[1] And to the Bern MS. which seems to be a copy of it, as is also I think (in substance) the Bodleian.
[2] In this note I am particularly indebted to the researches of the Emperor Napoleon III. on this subject. (Études sur le passé et l’avenir de l’Artillerie, 1851.)
[3] Thus Joinville mentions the journey of Jehan li Ermin, the king’s artillerist, from Acre to Damascus, pour acheter cornes et glus pour faire arbalestres—to buy horns and glue to make crossbows withal (p. 134).
In the final defence of Acre (1291) we hear of balistae bipedales (with a forked rest?) and other vertiginales (traversing on a pivot?) that shot 3 quarrels at once, and with such force as to stitch the Saracens to their bucklers—cum clypeis consutos interfecerunt.
The crossbow, though apparently indigenous among various tribes of Indo-China, seems to have been a new introduction in European warfare in the 12th century. William of Brittany in a poem called the Philippis, speaking of the early days of Philip Augustus, says:—
“Francigenis nostris illis ignota diebus
Res erat omnino quid balistarius arcus,
Quid balista foret, nec habebat in agmine toto
Rex quenquam sciret armis qui talibus uti.”
—Duchesne, Hist. Franc. Script., V. 115.