The Morning star was the Special Weapon of the Knight, a heavy ball of brutality swung by a chain for maximum impact. (This is false. Morning stars are not flails. They are maces with spiked heads. There is no chain.)
Description[]
The typical Morningstar is a mace with spikes on it and was more effective than any weapon. The length of the handle and chain varied from one individual to another.
Ball tipped flails could also exist with multiple ends, similar to a cat-o-ninetails.
The Morningstar depicted in the show is a chained flail. However Morningstars also existed as maces (a single metal club without the chain).
It is rare for a one-handed flail to have a chain at a similar or longer length than its handle. This is because it would have been easy for the flail head to bash into the user's hand by accident. Pole flails are able to have relatively longer chains, but still need to be short enough to not cause accidental self-harm.
Stats[]
- Special Weapon
- Length: 3 feet
- Weight: 8.4 lbs
- Wood, iron and steel
Use[]
The Morningstar flail was swung around to gain momentum to striking the target. Highly dangerous, were it not for the Knight's armor, it may have been too dangerous for him to wield, as the unpredictable nature of chained weapons meant there is a chance of accidentally striking oneself.
European Medieval maces and flails initially were designed to be rounded to prevent the spilling of blood. This idea of a 'bloodless' weapon made maces and flails popular among the most religious Christian warriors. Some Morning Stars were dubbed Holy Water Sprinklers as a result. As armor technology improved, the brutal design of the mace and flail evolved to compensate.
As Muskets evolved, the use of plate armor decreased and maces became unnecessary.
Similar maces were created during WWI with soldiers covering sticks with barbed wire or inserting long nails to mimic the concept of a morning star. Trenches were so narrow and confined that close combat was effective when raiding a trench.
Trivia[]
- The Japanese had a similar morning-star flail called a Chigiriki.
- Ironically, this weapon bears one of the same names of Satan (Lucifer Morningstar), whom the Knights claimed to be against.
- The morningstar used in the test had a single ball and chain, and the metal sphere was spiked. In the simulation, the Knight used a different ball morningstar. It had two balls and chains, and the balls were not spiked like the one in the test. Also of note, the morningstar in the test was two-handed while the one in the simulation was single-handed.
- It is currently unclear how common the morningstar design was, although it's generally believed that flanged Maces and flails were the more common designs of blunt weapons during medieval times.