besague

English edit

A besague or besagew (armour plate)

Etymology edit

From Middle English besague, besagu, besagew, from Old French besague, whence also English besagew (“rondel, armor protecting the armpit”), related to Latin bisacuta (Italian bisacuto (“double-edged”)) and besogium. Applied, in the Middle Ages, to a variety of medieval weapons or tools with two blades, edges, or faces, especially a double-bladed axe^[1] or war-hammer,^[2]^[3] but also to iron-headed cornuted staffs,^[4] clubs, or maces,^[5] spades, hoes, mattocks, and even knives.^[6]^[7]

Pronunciation edit

IPA^(key): /ˈbɛs.ə.ɡju/

Noun edit

besague (plural besagues)

A kind of double-bladed axe.
- 1840, Roxburghe Club, Ashmolean Museum, Illustrations of Ancient State and Chivalry: From Manuscripts Preserved in the Ashmolean Museum; with an Appendix, page 6:
  These were clearly different from the besague (an axe with two edges) described in the Glossaries of Meyrick and Carpentier, in v. Besogium.
A kind of martel or war-hammer, with its head(s) shaped like a pick, mattock, or beak.
- 1828, Richard Thomson, Illustrations of the History of Great Britain, page 186:
  Under Henry IV. appeared a large martel, or hammer, called the Besague, apparently intended more for throwing than combat. In the reign of Edward IV. are found garnished spears, having a head called a coronal, a vamplate, or ...
A plate (as of armor) that protects an otherwise-exposed area, such as the armpit (alternative form of besagew), the elbow, or the hand
- 1907, The Archaeological Journal, page 22:
  The points or laces for attaching the besagues are clearly shown. In brasses the attachment is generally shown as a diamond-headed nut, but the attachment by points or laces just as the elbow caps are seen attached in various effigies ...
- 1932, The Connoisseur: An Illustrated Magazine for Collectors:
  ... to escape the inference that it was evolved solely to avoid the inevitable and unpalatable conclusion that the pouldrons on the Metropolitan armour, and incidentally either the besague or the entire Riggs shaffron, were forgeries.
- 1935, J. T. Herbert Baily, The Connoisseur:
  But none approaches in completeness the axe in the Liverpool Museum, which besides possessing the greater part of its original octagonal haft, still retains the besague for the protection of the advanced hand of its wielder, […]
- 1948, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, page 88:
  The principal varieties are as follows : (1) With circular besagues at elbow and shoulder. This type is generally, though not invariably, very small in size. (2) With circular besagues at the shoulder and 90° fan-shaped elbow-pieces .
- 2010, Carolyn Springer, Armour and Masculinity in the Italian Renaissance, University of Toronto Press, →ISBN, page 138:
  The most conspicuous visual and formal element of the armour is the pair of besagues or roundels protecting the underarm area; these circular plates have sharp spikes that point to the viewer's right and catch the light in a dramatic way.

Translations edit

armor protecting the armpit, etc

Catalan: vairescut m
German: Schwebescheibe f
Polish: tarczka opachowa f
Spanish: varaescudo m

Further reading edit

2003, James Robinson Planché, An Illustrated Dictionary of Historic Costume: From the First Century B.C. to C. 1760, Courier Corporation (→ISBN), page 43: (Old French, besog; Latin, besogium)
Joseph Wright, editor (1898), “BISGY”, in The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volumes I (A–C), London: Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC.
“besague”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

^ Roxburghe Club, Ashmolean Museum, Illustrations of Ancient State and Chivalry (1840), page 6: "for, by the oolde tyme, in such a bataille ther shulde noo thing have be seyn bare, save his basnette and his gloves. And thanne tye on hym a paire of besgewes.*
*These were clearly different [being besagews, armor] from the besague (an axe with two edges) described in the Glossaries of Meyrick and Carpentier, in v. Besogium."
^ Jean-Denis G.G. Lepage, Medieval Armies and Weapons in Western Europe (2014, McFarland, →ISBN), page 51: The military pick, called bisacuta, oucin, or besague was a sharp martel-de-fer (war hammer) with one or two points fixed on a shaft designed to perforate the joints between the plates of the hauberk.
^ British Archaeological Association, Journal of the British Archaeological Association (1881), page 23: Closely allied to the martel, if indeed they were not identical with it, was the oncin of the eleventh, and the bisacuta or besague of the fourteenth century, pick or beaked weapons, with which the scales and rings of the armour were broken.
^ Samuel Rush Meyrick, A Critical Inquiry Into [...] Armour: Ill (1842), page 3: "This cornuted staff was the besague, or bisacutum, being double pointed like a pickaxe, with a short handle. Although it was subsequently much used, at the time of the conquest it was not considered a military weapon, but seems then to have been a double adze, and used by the carpenters."
^ Notes and Queries (1895), page 176: "The besague and baston were varied forms of the mace."
^ James Robinson Planché, A Cyclopaedia of Costume (1876; 2013 reprint: →ISBN), page 43: [...] showing clearly that the term was applied indifferently to a double-bladed axe, an iron-headed staff, a spade, a pickaxe, a hoe or dibble, and a hedging-bill or knife for dressing vines.
^ Urban T. Holmes (Jr.), Medieval Man, His Understanding of Himself, His Society, and the World: Illustrated from His Own Literature (1980), page 88: So is it necessary for him to have an axe, sharp and with a handle, a planing hatchet (doloire), and a chisel freshly sharpened, a double tanged mattock (besague), a drill to make holes, a tool to make a mortice both in stone and in wood; [...]

[1] Roxburghe Club, Ashmolean Museum, Illustrations of Ancient State and Chivalry (1840), page 6: "for, by the oolde tyme, in such a bataille ther shulde noo thing have be seyn bare, save his basnette and his gloves. And thanne tye on hym a paire of besgewes.*
*These were clearly different [being besagews, armor] from the besague (an axe with two edges) described in the Glossaries of Meyrick and Carpentier, in v. Besogium."

[2] Jean-Denis G.G. Lepage, Medieval Armies and Weapons in Western Europe (2014, McFarland, →ISBN), page 51: The military pick, called bisacuta, oucin, or besague was a sharp martel-de-fer (war hammer) with one or two points fixed on a shaft designed to perforate the joints between the plates of the hauberk.

[3] British Archaeological Association, Journal of the British Archaeological Association (1881), page 23: Closely allied to the martel, if indeed they were not identical with it, was the oncin of the eleventh, and the bisacuta or besague of the fourteenth century, pick or beaked weapons, with which the scales and rings of the armour were broken.

[4] Samuel Rush Meyrick, A Critical Inquiry Into [...] Armour: Ill (1842), page 3: "This cornuted staff was the besague, or bisacutum, being double pointed like a pickaxe, with a short handle. Although it was subsequently much used, at the time of the conquest it was not considered a military weapon, but seems then to have been a double adze, and used by the carpenters."

[5] Notes and Queries (1895), page 176: "The besague and baston were varied forms of the mace."

[6] James Robinson Planché, A Cyclopaedia of Costume (1876; 2013 reprint: →ISBN), page 43: [...] showing clearly that the term was applied indifferently to a double-bladed axe, an iron-headed staff, a spade, a pickaxe, a hoe or dibble, and a hedging-bill or knife for dressing vines.

[7] Urban T. Holmes (Jr.), Medieval Man, His Understanding of Himself, His Society, and the World: Illustrated from His Own Literature (1980), page 88: So is it necessary for him to have an axe, sharp and with a handle, a planing hatchet (doloire), and a chisel freshly sharpened, a double tanged mattock (besague), a drill to make holes, a tool to make a mortice both in stone and in wood; [...]

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