MILITARY ENGINES.
To attempt to represent the knights in their manor-houses and castles
would be to enter upon an essay on the domestic and military architecture
of the Middle Ages, which would be beyond the plan of these sketches of
the mediæval chivalry. The student may find information on the subject in
Mr. Parker's "Domestic Architecture," in Grose's "Military Antiquities,"
in Viollet le Duc's "Architecture du Moyen Age," and scattered over the
publications of the various antiquarian and architectural societies. We
must, however, say a few words as to the way in which the knight defended
his castle when attacked in it, and how he attacked his neighbour's castle
or his enemy's town, in private feud or public war.
It seems to be a common impression that the most formidable aspect of
mediæval war was a charge of knights with vizor down and lance in rest;
and that these gallant cavaliers only pranced their horses round and round
the outer margin of the moat of a mediæval castle, or if they did dismount
and try to take the fortress by assault, would rage in vain against its
thick walls and barred portcullis; as in the accompanying woodcut from a
MS. romance of the early part of the 14th century (Add. 10,292, f. v.,
date A.D. 1316), where the king on his curveting charger couches his lance
against the castle wall, and has only his shield to oppose to the great
stone which is about to be hurled down upon his head. The impression is,
no doubt, due to the fact that many people have read romances, ancient and
modern, which concern themselves with the personal adventures of their
heroes, but have not read mediæval history, which tells--even more than
enough--of battles and sieges. They have only had the knight put before
them--as in the early pages of these chapters--in the pomp and pageantry
of chivalry. They have not seen him as the captain and soldier, directing
and wielding the engines of war.
Suppose the king and his chivalry in the following woodcut to be only
summoning the castle; and suppose them, on receiving a refusal to
surrender, to resolve upon an assault. They retire a few hundred yards and
dismount, and put their horses under the care of a guard. Presently they
return supported by a strong body of archers, who ply the mail-clad
defenders with such a hail of arrows that they are driven to seek shelter
behind the battlements. Seizing that moment, a party of camp followers run
forward with a couple of planks, which they throw over the moat to make a
temporary bridge. They are across in an instant, and place scaling-ladders
against the walls. The knights, following close at their heels, mount
rapidly, each man carrying his shield over his head, so that the bare
ladder is converted into a covered stair, from whose shield-roof arrows
glint and stones roll off innocuous. It is easy to see that a body of the
enemy might thus, in a few minutes, effect a lodgment on the castle-wall,
and open a way for the whole party of assailants into the interior.
[Illustration: _Summoning the Castle._]
But the assailed may succeed in throwing down the ladders; or in beating
the enemy off them by hurling down great stones ready stored against such
an emergency, or heaving the coping-stones off the battlements; or they
may succeed in preventing the assailants from effecting a lodgment on the
wall by a hand to hand encounter; and thus the assault may be foiled and
beaten off. Still our mediæval captain has other resources; he will next
order up his "gyns," _i.e._ engines of war.
The name applies chiefly to machines constructed for the purpose of
hurling heavy missiles. The ancient nations of antiquity possessed such
machines, and the knowledge of them descended to mediæval times. There
seems, however, to be this great difference between the classical and the
mediæval engines, that the former were constructed on the principle of the
bow, the latter on the principle of the sling. The classical _ballista_
was, in fact, a huge cross-bow, made in a complicated way and worked by
machinery. The mediæval _trebuchet_ was a sling wielded by a gigantic arm
of wood. In mediæval Latin the ancient name of the ballista is sometimes
found, but in the mediæval pictures the principle of the engines
illustrated is always that which we have described. We meet also in
mediæval writings with the names of the _mangona_ and _mangonella_ and the
_catapult_, but they were either different names for the same engine, or
names for different species of the same genus. The woodcut here
introduced from the MS. Add. 10,294, f. 81 V., gives a representation of a
trebuchet. A still earlier representation--viz., of the thirteenth
century--of machines of the same kind is to be found in the Arabic MS.
quoted in a treatise, "Du feu Grégois," by MM. Favé and Reinaud, and leads
to the supposition that the sling principle in these machines may have
been introduced from the East. There are other representations of a little
later date than that in the text (viz., about A.D. 1330) in the Royal MS.
