Lance
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The English term lance is derived, via Middle English launce and Old French lance, from the Latin lancea, a generic term meaning a spear or javelin employed by both infantry and cavalry, with English
Norman cavalry attacks the Anglo-Saxon shield wall at the Battle of Hastings as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry. The "lances" depicted here are held with a one-handed over-the-head grip, and so their use is not the same as the "lances" of the later medieval period, when they were fitted with a "grapper" designed to engage a lance rest attached to the wielder's plate armour and used couched in the charge.
Lance head, Warring States period
Warring States lance head (pi)
A lance head from the reenactment of the Eglinton Tournament (1839)
Polish hussars
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The Polish hussars, alternatively known as the winged hussars, were an elite heavy cavalry formation active in Poland and in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1503 to 1702. Their epithet is deri
Lance
…population of Szlachta nobility, and relatively lower level of military technology among its opponents retained the lance to a considerable degree. The Polish hussars reached their peak during the 17th and 18th centuries against a wide variety of enemy forces. After the Western introduction of the horse to Native…
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Entrance of winged Polish hussar delegates in La Rochelle, France, in 1573, following the Siege of La Rochelle (1572–1573) and their offering of the Polish throne to the Duke of Anjou.
Reconstruction using 17th-century armour, Polish Army Museum.
Polish hussars during entry into Kraków, detail of so-called Stockholm Roll, 1605.