This archival source document of the Middle Ages and Renaissance describes the development, manufacture and use of European staff weapons and provides new information using existing objects and archival material. Their effect on the modern map of Europe is discussed.

Hono sapiens, homo pugnans, and so it has been since the beginning of recorded history. In the Middle Ages, especially, armed conflict and the military life were so much a part of the political and cultural development that a general account of this period is, in large measure, a description of how men went to war.