16 G. VI., which are engraved in Shaw's "Dresses and Decorations." We also
possess a contemporary description of the machine in the work of Gilles
Colonne (who died A.D. 1316), written for Philip the Fair of France.[379]
"Of _perriers_," he says, "there are four kinds, and in all these machines
there is a beam which is raised and lowered by means of a counterpoise, a
sling being attached to the end of the beam to discharge the stone.
Sometimes the counterpoise is not sufficient, and then they attach ropes
to it to move the beam." This appears to be the case in our illustration.
The rope seems to be passed through a ring in the platform of the engine,
so that the force applied to the rope acts to the greater advantage in aid
of the weight of the beam. "The counterpoise may either be fixed or
movable, or both at once. In the fixed counterpoise a box is fastened to
the end of the beam, and filled with stones or sand, or any heavy body."
One would not, perhaps, expect such a machine to possess any precision of
action, but according to our author the case was far otherwise. "These
machines," he continues, "anciently called _trabutium_, cast their
missiles with the utmost exactness, because the weight acts in a uniform
manner. Their aim is so sure, that one may, so to say, hit a needle. If
the gyn carries too far, it must be drawn back or loaded with a heavier
stone; if the contrary, then it must be advanced or a smaller stone
supplied; for without attention to the weight of the stone, one cannot
hope to reach the given mark." "Others of these machines have a movable
counterpoise attached to the beam, turning upon an axis. This variety the
Romans called _biffa_. The third kind, which is called _tripantum_, has
two weights, one fixed to the beam and the other movable round it. By this
means it throws with more exactness than the _biffa_, and to a greater
distance than the trebuchet. The fourth sort, in lieu of weights fixed to
the beam, has a number of ropes, and is discharged by means of men pulling
simultaneously at the cords. This last kind does not cast such large
stones as the others, but it has the advantage that it may be more rapidly
loaded and discharged than they. In using the perriers by night it is
necessary to attach a lighted body to the projectile. By this means one
may discover the force of the machine, and regulate the weight of the
stone accordingly."[380] This, then, is the engine which our captain,
repulsed in his attempt to take the place by a _coup de main_, has ordered
up, adjusting it, no doubt, like a good captain, with his own eye and
hand, until he has got it, "so to say, to hit a needle," on the weak
points of the place. It was usual in great sieges to have several of them,
so that a whole battery might be set to work to overmaster the defence.
[Illustration: _The Assault._]
We must bear in mind that similar engines were, it is probable, usually
mounted on the towers of the castle. We should judge from the roundness of
the stones which the defenders in both the preceding woodcuts are throwing
down by hand upon the enemy immediately beneath, that they are the stones
provided for the military engines. We find that, as in modern times cannon
is set to silence the cannon of the enemy, so that a battle becomes, for a
time at least, an artillery duel, so engine was set to silence engine. In
the account which Guillaume des Ormes gives of his defence of the French
town of Carcasonne in 1240 A.D., he says: "They set up a mangonel before
our barbican, when we lost no time in opposing to it from within an
excellent Turkish petrary, which played upon the mangonel and those about
it, so that when they essayed to cast upon us, and saw the beam of our
petrary in motion, they fled, utterly abandoning their mangonel."
There was also an engine called an _arbalast_, or _spurgardon_, or
_espringale_, which was a huge cross-bow mounted on wheels, so as to be
movable like a field-piece; it threw great pointed bolts with such force
as to pass successively through several men.
If the engines of the besiegers were silenced, or failed to produce any
decisive impression on the place, the captain of the assailants might try
the effect of the ram. We seldom, indeed, hear of its use in the Middle
Ages, but one instance, at least, is recorded by Richard of Devizes, who
says that Richard I., at the siege of Messina, forced in the gates of the
city by the application of the battering-ram, and so won his way into the
place, and captured it. The walls of mediæval fortifications were so
immensely thick, that a ram would be little likely to break them. The
gates, too, of a castle or fortified gate-tower were very strong. If the
reader will look at the picture of a siege of a castle, given on page 373,
he will see a representation of a castle-gate, which will help him to
understand its defences. First he will see that the drawbridge is raised,
so that the assailant has to bridge the moat before he can bring his
battering-ram to bear. Suppose the yawning gulf bridged with planks or
filled in with fascines, and the ram brought into position, under fire
from the loops of the projecting towers of the gate as well as from the
neighbouring battlements, then the bridge itself forms an outer door which
must first be battered down. Behind it will be found the real outer-door,
made as strong as oak timber and iron bolts can make it. That down, there
is next the grated portcullis seen in two previous woodcuts, against which
the ram would rattle with a great clang of iron; but the grating, with its
wide spaces, and having plenty of "play" in its stone groove, would baffle
the blows by the absence of a solid resistance, and withstand them by the
tenacity of wrought-iron. Even if the bars were bent and torn till they
afforded a passage, the assailants would find themselves in the narrow
space within the gate-tower confronted by another door, and exposed to
missiles poured upon them from above. It is, perhaps, no wonder that we
hear little of the use of the ram in mediæval times; though it might be
useful occasionally to drive in some ill-defended postern.
