Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages / Third Edition

by Edward Lewes Cutts

The use of the regular mine for effecting a breach in the wall of a fortified place was well known, and often brought to bear. The miners began their work at some distance, and drove a shaft underground towards the part of the fortifications which seemed most assailable; they excavated beneath the foundations of the wall, supporting the substructure with wooden props until they had finished their work. Then they set fire to the props, and retired to see the unsupported weight of the wall bringing it down in a heap of ruins. The operation of mining was usually effected under the protection of a temporary pent-house, called a cat or sow. William of Malmesbury describes the machine as used in the siege of Jerusalem, at the end of the eleventh century. “It is constructed,” he says, “of slight timbers, the roof covered with boards and wicker-work, and the sides protected with undressed hides, to protect those who are within, who proceed to undermine the foundations of the walls.” Our next woodcut gives a very clear illustration of one of these machines, which has been moved on its wheels up to the outer wall of a castle, and beneath its protection a party of men-at-arms are energetically plying their miner’s tools, to pick away the foundation, and so allow a portion of the wall to settle down and leave an entrance. The methods in which this mode of attack was met were various. We all remember the Border heroine, who, when her castle was thus attacked, declared she would make the sow farrow, viz., by casting down a huge fragment of stone upon it. That this was one way of defence is shown in the woodcut, where one of the defenders, with energetic action, is casting down a huge stone upon the sow. That the roof was made strong enough to resist such a natural means of offence is shown by the stones which are represented as lodged all along it. Another more subtle counteraction, shown in the woodcut, was to pour boiling water or boiling oil upon it, that it might fall through the interstices of the roof, and make the interior untenable. No doubt means were taken to make the roof liquid-tight, for the illustration represents another mode of counteraction (of which we have met with no other suggestion), by driving sharp-pointed piles into the roof, so as to make holes and cracks through which the boiling liquid might find an entrance. If these means of counteracting the work of the cat seemed likely to be unavailing, it still remained to throw up an inner line of wall, which, when the breach was made, should extend from one side to the other of the unbroken wall, and so complete the circumvallation. This, we have evidence, was sometimes done with timber and planks, and a sort of scaffolding was erected on the inner side, which maintained the communication along the top of the walls, and enabled the soldiers to man the top of this wooden wall and offer a new resistance to the besiegers as they poured into the breach. The mine was also, in ancient as in modern times, met by a counter-mine.

The Cat. (Royal, 16 G VI.)

Another usual machine for facilitating the siege of fortified places was a movable tower. Such an engine was commonly prepared beforehand, and taken to pieces and transported with the army as a normal part of the siege-train. When arrived at the scene of operations, it was put together at a distance, and then pushed forward on wheels, until it confronted the walls of the place against which it was to operate. It was intended to put the besiegers on a level and equality with the besieged. From the roof the assailants could command the battlements and the interior of the place, and by their archers could annoy the defence. A movable part of the front of the tower suddenly let fall upon the opposite battlements, at once opened a door and formed a bridge, by which the besiegers could make a rush upon the walls and effect a lodgment if successful, or retreat if unsuccessful to their own party.

Such a tower was constructed by Richard I. in Cyprus, as part of his preparation for his Crusade. An illustration of a tower thus opposed to a castle—not a very good illustration—is to be found in the Royal MS., 16 G. VI., at folio 278 v. Another, a great square tower, just level with the opposing battlements, with a kind of sloping roof to ward off missiles, is shown in the MS. Chroniques d’Angleterres (Royal 16, E. IV.), which was illuminated for Edward IV. Again, at f. 201 of the same MS., is another representation of wooden towers opposed to a city.

