Munitions In 1224

Summary

While the noise of war still echoes in our ears, the following records will have some interest. They relate to the siege of Bedford Castle, of which a lively description from the pen of Mr. A. R. Goddard was published by the Bedford Arts Club in 1906. The Letters Close have been already printed in contracted Latin by the Record Commission (Rot. Litt. Claus., i., pp. 605-618), and the text is therefore not reprinted here. The extracts from the Pipe Roll have not been printed in any form, and therefore appear both in Latin and English.

The working of the siege artillery, the engines used for hurling stones or quarells, may be read at length in Sir R. Payne-Gallwey’s “ Projectile-Throwing Engines ” (Lond. 1907 4to.). They were (1) the Mangonell; this probably resembled the Roman catapult, in which the butt end of a beam passed vertically between tightly twisted ropes; the free end of the beam was then hauled down by windlass to the horizontal, thus twisting the ropes still more tightly; on its release the detorsion of the ropes brought it violently again to the vertical, flinging a stone from a sling of oxhide or horsehide (No. 15) attached to the free end; (2) the Balista, which resembled a gigantic crossbow; in this, two shorter beams were passed similarly between twisted ropes, but horizontally; cords from their free ends met in a central sling; this was hauled back by a winch horizontally against the twist of the ropes, and on release flung a stone or javelin by the sudden detorsion; (3) the Petrary or Trebuchet; this consisted of a vertical beam, swinging on an axle which divided it into a short thick lever and a long thin lever; the former was nearest to the ground, and carried a huge receptacle of wood and metal which could be filled with stones or earth; the long lever was drawn down by windlass to a horizontal position, the short end with the receptacle rising at the same time; when the long lever was released with a missile in the sling on its end, the counter poise on the short lever brought the whole rapidly to the vertical, and flung the projectile.