The use of the regular mine for effecting a breach in the wall of a
fortified place was well known, and often brought to bear. The miners
began their work at some distance, and drove a shaft underground towards
the part of the fortifications which seemed most assailable; they
excavated beneath the foundations of the wall, supporting the substructure
with wooden props until they had finished their work. Then they set fire
to the props, and retired to see the unsupported weight of the wall
bringing it down in a heap of ruins. The operation of mining was usually
effected under the protection of a temporary pent-house, called a _cat_ or
_sow_. William of Malmesbury describes the machine as used in the siege of
Jerusalem, at the end of the eleventh century. "It is constructed," he
says, "of slight timbers, the roof covered with boards and wicker-work,
and the sides protected with undressed hides, to protect those who are
within, who proceed to undermine the foundations of the walls." Our next
woodcut gives a very clear illustration of one of these machines, which
has been moved on its wheels up to the outer wall of a castle, and beneath
its protection a party of men-at-arms are energetically plying their
miner's tools, to pick away the foundation, and so allow a portion of the
wall to settle down and leave an entrance. The methods in which this mode
of attack was met were various. We all remember the Border heroine, who,
when her castle was thus attacked, declared she would make the sow farrow,
viz., by casting down a huge fragment of stone upon it. That this was one
way of defence is shown in the woodcut, where one of the defenders, with
energetic action, is casting down a huge stone upon the sow. That the roof
was made strong enough to resist such a natural means of offence is shown
by the stones which are represented as lodged all along it. Another more
subtle counteraction, shown in the woodcut, was to pour boiling water or
boiling oil upon it, that it might fall through the interstices of the
roof, and make the interior untenable. No doubt means were taken to make
the roof liquid-tight, for the illustration represents another mode of
counteraction (of which we have met with no other suggestion), by driving
sharp-pointed piles into the roof, so as to make holes and cracks through
which the boiling liquid might find an entrance. If these means of
counteracting the work of the cat seemed likely to be unavailing, it still
remained to throw up an inner line of wall, which, when the breach was
made, should extend from one side to the other of the unbroken wall, and
so complete the circumvallation. This, we have evidence, was sometimes
done with timber and planks, and a sort of scaffolding was erected on the
inner side, which maintained the communication along the top of the walls,
and enabled the soldiers to man the top of this wooden wall and offer a
new resistance to the besiegers as they poured into the breach. The mine
was also, in ancient as in modern times, met by a counter-mine.
[Illustration: _The Cat._ (Royal, 16 G VI.)]
Another usual machine for facilitating the siege of fortified places was a
movable tower. Such an engine was commonly prepared beforehand, and taken
to pieces and transported with the army as a normal part of the
siege-train. When arrived at the scene of operations, it was put together
at a distance, and then pushed forward on wheels, until it confronted the
walls of the place against which it was to operate. It was intended to put
the besiegers on a level and equality with the besieged. From the roof the
assailants could command the battlements and the interior of the place,
and by their archers could annoy the defence. A movable part of the front
of the tower suddenly let fall upon the opposite battlements, at once
opened a door and formed a bridge, by which the besiegers could make a
rush upon the walls and effect a lodgment if successful, or retreat if
unsuccessful to their own party.
