Moving 17th Century Soldiers
 

Charge for Pike: Where to Hold the Pike for More Than One Rank

When studying the Charge for Pike posture in Jacob de Gheyn's 1607 manual, The Exercise of Arms, the insightful reader is aware that a pike division consists of ranks of soldiers and thereby may puzzle over where is the long pike held by the pikeman in the following rank, and the pikeman behind him, in relation to the soldier in front.

The answer: at the right of the soldier in front.

This also applies to the postures Port and Charge from the Foot. (Although Colonel Barriffe uses 'Charge from the Foot,' another term is 'Charge for Horse.')


Sergeant Subtlelus says:
The pikes illustrated are short, merely around 12 feet in length.  Pikes of this short length were usually reserved for garrison duty.  For the campaign, longer pikes were preferred, say, 16 to 18 feet long.  Regrettably, in the later phases of the Thirty Years War and the English Civil War, some lazy fellows cut their pikes down for convenience on the march.