A summary of the history, construction and effects in warfare of the projectile-throwing engines of the ancients, with a treatise on the structure, power and management of Turkish and other Oriental bows of mediæval and later times

by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey

[14] Stella flourished at the end of the fourteenth century and beginning of fifteenth. He wrote The Annals of Genoa from 1298–1409. Muratori includes the writings of Stella in his great work, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 25 vols., 1723–38.

Villard de Honnecourt[15] describes a trebuchet that had a counterpoise of sand the frame of which was 12 ft. long, 8 ft. broad, and 12 ft. deep. That such machines were of vast size will readily be understood. For instance, twenty-four engines taken by Louis IX. at the evacuation of Damietta in 1249, afforded timber for stockading his entire camp.[16] A trebuchet used at the capture of Acre by the Infidels in 1291, formed a load for a hundred carts.[17] A great engine that cumbered the tower of St. Paul at Orleans and which was dismantled previous to the celebrated defence of the town against the English in 1428–9, furnished twenty-six cartloads of timber.[18]

[15] Villard de Honnecourt, an engineer of the thirteenth century. His album translated and edited by R. Willis, M.A., 1859.

[16] Jean, Sire de Joinville. He went with St. Louis to Damietta. His memoirs, written in 1309, published by F. Michel, 1858.

[17] Abulfeda, 1273–1331. Arab soldier and historian, wrote Annals of the Moslems. Published by Hafnire, 1789–94. Abulfeda was himself in charge of one of the hundred carts.

[18] From an old history of the siege (in manuscript) found in the town hall of Orleans and printed by Saturnin Holot, a bookseller of that city, 1576.

All kinds of articles besides horses, men, stones and bombs were at times thrown from trebuchets. Vassāf[19] records ‘that when the garrison of Delhi refused to open the gates to Ala’uddin Khilji in 1296, he loaded his engines with bags of gold and shot them into the fortress, a measure which put an end to the opposition.’

[19] Persian historian, wrote at end of thirteenth and beginning of fourteenth century. The preface to his history is dated 1288, and the history itself is carried down to 1312.

[Figs. 18], [20], pp. 28, 32, explain the construction and working of a trebuchet.