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Morningstar


Platypus Rex

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While reading F&B I noticed the artist's illustration of Cristin Cole, fighting with his favorite weapon, the morningstar.  Except, of course, that it was not a morningstar, but rather a flail of the ball & chain variety..  

Curious if this was the artist's mistake, or GRRM's, I searched for "morningstar" in ASOIAF.  And the  various references do seem to indicate a type of flail, as they are constantly being whirled in circles around the heads of their users.  One reference is to a "triple-morningstar", described as 3 spiked balls attached via a chain

I guess you don't have to call it a "mistake" if you don't want to.  If GRRM can redefine "wyvern"; then I suppose he can do the same for "morningstar".  Also, the spiked-ball-and-chain type flail does not seem to have it's own name.  You can call it a "flail", but it seems the vast majority of flails used historically did not look like that.  Some military historians have doubted that this particular type of flail was ever really used.

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I'd guess its just GRRM 'redefining' the use of the word for asoiaf. While I'd usally call those types of weapon a flail, you're right in saying that they aren't really what a real flail was so...in Westeros any type of metal ball with spikes is a Morningstar I suppose? Whether it's attached directly to the handle or connected by chain.

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28 minutes ago, Adam Yozza said:

I'd guess its just GRRM 'redefining' the use of the word for asoiaf. While I'd usally call those types of weapon a flail, you're right in saying that they aren't really what a real flail was so...in Westeros any type of metal ball with spikes is a Morningstar I suppose? Whether it's attached directly to the handle or connected by chain.

Yes.  Except that some of GRRM's references suggest that a "morningstar" does not, by definition, have spikes.   So if the spikes do not define it, then perhaps the chain is essential.  

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Apparently, it's a common misconception. From Wikipedia:

Quote

The other type of European flail is a shorter weapon consisting of a wooden haft connected by a chain, rope, or leather to one or more roughly spherical striking ends. Modern works variously refer to this particular weapon as a "military flail," "mace-and-chain" or "chain mace," and sometimes erroneously label them as simply a "mace" or morning star, terms which technically apply only to rigid weapons. Some historians refer to this weapon as a kettenmorgenstern("chain morning star") to distinguish it from the rigid weapon.[11]

 

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16 hours ago, Platypus Rex said:

I guess you don't have to call it a "mistake" if you don't want to.  If GRRM can redefine "wyvern"; then I suppose he can do the same for "morningstar".  Also, the spiked-ball-and-chain type flail does not seem to have it's own name.  You can call it a "flail", but it seems the vast majority of flails used historically did not look like that.  Some military historians have doubted that this particular type of flail was ever really used.

Yeh, I would guess it is what you say here. The spiked ball and chain weapon is a cool weapon that may have never existed. Morningstar is a cool name. GRRM likes cool names and fantastical things that are interesting. Even though ASOIAF contains more realism than the typical fantasy story, it is still a fantasy story.

Also, I disagree that he redefined wyvern. The wyverns in the series are pretty much exactly how wyverns are typically defined. In fact, the dragons in the series are more like fire-breathing wyverns than dragons as they've been portrayed in other stories as most dragons have four legs and are more serpent-like. Tolkien's dragons don't all even have wings. The older bigger ones like Glaurang couldn't fly. They all had serpent bodies and could breath fire tho. Breathing fire is pretty important to being a dragon, I think. I'd say he redefined "dragon" rather than "wyvern" which is fine - his dragons are pretty cool.

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17 hours ago, Platypus Rex said:

Yes.  Except that some of GRRM's references suggest that a "morningstar" does not, by definition, have spikes.   So if the spikes do not define it, then perhaps the chain is essential.  

Hmmm, in that case I'd sace he just applied the cool sounding name 'Morningstar' to the cool looking flail/mace-and-chain/chain mace and had the actual Morningstar weapon simply be a varient of a mace.

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8 hours ago, Adam Yozza said:

Hmmm, in that case I'd sace he just applied the cool sounding name 'Morningstar' to the cool looking flail/mace-and-chain/chain mace and had the actual Morningstar weapon simply be a varient of a mace.

I think the first time I ever encountered the idea of this weapon was in the 1952 film IVANHOE.  The villain used it against Ivanhoe in the climax.  You can find the scene on YouTube.

Searching around in google books, I found an entry for "Mace" in the 1875 Encyclopaedia Americana.  The entry describes the spiked-ball-and-chain type of mace, and then goes on to say that they were called "Morning Stars".  I have no idea if this is true, as, after all, 1875 is a long time since the medieval period.  But I guess GRRM is off the hook.  If the sources cannot agree, then he might as well call it whatever he likes.

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Part of the problem here is how often words change meanings during an era where literacy is quite rare. Blacksmiths were not a profession likely to be literate, and so there was no definitive text to define terms. A blacksmith was taught by his master from memory, and so terms we're likely to mutate as those masters forgot and reinvented what their masters had taught them.

Maybe "Morningstar" at one point specifically referred to the method by which the Smith's made the spiked ball itself, regardless of whether the ball was to be mounted to a mace or a flail. As time passed some smiths began to call a spiked mace a Morningstar while others used that word for the flail.

That's just speculation, but you get the idea.

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10 minutes ago, Damon_Tor said:

Part of the problem here is how often words change meanings during an era where literacy is quite rare. 

Yes, and language changes over time.  A Morning Star in one era, might be very different from one in another.

Here's another entry I found in Google Books, this time from a letter, dated February 13, printed in The Gentleman's Magazine (1840):

[A London city militia] "used to bear, till near the close of the last century Staves, at the end of which were suspended, by chains, iron and leaden balls armed with spikes.  They resembled in some measure, the ancient Maces, and were called Morgan Stern, or Morning Stars …".

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In the novel Malpas (1822), by Lee Gibbons, a character claims that the Morgan Stern was a favorite weapon of the legendary French hero Roland.  The author's adds a footnote, explaining:

"* Morgan stern, or morning star, was a heavy ball covered with projecting spikes, and attached by a chain to a wooden staff."

So again, if this is an error, it seems to be a very old one.

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7 hours ago, Platypus Rex said:

In the novel Malpas (1822), by Lee Gibbons, a character claims that the Morgan Stern was a favorite weapon of the legendary French hero Roland.  The author's adds a footnote, explaining:

"* Morgan stern, or morning star, was a heavy ball covered with projecting spikes, and attached by a chain to a wooden staff."

So again, if this is an error, it seems to be a very old one.

So probably less an error then and more a clash of language from different cultures and time periods then. A morningstar in the medieval era may have been the mace type and the name was later attached to the chain and ball type weapon instead. Which leaves it mostly up to personal preference which one you want to call a morningstar. Personally, if I was writing a fantasy novel (and I am, incidentally) I'd use Morningstar for any weapon with a spiked ball for a head, whether its the rigid or chain version and mace for weapons of that type that have any other type of head. But as I said...personal preference.

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