Frankish Winged Spear

Origins

The spear was the most common weapon of the Franks, as it was of most early medieval peoples. It was cheap, simple to make and useful to any man who could hold a shield. Earlier Frankish warriors had used a light throwing spear called the angon alongside the Frankish Francisca, a throwing axe. By the seventh century a new kind of spearhead began to appear in graves in the Rhineland and neighboring regions. It had two short projections sticking out from the sides of the socket, just below the blade. German archaeologists call it the Flügellanze, the winged lance. During the eighth and ninth centuries it became the characteristic spear of the Carolingian Franks, the dynasty founded by Charles Martel's family. Much of the evidence for Charles's own time is thin, because the custom of burying men with their weapons was dying out in the eighth century.

Design & Construction

The head was forged from iron and usually had a long, leaf-shaped or lozenge-shaped blade on a tapering socket. The wings were forged as part of the socket or welded to it. Heads vary a great deal in size, but many are roughly 30 to 50 centimeters (12 to 20 inches) long. Some better examples have blades made by pattern-welding or sockets decorated with inlaid silver or brass. The head was fixed to a wooden shaft, probably often of ash, with rivets or nails through the socket. Shafts rarely survive, and their length is estimated from graves and pictures at around two meters or a little more. The purpose of the wings is debated. They may have stopped the spear from sinking too deep into a man or animal, so that it could be pulled out quickly, as on a boar spear. They could also be used to catch or push aside an enemy's blade, or to hook the rim of a shield. Pictures of the ninth century, such as the Golden Psalter of St Gall, show Frankish horsemen carrying winged spears, some with small flags below the head.

Combat Use

At the Battle of Tours in 732 the army of Charles Martel stood in a dense formation, largely or entirely on foot, and held off repeated attacks by the Muslim cavalry. The written accounts do not describe the Franks' weapons, but graves, laws and later pictures make it clear that the spear and shield were the basic equipment of the Frankish fighting man, with the winged spear coming into wide use at about this time. Under Pippin and Charlemagne the Carolingian armies used it in campaigns against Lombards, Saxons, Avars and the Muslims of Spain. Royal decrees ordered men called up for campaign to come with proper arms, and in 805 Charlemagne forbade merchants to sell weapons and mail to the Slavs and Avars. Frankish weapons still reached the north through trade and plunder, and winged spearheads have been found across Scandinavia from the Viking Age.

Legacy

Scandinavian smiths copied the type, and winged heads appear among the forms of the Viking Spear. The most famous winged spear is the Holy Lance kept in the Imperial Treasury in Vienna, a Carolingian-type head of about the eighth century that later served as one of the insignia of the Holy Roman emperors. In later centuries the heavy cavalry of Europe moved to longer, plainer lances held under the arm, leading to the Knight's Lance. The idea of a crossbar or lugs below the blade lived on in the boar spear and in some infantry pole-arms of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. For the Franks of France and the Rhineland, the winged spear marks the age in which their kingdom grew into an empire.