I would take exception to it being an 'ineffective" weapon. I probably would be on board ship, but Silver considered it one of the best of two hand weapons. There is a lot of confusion regartding ther term "Bill", Brown Bill, Forest Bill, etc. No one has ever established a concrete terminology. What is shown is what I would hav e called a "guisarme" but it not an English Bill. Manyu pole arms were made out of a steely iorn. One method of "tempering" was called forged tempering. One the piece was pretty mcuh forged to shape it was then quickly cooled, taen out of thed oil, the residual heat then builds up again, is is cooled one more. This is also called slack tempering. In the Tower there is a beautiful Brown Bill, Once I get my camera set up I'll take some pictures and also copy some photograph. There are many that have been excavated. I had one made exactly in the same process and same tempering process. It will sheer mail and smash people quite easily. Most people believe that they were called brown bills because of the rust. However in essence it is a halberd, with a slightly different shape.

Thanks again everyone! Welcome to the forums Hank! I'd love to see some Tower pics.

There's a german version of the Bill, call a Kriegsgertel, translation War ???.

See pic attached.

Does anyone have any information about this weapon?

Was it a development from the English Bill or Italian Roncone or did it develop independently?

What time period was it used? Was it only used by Germans? Was it popular in other countries?

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