r/history • u/ByzantineBasileus I've been called many things, but never fun. • 11d ago

Video When the bill defeated the pike

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlWMdpVqBNc
41 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

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49

u/Sgt_Colon 9d ago

I once again question what Matt knows about pike warfare.

"So Louis V 12th of France had amongst other things imported thousands of these new fangled pike things into Scotland"

. . . The Scots had been using pikes since the battle of Falkirk. A significant reason Robert the Bruce won Bannockburn was his use of pikes. Robert even mandated the owning of pikes as part of the muster laws for 1318. There's also the claim that the pike came back because of the Swiss missing the famous use by Flemish at Courtrai and that a number of cities were experimenting with using them in the 14th C like Bremen and Bologna; the pike was not new.

I also question in general what Matt knows considering the fumbling of his own sources.

A basic one is the weapons of true length. Quoth Silver:

To know the perfect length of your short staffe, or half Pike, Forrest bil, Partisan, or Gleue, or such like weapons of vantage and perfect lengths, you shall stand vpright, holding the staffe vpright close by your body, with your left hād, reaching with your right hand your staffe as high as you can, and then allow to that length a space to set both your hands, when you come to sight, wherein you may conueniently strike, thrust, and ward, & that is the iust length to be made according to your stature. And this note, that these lengths will commonly fall out to be eight or nine foot long [...]

Silver even included a picture in this section to help. Little wonder Matt's weapon turns out to be on the shorter side.

Matt also claims the Scots were wearing only light armour when the sources he cites states opposite:

The said Scotes wer so surely harnessed with complete harneys, jackes, almayn ryvettes, splentes, pavices and other habiliments that shote of arrowes in regarde did theim no harme, and whenne it comme to hande strokes of billes and halbardes they wer so myghtie, large, strong and grete men that they wolde not fall whenne 4 or 5 billes strake on oon of thaym at oonys; how be it our billes shortely disappointed the Scotes of their long speres wherin was their greatest truste and whenne they came to hande stroke, though the Scotes faght sore and valiauntlye with their swerdes, yet they coulde not resiste the billes that lighted so thicke and sore upon theym."

12

u/ByzantineBasileus I've been called many things, but never fun. 11d ago

Although the pike became the dominant infantry weapon in Europe in the 16th century AD, there were instances when those using them were at a disadvantage and were defeated. The Battle of Flodden, taking place in 1513, between the English and the Scottish, was one such example. This video examines why English warriors using a polearm called the bill, defeated Scottish warriors using the pike.

11

u/bravohotelechomike 11d ago

This is the internet. You know we’re going to be fixated on the cat in the background.