The spear was, together with the bow, the sax and the shield, the most important weapon of Germanic warriors during the Germanic iron Age and Migration Period.
Etymology
The word for spear, kêr or gêr, has been known since the 8th century, as mentioned in the "Hildebrand's Song" and the Heliand epic. Variants of this word also appear in Germanic personal names, both for men and women. In modern German it survives as Ger or Gehr, often in poetic or archaic context, while a feminine form Gehre is used to denote an "insert" or 'gusset'.
Framea
The Roman writer Tacitus described in his work Germania the Germanic weapons arsenal: iron was scarce, and only a few used swords. Most warriors carried a spear, the so-called framea, with a narrow, short head that was suitable for both close combat and throwing.
Riders were content with a shield and a spear, while foot soldiers could throw multiple spears over long distances, often with minimal clothing.
Other writers such as Eucherius of Lyon, Gregory of Tours and Isidore also used the word. By the 7th century, framea sometimes also referred to a sword.
Linguists suggest a Proto-Germanic origin such as framja or þramja, which may be related to the Old Norse þremjar ("edges, sword blades") and Old Saxon thrummi ("point of a spear").
In the 15th century the word reappears in the title of the witch-hunting book Malleus Maleficarum, where it is used in a poetic sense to describe the power of a sword.
The framea was probably a spear 1.5 to 2 meters long and had a small iron spear head with multiple cutting surfaces and straight or leaf-shaped shoulders.
The Angon
During the early Anglo-Saxon period well-equipped warriors carried alongside their sword usually a spear, framea or a development of the Roman pilum, the Angon.
The Angon was approximately 1.8–2.1 meters long, of which about half was a wooden shaft and the rest a long, narrow iron head. The head had barbs or barbed hooks and a square, hardened, armor-piercing tip.
The design is very similar to later English arrowheads with barbs that were used during the Hundred Years' War. Making an Angon required great craftsmanship and was therefore a relatively expensive weapon.
The history of the Angon probably begins in the 5th century BC with the invention of the Pilum in Italy by the Etruscans. The pilum had a long, thin iron head on a wooden shaft and was designed to pierce shields and wound the opponent.
Some pilum heads had barbs, which clearly forms the inspiration for the Angon.
During the 5th century AD the Roman author Flavius Vegetius Renatus writes in De Re Militari about the weapons of the infantry: light spears, the Verutum and the Spiculum. These were similar to the pilum and the early Angon.
The focus of combat in the Anglo-Saxon period was almost always on the spear. There were light throwing spears for unarmored opponents and heavier spears for close combat.
The Angon, with its barbed head and robust metal shaft, was a prestigious weapon, intended for aristocrats and high-ranking warriors. It was used to open the first attack, where the opponent was often still heavily armed.
The Frankish Angon typically had a metal head of 80–90 cm with a relatively short wooden shaft. Thanks to the barbs, the spear could not easily be removed from a shield or body, causing immense pain and often fatally wounding the opponent.
Frankish warriors relied mainly on their Angons and throwing axes, the francisca axe and made little use of bows or slings.
According to some historians, such as Steve Pollington, the English people (Anglecynn) may have been named after this type of spear: the Old English word ang(a) or angul literally means a barb, similar to a hook or barbed hook.
Internal links
- La Tène Spear Heads: Evolution, Typology and Ritual
- Pike: long spear, tactics and history in Europe
- Roman cavalry in Antiquity: function, history and characteristics
- Swords from the Migration Period (spatha)
Sources
- Primary Source: Tacitus, Germania (chapter 6), for the earliest description and introduction of the term framea.
- Archaeological Find: The rich Merovingian graves of Krefeld-Gellep (Germany), which have yielded excellent physical examples of angons (barbed spears).
- Academic Literature: Waffen und Gräber. Beiträge zur Erforschung der Vroegmiddeleeuwse Militaria (University of Bonn).
