Editing Polearm (section)

==Classification difficulties==
[[File:Bronze Ge Dagger-axe, Sanxingdui 1.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Shang dynasty]] polearm]]
The classification of polearms can be difficult, and European weapon classifications in particular can be confusing. This can be due to a number of factors, including uncertainty in original descriptions, changes in weapons or nomenclature through time, mistranslation of terms, and the well-meaning inventiveness of later experts. For example, the word "halberd" is also used to translate the Chinese [[Ji (halberd)|ji]] and also a range of medieval [[Scandinavia]]n weapons as described in [[saga]]s, such as the [[atgeir]]. As well, all polearms developed from three early tools (the [[axe]], the [[scythe]], and the [[knife]]) and one weapon, the [[spear]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/notesonarmsarmor00dean|page=[https://archive.org/details/notesonarmsarmor00dean/page/135 135]|title=Notes on Arms and Armor|last=Dean|first=Bashford|date=1916|publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art|language=en}}</ref>

In the words of the arms expert [[Ewart Oakeshott]],

{{blockquote|
Staff-weapons in Medieval or Renaissance England were lumped together under the generic term "staves" but when dealing with them in detail we are faced with terminological difficulty. There never seems to have been a clear definition of what was what; there were apparently far fewer staff-weapons in use than there were names to call them by; and contemporary writers up to the seventeenth century use these names with abandon, calling different weapons by the same name and similar weapons by different names. To add to this, we have various nineteenth century terminologies used by scholars. We must remember too that any particular weapon ... had everywhere a different name.<ref>{{cite book |title= European Weapons and Armour|last= Oakeshott|first= Ewart|year= 1980|publisher= Lutterworth Press|isbn=0-7188-2126-2|page= 52}}</ref>
}}

While [[men-at-arms]] may have been armed with custom designed military weapons, militias were often armed with whatever was available. These may or may not have been mounted on poles and described by one of more names. The problems with precise definitions can be inferred by a contemporary description of Royalist infantry which were engaged in the [[Battle of Birmingham]] (1643) during the first year of [[English Civil War]] (in the early modern period). The infantry regiment that accompanied [[Prince Rupert|Prince Rupert's]] cavalry were armed:<ref>{{citation |last=Warburton |first=Eliot |author-link=Eliot Warburton |title=Memoirs of Prince Rupert, and the cavaliers: Including their private correspondence, now first published from the original MSS |volume=2 |location=London |publisher=R. Bentley |page=[https://archive.org/stream/memoirsofprincer02warbuoft#page/149/mode/1up 149] }} citing "Special Passages," No. xliii. (King's Collect.)</ref>{{blockquote|with [[Pike (weapon)|pike]]s, [[half-pike]]s, [[halberd]]s, [[Billhook|hedge-bills]], [[Welsh hook]]s, clubs, pitchforks, with chopping-knives, and pieces of scythes.}}