| Saltpetre. | Charcoal. | Sulphur. |
| 41.2 | 29.4 | 29.4 |
The French recipe of 1338 being incomplete (Table VIII.), the next complete recipe for gunpowder is that given in the MSS. of Dr. John Arderne of Newark, who began to practise as a surgeon before 1350:[415]— “Pernez j. li. de souffre vif; de charbones de saulx (i. weloghe) ij. li.; de saltpetre vj. li. Si les fetez bien et sotelment moudre sur un pierre de marbre, puis bultez le poudre parmy vn sotille couer-chief; cest poudre vault à gettere pelottes de fer, ou de plom, ou d’areyne,[416] one vn instrument qe l’em appelle gonne.” This gives in 100 parts:-
| Saltpetre. | Charcoal. | Sulphur. |
| 66.6´ | 22.2´ | 11.1´ |
The word gonne, in the sense of cannon, must have been commonly known during the last quarter of the fourteenth century; for Chaucer uses it with this meaning in the “Hous of Fame,” iii. 553, cir. 1380—
“As swift as pelet out of gonne,
Whan fyr is in the poudré ronne;”
and Langley uses it with the same meaning in the C text of his “Vision of Piers Plowman,” xxi. 293, cir. 1393:—
“Set bows of brake and brasene gonnes,
And shoot out shot enough his sheltrums to blend.”