Crossbowman

“ This I found at the sack of Tournay, and 'tis warranted to turn a sword-cut or to stop an arrow at two score paces. This breastplate will also serve—and this steel cap. Now as to thy arms. Here is a sword, slightly heavy for thee, yet anon thou'lt become accustomed to the feel of it, though a bowman stands an ill chance should he suffer a troop of lances to come within striking distance! Now into yonder corner throw thy crossbow, for, as I have shown, 'tis but a clumsy and unwieldy tool for an Englishman. Here is a better—a full-sized English longbow; that is the king of weapons! ”

“ He always began the battle at a distance, as the artillery do in modern warfare, before the main bodies came up to actual hand-to-hand fighting. We find in this century a regular use of mounted corps of bowmen and cross-bowmen; and the knights did not scorn to practise the use of this weapon, and occasionally to resort to it on a special occasion in the field. Some of the bowmen continue to be found, in the MS. illustrations, more or less fully armed, but the majority seem to have worn only a helmet of iron, and perhaps half armour of leather, or often nothing more than a woollen jerkin. ”

“ There is one very singular weapon among the Fans. Perhaps there is no part of the world where we could less expect to find the crossbow than among a cannibal tribe at the head of the Gaboon. Yet there the crossbow is regularly used as an engine of war, and a most formidable weapon it is, giving its possessors a terrible advantage over their foes. The ingenuity exhibited in the manufacture of this weapon is very great, and yet one cannot but wonder at the odd mixture of cleverness and stupidity which its structure shows. ”

“ And yet it says nothing for your weapon, mon gros camarade, for it was by turning yourself into a crossbow that you did it.”
“By my hilt! there is truth in that,” cried Aylward. “And now, friend, I will myself show you a vantage of the long-bow. I pray you to speed a bolt against yonder shield with all your force. It is an inch of elm with bull's hide over it.” ”

“ The most remarkable of their weapons is a cross-bow, which is almost exactly like that of the Fan tribe of Africa. It is not very powerful, and only propels a small arrow. Its chief use is in killing birds.
Besides these weapons, every man carries a cutlass-blade from which the hilt has been removed, and a handle roughly made by wrapping some six inches of the butt with cocoa-nut fibre. It is intended not so much as a weapon as a tool, and with it the natives cut down trees, carve their canoes, and perform similar operations. ”

“ Surcoat, shield and trapper have the arms of their owner. The rowel-spur makes a rare appearance. Weapons change little, although the sword is often longer and heavier. Richard I. had favoured the cross-bow, in spite of papal denunciations of that weapon hateful to God, and its use is common through all the 13th century, after which it makes way for the national weapon of the long-bow. ”

“ This they did, by holding the bow in their left hand, and grasping the arrow on the string with the right, (as is usual with them;) resting the right hand on the hip; drawing the bow with all their strength; throwing themselves forward and back, and bending their bodies, until their heads almost touched the ground; and all the time they were springing about, in every direction, as if avoiding the missiles of the foe, and yelling at the very top of their voices, with more than mortal fierceness. ”

“ Attached to it is a thin but strong string, one end of which is tied to the hook, while the other end passes through a small hole in the wooden part of the arrow, and is fastened to the cross-bar of the bow. This string is about thirty feet in length, and serves not only to drag the captured fish out of the water, and land it, but also to prevent the arrow from being lost. The origin of the cross-bow, which I have not found in the possession of any other tribe, puzzled me until the word Firingi was mentioned in connection with it. ”

“ It is fashioned with a notch at the base to make its extraction from a wound difficult, if not impossible.
[40]
The manipulation of the cross-bow requires no little strength. The bowman props the cross against his body and holds the bow firm on the ground with his foot. The strain of fixing the arrow is so great that it has been known to burst the bladder.
When the Moï goes to war with his neighbours he generally swathes his body in a multitude of thick wrappings to give him protection against such weapons as knives and daggers. ”

