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Preface
In this volume I have endeavored to describe the history
mechanism and manipulation of the crossbow; medieval 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 solders in medieval 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, but was 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 English longbows in existence;
there are, however, numbers of beautifully constructed medieval crossbows
to be seen in armouries and museums; weapons which
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