8 - Analysis of Guns

Summary

THE ADOPTION OF GUNPOWDER weapons was one of the major developments of the Middle Ages. Establishing how this technology was adopted and adapted by medieval artificers is more difficult to determine, however, due to a lack of detail in the extant financial sources. Yet the preceding chapters have demonstrated that extensive evidence survives from other sources for English firearms in the late fourteenth to the fifteenth centuries. The information extracted from these sources can be used to answer key questions about the construction, maintenance, operation and movement of these guns, as well as the types of gunpowder and ammunition used to fire these weapons. This chapter explores these topics in detail.

BRONZE GUN-MAKING IN ENGLAND

The earliest record of firearms in English accounts dates from 1345, when an unspecified number of guns were repaired for the royal expedition to France, but the provenance of these weapons is unknown. Similarly, the process by which gun-making techniques were imported from the Continent is undocumented, although this had occurred by at least 1353, when four guns made out of a copper-alloy were produced for the privy wardrobe by a brasier, William de Algate. A variety of terms were used to describe guns made of copper-alloys, including copper (cupra), brass (aenum/eneus), laton (latone) and metal (metallo). This production method involved heating copper, along with another metal, almost always tin, at a sufficiently high temperature until it became liquid, after which it was then poured into a mould, usually of metal or clay. A range of different words were used to describe craftsmen who worked with copper-alloys, such as potters, latteners and founders, although the earliest recorded gun-makers appear to have been London brasiers, such as John Brassier of Cornhill, who made one gun for the privy wardrobe in 1361. As has been suggested by previous scholars, these professionals were pioneers in gun production as the techniques they employed for casting pots and cauldrons could easily be adapted for making early firearms. An example of this can be seen in the case of the gun depicted in the manuscript presented by Walter de Milemete to Edward III in 1327, which takes the form of a cauldron placed on its side on a wooden trestle.