Amanda Sopchockchai, Class of 2027, College of the Holy Cross

The head of the pollaxe was assembled from separate parts. The axehead, thrusting tip, and war hammer were attached separately and held together by rivets.  The metal langets, embedded into the ash wood on either side of the staff, safeguarded the wooden shaft against damage from an opponent’s weapon. To create the staff, a stave of ash wood was split into quarters, and one of these quarters was used for the haft of this weapon.

The decoration also required careful labor. A metalsmith drilled and sawed through sheets of steel to form the pollaxe’s cutouts. The brass inlay and the openwork, or cutouts, resemble patterns commonly seen in Gothic art and medieval cathedrals.  Both the pollaxe and Gothic cathedrals show fine, elongated, and cusped tracery, as well as the trefoil (a rounded, three-lobed shape similar to the suit of clubs in a deck of cards), and the quatrefoil (a four-lobed version of the same shape).