“ The arrow of the arbalest is sometimes called vireton, from the French virer, on account of its rotary flight. Compare the classical verutum, a javelin which owed its name to a similar property. Though the English appear to have used the cross-bow from near the close of the twelfth to the end of the thirteenth century, in the succeeding age the long-bow obtained a signal triumph over its rival.
In the hands of a stout soldiery, indeed, the long-bow is a much superior weapon ”

“ Compactness of troops was a great point in mediæval warfare, and the bowmen could stand closer together with their bows vertical than their brethren of the cross-bow with their weapons in the horizontal position. There is little doubt that the cross-bow was the ideal weapon for the ordinary soldier of an ordinary race, inasmuch as little intellect was required to direct the aim and little strength was necessary if the usual mechanical means were used to bend the bow. ”

“ Cortes then ordered Pedro Barba, who commanded the crossbow-men to divide the arrows and copper points among his men, and see that every man fixed the points neatly to the arrows, and attached the feathers with strong glue. Every crossbow-man was also to furnish himself with two closely twisted cords for his bow; further to provide himself with a number of spare nuts for the bows, that if one should crack or fly off he might have another in readiness. The crossbow-men were also to exercise themselves in shooting at heaps of earth to ascertain the strength of their bows. ”

“ The boys of the laager seemed to be fitted out with hats of such a size that they would have to be grown into, and would then do for them in their grown–up years. The young idea was also learning to shoot by using crossbows, and it was interesting to see what good positions they got into for firing in the quickest manner, using aim and trigger just as with a gun. A crossbow should be an excellent instrument for teaching the elements of rifle–shooting. ”

“ Crusoe buckled two sword-bayonets around his 117waist, and put two big knives and eight revolvers in his belt. He made me carry the same load, besides a bag slung over one shoulder and filled with ammunition. Each of us carried four guns on each shoulder, and with this nice little load we started for the beach, where the cannibals were getting ready for dinner.
Anybody who has ever tried to carry a lot of oars on his shoulder without first lashing them together, knows how they will separate and spread out like a fan. Mr. Crusoe’s guns did the same thing. ”

“ Several further varieties of the Cross-bow are named about this time:—Balistæ corneæ; ad stapham [381] ; ad viceas [382] ; de torno vel de lena [383] ; ad unum pedem; ligneæ ad duos pedes; de cornu ad duos pedes; a pectoribus; a pesarola [384] ; and among the rest, a Double Cross-bow, discharging two quarrels: "Balista sine nuce, quæ duos projicit quarrellos." See Ducange and Adelung, v. Balista.
The Quarrel (carreau) , as its name indicates, was an arrow with a four-sided or pyramidal head. This distinctive form of the arbalest shaft is carefully kept in view in the illumination from Add. ”

“ Next, with leisurely precision, and with no trace of excitement upon his bronzed and weather-beaten face, he proceeded to unsling his weapon from his back and to make it ready for use; and as he did so, one further circumstance became apparent--namely, that he was a huntsman who did not care for noise--a poacher, perhaps--for what had resembled a gun now proved to be an old-fashioned crossbow, of rare and curious workmanship, and this bow the huntsman bent, and then, adjusting the murderous looking bolt, settled down to wait in comfort until his quarry should appear. ”

“ Said the youthful Joukahainen,
"I've two crossbows I could give you,360
Ay, a pair of splendid crossbows,
One shoots forth with passing quickness,
Surely hits the mark the other.
If it please you, choose between them."
Said the aged Väinämöinen,
"No, your bows I do not covet,
For the wretched bows I care not;
I myself have plenty of them.
All the walls are decked with crossbows,
All the pegs are hung with crossbows;370
In the woods they wander hunting,
Nor a hero needs to span them." ”

“ But almost any man who has strength to set a cross-bow, with moderate practice, and any idea at all of shooting, could become a fairly good shot with it. From the cross-bow to a gun was a comparatively easy step, and it was the knowledge of the power of the one that led to the quick introduction of the other. ”

