So I was playing Mount and Blade: Viking Conquest, which is set around the time of the Great Heathen Army. In the game, javelins and throwing spears are ubiquitous, and that is historically accurate, as far as I know. Before the "Viking Era", the Roman army was known for their use of the pilum. Throwing spears are everywhere in the Greek myths that I have read.
So why did throwing weapon seemingly cease to be an important factor in European warfare after the "Viking era"? The obvious answer is the advancement in technology, with more powerful bows and crossbows, stronger armours... but it does not completely make sense to me. Even if throwing weapon is completely outclassed at long range, at point-blank, see-the-white-of-their-eyes range, an opening volley of thrown spears should still be considerably dangerous. It's not like everyone in a typical army of this period was completely encased in the best plate armour available.
As far as I know, longbow arrows could not always reliably pierce good plate armour, but longbows were still deployed en mass against heavily armoured knights, so why not gave the rank and file soldiers some throwing spears to supplement bows/crossbows and help break the enemy advance?
Were throwing weapons too weak? Were medieval armours too restrictive for a good throw compare to earlier armours, and maybe the armour was not designed with throwing in mind? I have seen some reenactment that show off plate armour mobility, but I don't think I have seen anyone throw a spear in plate before. What about lighter armours, like brigandine?
Did anyone from that period leave behind their thought about throwing weapons? Any information about this topic is appreciated, and if I made any wrong assumption, please correct me.
Hi, I approached part of your question here and the answer linked in that answer, that javelins remained a weapon of war well into the eleventh century, and you've partially hit on the answer in your question.
One of the ways in which warfare really changes in the high medieval period, especially in post-Conquest England, is the prevalence and battlefield dominance of cavalry. Javelins are fantastic weapons for disrupting heavy infantry, and they remain so popular in the days of Anglo-Saxon shieldwall-based combat precisely because they're very useful for fouling shields. Their value comes not so much from killing, but from disrupting formations, forcing fighters to abandon shields and thus leaving them vulnerable and preventing them forming effective formations. Cavalry had come to dominate Frankish strategies under Charlemagne, and the loricati of Otto I had proved their worth against the light cavalry and infantry of the Magyars and Wends in 955, and against this type of more mobile threat, javelins are less useful.
The shieldwall which had proved so central to Anglo-Saxon tactics retained its value in this period, as densely packed infantry formed a useful deterrent against cavalry, similarly to how infantry squares were used against cavalry in the early modern period. Crossbowmen and archers could therefore operate with relative impunity from behind these formations, as they were able to fire at longer range over the heads of their comrades. Javelins, however, were traditionally thrown from the flanks, or by javelineers in between advancing spearwalls who could then withdraw behind their own ranks before a slower-moving enemy reached them, but would be hard-pressed to manage this when faced with much faster cavalry.