In June 1210, Count Simon de Montfort besieged two hundred knights, priests, and citizens within the fortress of Minerve as part of his campaign throughout southwestern France to eradicate the Cathar heresy. Considered impregnable, Minerve stood atop a daunting limestone cliff 246 yards above the Cesse River in the region known as the Languedoc. De Montfort knew that with ample provisions and an internal water source, Minerve’s defenders could outlast any siege, and he had no patience.
Within days his engineers had built a towering siege engine: an oversized balance beam with a weighted bucket at one end called a trebuchet — a relatively new arrival on the European battlefield. The walls of Minerve were beyond the reach of this piece of medieval
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Obviously, soldiers on both sides of Minerve’s walls gave the trebuchet ample respect.
The word trebuchet comes from the Middle French verb trebuch, meaning ‘to tumble’ or ‘to fall over,’ which is exactly what the throwing arm of a trebuchet does when it is released. The medieval etymology of the word (first appearing in English in the fourteenth century as ‘trepegete’) has led many historians to believe that this war engine was a medieval invention, but this ‘bad neighbor’ took up residence in the annals of military history long before that.
Stone-throwing artillery was hardly a new idea in the thirteenth century. Both the Greeks and Romans employed engines to fire stones and darts at their enemies. In the ancient world, however, war engines were powered either by torsion (a wound rope, such as in the Roman onager) or tension (a drawn bow, such as in the Greek oxybeles). The trebuchet was the first war engine to employ the principles of gravity and leverage to hurl a
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The Byzantine chronicler Anna Komnene alluded to this emerging technology when she mentioned several ‘unconventional engines’ that were employed at the siege of Nicaea in Asia Minor in 1097, which she claimed ‘amazed everyone’ with their ability to hurl gigantic stones. In the military vernacular of the eleventh-century Islamic world, the hybrid trebuchet was al-Ghadban, or ‘the furious
CATAPULTS The catapult, was invented by the Romans, and plays a large role in the siege of any castle. Besiegers could fire 100-200 pound stones up to 1,000 feet. The catapult was used to destroy buildings and walls inside and outside of the castle walls, it could also destroy an enemies moral by throwing severed heads of comrades, they could spread disease by throwing shit and dead animals in, and they could destroy wooden building by throwing bundles of fire in.
According to Chevedden et al., (2002) the Latin word for trebuchet was “ingenium” and those who designed, made and used them were called inginators. These early engineers kept modifying the trebuchet to increase the range and impact force. One of the improvements engineers made was varying the length of the sling ropes so the shot left the machine at a ? angle of 45 degrees to the vertical (shown in the figure above), which produces the longest trajectory (Chevedden et al.,
At the beginning of the Middle Ages, battle was still fought by men usually with swords, spears, and axes because they fought so close to each other. In medieval times, there were many different weapons, which were used for many different reasons. Some reasons would be for war, hunting, farming and building. The same types of materials were used, but they designed into different types of weapons and armor. As you read, you will learn how as time pasted that either the armor or the weapons changed to be more protective and or more powerful. I will be covering in this paper the many types of weapons, a specific weapon, and last the armor they used to protect themselves.
The whole structure was built in a hurry, possibly in an effort to solidify the conquest. It is not nearly a remarkable an object as the twin churches in Caen. However, due to its protective design, it is an impregnable fortress, and its history as a prison, the tower has carved its place in history. Work on the stone building and exterior walls was begun in 1077. The main building, included a small cathedral in one corner, and rises three stories.
“The Fortress of Louisbourg and Its Cartographic Evidence.” Bulletin of the Association for Preservation Technology 4, no. 1/2 (1972): 3-40. Accessed 11 November 2013, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1493360.
5. Howe, Helen, and Robert T. Howe. From the Ancient and Medieval Worlds. N.p.: Longman, 1992. Print.
Question 5: “Texts construct characters who represent the best qualities in human nature, as well as those who represent the worst.” Discuss how at least ONE character is constructed in a text you have read or viewed. (Sem 2, 2016)
Crossbows are a highly effective weapon for hunting and war even in today's standards. The first records of crossbows are from China in the 6th century BC. The knowledge then spreads slowly to the west into Europe during the time of the Roman Empire, the greatest empire of all times. The crossbow remained the favored weapon of war and hunting in Rome until the 15th century when gunpowder was also introduced from China.
...e went into motion. Possible projectiles of the trebuchet were living prisoners, jugs of Greek fire, rocks, and animals. Another large weapon of siege was used primarily in storms, the battering ram. In its early stages, the ram was no more than a hefty beam with a mass of metal attached to the end. Men would hoist the cumbersome boom onto their shoulders and run into a wall or door as many times as needed until the surface under attack gave way. In the Middle Ages, it was developed into more of a machine, for the ram hung from the center of a tent under which the men operating the ram could hide. The ram could be swung like a pendulum much more easily than having to constantly run back and forth. Also, castle guards often poured hot oil or other things onto the ram and its engineers. The tent, which was on wheels, protected the men and the battering ram as well.
The trebuchet is used with a long wooden arm refreshed on a hinge point, which acted as a big level. A bullet was placed on one end and soldiers in this earlier form of the trebuchet pushed on slings devoted to the other end to fundamentals swing the arm around and throw the
Onagers were used by the Roman army, each centurion had them. When their rocks were hurled, whole sections of stone walls collapsed. They were great for sieges.
These kinds of weapons were impractical for military use, but attracted many people to the arms race for weapons that could sweep the battlefield. “They had limitations in practice, among them slow re...
“The trebuchet reached the Mediterranean by the sixth century C.E. It displaced other forms of artillery and held its own until well after the coming of gunpowder. The trebuchet was instrumental in the rapid expansion of both the Islamic and the Mongol empires. It also played a part in the transmission of the Black Death, the epidemic of plague that swept Eurasia and the North Africa during the 14th century. Along the way it seems to have influenced both the development of clockwork and the theoretical analyzes of motion”2.
Roger Babusci et al. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1994. 115-136. Print. “The Medieval Period: 1066-1485.”
The system and technique of supplying an arrow with kinetic energy through the tension of limbs has been improved with the crossbow. The big catapults took up once again the principle of throwing stones. It all changed with the invention of the gunpowder. Cannons, guns and handheld weapons assumed the role of bow and arrow. Now, the warlike intention behind the long-distance effect went even more into the foreground.