Billhook

[DemonArchangel]

could someone name me a medieval battle where the billhook played a prominent role?

[econ21]

Good question - I have not found much mention of billmen in my reading around this period, but I think the habit of the day was to emphasis the role of the higher status troops like knights. In Heath's book Armies of the Middle Ages, he mentions one of their earliest appearances was at Formigny, 1450, but they can't have made a big contribution to the extent that the English lost. Heath says there were around 25% of the infantry in the War of the Roses, the balance being archers, and were present in thousands at the climatic Battle of Bosworth.

[Hakonarson]

I think it was at the battle of Pinkie that English Bills met Scots armoured pikement - I recall reading somewhere that the front ranks of hte Scots were nobles in heavy arour and it was reported that longbow arrows bounced off and bills couldn't penetrate them either.

The effect of infantry weapons is rarely mentioned in batle reports unless something exceptional happens, but bills were an important part of all English armies during the later stages of the 100 yrs war (1410-1420-ish onwards) and for another 100 yrs after that.

[Efrem Da King]

Any battle in the wars of the roses, bills were the main infantry weapon in all of these.

[econ21]

I did a google search last night on "medieval warfare training" or some such and early on it through up an interesting link on the Battle Of Towton, apparently a climatic encounter in the War of the Roses. I don't have the link right now, but basically academics - IIRC from University of Bradford - examined the bones from the dead (who numbered 20,000+ apparently) and found most had very nasty head wounds they thought most likely to come from polearms. Given what Hakonarson has said, these may have been heavier polearms than bills, eg halberds, I don't know.

The article was interesting in other regards too - the fighters appeared more brawny than most medieval populations. It was suggest they were drawn from a fairly well fed warrior class, perhaps selected from the physically stronger at youth and practiced from a young age - kind of like modern athletes.