[Regia-NA] Crossbows

[Phil]

Ooooh! A translation would be most excellent.

If I understand it correctly, the problem with the rolling nut found in
Scotland is that it does not come from a secure context, and so could have
been lost at any time.

Alm reckons the rolling nut crossbows are C12/C13.

Phil

----- Original Message -----
From: "Carolyn Priest-Dorman" <capriest@cs.vassar.edu>
To: <list-regia-na@lig.net>
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2003 10:23 PM
Subject: Re: [Regia-NA] Crossbows


> This is (surprise!) a military topic that interest me.  I have a 60-lb
> rolling nut crossbow and used to be pretty good with it.  Phil wrote:
>
> >Alm states that crossbows were used at the sieges of Senlis in 947 and
> >Verdun in 985, although his reference seems to be to another secondary
source.
>
> Payne-Gallwey put me onto the original source for this, which is Richer de
> St. Remy's _Historia_ (tenth century).  The original is of course in
Latin,
> but a facing-page French edition is in the Vassar Library (ed. Robert
> Latouche).  I translated the section about the siege of Senlis from the
> Latin for the SCA periodical _Early Period_, but that was over a decade
ago
> and I can't find my stash of them right now.  When I do I'll repost.
>
> Egon Harmuth's _Die Armbrust:  Ein Handbuch_ has a black and white
Biblical
> illustration of the siege (?=Belagerung) of Jerusalem (presumably the
> Babylonian one?) from a French manuscript of the 10th century.  He also
> shows an 8th or 9th century nut and handle from "English" finds.
Footnotes
> say one is an 8th century nut from _Ancient Scottish Lake-Dwellings or
> Crannogs_ by Robert Munro (Edinburgh, 1882) and the other is a 9th century
> handle and nut from Southgrove Farm, Burbage, Wiltshire.
>
> MacGregor more or less concurs on these dates.  He says the Scottish one
> (from Buston Crannog, Strathclyde) could very well be that late, and that
> in any case they're most likely to be post-Roman.  See the section on
> crossbows in his _Bone Antler Ivory and Horn_ for more info.
>
> I haven't seen anything about the rising pin mechanism in this period,
though.
>
>
> Carolyn Priest-Dorman              Þóra Sharptooth
>   http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/thora.html
>
>
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