Bill (weapon)
polearm weapon used by infantry in medieval Europe
A bill is a class of infantry polearm developed from the billhook, an agricultural implement used for trimming tree limbs. Billhooks were adapted to military use through addition of various projecting blades.
In English, the term 'Italian bill' is applied to the similar roncone or roncola, but the Italian version tended to have a long thrusting spike in addition to the cutting blade. 16th and 17th century English texts and inventories distinguished among several varieties of bill, including the black, brown and forest bills, but the differences between them are currently not fully understood. Other variants include the bill hook and bill-guisarme.
Along with the longbow, the bill is often associated with late medieval English armies of the Hundred Years' War and Wars of the Roses.
Disambiguation
The bill is similar in size, function and appearance to the halberd, and might be said to represent convergent evolution to fill a common niche: a polearm with a point to thrust with, a hook to drag with, and a spike/axe to cut with. The bill should not be conflated with a war-scythe, another polearm adapted from an agricultural implement, the scythe.
Bills have been found in Frankish graves from the Merovingian period.
George Silver, writing in 1599, stated that the black bill should be 5 or 6 feet (1.5 or 1.8 m) long, while the forest bill should be 8 or 9 feet (2.4 or 2.7 m).
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This entry incorporates text from “Bill (weapon)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.