FREE ESSAY ON MEDIEVAL WEAPONRY

MEDIEVAL WEAPONRY

Medieval Weapons
Medieval Weapons were (are) very dangerous. They 
Can kill, puncture, wound, hurt, or anything else. All weapons 
From the Middle Ages were looked upon as frightening and crucial 
Tools to kill. From a small dagger to a large cannon; all weapons 
Would kill, no doubt about it. 
A lot, in fact most of the weapons were used for siege and 
Defense against castles. Castles were the most integral part of the 
Middle Ages. They held the king, the servants and anyone else 
Important. If you wanted land or money, a castle was the perfect 
Place to hit. 
Movable Towers were just one thing used to lay siege on 
These castles. Not necessarily a weapon itself, it held 
Weapons...knights and peasants. 
Knights and (or) peasants carried many weapons depending 
On what specialty they had. Some carried bows-and-arrows, others 
Maces, some swords, some knifes, etc. 
A mace was a metal ball with metal spikes welded on the 
Ball. A chain was attached to a wood stick onto the ball. The 
Mace would not kill only torture. 
Other siege weapons included the ballista, a HUGE 
Crossbow- like slingshot that could send a huge tree trunk 3 football fields 
Long. The ballasta was manly for breaking down castle walls, or for 
scattering
A heavily guarded area. 
The most commonly used weapon was the sword. It was a long metal 
Object that was very sharp on both sides. The sword could actually cut the 
Sheet metal on modern day cars. Imagine this power through your neck! 
Next to the sword, the "soldiers" held a small dagger in a pouch on 
Their belt. This was used to finish people off, as a last resort, or sometimes 
Even suicide missions. 
Trebuchet, the name strikes fear in people's eyes, a HUMONGOUS 
Slingshot that could send a big monkeys boulder 2 football fields. This 
Weapon could be used to demolish castle walls, or could even be used to kill 
Hundreds of people on the battlefield. Anyway used, it was a big dangerous 
Weapon.
Medieval Warfare and Weaponry
In the Middle Ages, the nobility of many cultures had large fortifications built to house
a small town as well as themselves. These fortification were called castles, and they
were so well defended that some historians have called it the most formidable weapon of
medieval warfare (Hull 1). As one can imagine, conquering such a colossal structure cost
much money, even more time, and many lives.
There were three main ways to infiltrate a castle; each no more common than the other
two. The first way to conquer to castle is known as the siege. In a siege, an army would
bar passageways into the castle, and continue to pound away at the castle's defenses
until it was vulnerable to a final attack. In this form of assault, the attacking party
did not have to approach the castle, as was required in a storm, the second way to attack
a castle. In a siege, large projectiles from catapults often bombarded the ramparts of
the castle. Hunger, plague, or actual weapons such as Greek fire arrows killed off the
defenders of the castle. Greek fire was a mixture comprised of highly flammable
substances that was agonizingly hot. Bits of cloth were dipped into the Greek fire
compound and wrapped it behind the head of an arrow, and then lit on fire. Yet another
common tactic in the siege was undermining. Undermining was the digging of tunnels
underneath towers. However, the purposes of such subterranean activity were not for
passage, but to create instability in the towers and in the end cause their
disintegration. 
The second, more certain form of attack upon a castle was the blockade. To blockade a
place was to preclude all entry and departure from the site. In doing so to a castle, one
limited their food supply, for a castle, unlike a manor, could not survive unless contact
with the outer world could be attained. However, starving a castle out was costly in both
money and especially time. For a long while an army waited for the castle to deplete
their resources, the army itself had to continue to supply themselves with such resources
and the soldiers were to be paid for their vigilant act.
Although it was costly and lengthy, blockade did work. Richard the Lionhearted's
stronghold, the Chateau-Gaillard, which was built in only a year along the Seine River,
was sacked on March 6, 1204 by blockade. The Chateau, like many great citadels, was
regarded as invicible, for the art of siegecraft had not kept pace with that of
fortification (Nofi 1). The man responsible for this zenith in French and English history
was King Philip Augustus II. He set up something more than a passive blockade, for he
erected siege works and successfully stormed the outer walls (Nofi 2). By the time the
French made their final storming of the fortress, the defending army was not even two
hundred men. Due to the changing of possession of the Chateau-Gaillard, Normandy's
capital, Rouen, and eventually all of Normandy returned to French rule. In addition, King
Philip attained control of traffic along the Seine. 
The third, and presumably most venturesome of all castle assaults was the storm. In
storming a castle, the aggressive army approached the castle with a battering ram and
literally hammered away at the stone aegis of the castle. Then, troops would traverse the
newly created rubble and enter the castle. Another option was to take a cumbersome siege
tower, known as a belfry, to the castle walls and climb over the walls into the castle.
In storming a castle, an army could not steathily approach the stronghold. The belfry
could not be hidden, for it were multiple stories high.
Once military tactics were of no use in the invasion of a castle, the attack became
simply a ruthless and barbarous man-to-man fight with weapons. Strategy was no longer
applied. Men of the armies fought with double-edged swords, battle-axes, lances, slings,
and weapons of archery. The weapons of archery were the short and long bows, and the most
fearsome weapon known before the discovery of gunpowder: the crossbow.
