Lucerne hammer

The Lucerne hammer (/luˈsɜːrn/ loo-SURN) is a polearm that combines a multi-pronged hammer, a long rear spike (bec or beak) and an even longer top spike. It was carried chiefly by the civic and cantonal forces of the Old Swiss Confederacy from the late 15th through the 17th centuries and takes its modern name from the large concentration of surviving examples found in the armoury of Lucerne.

During the 14th century, Swiss infantry favoured the poleaxe or fussstreithammer, a polearm with a short spike and a three- or four-pronged hammer face. Toward the 1470s, smiths in central Switzerland lengthened the rear beak and split the hammer into four parallel prongs, creating the form now called the Lucerne hammer. It is consequently considered a later development of the bec de corbin by some scholars, though its classification and typology are the focus of debate.

Contemporary records simply call the weapon die Hamer or mordaxt in German, and la hache in French inventories; Lucerne hammer is a modern label that distinguished the four-pronged Swiss pattern from earlier poleaxes, having been coined by 19th-century arms collector J. Meyer-Bielmann in 1869. Although now often classed as a type of poleaxe, the Lucerne hammer lacks a bladed edge and in place of the curved beak. It is mechanically akin to the earlier Italian martello d'arme (war hammer) and to the German fussstreithammer, combining blunt and percussive elements.

Much like the bec de corbin, examples are about 1.5 m (4.9 ft) long overall. The steel head is fastened by two or four langets and side-lugs and made up of:

Several armouries stamped an "L" or a cantonal coat of arms on the domed collar beneath the hammer. Nidwalden and Bern kept sizeable stocks, but surviving numbers are small compared to Swiss halberds.

The weapon was wielded two-handed. Manuals such as Le Jeu de la Hache (c. 1400) and Hans Talhoffer's Fechtbuch (1467) treat the long-shafted hammer and poleaxe as premier knightly arms for foot combat, emphasising:

Swiss civic guards continued to carry Lucerne hammers on watch, at executions, and in escort duty into the 17th century, long after the weapon had left the battlefield.

Within the historical European martial arts community, the Lucerne hammer is treated as the armoured-combat poleaxe taught in Le Jeu de la Hache: practitioners drill thrusts with the long spike, percussive strikes with the four-pronged head and hooking pulls with the rear beak. Because of the weapon’s mass and injury risk, most schools confine work to technical sequences in full armour; free sparring is rare. Training relies on specialised simulators: rubber-headed polehammers predominate for safety, while wooden or blunted-steel versions are chosen when authentic weight and balance are required. The poleaxe set is now a standard element of advanced HEMA curricula and features regularly at European and North American events.