieval weapons.  Although in fairness, just because something is depicted in art doesn't mean that it's real. Just imagine how horrible it would be if all the stuff Hieronymus Bosch painted was real.  In the end, enough sources have been found to prove that the ball-and-chain-type flail probably existed too, although was not as common as we think it was. I personally think that BOTH versions of this weapon called "flail" are hyper awesome though. So here it is, ranked at #2!

1. Morning Star 

I'd much rather have this than a sword. WHEEEEEEEE!

So this is it, the ultimate super sweet and badass medieval melee weapon.  Is it strange that I basically lumped all poleaxes and polearms and swords and axes into singular categories and said stuff like "eh, a halberd and a glaive are basically the same thing," meanwhile I differentiate a "mace" from a "morning star?" Maybe. Some could probably argue that a morning star is basically a "mace with spikes." I suppose that's true. Yet, I would counter the fact that there are spikes, totally changes what the weapon is and how you use it in battle. Yeah, sure, it's still essentially a weapon you bludgeon people to death with - but it's also stabby too! I will take the bold stance that spike head and a knob or flange head are inherently different melee damaging systems. I've also seen arguments that the morning star isn't even the weapon itself, but is just the "add on" to the weapon to make it more deadly - sort of like putting a bayonet on a rifle. With this arguement, either the mace or the flail can be "upgraded" to "morning star" status by having it's head replaced with a spiked ball or spiked bar. Ehhh. Maybe. Sounds complicated though. I'm just going to go ahead and say that the thing in this damn picture here is what a morning star is, and that a morning star is THE BEST.