As with most agricultural tools, flails were often used as weapons by farmers who may have lacked better weapons. The flail is proposed as one of the origins of the two-piece baton known in the Okinawan kobudō weapon system as the nunchaku. The first recorded use of a flail as a weapon was at the siege of Damietta in 1218 during the 5th crusade, as depicted in the chronicle by Matthew Paris ; tradition has it the man was the Frisian Hayo of Wolvega who bashed the standard bearer of the muslim defenders with it and captured the flag.