Crossbow nuts were an essential component of the crossbow that this thesis will not be exploring in detail, but are worth discussing at least briefly. This was the piece of the crossbow that survived in the greatest number. They were usually made out of antler, which is a type of bone, and bone is very resistant to decay under most circumstances.346
That means that even when the rest of the crossbow decayed away, the nut could still be found by excavators. The presence of a crossbow nut at an excavation site makes a strong case for the existence of crossbows in or around that location. The crossbow nut is useful archaeological data when studying the broader trends in how the crossbow was used and where it was made. Surviving crossbows have inevitably been moved several times between their original construction and where they are stored now. In contrast, crossbow nuts often indicate places where crossbows were left or discarded, possibly very close to where they would have been used. A group of broken crossbow nuts could also suggest a place of manufacture for crossbows, since a nut which broke while it was being made would simply be discarded nearby. Annette Holts Booth used evidence of broken crossbow nuts to argue that crossbows were likely manufactured in the
Archbishop's palace in Trondheim, Norway, for example.347 However, as a piece of
technology, the crossbow nut was not particularly complex, which is why it is not dealt with in great detail in this thesis. Crossbow nuts came in two forms: single and double
345 Angelo Angelucci, Catalogo della armeria reale : illustrato con incisioni in legno (Torino, 1890). pp.
384-401.
Juan Bautista Crooke,Catálogo Histórico-descriptivo De La Real Armería De Madrid (Rivadeneyra, 1898). pp. 279-296.
Umberto Franzoi, Armour of the Doges Palace in Venice, (Venice, 1966). pp. 48, 55, 58, 66.
346 Arthur Graves Credland, “Crossbow Remains”, Journal of the Society of Archer-Antiquaries 23 (1980).
p. 12
347 Annette Holts Booth, “Crossbow Production at the Archbishop's Palace, Trondheim, Norway”, Journal
143 hook. This name describes the number of clawed hooks carved into the nut that stick up and hold the string in place. Double hooks appeared to have been the more common of the two, but this work did not undertake a broad enough study of the subject to
independently verify the truth of this statement.348 There were some slight improvements
in crossbow nut design during the Middle Ages. Initially they had perfectly round undersides that the trigger pressed up against, while later examples had a notch carved into their underside that let the trigger rest more securely when the crossbow was spanned. This slight change is certainly noteworthy for the smoothness of operation it offered the crossbow; early crossbows suffered from a somewhat jerking motion of the trigger on release which would have hindered accuracy.349 The development of the
crossbow nut and trigger has already been examined and explained in thorough detail by Josef Alm and Arthur Credland. There is little a greater understanding of crossbow nuts could offer the type of study being undertaken in this thesis, and therefore nuts have not played a large role in this thesis, despite being one of the core elements in the actual operation of the crossbow.350
The crossbow trigger was another important element of the crossbow that this thesis will leave largely unexamined. A study of the trigger was omitted for similar reasons to that of the crossbow nut; the triggers during the period covered by this thesis only came in two types, and other works have already discussed them in detail. Josef Alm included brilliant discussions of the trigger mechanisms of crossbows in his book and described the two kinds common in the Middle Ages.351 The first is the standard Z-
Trigger which is so called because it resembles an elongated letter Z. This trigger is a simple lever where one end presses up against the nut, holding it in place. When the other end is lifted, by squeezing it against the tiller, the nut is released so it is free to rotate forward under the pressure of the string, thus releasing the string and firing the bolt. This is a simple and reliable trigger system. The problem it suffered was that it often required great force to pull the trigger. This was because it was not a very efficient lever and the nut posed significant resistance.352 This hard trigger pull would have
impaired accuracy because it shifted concentration away from aiming, and the actual
348 Arthur Graves Credland, “Crossbow Remains”, pp. 15-7. 349 Josef Alm, European Crossbows, pp. 33-4, 55-6.
350 Arthur Graves Credland, “Crossbow Remains”, Journal of the Society of Archer-Antiquaries 23 (1980).
pp. 12, 15-17.
Josef Alm, European Crossbows, pp. 33-4, 55-6.
351 Ibid. pp.33-4, 55-6. 352 Ibid. p. 55
144 trigger pull and string release would often have caused the crossbow to jerk suddenly. This led to another innovation which was also fairly simple. A simple mechanism was inserted into the middle of the process so that the amount of force applied to the trigger was amplified, meaning it required less force overall to shoot the crossbow.353 This
trigger had extra complexity in that it required a re-arming process of the middle mechanism before it could be shot again. The archer had to pull a string that hung
outside from the middle of the tiller and that would have lifted the mechanism back to its starting location.354 While this was a simple enough procedure, it would still have added
to the overall time required to reload the weapon. This difference in trigger was significant in the quality it added to the firing of the crossbow, but it does not require detailed analysis to explain its development and benefits. Another problem with
discussing the differences in crossbow triggers is that the type of trigger a crossbow had was often not included in descriptions published by museums. Without high quality pictures, or seeing the crossbow in person, it can be hard to identify the type of trigger used. Additionally, the only way to identify the type of trigger is by whether or not the crossbow had a piece of string, or a hole where a string once was, for re-arming a mechanism inside the crossbow. This was, in turn, complicated by the fact that many medieval crossbows have been modified since they were originally made, and a single hole might just have been a later modification. The only way to be sure of what trigger is inside a given crossbow is to take apart the trigger mechanism, or to scan it, usually with X-rays. Few museums have been willing to take either of these latter steps. Dirk
Breiding included some X-rays of crossbows from the collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in his recent book, but this method of analysis is expensive and time consuming and so it is not common.355
Conclusion
This chapter has served to outline both what this thesis intends to do and what it does not with regard to the study of the medieval crossbow as it developed from the Later Middle Ages into the early modern period. The next chapter will contain all of the detailed figures and analysis that compose the argument this thesis will make about the crossbow. First, however, it was necessary for this chapter to provide a basis for
understanding where the following chapter's data came from and why it has taken on the
353 Ibid. p. 55 354 Ibid. p. 55
145 methodology it has. That methodology is one that is broad and trades depth in favour of showing trends over a wider selection of data. Its purpose is to establish the general trends, design features, and differences in the crossbow from the fifteenth through the early sixteenth century. The lack of a solid archaeological foundation to work from for the majority of the Middle Ages means that this thesis is focused primarily on the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.
146