ABSTRACT
From a military point of view, the value of the jumping pole-spear did not
depend on this claw device. It was the length that mattered. Nowadays the
average pole used by Frisian egg-hunters to jump across local water ditches
measures at least fourteen feet, that is, about four metres. Possibly the medieval
specimen was a bit shorter. But even with a length of twelve feet the pole-spear
was at least four to six feet longer than the ordinary infantry spear of the Middle
Ages.77 The conclusion therefore has to be that the Frisians were already using
such spears long before the Swiss dominated the battlefields with their pikes.