History Online - Weapons
[an error occurred while processing this directive]Medieval and modern Weapons
Weapons of a Knight
The sword was a standard fighting weapon long before the evolution of the knight. Even so, the knight found the sword to be an effective weapon in close quarters, and it even developed religious connotations due to its cruciform shape in a society where there was no separation of religion and everyday life--including war. How elaborate the sword was decorated depended upon its owner's wealth, with some of the more intricate ones encrusted with jewels and fine engravings.
Apart from the sword another standard weapon was the lance. The lance enabled the knight to take advantage of his superior position on horseback as it provided the length necessary to engage opponents while still mounted. After the lance became broken or dropped the knight could rely on his sword, dismounting if necessary.
Catapults were invented about 400 BC in the powerful Greek town Syracus under Dionysios I (ca. 430-367 BC). The Greek engineers first constructed a comparatively small machine, the gastraphetes, sort of a crossbow. The gastraphetes was powered by a specially large composite bow. The military effect of the new weapon during the siege of Motya (Sicily) 397 BC encouraged the Greek engineers to enlarge the machine further. They put a larger gastraphetes on a carriage and added a windlass to cock the heavier machine. Certain physical barriers prevented further enlargement of the composite bow. Therefore in mid-fourth century BC torsion springs were introduced instead of the composite bow. The torsion spring consisted of a bundle of rope made from horse-hair or sinew. Such a spring could be enlarged indefinitely. The new catapults were equiped now with two torsion springs powering the two arms of the catapult. Very soon the new design superseded the old gastraphetes machines. Alexander the Great already employed torsion spring catapults on his campaigns. All Hellenistic armies and all powerful Greek cities soon owned a park of torsion artillery. Inscriptions from the Chalkothek on the Acropolis of Athens first mention torsion spring catapults there about 330 BC. - In the 3rd century BC the two main types of catapults were standardized: the euthytonon for shooting arrows and the palintonon for throwing stone balls. They now could be built after the standard calibration formulae layed down in contemporary technical treatises. In this form Carthage and Rome also adopted the heavy weapons. - This type of Hellenistic torsion artillery still was employed under Augustus, when Vitruvius wrote his work. About 100 AD the Romans redesigned the torsion artillery, developing quite different new arrow-shooting machines. They are first shown on Trajan´s Column in Rome. The new catapult types remained in use until Late Antiquity. In this period also another type of stone-thrower was employed, the onager.
Following the previous two reconstruction projects, Leonardo da Vinciís Ornithopter and an early 15th century underwater diving suit, the next proposal investigates warfare, - "the mother of invention". Born in the middle-ages and destined to change the face of tactics forever, the invention of the firearm was to create a revolutionary impact on medieval armies and the race for military superiority.
For some time it was widely believed that gunpowder was invented by the German monk Berthold Schwartz of Freiberg sometime in the early 14th century, however modern research has proved that the apparent evidence is in fact a renaissance addition to the original Ghent Memorial book manuscript.
A more plausible claim to the invention lies in a letter dated to between 1249 and 1267 by the English scientist Roger Bacon. Although written in a code (which in itself hints that he understood the significance of his findings) it clearly describes experiments with the three principal ingredients of gunpowder namely saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal.
The word "artillery" as used in the modern context to describe heavy firearms has it's origin in the middle-ages. It stems from the Old-French atellier meaning to arrange, while attillement meant apparatus or equipment. According to Etienne Boileau (c.1268) an artillier was a builder of war machines, and for the next two centuries the word artillery was used to cover all military equipment. The word "cannon" comes from the Latin canna meaning tube. The word "Bombarde" from the Greek bombos meaning a loud hum was initially used for many different cannons but by the end of the 14th century came to denote the larger siege pieces. In medieval Danish (as in many other European languages) the word "bösse" (from the common German buss, derived from the medieval latin buxis meaning the wooden almsbox in a church, no doubt similarly shaped to a cannon) was often used for several types of fireams. There were many spelling variations, such as buss, busse, bysse, byssa, bösse and bössa, and the various names could also be combined such as "canonibus". The English word "gun" comes from the medieval English "engyn" meaning a construction, and in a military sense, a war-machine. (Cannons were also considered to be machines).
Other weapons finding use in the hands of the medieval knight were the axe, mace (metal club), and war hammer. It was, however, the sword and lance that the knight more often than not depended upon.