“ Like the hare, if the fore-leg is injured, deer cannot progress; if only the hind-quarter is hit, there is no telling how far they may go. Therefore the cross-bow, as enabling the hunter to choose the exact spot where his bolt should strike, became the weapon of the chase, and by its very perfection began the extermination of the deer. Instead of the hounds and the noisy hunt, any man who could use the cross-bow could kill a buck. The long-bow, of all weapons, requires the most practice, and practice begun in early youth. ”

“ In countries where the bow was not used, the weapons of the men-at-arms were generally the lance and the sword. This was the case when the knight led his personal retainers to battle; but when his followers were the people of any particular town which he protected, few chivalric arms were borne, and the bill more frequently than the spear was brought into the field. The cross-bow can hardly be considered a weapon of chivalry. ”

“ Somehow or other, Shuh did it. Think of the few thrilling seconds of glorious life, and the jubilation of the crowd when the knife went home.
Note the difference between them and us. Miss your shot with the breechloader, and you can fire [311] again, and even if you do not hit a vital part, you can stop him. “But with bow and arrows,” as an old man said to me in 1889, telling how he and his father had fought a tiger with such weapons, and showing me the good old cross-bow they used, “it is folly to shoot till he is close, for at a distance the arrow merely irritates him. Wait till he is near.” ”

“ So said Montluc of the musket, which in 1523 had not yet, he says, superseded in France the use of the crossbow: ‘Would to God this accursed instrument had never been invented.... So many brave and valiant men would not have met their deaths at the hands very often of the greatest cowards, who would not so much as dare look at the man whom they knock down from a distance with their accursed balls.’ [180] And in the same spirit Charles XII. of Sweden once bade his soldiers to come to close quarters with the enemy without shooting, on the ground that it was only for cowards to shoot. ”

“ The number of crossbow men was thirty-three, and of musketeers thirteen: add to this our heavy guns and four falconets, a great quantity of powder and balls. As to the precise number of crossbow men I cannot exactly swear, though it matters not whether there were a few more or less. [Pg 58]
After this review, Cortes ordered the artillerymen Mesa, Bartolome de Usagre, Arbenga, and a certain Catalonier whose name I forget, to keep all our firearms bright and in good order, to see that each cannon had its right-sized ball, to prepare the cartridges, and distribute the powder properly. ”

“ As the bullets whizzed overhead, or flattened themselves harmlessly against the stonework, the Croixilians lay behind the shelter of their battlements—the archers with their bows strung and their arrows lying close to hand, the crossbowmen with their powerful weapons bent almost to breaking-point, and the knights ready, with sword, axe, or mace, to sweep the invaders from off the parapet. Heaps of stone, bundles of flaming straw, great balks of spike-studded timber, and bowls of melted 'lead and hot pitch were in readiness to be hurled upon the heads of the reckless attackers. ”

“ The crossbow has many advantages over the arquebuse: it kills, but does not frighten game; this cannot be done with the arquebuse, for the sound it makes alarms and frightens the game, and is heard everywhere. Once set, its shot is secure; which is not the case with the arquebuse, which often misses fire.
"This weapon has been used in Spain from very early times, and has been made by the best masters; the most famous among them were—
"The only famous maker of crossbows of the present time is Juan de Lastra." ”

“ But the bowmen of the present time go into battle wearing corselets and fitted out with greaves which extend up to the knee. From the right side hang their arrows, from the other the sword. And there are some who have a spear also attached to them and, at the shoulders, a sort of small shield without a grip, such as to cover the region of the face and neck. They are expert horsemen, and are able without difficulty to direct their bows to either side while riding at full speed, and to shoot an opponent whether in pursuit or in flight. ”

“ It was an arblast—one of the military sort, intended for use against plate armor, Its bow, of solid steel, was wider and as thick as a small wagon-spring, though shorter. No unaided man was supposed to bend that bow. To accomplish this the crossbowmen of old used a small windlass that fitted, when required for use, over the butt of the weapon, and was operated by two cranks, one for each hand. It was a wonderful specimen. I was as enthusiastic concerning it as was Honey himself, and we must, I think, have behaved rather like two children.
Bowstring and windlass lines of course were missing ”