Mid-Rennaisance (1500-1550) weapon and armor questions

[Benjamin Abbott]

The pike occupied a place of respect for the European nobility by the sixteenth century if not earlier. Di Grassi makes this clear for his period. Chevalier Bayard fought with a pike in 1503. James VI of Scotland died with pike in hand at Flodden Field in 1513. Aristocrats might have hated low-class pikemen who were enemies, but they considered the weapon thoroughly honorable.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

Why so late? The Archduke (later Emperor) Maximilian already fought among the pike at Guinegatte in 1479, while Italian men-at-arms (under Carmagnola?) dismounted and drove off the Swiss at Arbedo in 1422 by using their long lances as ersatz pikes. There's also the (possibly apocryphal) tale of Habsburg men-at-arms using their lances as pikes at Sempach.