I know it may be a silly question. Wikipedia has a club and a mace in different categories. On the page about the Mace the title says "Mace(Club)". I am confused because the two weapons are classified differently but Mace has club in brackets, usually meaning they are the same.
Unless I am wrong according to wikipedia it says a mace has a heavy head which can have different shapes. So is a mace basically a club with a heavy metal head on it.
A club on wikipedia said that a club is a stick or short staff usually made of wood. Can this stick or staff be in any shape because in games like Mount and Blade (I know games are not always accurate) has a club which is bigger on the top than it is at the bottom. Then there is a spiked Club which i'm not sure if a club can have spikes, websites don't mention spiked clubs. As well as looking more like a Mace to me.
Another question I want to ask as well is the Morning Star. A listverse page says the Morning Star is often confused as a Mace, the reasoning is because it has spikes on the head while a mace doesn't have spikes and uses studs instead. So what type of weapon is a Morning Star if it's not a mace or club?
Sorry for the long post. I am collecting images of every type of weapon and categorised them properly but blunt weapons is the only category confusing me at the moment and need a clarification on the subject.
Update 1 Found a interesting image while randomly looking through images of warhammers. http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y110/Nephtys/Weapons/warhammer_Italy_1490.jpg
Been a while for answers, so I'll add my non-authoritative two cents:
Club: any heavy, blunt object fashioned for violence; usually wooden - a chair leg would be a makeshift club
Mace: a metal club with the weight focused in the striking surface, usually a 2-3 foot handle with a large bulb at the end. The end can be blunt or flanged
Morning star: A mace with a round striking bulb covered in spikes not to be confused with
Ball and chain: a spiked metal ball at the end of a chain, add a handle and you get
Flail: handle, chain, metal striking surface at the end of the chain.
Looking at the google search pics provided, it's easy to see how much overlap there is between the terms.
Also, since we're looking at blunt weapons, there are nonlethal saps and blackjacks which are short, often flexible clubs wrapped in soft padding designed to knock someone unconscious without permanent damage, or to paralyze them with strikes to nerve clusters or large muscle groups. In American English, blackjack is also used as a catch-all for any weapon made by putting something heavy in a cloth (like soap in a sock) and swung around to create force.
I would say a club is any blunt weapon used for bludgeoning i.e. a stick, a crowbar, a bigger stick etc. It can be improvised and is usually not specifically designed to be a club, its form just suites that particular role.
A mace is a weapon expressly designed and created for bludgeoning, it has no other function besides being a weapon.
A morning star is a mace that is both used to puncture and to bludgeon, so it is usually spiked. In fact, the words "morning star" comes from its use as a weapon in early morning raids on enemy camps. It also sometimes is attached to a chain, so you swing it around which adds momentum to the weapon.
Think about it this way, a club is a shank but a mace is a dagger. A shank can be made out of many things and is usually improvised, but a dagger is really only designed for warfare. I hope this clarified it a bit.
