The Book of the Crossbow: With an Additional Section on Catapults and Other Siege Engines

405 Pages·2009·171.05 MB·English

by  Ralph Payne-Gallwey

The Book of the
Crossbow
Ralph Payne-Gallwey
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THE BOOK OF
THE CROSSBOW
MODEL OF ROMAN CATAPULT CONSTRUCTED BY THE AUTHOR.
Weight, i% tons. Range, with a 6-lb. stone ball, 300 yards.
1. Twisting up the skein of cord by means of the winches. 2. Winding down the arm.
3. Releasing the arm when fully wound down.
THE BOOK OF
THE CROSSBOW
Ralph Payne-Gallwey
DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.
New York
Published in Canada by General Publishing Company, Ltd., 50 Lesmill Road, Don
Mills, Toronto, Ontario.
Published in the United Kingdom by Constable and Company, Ltd., 3 The Lanches-
ters, 162-164 Fulham Palace Road, London W6 9ER.
Bibliographical Note
This Dover edition, first published in 1995, is an unaltered and unabridged repub
lication of the work originally published by Longmans, Green, and Co., London, in
1903 under the title The Crossbow / Mediceval and Modern / Military and Sporting / Its
Construction History and Management / With a Treatise on the Batista and Catapult of
the Ancients. The Dover edition also includes the author's Appendix, published sep
arately [no publisher given], in 1907 under the title Appendix to the Book of the Crossbow
and Ancient Projectile Engines.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Payne-Gallwey, Ralph, Sir, 1846-1916.
The book of the crossbow / Ralph Payne-Gallwey.
p. cm.
Originally published: The crossbow. London : Longmans, Green, and Co., 1903.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-486-28720-3 (pbk.)
I. Crossbows. 2. Catapult. I. Payne-Gallwey, Ralph, Sir, 1846-1916. Crossbow. II.
Title.
U878.P38 1995
6234'4i—dc20 95-22140
CIP
Manufactured in the United States of America
Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501
P R E F A CE
IN this volume I have endeavoured to describe the history
mechanism and manipulation of the crossbow; mediaeval and
modern, military and sporting.
Though there are numerous books essays and manuscripts which
deal exhaustively with the longbow, the subject of the crossbow has
not previously been treated, other than in a very cursory manner
by writers on the armour and weapons of the Middle Ages.
I cannot, in any language, discover a work exclusively (devoted
to the crossbow, though this arm was carried by hundreds of
thousands of soldiers in mediaeval warfare, and has ever since
been popular on the Continent for sporting or target use.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the longbow was the
cherished weapon of the English, while the crossbow held a similar
position in France Germany Italy and Spain.
The longbow, glorious as its achievements were in the hands of
our ancestors, was but a hewn stick of foreign yew of no intrinsic
value.
On the other hand, the crossbow gave the artist, the engraver,
the inlayer and the mechanic every chance of exercising their talents
to the utmost.
There are but one or two old English longbows in existence ;
there are, however, numbers of beautifully constructed mediaeval
crossbows to be seen in armouries and museums; weapons which