The Normans appear to have introduced a kind of Field-Artillery, consisting of instruments or machines, from which darts and stones were thrown to a considerable distance, as they occur at the battle of Hastings. They also employed arrows, headed with combustible matter, for firing towns and shipping.
Fiery darts, A. D. 64.
We read in the Scriptures of “Fiery Darts.” Ephns. vi., 16.
Fire from Balistæ.
Our ancestors derived the knowledge of some composition from the Saracens, which resembled Greek-fire, and was often thrown in pots from the Balistæ.
Fire by Arabs commencement of 13th century.
From a treatise on the “Art of Fighting,” by Hassan Abrammah, we learn that the Arabs of the 13th century employed their incendiary compositions in four different ways. They cast them by hand; they fixed them to staves, with which they attacked their enemies; they poured forth fire through tubes; and they projected burning mixtures of various kinds by means of arrows, javelins, and the missiles of great engines.
Bombs of glass, &c.
Vessels of glass or pottery, discharged by hand or by machines, were so contrived, that on striking the object at which they were aimed, their contents spread around, and the fire, already communicated by a fusee, enveloped everything within its reach. Fire-mace.A soldier, on whose head was broken a fire-mace, became suddenly soaked with a diabolic fluid, which covered him from head to foot with flame.
Bombs from Balistæ.