Weapons In The Renaissance

Warfare and weaponry have been a key part of development and power for areas of the world for years, and has affected, and decided the fate of the world for years on end. Without warfare and weaponry there would be a lack of advancement, and culture. The Renaissance alone was already influential, and had affected the world today through many subjects such as art, religion, mathematics, science, and much more. People tend to forget how much warfare and weaponry advancements happened during the Renaissance. Renaissance warfare notably influenced the old English when it comes to weaponry. The Renaissance had developed more powerful and useful weapons, more strategized methods of warfare, and had involved many areas of the world through weaponry.

Many of the weapons used during the Renaissance took a toll on the type of weapons in use today. The most common weapons used during the Renaissance included and are put into groups such as swords, daggers and knives, blunt hand weapons, polearms, ranged weapons, artillery, and other siege weapons. If someone were to look at weapons such as ranged weapons like bows, crossbows, and other weapons such as cannons and trebuchets, and also daggers and knives,they would see that many of these weapons are still around and used today. The use of knives is still seen very commonly in the military, and sadly in everyday life too, because of the reason that knives are so easily obtained . It is also noticed that knives are used a large amount of use during wars that helped to shape the United States itself. It is found that at numerous times that knives were shaped and built to fit on the end of a rifle. These knives are known as bayonets, and were very important and highly common to and during warfare for centuries, and are still somewhat used today. Cannons were used for an extremely long time during warfare, if the reader looks into American history many instances of seeing cannons pop up. Famous American wars that were very well known for the use of cannons and bayonets are The Civil War, and the Revolutionary War. These two wars were named because, look at how popular and what a huge strike cannons had during this war, you could probably even say that without cannons or bayonets the outcome of these wars could have been entirely different.
During the Renaissance there were many important wars that helped, shaped, and decided the fate of many countries and /regions.

Wars such as the Hundred Years War. The Hundred Years War was a war that took place for the control of France. This war was based on a conflict between king Edward III from England and King Philip VI from France. The English armies during the ‘Hundred Years War” were small compared to the size of modern military army size. Henry V had around 7,000 soldiers and castillon around 6,000 at Agincourt. Both sides developed their forces primarily by voluntary recruitment. They were also organized mainly by noble leaders who set it up contracts for their knights, esquires, and archers. These contracts consisted of a certain wage or “pay” and a length of service. This length of service could be extended in the near future (Keen,Maurice BBC) This setup can be related to how sports teams sign one year contracts to their players, the player is given their salary, and also once the contract is up the team can choose whether they would like to end the contract or extend the time of that player with that

