WEAPONS. A Pictorial history

When good archery came into the fight, the mounted man-at-arms discovered that he needed something more than chain mail to save his skin and his reputation. Some of his soft spots were already protected by iron plates, but now he added more of them over his mail, until by the end of the century he was entirely encased in iron. Then he discarded the mail.

The great helm or heaume proved to be just the right thing for jousting; in fact, it had been made still bigger, until its weight rested entirely on the warrior's shoulders, but in a real fight it was too cumbersome and could be knocked off too easily. There had to be head protection in battle, so the basinet was gradually improved from a simple skullcap into an elaborate helmet with a movable facepiece or visor. This was closed only in actual combat and had breathing holes in its right side but none in its left, so that a lance point could slide off without catching in them. The earlier basinets had a kind of skirt of chain mail laced to their lower edges to protect the knight's neck, but it didn't work too well and was replaced by an iron neckpiece which could be fastened to the body armor.

When two knights charged each other, whether in the lists or in battle, the one whose lance point outreached his opponent's had the advantage, like a prize fighter with long arms. So everybody made his lance a little longer and then longer still, until the thing was stopped at the maximum length that a man could handle on horseback, which proved to be about fourteen feet. A little round hand shield was added to the lance and the butt end was thickened just back of the handle to improve the balance. Even so, lances were so clumsy that little cleats began to be attached to breastplates to help in holding them steady. Shields, too, often had a notch in the upper right-hand corner, in which the lance could be rested. Swords changed little except to get longer.

The advances of archery and the efforts of the bowmen to get at the knight through his mourn led to the adoption of heavy horse armor. The horse's head, neck, chest and rump were covered either with chain mail or with iron plates having an ornamented cloth over the metal to discourage rust. Nothing less strong than a draft horse could any longer serve a knight.

All this horse armor, together with the man's iron fighting suit, was not only heavy but very expensive. The law forbade the export of armor and controlled its price, but it was still so valuable that a knight usually made a special bequest of his armor in his will, and it customarily descended from father to son.

The tournaments took on a dizzy romantic tinge, with bits of female clothing tied to helmets and the winning champion's lady crowned as the Queen of Love and Beauty. The Masked Marvel act was a favorite. A strong knight would appear disguised (an end accomplished simply by giving his shield a coat of paint), and would challenge all comers. Sometimes a group would get themselves up as "Knights of the Round Table," each taking the name of a knight in the story, and they would take on all comers. This act was carried so far that they dined together at an actual Round Table with each man's place lettered with his play-acting name. One of these table tops still hangs on the wall of Winchester Castle Hall, or did twenty-five years ago.

Since it was sincerely believed by all that God invariably would be on the side of justice and truth, lawsuits both civil and criminal were customarily settled by combat. Many times the actual fighting was done by champions hired by the principals in the case or appointed by the court. In the case of a prosecution by the State, there would be a King's Champion against the offender or his substitute. Few doubted that justice was accomplished, and they often ended the matter by hanging the loser if he survived the fight.

About the middle of the fourteenth century a type of organization appeared which scourged Europe for nearly three hundred years. This was the Free Company. Its members weren't knights but they were frequently armed like knights. A Free Company was really a private army, owned and equipped by its leader and rented out to the highest bidder. It was without allegiance or conscience; a higher offer might make it change sides overnight. If there was no offer, the Free Companions simply lived off the country, taking what they needed and anything else that was loose at one end. France and Italy were devastated by these criminals; some called themselves English or Scottish and a few actually were. These gangs and one other thing eventually ended chivalry and feudalism. The other thing was gunpowder. There's little doubt that it was discovered by the Chinese long ago, but they used it only for firecrackers. The idea of propelling a projectile with it has been credited to the Arabs and to a German monk named Schwarz who blew himself up finding out about it.

Perhaps the very first cannon was the Arabian madfaa which was a deep wooden bowl holding powder; the cannon ball didn't enter the barrel at all but was balanced on the muzzle and popped off by the explosion. The pot de fer was better. It was an iron bottle with a narrow neck. The powder filled the bottle itself and an iron arrow, wrapped with leather for a tight fit, was rammed into the neck. Near the bottom of the bottle there was a little touchhole through which a red-hot wire was thrust to set off the explosion.

From the pot de fer the first true cannon were developed. They were simply pipes, closed at one end and firing stone or lead balls an inch or so in diameter. Some guns may have been made of wood, bound with iron. There was no carriage or framework of any kind to support them; they were simply laid on the ground with a heap of earth under the muzzles to aim them up in the air a little. Sometimes they fired crossbow bolts.

Cannon at the battle of Crecy

Though the French knights were outraged on principle when the English used cannon at Crecy, actually a man in armor was quite safe in front of these early ones. Their noise was impressive but the missiles they threw had little more punch than a man's arm could have given them; they bounced off plate armor and hardly dented it.

It was soon realized that this popgun wasn't much of a weapon. There was no immediate way to give more power to a small projectile, so it seemed best to make the whole business larger. There was no way to cast a large iron ball, so each ball was cut laboriously from stone. It was not a case of slow growth from little to big. The little ones were flops, so enormous ones were built at once.

Early bombard

These big fellows were called bombards. The first ones were short-barreled and much smaller at the breech end than at the muzzle. With a bore that shape, the exact size of the stone ball was not important; the smaller it was, the further down the barrel it went.

Early bombard

Since the short bombards hadn't nearly as much range and force as a trebuchet, longer and larger barrels were tried. These were built up of parallel iron bars bound with hoops, on exactly the same principle that a beer barrel is made; and the bores of the larger ones were considerably greater than those of any guns commonly in use today. The balls were twenty or even twenty-five inches in diameter. A mortar christened "Little David" was tried out in World War II; it had a bore of three feet but it didn't become a common weapon because it weighed 93,000 pounds!

The invention of the "slow-match," which was a rope boiled in lye and gunpowder and which would smolder more or less continuously, made the handling of guns somewhat simpler and permitted the development of hand-"gonnes." The first one, really a small cannon lashed to a stake and served by two men, was called a culverin. The next was still smaller and was lashed to a round wooden stock. One man could handle it. He cradled the stock under his right arm and fired the gun by applying a slow-match to powder in the touchhole.

Culeverin or two-men hand "gonne", of the rourteenth century

One-man hand "gonne"

Lead balls were used in these guns, but the best that could be done for the bombards was iron hoops around the stone balls to keep them from shattering. Experiments with red-hot stone projectiles proved disastrous to the cannoneers; the powder charge was set off by them before they could get away from the gun muzzles.