If the besieged could form a probable conjecture as to the point of the walls towards which the movable tower, whose threatening height they saw gradually growing at a bow-shot from their walls, would be ultimately directed, they sometimes sent out under cover of night and dug pitfalls, into which, as its huge bulk was rolled creaking forward, its fore wheels might suddenly sink, and so the machine fall forward, and remain fixed and useless. As it approached, they also tried to set it on fire by missiles tipped with combustibles. If it fairly attained its position, they assailed every loop and crevice in it with arrows and crossbow bolts, and planted a strong body of men-at-arms on the walls opposite to it, and in the neighbouring towers, to repel the “boarders” in personal combat. A bold and enterprising captain did not always wait for the approach of these engines of assault, but would counter-work them as he best could from the shelter of his walls. He would sometimes lower the drawbridge, and make a sudden sally upon the unfinished tower or the advancing sow, beat off the handful of men who were engaged about it, pile up the fragments and chips lying about, pour a few pots of oil or tar over the mass, and set fire to it, and return in triumph to watch from his battlements how his fiery ally would, in half an hour, destroy his enemy’s work of half a month. In the early fourteenth century MS. Add. 10,294, at fol. 740, we have a small picture of a fight before a castle or town, in which we see a column of men-at-arms crossing the drawbridge on such an expedition. And again, in the plates in which Hans Burgmaier immortalised the events of the reign of the Emperor Maximilian, a very artistic representation of a body of men-at-arms, with their long lances, crowding through the picturesque gate and over the drawbridge, brings such an incident vividly before us.

The besiegers on their part did not neglect to avail themselves of such shelter as they could find or make from the shot and from the sallies of the enemy, so as to equalise as much as practicable the conditions of the contest. The archers of the castle found shelter behind the merlons of the battlements, and had the windows from which they shot screened by movable shutters; as may be seen in the next woodcut of the assault on a castle. It would have put the archers of the assailants at a great disadvantage if they had had to stand out in the open space, exposed defenceless to the aim of the foe; all neighbouring trees which could give shelter were, of course, cut down, in order to reduce them to this defenceless condition, and works were erected so as to command every possible coigne of vantage which the nooks and angles of the walls might have afforded. But the archers of the besiegers sought to put themselves on more equal terms with their opponents by using the pavis or mantelet. The pavis was a tall shield, curved so as partly to envelop the person of the bearer, broad at the top and tapering to the feet. We sometimes see cross-bowmen carrying it slung at their backs (as in Harl. 4,379, and Julius E. IV., f. 219, engraved on p. 294), so that after discharging a shot they could turn round and be sheltered by the great shield while they wound up their instrument for another shot. Sometimes this shield seems to have been simply three planks of wood nailed together, which stood upright on the ground, and protected the soldier effectively on three sides. There are illustrations of it in the MS. Royal 20 C vii. (temp. Rich. II.), at f. 19, f. 24 v., and f. 29 v., and in the MS. Harl. 4,382, f. 133 v. and f. 154 v. The mantelet was a shield still more ample, and capable of being fixed upright by a prop, so that it formed a kind of little movable fort which the bowman, or man-at-arms, could carry out and plant before the walls, and thence discharge his missiles, or pursue any other operation, in comparative safety from the smaller artillery of the enemy. The most interesting example which we have met of the employment of the pavis and mantelet, is in a picture in the Harl. MS. 4,425, at f. 133. The woodcut on the previous page represents only a portion of the picture, the whole of which is well worth study. The reader will see at once that we have here the work of a draughtsman of far superior skill to that of the limners of the rude illuminations which we have previously given. The background really gives us some adequate idea of the appearance of an Edwardian castle with its barbican and drawbridge, its great tower with the heads of the defenders just peeping over the battlements. We must call attention to the right-hand figure in the foreground, who is clad in a pourpoint, one of the quilted armours which we have formerly described, because it is the best illustration of this species of armour we have met with. But the special point for which we give the woodcut here, is to illustrate the use of the mantelet. It will be seen—though somewhat imperfectly, from the fragment of the engraving introduced—that these defences have been brought up to the front of the attacking party in such numbers as to form an almost continuous wall, behind which the men-at-arms are sheltered; on the right are great fixed mantelets, with a hole in the middle of each, through which the muzzle of a gun is thrust; while the cannoniers work their guns as behind the walls of a fort.

Use of the Pavis, etc.