A man with a sword had great status. The Saxons considered a sword to have equal value of
one hundred-twenty oxen or fifteen male slaves. (Barber 63) They remained popular in many
different forms throughout the Middle Ages. The battle-axe was a product of the
Scandinavian Vikings of the nineth century. The axe was large and formidable and had no
specific types of strikes as the sword did. One simply swung the axe in the general
vicinity of a rival. The sling was a thin piece of leather with a thick pocket near the
middle. A small stone was placed in this pocket, and the sling was set into spinning
motion. Once the sling was released, the stone would flit through the air at an enemy.
The short bow was used in the early Middle Ages until the thirteenth century, when the
Welsh's longbow appeared on the battleground. The Welsh had been using the longbow since
the twelfth century, but in the Welsh Wars of Edward I, it was introduced to the English.
With the introduction of gunpowder, only in England did the long bow survive? However,
neither of these bows could ever compare to the brutality of the crossbow. This tool of
death was smaller than a longbow, but more cumbersome.
The purpose of this short, powerful bow was to give the missile greater initial speed and
thus to increase the range of the shot and its power of penetration. It was not possible,
however, to obtain increased tension when drawing the bow merely by hand. In order to set
the arbalest ready for soothing, it was necessary to use various devices. (Drobna 53).
The simplest tightening method was treading. When tightening the crossbow by treading, an
archer placed his foot in a stirrup at the front, held the bowstring with clips of his
archer's belt and applied tension until the cord was caught in the notch of the arrow.
Although this method was the most expeditious, the most frequently used method was the
levor method. This concept encompassed a toothed-wheel turned by a handle that moved a
rod with a hook of the end; the hook caught the cord, and stretched it. With the level
method, an archer could load the crossbow by kneeling, which did not provide such an
obvious target for the enemy.
The arrows shot from any bow were usually long, with a flat, leaf-shaped or barbed head.
Feathers at the end of the arrow kept its path straight after its release from the bow.
With the crossbow, shorter arrows were used; the crossbow was also capable of firing
stones and darts.
Although the crossbow was powerful and more accurate with aim, one thing the weapon
lacked was the ability to continuously fire rapidly. The longbow was capable of that, and
this proved to be an important value in the longbow in the 1346 battle of Crecy. English
longbow archers in a fixed position proved to be more useful in battle than Genoese
crossbowmen fighting alongside the French.
Regardless of its slowness, so dangerous was the crossbow that the church made an attempt
to ban the crossbow. In the 12th century, Pope Innocent II declared the crossbow to be
'deathly and hateful to God and unfit to be used among Christians.' (Sasser 21)
The Lateran Council of 1139 outlawed the crossbow because that weapon allowed a peasant
foot soldier to kill an armored knight -- obviously not part of God's plan, the churchman
felt. The band did not work; crossbows continued to knock noblemen off their steeds with
great regularity. (Bova 15)
The crossbow was too popular and too useful in war for either participating side of a war
to give up its use. Neither corps obeyed the church and so the crossbow continued to go
against God's will. (Gies 32)
Catapults of the Middle Ages were divided into two major groups: ballistas, and
trebuchets. The ballista was, in essence, a giant crossbow. Huge javelins were placed on
them, the bowstring was cranked to a taut position; when the bowstring was released, and
these javelins were sent 350 - 500 yards into the air. -It was necessary that any such
piece of siege artillery should outrange the arrows of the archers and stones of the
slingers on the walls by a reasonable margin in order to be of much use when set up in an
effective position. (Haven 1). A crossbow device, larger than an arbalest but smaller
than a ballista, was called a scorpion. It could propel eight-foot spears a good
distance.
The ballista had been around since the Roman times. They would mount the firing mechanism
between rows of horses or mules for easy transportation. It was called the carroballista
or cart catapult.
Although the ballista served its purpose well, it was not the most valuable in battle.
The trebuchet of the Middle Ages was the largest and most powerful of the whole range of
hurling engines. (Davidson 23). The trebuchet worked on the lever principal. A long beam
rotated up and down on a crossbeam. The shorter half of the beam was heavily weighted
down, and from the longer end hung a pouch of rope. Projectiles were placed in the pouch
and flung through the air up to eight hundred yards. The long end was tied to a base that
kept it from being thrown into the air by the counterweight. Once this rope was severed,
the projectile went into motion. Possible projectiles of the trebuchet were living
prisoners, jugs of Greek fire, rocks, and animals. 
Another large weapon of siege was used primarily in storms, the battering ram. In its
early stages, the ram was no more than a hefty beam with a mass of metal attached to the
end. Men would hoist the cumbersome boom onto their shoulders and run into a wall or door
as many times as needed until the surface under attack gave way. In the Middle Ages, it
was developed into more of a machine, for the ram hung from the center of a tent under
which the men operating the ram could hide. The ram could be swung like a pendulum much
more easily than having to constantly run back and forth. Also, castle guards often
poured hot oil or other things onto the ram and its engineers. The tent, which was on
wheels, protected the men and the battering ram as well.