Historical use? I'm pretty sure the German use was a ball & chain/large shield combo. Romanian peasants, at least, occasionally made home-made flails and wooden ball and chain "things" (don't know better how to describe them -- sort of a spikey club tied to a staff with leather thongs) during peasant uprisings, but I don't think they usually parried with them -- more like "Let's all whack that knight over there at once, he can't hit more than one of us."
Were B&Cs ever actually used widely? Seems like a good all-metal warhammer or pick is a better parrying weapon, gives you better armor penetration, easier to make, etc. Just curious. I know they were used, but not how common they were.
Jim Bickmeyer describes deflection better than I can -- for a longer (2H) length of chain, you could probably spin a length in a regular circle, and try to snag/deflect the incoming weapon. Might give better coverage than a figure eight. There's something similar in quarterstaff fighting, I believe -- spinning the staff rapidly to deflect incoming blows, and build up speed for a strike.
And on two-weapon use: I believe paired cestus/fighting claws were sometimes used, too. And I know someone who swears by paired sai, and nunchaku are used in pairs. But these are all short/small weapons, of course, and not necessarily used on the battlefield.
James Frusetta
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