15th century AD. A set of iron fittings for a flail comprising: a hand-forged tubular socket with open sides, D-section loop, hole to lower edge with a fixing peg; chain with thirteen links and a connecting ring; a globular head with teardrop-shaped link. See Sturtevant, P.B., The military flail, in Medieval Warfare, January/February 2017, Vol. 6, No. 6, pp. 50-53, for discussion; cf. similar sample in the Praha Historical Museum, in Various, Selective Catalogue of the Museum of Military History, Praha, 1991, p.17. 510 grams, 47.5cm (18 3/4"). Ex California, USA, collection formed since the late 1960s; acquired on the European art market before the late 1990s. The medieval flail was a weapon mainly used in Eastern Europe, probably created among the Steppe people and used by the Mongols, adopted by the Slavic peoples under the name of Kisten. Such a weapon probably saw little use in Western Europe, where it is first represented in the 14th century in the fresco of the battle of Nineveh painted by Piero della Francesca. [No Reserve]

Fair condition.