BILL HOOK. (educational)

hello and welcome to my educational blog post on medieval war history. probably the first of many.

for some historical context... the bill hook was used all the time in england in the medieval era, but not originally as a weapon. it was originally made for cutting down tree branches, but then the military decided to adapt them into weapons by throwing a couple more blades on em. soon enough pretty much everyone had one. now, you may be wondering... why the fuck would the english military use a modified agricultural tool for most of their melee combat? well.. i will tell you.

plate armor was getting more mainstream across europe, so new types of weaponry were suddenly needed. their spears weren't doing jack shit to full chest plates. buuuuttttt the bill hook's got a bunch of those curved blade things on it. also the main central blade functions more like an axe than a sword. that means it was sorta the perfect type of weapon to use against the newer armor structures. oh and the hooks on the back were used to yank ppl off balance and knock them down. just for when the soldiers felt like pranking.

setting the scene right now... it's 1513 in flodden field, and scotland has declared war on henry viii's england. the scottish are armed with pikes, but the rain and mud gives them a disadvantage in their formation. seeing this, the english do THE MOST GOATED shit possible. they go up to the scots and use their bill hooks to chop off all the pike spearpoints like asparagus. just straight up chopping their weapons in half. and.. that was the last ever battle between pikes and bill hooks.

this has been educational blog post #1; thanks for tuning in.