Church law was blunt about it: a priest could not be a soldier. On campaign a cleric was meant to serve as a chaplain and, at most, defend himself with a club. From that grew one of the medieval period's favourite stories — that fighting priests carried maces and warhammers so they could crush an enemy without "shedding blood," keeping the letter of a rule they were breaking in spirit. It is a tidy tale, and probably too tidy. A warhammer needed no theological excuse: its head and spike drove force straight through mail and plate, breaking the man inside where a sword's edge simply skated off the armour.

This priest is caught mid-shout, warhammer swung back and shield up, in mail and a broad-brimmed kettle helmet over a yellow surcoat, his checky red-and-gold shield charged with a black lion. He is the melee end of a small company of fighting clergy in this range: give him the sword-drawing Fighting Priest for contrast, and the mounted Fighting Bishop — Odo of Bayeux, whom the Bayeux Tapestry shows wielding exactly this kind of club — as the famous precedent. Whether the warhammer was a canon-law loophole or just good sense is the argument taken up in this piece on whether medieval priests fought. In a diorama he leads from the front of a Crusader assault, hammer raised over a breach in the wall.

Model: MK251 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set