Such a tower was constructed by Richard I. in Cyprus, as part of his
preparation for his Crusade. An illustration of a tower thus opposed to a
castle--not a very good illustration--is to be found in the Royal MS., 16
G. VI., at folio 278 v. Another, a great square tower, just level with the
opposing battlements, with a kind of sloping roof to ward off missiles, is
shown in the MS. _Chroniques d'Angleterres_ (Royal 16, E. IV.), which was
illuminated for Edward IV. Again, at f. 201 of the same MS., is another
representation of wooden towers opposed to a city.
If the besieged could form a probable conjecture as to the point of the
walls towards which the movable tower, whose threatening height they saw
gradually growing at a bow-shot from their walls, would be ultimately
directed, they sometimes sent out under cover of night and dug pitfalls,
into which, as its huge bulk was rolled creaking forward, its fore wheels
might suddenly sink, and so the machine fall forward, and remain fixed and
useless. As it approached, they also tried to set it on fire by missiles
tipped with combustibles. If it fairly attained its position, they
assailed every loop and crevice in it with arrows and crossbow bolts, and
planted a strong body of men-at-arms on the walls opposite to it, and in
the neighbouring towers, to repel the "boarders" in personal combat. A
bold and enterprising captain did not always wait for the approach of
these engines of assault, but would counter-work them as he best could
from the shelter of his walls. He would sometimes lower the drawbridge,
and make a sudden sally upon the unfinished tower or the advancing sow,
beat off the handful of men who were engaged about it, pile up the
fragments and chips lying about, pour a few pots of oil or tar over the
mass, and set fire to it, and return in triumph to watch from his
battlements how his fiery ally would, in half an hour, destroy his enemy's
work of half a month. In the early fourteenth century MS. Add. 10,294, at
fol. 740, we have a small picture of a fight before a castle or town, in
which we see a column of men-at-arms crossing the drawbridge on such an
expedition. And again, in the plates in which Hans Burgmaier immortalised
the events of the reign of the Emperor Maximilian, a very artistic
representation of a body of men-at-arms, with their long lances, crowding
through the picturesque gate and over the drawbridge, brings such an
incident vividly before us.
The besiegers on their part did not neglect to avail themselves of such
shelter as they could find or make from the shot and from the sallies of
the enemy, so as to equalise as much as practicable the conditions of the
contest. The archers of the castle found shelter behind the merlons of the
battlements, and had the windows from which they shot screened by movable
shutters; as may be seen in the next woodcut of the assault on a castle.
It would have put the archers of the assailants at a great disadvantage if
they had had to stand out in the open space, exposed defenceless to the
aim of the foe; all neighbouring trees which could give shelter were, of
course, cut down, in order to reduce them to this defenceless condition,
and works were erected so as to command every possible coigne of vantage
which the nooks and angles of the walls might have afforded. But the
archers of the besiegers sought to put themselves on more equal terms with
their opponents by using the _pavis_ or _mantelet_. The pavis was a tall
shield, curved so as partly to envelop the person of the bearer, broad at
the top and tapering to the feet. We sometimes see cross-bowmen carrying
it slung at their backs (as in Harl. 4,379, and Julius E. IV., f. 219,
engraved on p. 294), so that after discharging a shot they could turn
round and be sheltered by the great shield while they wound up their
instrument for another shot. Sometimes this shield seems to have been
simply three planks of wood nailed together, which stood upright on the
ground, and protected the soldier effectively on three sides. There are
illustrations of it in the MS. Royal 20 C vii. (temp. Rich. II.), at f.
19, f. 24 v., and f. 29 v., and in the MS. Harl. 4,382, f. 133 v. and f.
154 v. The mantelet was a shield still more ample, and capable of being
fixed upright by a prop, so that it formed a kind of little movable fort
which the bowman, or man-at-arms, could carry out and plant before the
walls, and thence discharge his missiles, or pursue any other operation,
in comparative safety from the smaller artillery of the enemy. The most
interesting example which we have met of the employment of the pavis and
mantelet, is in a picture in the Harl. MS. 4,425, at f. 133. The woodcut
on the previous page represents only a portion of the picture, the whole
of which is well worth study. The reader will see at once that we have
here the work of a draughtsman of far superior skill to that of the
limners of the rude illuminations which we have previously given. The
background really gives us some adequate idea of the appearance of an
Edwardian castle with its barbican and drawbridge, its great tower with
the heads of the defenders just peeping over the battlements. We must call
attention to the right-hand figure in the foreground, who is clad in a
_pourpoint_, one of the quilted armours which we have formerly described,
because it is the best illustration of this species of armour we have met
with. But the special point for which we give the woodcut here, is to
illustrate the use of the mantelet. It will be seen--though somewhat
imperfectly, from the fragment of the engraving introduced--that these
defences have been brought up to the front of the attacking party in such
numbers as to form an almost continuous wall, behind which the men-at-arms
are sheltered; on the right are great fixed mantelets, with a hole in the
middle of each, through which the muzzle of a gun is thrust; while the
cannoniers work their guns as behind the walls of a fort.