For the knight's opponents on the ground who had to answer his advantageous longer reach, they developed assorted long-handled bladed weapons that went by many different names (pike, halberd, etc.). Archers were always a concern for the knight as they could hit targets from a distance. Many knights believed archer's methods to be cowardly, as they did not engage in hand-to-hand combat, but struck from afar.
Catapults
Firearms
But what of the performance and significance of gunpowder weapons in the early years? Many scholars dismiss the initial developments as primitive contraptions with little capability of accuracy or destruction. But a study of existing records show a surprising number of guns and munitions kept in armouries throughout Europe. Original invoices also attest to the relatively high cost of manufacture and supply of firearms, hardly good evidence for a weapon thought of to be little use or value! Francesco Petrach, in the year 1350 wrote, " These instruments which discharge balls of metal with most tremendous noise and flashes of fire...were a few years ago very rare and were viewed with great astonishment and admiration, but now they have become as common and familiar as any kind of arms. So quick and ingenious are the minds of men in learning the most pennicious arts." In the late 14th century, John of Mirfield an English surgeon called the firearm "That diabolic instrument of war"
The first cannons were made up of two distinct types, small guns of cast copper/bronze alloys firing arrow-like missiles and lead shot, and wrought iron cannons firing stone or iron balls or shrapnel. The Middelaldercentret proposes to reconstruct these two weapons along with their ammunition and gunpowder specially produced to original recipes of the 14th century. A series of experimental test firings, at a military artillery range, will be undertaken to enable statements to be made about the effective ranges, accuracy and overall characteristics of the cannons. The results will be published on both popular and academic level.
Gunpowder
Many claims also suggest China as an origin for gunpowder, and there still remains a possibility that the recipes were transmitted to Europe via the moslems. In the Arabian colonies of Africa, saltpetre was known as "Chinese snow" and in Persia as "Chinese salt" and one 13th century manuscript refers to a substance causing "Heaven shaking thunder!" It should be pointed out however that actual firearms in the far-east were developed at around the same time as in the west and the early use of gunpowder was probably limited to fireworks.
In Europe a number of original formulas from the 13th to15th centuries still exist, each detailing the relative proportions of the three ingredients in percentages. (Note. For comparison, the optimum proportions of modern gunpowder are considered: Saltpetre 74.64%, Sulphur 11.85%, Charcoal 13.51%).
There would also be variations in the purity, fineness and blend of the powdered ingredients, which could affect the speed of combustion within the gun barrel . Although a 14th century manuscript prescribes milling the raw materials on a marble grindstone and then sifting through a linen cloth, the components still have a tendency to seperate in a container with only slight shaking, the dense saltpetre settling to the bottom and the light carbon rising to the top.
From other records it would seem that medieval gunners only came close to the optimum mixture in the late 1400ís during which time the gunpowder was also engrained (formed into granules) which allowed a better circulation of air (oxygen) producing a more instantaneous, volatile explosion.
Artillery Pieces
It is difficult to say exactly when cannons were invented, many records of particular events or battles mentioning fireams were written some time after the incident. Some of these suggest the existence of the weapons in the early 14th century eg. at Ghent in 1313, at the siege of Metz in 1324, and by English troops against the Scots in 1327. The earliest listing of firearms in an inventory is in a Florentine ordinance of 1326 which refers to a cannon of bronze.
The earliest known drawing of a cannon is that of Walter de Milemete also in the year 1326 (in a book presented to King Edward III of England) which shows a tulip shaped barrel loaded with an arrow (see "extant examples", "ammunition" and illustration)
After this time cannons of various types are frequently mentioned in manuscripts and armoury inventories throughout Europe. In Denmark the first concrete reference to the existence of firearms is in a letter dating from 1372 where a knight Erland Kalv refers to an incident where a citizen of Ribe was executed for trying to smuggle gunpowder to the Holstein held castle of Gram. In 1389, Queen Margrethe I made an agreement with the German Hanseatic League to equip a fleet with "bösser" to clear the Nordic waters of sea pirates.
In 1395 there is a record of a large cannon situated in Stockholm. In 1403 a combined Danish and Swedish force on Gotland used guns alongside a trebuchet and in 1428 an attacking army from Lübeck were driven away from Copenhagen by guns positioned on the beach.-
