[1174] See Payne Gallwey, The Crossbow, 309; Köhler, Kriegswesen, iii., 192. The trébuchet is first mentioned at the siege of Piacenza in 1199.
[1175] As far as we can tell, the tops of keeps having generally been ruined or altered, the common arrangement was either a simple gable, or two gables resting on a cross wall, such as all the larger keeps possessed.
[1176] Another consequence of the introduction of an engine of longer range was the widening of castle ditches. We frequently find works on ditches mentioned in John’s accounts.
[1177] Payne Gallwey, The Crossbow, p. 3. We find it used by Louis VI. of France, before 1137. Suger’s Gesta Ludovici, 10 (ed. Molinier). Ten balistarii are mentioned in Domesday Book, but they may have been engineers of the great balista, a siege machine. There is no representation of a crossbow in the Bayeux Tapestry. There are entries in the Pipe Rolls of 6, 8, and 9 Henry II. of payments for arbelast, but these also may refer to the great balista.
[1178] Guill. Brit. Armorici Philippides, Bouquet xvii., line 315.
[1179] The bow brought by Richard from Palestine is believed to have been an improved form of crossbow, made of horn and yew, “light, elastic, and far more powerful than a bow of solid wood.” Payne Gallwey, The Crossbow.
[1180] “Fenestris arcubalistaribus,” Bouquet xvii., 75. The writer has never found a single defensive loophole in any of the keeps of Henry I. or Henry II. Köhler remarks that the loopholes up to this period do not seem to be intended for shooting (Entwickelung des Kriegswesen, iii., 409), and Clark has some similar observations.
[1181] Dictionnaire de l’Architecture, art. “Meurtrière.”
[1182] Meyrick in his Ancient Armour quotes a charter of 1239, in which the French king grants a castle to the Count de Montfort on condition “quod non possumus habere in eodem archeriam nec arbalisteriam,” which Meyrick audaciously translates “any perpendicular loophole for archers, nor any cruciform loophole for crossbowmen.” The quotation is unfortunately given by Sir R. Payne Gallwey without the Latin original. It is at any rate probable that the cruciform loophole was for archers; it does not appear till the time of the long-bow, which was improved and developed by Edward I., who made it the most formidable weapon of English warfare.
[1183] See [Appendix H].