Table Of Content

The Book of the Crossbow Ralph Payne-Gallwey DOVER BOOKS ON HISTORY, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE THE BOOK OF THE SWORD, Sir Richard F. Burton. (25434-8) $8.95 THE COMMON LAW, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (26746-6) $11.95 WINGED DEFENSE: THE DEVELOPMENT AND POSSIBILITIES OF MODERN Am POWER-ECONOMIC AND MILITARY, William Mitchell. (25771-1) $7.95 THE GEOGRAPHY, Claudius Ptolemy. (26896-9) $19.95 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST, Peter Kropotkin. (25745-2) $11.95 THE MEDIEVAL VILLAGE, G. G. Coulton. (26002-X) $12.95 THE ARMOURER AND HIS CRAFT, Charles ffoulkes. (25851-3) $11.95 THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON HISTORY, 1660-1783, A.T. Mahan. (25509-3) $12.95 RENAISSANCE DIPLOMACY, Garrett Mattingly. (25570-0) $8.95 THE IDEA OF PROGRESS, J. B. Bury. (25421-6) $8.95 ESSENTIAL WORKS OF LENIN, Henry M. Christman (ed.). (25333-3) $9.95 AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BATTLES, David Eggenberger (ed.). (24913-1) $14.95 GOD AND THE STATE, Michael Bakunin. (22483-X) $4.95 THE STORY OF MAPS, Lloyd A. Brown. (23873-3) $10.95 HISTORY OF THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE, John B. Bury. (20398-0, 20399-9) Two-volume set $25.90 THE DISCOVERY OF THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN, Howard Carter and A. C. Mace. (23500-9) $7.95 THE WORLD'S GREAT SPEECHES, Lewis Copeland and Lawrence W. Lamm (eds.). (20468-5) $13.95 MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM, Frederick Douglass. (22457-0) $7.95 GREAT NEWS PHOTOS AND THE STORIES BEHIND THEM, John Faber. (23667-6) $9.95 AUTOBIOGRAPHY: THE STORY OF MY EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH, Mohandas K. Gandhi. (Available in United States only). (24593-4) $6.95 ANARCHISM AND OTHER ESSAYS, Emma Goldman. (22484-8) $5.95 LIVING MY LIFE, Emma Goldman. (22543-7, 22544-5) Two-volume set $18.90 HEAVENS ON EARTH, Mark Holloway. (21593-8) $8.95 THE GREAT CHICAGO FIRE, David Lowe (ed.). (23771-0) $7.95 HOAXES, Curtis D. MacDougall. (20465-0) $7.95 LONDON LABOUR AND THE LONDON POOR, Henry Mayhew. (21934-8, 21935-6, 21936-4, 21937-2) Four-volume set $39.80 THE PRIVATE MANUFACTURE OF ARMAMENTS, Phillip Noel-Baker. (22736-7) $9.95 (continued on back flap) THE BOOK OF THE CROSSBOW MODEL OF ROMAN CATAPULT CONSTRUCTED BY THE AUTHOR. Weight, i% tons. Range, with a 6-lb. stone ball, 300 yards. 1. Twisting up the skein of cord by means of the winches. 2. Winding down the arm. 3. Releasing the arm when fully wound down. THE BOOK OF THE CROSSBOW Ralph Payne-Gallwey DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC. New York Published in Canada by General Publishing Company, Ltd., 50 Lesmill Road, Don Mills, Toronto, Ontario. Published in the United Kingdom by Constable and Company, Ltd., 3 The Lanches- ters, 162-164 Fulham Palace Road, London W6 9ER. Bibliographical Note This Dover edition, first published in 1995, is an unaltered and unabridged repub lication of the work originally published by Longmans, Green, and Co., London, in 1903 under the title The Crossbow / Mediceval and Modern / Military and Sporting / Its Construction History and Management / With a Treatise on the Batista and Catapult of the Ancients. The Dover edition also includes the author's Appendix, published sep arately [no publisher given], in 1907 under the title Appendix to the Book of the Crossbow and Ancient Projectile Engines. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Payne-Gallwey, Ralph, Sir, 1846-1916. The book of the crossbow / Ralph Payne-Gallwey. p. cm. Originally published: The crossbow. London : Longmans, Green, and Co., 1903. Includes index. ISBN 0-486-28720-3 (pbk.) I. Crossbows. 2. Catapult. I. Payne-Gallwey, Ralph, Sir, 1846-1916. Crossbow. II. Title. U878.P38 1995 6234'4i—dc20 95-22140 CIP Manufactured in the United States of America Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501 P R E F A CE IN this volume I have endeavoured to describe the history mechanism and manipulation of the crossbow; mediaeval 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 soldiers in mediaeval 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, was but 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 old English longbows in existence ; there are, however, numbers of beautifully constructed mediaeval crossbows to be seen in armouries and museums; weapons which viii THE CROSSBOW were originally made with as much skill and nicety as a costly modern gun. I have added a treatise on the great projectile engines of the ancients, as they have not before been fully described or criticised. As some of the ancient siege engines resemble a crossbow and are supposed to have suggested its invention, I trust the details I give of the history and construction of these curious machines will be of sufficient interest to justify their inclusion. THIRKLEBY PARK, THIRSK.