The
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Crossbow with Steel Bow > Bent by a Cranequin
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Chapter XXX
The Sixteenth Century Sporting Crossbow, with Thick
Steel Bow which was Bent by a Cranequin
ARBALESTE A CRIC - ARBALESTE A CRANEQUIN - RATCHET CROSSBOW -
RACK AND PINION CROSSBOW
In the last quarter of the fifteenth century the crossbow with its ropes
and windlass, and its stirrup and necessarily long and heavy stock (to
suit the action of the windlass), fell into disfavour with hunters of deer
and other animals. The reason of this was the gradual perfecting of an
instrument for stretching the string of a crossbow which enabled the crossbowman-
to dispense with the cumbersome metal foot-stirrup, and to have a much
shorter and lighter stock to his weapon than had hitherto been possible.
This apparatus was the French ' cranequin ' or ratchet-winder. Not only
was the cranequin simpler in use and more portable than the windlass, but
it was also nearly as powerful, and, as it had no cords to fall out of
repair, was practically indestructible.1
The cranequin was, however, considerably slower to work than a windlass,
and could not, for instance, wind up the bow-string of a military crossbow
with the rapidity necessary in open warfare. Its costly construction was
also against its adoption by soldiery.
Slow to manipulate and expensive to make in comparison with the windlass,
I doubt if the cranequin crossbow was ever popular in armies, though it
is quite likely that it was employed by picked marksmen from behind the
loop-holes and battlements of a besieged fortress. It is stated by various
authors on military subjects, that in the fifteenth century crossbowmen
were sometimes known as ' crenequiniers,' from their practice of shooting
at the besiegers of a castle or town through the crenelles (loop-holes)
in its walls.2
1 The mechanism of the cranequin was precisely
the same as that of the old-fashioned lifting jack to be seen in timber
yards.
2 Crenequin or crennequin is a way of spelling
this word only to be found in modern works on armour and weapons. Cranequin
is the old French spelling, and for this reason I consider there is no
foundation for the surmise that the word ' cranequin' is in any way derived
from "crenelle." In manuscripts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
cranequin is sometimes spelt crannequin, carnequin, carnequyn and carnequing.
Littre', in his Dictionnaire de la Langue Francaise, states that
' cranequin is derived from the Low German, " Kraeneke, a crane," owing
to its shape.' The crossbow was itself often called a " cranequin," and
the crossbowman a '"cranequinier" or " crannequinier."
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