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.