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The
Crossbow > Chapter 1 >
Military Crossbow > p.6
The Crossbow
fortunate rival, with the "arbalest" or short stirrup stick. The translation
of this passage, as rendered by A.J. Johns (the italics are mine), runs:
And thou crossbowman true and good,
Thou shooter with a faultless wood,
Haste with thy stirrup fashioned bow
To lay the hideous varlet low.
As further proof that at Crecy the Genoese did not use the powerful
steel crossbow which was bent by a windlass, I
quote the following extract from Viollet-le-Duc (Dictionnaire raisonne
du Mobilier francais. Paris 1868-75). "John II, King of France (the Good),
issued in 1351 a military regulation which ordered that the crossbowman
who had a good crossbow, strong according to his
strength, should receive three sous tournoise wages per day." This plainly
shows that the military crossbow of the time of
Crecy was bent either by hand alone, or, as was more probable, by a thong
and pulley, a claw fixed to the girdle, or by means of a goat's foot lever.
If the crossbowmen referred to it in the regulation given above had steel
crossbows with windlasses, such as were commonly used toward the end of
the century, the question of regulating the power of the bow to the strength
of the soldier would not have arisen, as with the windlass a boy could
bend the thickest of steel bows.
The Genoese at Crecy (they were in the first line and were the only
troops in the French army who advanced toward the English in fair order)
were probably checked, and thrown into confusion, by showers of arrows,
before they could approach their assailants sufficiently near to discharge
one crossbow bolt with effect1. All
contemporary and later evidence tends to prove, that the crossbows carried
by the Genoese at Crecy had not steel bows; thus they could not compete
at all with the English longbow, as they had formally done with the old
shortbow.
The Genoese became, therefore, a large and helpless target for the English
bowmen, and very soon scattered and fled, for they were unable to inflict
any lose upon their opponents, though struck down in numbers themselves.
This, in itself, was sufficient to throw these unfortunate mercenaries
into a state of panic, even if their small crossbows
been in proper condition, as indeed they may have been, notwithstanding
tradition and surmise to the contrary.
When the crowding mass of horse and foot, which for several miles had
been pressing in disorder on the hells of the Genoese, came up, they found
the crossbowmen in hot retreat, either by reason of the deadly hail of
English arrows they had just encountered, or because of the uselessness
of their weapons.
The cavalry, however, in merciless manner, galloped furiously over the
1 It is probable that the crossbows carried
by the Genoese at Crecy were unable to send their bolts further than about
200 yards.
The Crossbow
> Chapter 1 > Military
Crossbow > p.6
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