Gentlemen....let me interject a question: "Why all the attempts to make the archer's maul a purposefully-designed weapon rather than just simply state it was a metal reinforced hammer?" I cannot see any reason at all to assume it is anything else than what it says it is by name...a large hammer. Occam's Razor would reason that a maul is what it just what it's name implies.

ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English malle, from Old French mail, from Latin malleus; see mel- in Indo-European roots.

Malleus is latin for hammer.

It depends on the time period. Initially the maul was just that; a large squared-off wooden sledge-like hammer to bang in stakes. Over time it was modified to make it more useful as a weapon. The question is whether the weaponised version should still be classed as a maul.

I'm not sure about the degree to which archer's mauls became specialized for combat, but I am absolutely sure that if I were ordered to emplace several stakes in a location, my first question would be "Got a hammer?" A heavy maul/mallet was an essential tool for campaigns. Splitting wood (as previously mentioned), pitching tents, changing wheels, replacing wooden axles, etc. Even today, anyone who has spent much time camping probably either brings a mallet/hammer or profoundly regrets leaving it behind. The Entrenchment Tool issued by the U.S. military is specifically designed for digging and...hammering.

The idea that maul design trends went through phases, as Dan proposes, sounds reasonable I suppose. But if defensive tactics called for deployments of large spikes in quantity, then some sort of maul would still be necessary in addition to "archer's mauls" if their design had become too specialized for reliably handling the sorts of utilitarian jobs for which standard mauls were relied upon.

If you try to hammer stakes into the ground with heavy hammers, because light one handed versions don't develop enough energy, you will perhaps discover some things, just like me.
If the hammerhead is small it's quite possible that you damage the stake. As a result it doesn't go down as deep as you want. So I would favour a broad head for that purpose, especially if I have to work under conditions that make me nervous.
If you swing the hammer with two hands you need someone to hold the stake, so only 50% of the people involved need a hammer.

Considering things on a theoretical level, it would make sense to me to have lead integrated for weight, hard wood for forming a cheap, but durable, hammerhead and an iron surface to make it last even longer because the pressure is more even distributed on the wood. That's cheap and pretty low tech for such a tool.
However, you just need one side of this hammer to hammer down stakes. The other side can serve whatever purpose you consider beneficial, like another side for hammering or mounting a spike, a blade or a hook. Personally, if I was an archer in these days, I would opt for a narrow blade. It makes a nice tool to chop wood and it should still be narrow and strong enough to damage armour. No, it doesn't have to break it, just causing a nasty trauma.

This reminds me about the loaded stick, called shillelagh, used in Ireland. Such an item could easily be carried by anybody and would serve quite nicely to hit someone hard, although you should use a bigger size against plate armour.
In a museum in Romania they had lots of very simple wooden clubs next to swords and yatagans as examples of medieval weapons used in warfare in this region, but I'm not very sure about the correctness of the reconstruction.

M Davis wrote:

Even today, anyone who has spent much time camping probably either brings a mallet/hammer or profoundly regrets leaving it behind.

You can use an axe with a flat butt for that purpose. :P

I've always been wondering why the English archers in the 100 Years War are supposed to have driven single stakes into the ground and got them pointy on the other end afterwards. This seems a lot more work to me than fixing a few cheval à frise to the ground with stakes that don't have a pointed end and just hold the cheval in place. I consider such a "horse" more difficult to cross on foot or mounted and faster to set up. The different components can also be transported along disassembled, giving each man a share, and serve multiple purposes like an enclosure for expensive mounts, a makeshift manger (with the not so pointy ends upwards) or a defence of the camp at night. This way you only have to replace the stakes driven into the ground, while otherwise you have to search for lots of suitable wood in short time. As stakes driven into the ground you can use almost anything by felling a tree and splitting it with wedges into lots of suitable pieces. So you would need few axes and few mauls to build a defence.

one image that sticks in my mind is from 'conquest - wierd weapons of the middle ages' introducing the bec de corbain it shoows a longbowman in a field, hammering at a stake, with a plate armoured (early 1400's. ) approaching from behind on foot th archer sneaks a look behind him, and just as the knigh approaches, the archer suddenly turns around and whacks him in the head with his hammer, which is the 2 handed variety with a rasonably sized head. but just a simple block of wood about 2/3 the size of the archers head. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuocXJrjZ_U&feature=related

that said im not ptting very much aith in that show, when dealing with maille armour they use butted mail since they tear a shirt to shreds. and show the godendag as bieng more a spiked club not unlike a oversized mace head, as opposed to a simple long club with a single spike up the top.

I know that the time period is not even remotely close to being right, but I thought you might be interested in an early Bronze Age maul that was discovered at a battle site. You can see a photo in my thread over here: http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=23174

Has anybody actually found a period source which suggests that a maul had spikes? If so i've missed it. It may be just a question of terminology, but it seems to me that many of the wierd and wonderful whomping sticks sold as archer's mauls are probably maces or holy water sprinklers, if they existed at all.

if it had a spike, wouldn't it just be a war hammer?

Writing in the second half of the sixteenth century, Henry Barrett wanted archers to have "a maule of leade with a pyke of five inches longe, well stieled, sett in a staff of fyve foote of lengthe."

Rather than the traditional hammer design, might I suggest that the "archer's maul" perhaps more resembled a large baseball bat, much like a wood carving/stone mason's mallet, the head being reinforced with iron bands which would also lend weight to the striking end. The "spikes" might have been nothing more than rivet heads protruding from the bands. Such a design would easily lend itself to having flat planed faces, extending to the "grip" or handle to orient proper strikes for driving stakes. While to my knowledge no historical examples exist, round wood mallets have been around for a long time; some even bear resemblance to a short mace.

Barrett's five-inch "pyke" was almost certainly a top spike used for thrusting.

There does seem a lot of various things all being called mauls, from metal studded clubs to war hammers. Although I don't think "bound with lead" is the same as studded. here is a blogger you has compiled various references to the maul and lead mallets. He even has links to pictures of them. Such as this one of French Maillotins
[ Linked Image ]
I did find a place that sells an archer's maul that is a studded club, http://www.todsstuff.co.uk/theenglishcutler/m....htm#thumb it does not say where he got his information on it, and can find no collaborating information. So I wonder, was any such weapon even used in Europe, and if so what was it called?