Glaive treatise "Paradoxes of Defence" by the English gentleman George Silver, the glaive is used in the same general manner as the quarterstaff, half pike, bill, halberd, voulge, or partisan. Silver rated this class of polearms above all other individual hand-to-hand combat weapons. The Maciejowski Bible (Morgan Bible) depicts an example of a two-handed glaive used on horseback. The contemporary term for this weapon may have been "faussart", which was used for a variety of single-edged weapons seen as related to the scythe (along with terms such as "falchion", "falcata, or fauchard" derived from "falx", the Latin term for "scythe"). The
Altarpiece of the Halberd to the Papal States. The resistance had been brutally suppressed, many of the rebels having been beheaded by order of the papal legate. The upside-down halberd has been thus interpreted as a symbol of peace. The monumental composition is taken directly from the tradition of Holy Conversations in the Venetian School, inaugurated by Antonello da Messina's San Cassiano Altarpiece. It shows the Madonna and Child on a high throne, with two angels holding the crown (a 15th-century Flemish painting element also in use in Italy). In the lower part are four saints: Stephen, John the Evangelist, Simon the Zealot and