[Illustration: _Use of the Pavis, etc._]
[Illustration: _Cannon and Mortar._]
Similar movable defences, variously constructed, continued to be used down
to a very late period. For example, in some large plans of the array of
the army of Henry VIII., preserved in the British Museum (Cottonian MS.,
Augustus III., f. 1 v.), the cannon are flanked by huge mantelets of
timber, which protect the cannoniers. In the one engraved between pp. 454
and 455, we see a representation of the commencement of the battle,
showing some of the mantelets overthrown by the assault of soldiers armed
with poleaxes. In modern warfare the sharpshooter runs out into the open,
carrying a sand-bag by way of pavis, behind which he lies and picks off
the enemy, and the artillery throw up a little breastwork, or mantelet, of
sand-bags.
Sometimes the besieging army protected itself by works of a still more
permanent kind. It threw up embankments with a pallisade at top, or
sometimes constructed a breastwork, or erected a fort, of timber. For
example, in the Royal MS. 14 E. IV., at f. 14, we have a picture of an
assault upon a fortified place, in which the besiegers have strengthened
their position by a timber breastwork. It is engraved at p. 443; the whole
picture is well worth study. Again, in the Cottonian MS., Augustus V., at
folio 266, is a camp with a wooden fence round it.
An army in the field often protected its position in a similar way. So far
back as the eleventh century the historians tell us that William the
Conqueror brought over a timber fort with him to aid his operations. The
plan of surrounding the camp with the waggons and baggage of the army is
perhaps one of the most primitive devices of warfare, and we find it used
down to the end of the period which is under our consideration. In the MS.
already mentioned, Augustus III., on the reverse of folio 4, is a picture
of an army of the time of Henry VIII. encamped by a river, and enclosed on
the open sides by the baggage, and by flat-bottomed boats on their
carriages, which we suppose have been provided for the passage of the
stream.
The siege of Bedford Castle, as described by Roger Wendover, in the year
1224, gives a good historical instance of the employment of these various
modes of attacking a stronghold at that period. The castle was being held
against the king, who invested it in person. Two towers of wood were
raised against the walls, and filled with archers; seven mangonels cast
ponderous stones from morning to night; sappers approached the walls under
the cover of the cat. First the barbican, then the outer bailey was taken.
A breach in the second wall soon after gave the besiegers admission to the
inner bailey. The donjon still held out, and the royalists proceeded to
approach it by means of their sappers. A sufficient portion of the
foundations having been removed, the stancheons were set on fire, one of
the angles sank deep into the ground, and a wide rent laid open the
interior of the keep. The garrison now planted the royal standard on the
walls, and sent the women to implore mercy. But a severe example was made
of the defenders, in order to strike terror among the disaffected in other
parts of the realm.[381]
[Illustration: _Cannon._]
Among the occasional warlike contrivances, stinkpots were employed to
repel the enemy, and the Greek fire was also occasionally used. A
representation of the use of stinkpots, and also of the mode of using the
Greek fire, may be seen in the Royal MS. 18 E. V., at f. 207 (date 1473
A.D.).
Those more terrible engines of war which ultimately revolutionised the
whole art of warfare, which made the knight's armour useless, and the
trebuchet and arbalest the huge toys of an unscientific age, were already
introduced; though they were yet themselves so immature, that for a time
military men disputed whether the old long bow or the new fire-arm was the
better weapon, and the trebuchet still held its place beside the cannon.
In the old illuminations we find mediæval armour and fire-arms together in
incongruous conjunction. The subject of the use of gunpowder is one of so
much interest, that it deserves to be treated in a separate chapter.