NOTE 3. - I propose here to enter into some detailed explanation regarding
the military engines that were in use in the Middle Ages.[2] None of these
depended for their motive force on torsion like the chief engines used
in classic times. However numerous the names applied to them, with
reference to minor variations in construction or differences in power,
they may all be reduced to two classes, viz. great slings and great
crossbows. And this is equally true of all the three great branches of
mediaeval civilisation - European, Saracenic, and Chinese. To the first
class belonged the Trebuchet and Mangonel; to the second, the
Winch-Arblast (Arbalete a Tour), Springold etc.
Whatever the ancient Balista may have been, the word in mediaeval Latin
seems always to mean some kind of crossbow. The heavier crossbows were
wound up by various aids, such as winches, ratchets, etc. They discharged
stone shot, leaden bullets, and short, square-shafted arrows called
quarrels, and these with such force we are told as to pierce a six-inch
post (?). But they were worked so slowly in the field that they were no
match for the long-bow, which shot five or six times to their once. The
great machines of this kind were made of wood, of steel, and very
frequently of horn;[3] and the bow was sometimes more than 30 feet in
length. Dufour calculates that such a machine could shoot an arrow of half
a kilogram in weight to a distance of about 860 yards.