Note 61 — Chapter XII · : Feudal Weapons and Horses. Dubbing a Knight.

Another weapon not infrequently used was the mace, an iron-headed war club with a fairly long handle. In powerful hands such a weapon could fell the sturdiest opponent, however good his armor. The mace was somewhat the favorite of martial bishops, abbots, and other churchmen, who thus evaded the letter of the canon forbidding clerics to "smite with the edge of the sword," or to "shed blood." The mace merely smote your foe senseless or dashed out his brains, without piercing his lungs or breast!

Another weapon especially common in the early Middle Ages was the battle ax.