The fashion of the Bill of this time, a broad, cutting blade, forming a beak near the top and terminating in a pike, may be seen in Plate xxxi. of the Painted Chamber.

The Pilete (dimin. of Pilum) named in the above passage of Guiart, was a pike, the exact form of which, like that of so many of the weapons of this period, has not been ascertained. The "macue torte" is a knotted club.

The missile weapons of this day were the javelin, the long-bow, the cross-bow, the cord-sling and the staff-sling.

The Javelin is mentioned by Matthew Paris: "cum jaculis Danisque securibus et gesis[378]."

The Long-bow has already been noticed in our examination of the troops of this century. Its form is seen in our woodcuts, Nos. [47], [48], [49] and [50]. The fashion of the Quiver appears in the engraving from Roy. MS. 20, D. i. (No. [47]). The feathering of the arrows is shewn in the same print; the shaft and head in woodcut, No. [82], from the Painted Chamber. Besides the ordinary arrows, shafts armed with phials of quick-lime were occasionally discharged from the long-bow. Strutt, in his Horda[379], has furnished an example of this missile, from a MS. of Matthew Paris in Benet College, Cambridge (copied in our woodcut, No. [51]); and in the Additamenta to the printed History of Matthew Paris, page 1091, is given the letter of Sir Guy, a knight of the household of the Viscount of Melun, in which, recounting the capture of Damietta, he says: "We discharged fiery darts (spicula ignita) and stones from our sea mangonels, and we threw small bottles full of lime (phialas plenas calce), made to be shot from a bow, or small sticks like arrows against the enemy. Our darts, therefore, pierced the bodies of their pirates, while the stones crushed them, and the lime, flying out of the broken bottles, blinded them."

The Cross-bow, as we have seen, (ante, p. [201],) was in general use throughout this century. It is figured in our woodcuts, Nos. [49] and [50]. In both these examples there is a provision for holding down the bow with the foot, while the cord was drawn up to the notch. The bow might thus be bent by the hand: but there appears also to have been, at this early date, some apparatus similar to the moulinet of later days, by which a stouter bow might be easily bent by mechanical appliance. Such a bow was called an "arbaleste à tour," and the instrument by which it was wound up was named "la clef." No delineation of this little engine has yet been noticed among the monuments of the time. Guiart has:—

"Messire Alphonse un jour ataignent,
Qui armez iert[380] de son atour,
D'un quarrel d'arbaleste a tour."

And again:—

"En haste vont les clefs serrant des arbalestes."
2e. Partie, vers 8,625.