team.
The longbow also played a significant part during the Hundred Years War and in the English victories during the Renaissance. Maurice Keen states that the reason the longbow was so successful was because of its “accuracy, and penetrating power over long range(Maurice,Keen).” The discharge of the longbow was much faster and stronger than the rate of fire than a crossbowmen. The positioning of longbowmen affected and was one of the fears of the French cavalry, because it was very powerful and forceful weapon and tactic. These longbows could shoot up to 200 meters with amazing accuracy and strength.It is seen that the longbow, and archery in general was a very important piece of equipment and tactic during warfare in the Renaissance.
During the wars that happened at sea archery was yet again a huge tactic to help and somewhat supply the idea of naval warfare During this time and before this time naval warfare was around but was not as common, and now in present day naval warfare has strived as a tactic that has helped to defend and conquer lands from afar. Longbows with their sufficient power in long range battle helped armies on ships to be able to take down other ships, or at least the men on the ship (Keen,Maurice). This practice helped to influence later in time the idea of putting cannons on ships, because the cannons could shoot at the ship and cause it to sink, which was much easier than using long bows and taking people down one by one.
Weaponry helped to influence many of the weapons and can be looked at as somewhat prototypes, or starters. Invention was one of the biggest things that in the Renaissance and those advancements, and inventions were not only based on art, science, architecture, or even religious monuments and structure. There were also weapon advancements, and some may seem to forget about these advancements because the Renaissance was more of a time focused of humanism, and not focused on death. The most common weapons used during the Renaissance included and are put into groups such as swords, daggers and knives, blunt hand weapons, polearms, ranged weapons, artillery, and other siege weapons.
Swords are labeled into categories of; Arming swords, Broadswords, Falchion swords, and the Long sword. arming swords were single handled common use swords, these swords were very popular and were owned by many average people in everyday Renaissance life. Broadswords were straight two edged bladed swords, and are commonly referred to as the basket hilted sword, these swords were a family of cavalry and military swords. Falchion swords were somewhat relatable to a dagger but they were too long to be a dagger, or knife, to be labeled in the dagger and knives category, they can be related to like a machete. The longsword was a famous European sword used in the late Medieval period into the Renaissance and it had anywhere from a ten to fifteen inch handle and obviously was very long, and with the length came the weight, When used in combat it was commonly used with both hands, in combat (“medieval weapons”).
The next group of weapons were the daggers and knives. In modern warfare knives are still used. Every american soldier when going out for a battle, or just patrolling has some type of dagger or knife on them, out of the many equipment they have. Though it is not a primary weapon many varieties of daggers and knives are still used and carried (“medieval weapons”).
Blunt hand weapons were commonly used in last minute situations, some of the blunt hand weapons that were commonly used in the Renaissance were; clubs and maces, morningstars which were a spiked clubs, holy water sprinklers, flails which was a chain linked to a club/handle on one side, and a spiked ball on the other side of the chain, war hammers were also common, and finally horseman pics which were war hammers with a long spike instead of the actual hammer part (“medieval weapons”).
Another group of weapons is a huge variety of polearms. Polearms were commonly used for close combat, they are different molds of sharp ends put on a long pole or strong stick. They were very commonly used when riding horses in close combat. The pole arms were commonly used in a way as if you were fighting with swords except for more of trying to stab the person it is more like if you're fighting with lightsabers. Though that may be a hysterical or comedic statement it gets the point across of the idea of fighting and whacking one another then at the end stabbing the opponent. The military use of these poles was mainly by guards.when protecting either an area or the king/leader (“medieval weapons”).
Spears were another common and useful weapon used during the Renaissance and before that. Spears were very simple but came in personalized, and different shapes. They were made of wood with a sharpened end. Usually the sharpened end when being used for warfare was made out of something such as iron, steel, or another substance in that category. Spears were some of the most common personal weapons in that day and age. They were made to either be used for throwing or for close fighting such as polearms (“medieval weapons”).
In ranged weapons there are javelins which are basically like throwing spears and can be very difficult to use and master. Javelin is still practiced today as a sport, not a war technique. Other ranged weapons included bows, and longbows. Bows and longbows were looked at as almost the weapon the the century and was very common for war and hunting and now is used for sport, and is still used for hunting. Crossbows were used and were bows with a trigger such as a gun and are still used today, they were used for the same purposes as bows and longbows, and are still used today for hunting, and sometimes sport. In order to use a crossbow for hunting in the state of Massachusetts you must have a note from your doctor to get your license to hunt with it because to use a crossbow it must show that you are physically unable to use a bow for hunting, this law is very common in many other states, and even countries too! This shows that the use of the crossbow is not as popular as it was during the Renaissance and Medieval periods, it has now been segregated to certain people for the use of hunting and is no longer common at all in warfare
The closest idea to a gun that was developed in the Renaissance were cannons.

There are three different types of cannons from the Renaissance. The hand cannon, which was a small cannon piece in and on a pole, these were not very common and were developed and originated in China and spread across many parts of Asia eventually reaching Europe. The Bombards which are very large muzzle loading cannons that used huge ammunition and was very powerful. The Petards were the more common cannon that history sees being used all the way through the American civil war that defined our country and even after (“medieval weapons”).Cannons can actually be blamed as part of the reason castles started to become less common because cannons could blow right through the stone, and other materials that was used for building these castles.

Very commonly found in Renaissance warfare were stone throwers. These stone throwers were sort of like sling shots. It took some people/soldiers to load a huge stone/cannon like call into the end of one side, then the other end is pulled or flipped back shooting the stone in the air crashing down on the target. These amazing artillery devices were known as

trebuchets.
Through the Renaissance it is seen that Renaissance warfare notably influenced the old English when it comes to weaponry. With the Renaissance had developed more powerful and useful weapons, more strategized methods of warfare, and had involved many areas of the world through weaponry. The Renaissance itself was already so influential on society today, and when you add warfare it opened the door to amazing things not only through medicine, religion, art, but to life itself.