Tag Archives: weapons

Maintaining Gaffneyis Gear

We took four of colgaffneyis polearms (3 pikes and a partisan) to Fort William and back last weekend. You can see how they traveled here.These take a lot of abuse at our events. The heads are always getting rusty. The shafts have not received any maintenance in 5 years to my certain knowledge, and I suspect much longer. The problem was similar to that of rehabbing old tools, which I often done before (e.g. these posts). However, there was an issue of scale. The partisan is 6 feet long. Two of the pikes measure 10 feet, and the third 14. Continue reading

Nasty, brutish and not that short

Medieval warfare was just as terrifying as you might imagine

The soldier now known as Towton 25 had survived battle before. A healed skull fracture points to previous engagements. He was old enough—somewhere between 36 and 45 when he died—to have gained plenty of experience of fighting. But on March 29th 1461, his luck ran out.