Archaeologia, Vol. 109 (1991) Volume CIX
It is generally believed, that combat with axes had never been popular in England and, even in the reign of that enthusiast for chivalric exercise, Henry VIII, only one such encounter is recorded. According to Dr. Anglo, there exists only one known treatise devoted exclusively to the technique of axe combat - Le Jeu de la Hache (Bibliotheque Nationale, Manuscrit francais 1996), a fifteenth-century treatise on the technique of chivalric axe combat and that is now published for the first time in this article. This article begins with general remarks on the possible source and author of the original text and makes numerous references to other treatises which denote axe-play or combat with pole-weapons, including Talhoffer and Fiori de' Liberi. The next section of the article includes a complete English translation of the original French text, followed by the entire French text, and an extensive bibliography.