Why Polearms Dominated Medieval Battlefields Over Swords

Key facts

• Polearms required less metal and skill to produce than swords; a spearhead could weigh a quarter of an arming sword's 0.5 kg blade.
• Training recruits to use a spear took days, enabling quick drafting of peasant levies.
• Polearms offered longer reach and greater kinetic energy than swords.
• The entire haft was a grippable surface, allowing length adjustment for close combat.
• Lighter spears could be paired with shields, common in the Early Medieval period.
• From the 14th century, polearms evolved with axeheads, hammers, and blades to counter plate armor.
• Formation tactics like the Spartan phalanx, Swiss pike square, and Scottish schiltron used dense spear walls.
• Manuals by Joachim Meyer, Fiore de'i Liberi, and La Jeu de la Hache document polearm wrestling techniques.
• Leopold V captured Richard I for 100,000 marks of silver (approx. $3 billion today).
• Braced spears deterred cavalry charges; hooked weapons like the English billhook could unseat riders.
• In China, the spear (qiang) is called the 'king of weapons'; the guandao was wielded by Guan Yu.
• In Japan, the naginata was standard infantry weapon in Heian and Kamakura periods, later replaced by the yari.