Weapons & Warriors: The Morning Star of the Europeans

Art by Steven DeVon Jones

Many people have always confused the Morning Star with a mace or flail. Even I used to do it when I was first learning about bludgeoning weapons while playing Dungeons & Dragons as a kid. I knew a mace had a metal shaft with a balled end for crushing things, and I knew the flail had chains. When I ran across the morning star, I was lost. Over the years I’ve stumbled across various people calling a mace a morning star, and sometimes a flail.

In truth, the Morning Star is not the same thing. It isn’t anything like a flail because the Morning Star does not have any chains. It is more closely related to the mace in shape, but that’s where the similarities end. Instead of nubs or angles around the balled end, the Morning Star has a large spike protruding from the top and the ball is covered in smaller spikes or sharpened edges.

There is no uniform version of a Morning Star because it is simply a club-like bludgeoning tool with spikes. They vary in size, from small easily held in one hand types to long heavy two handed shafts with a massive spiked head. While the mace evolved into a steel shaft with a rounded head, the Morning Star retained its wooden shaft. The spikes could be made from virtually anything, but in Europe it was generally steel or iron.