Non-Gunpowder Artillery

(Medieval Mechanical Artillery)

Note that this page addresses only mechanical artillery and not the broader range of devices, such as towers and rams, employed in siege operations.

Directory

Indirect-Firing Machines:

trébuchet

mangonel

catapult

pierrière

War machines [engines] were employed throughout the middle ages, even after the introduction of effective gunpowder artillery. The names to distinguish specific machines used by contemporary chroniclers and other observers were not standard. This leaves today's historians with some doubt, in some cases, as to what specific machine is really being described in the old texts. However, contemporary drawings and the scattered written references allow for an understanding of the various types, even though there may be some disagreement as to the exact names. Names of categories used in this page are based upon those followed by M. Reanud Beffeyte, who has researched for many years and has successfully reconstructed an array of medieval war machines. His work is further exhibited at the ARMEDIEVAL website.

Terminology is further compounded by the fact that some of the machines existed during the ancient Greek and Roman eras, and they were also used by Eastern armies, especially the Muslims. It is in the Muslim realm that the one machine unique to the medieval era emerged (most likely it had an earlier origin in Chinia) and was introduced to the Western armies. The machine, in various configurations, operated on a balance or lever principal. It propelled its projectiles from force due to the rotation of a beam about a fulcrum. These machines are often described as trébuchets, though some authorities distinguish the different configurations of these machines with distinct terms for each. Unfortunately, there is not complete agreement on the various, specific terms. This page uses the expression 'rotating-beam' machines where some other authors employ 'lever-artillery' or 'balance-machines'.

Scholars generally agree that rotating-beam throwing machines initially existed in ancient China, and are estimated to have been transmitted to Central Asia and then to the Western Muslim world around the seventh century C.E. Initially, a team of men, rather than a weight, were used to pull down the short length of a beam that rotated about a pivot point supported by an upright frame. This swiftly raised the long length of the beam which held the projectile to be launched. The use of human pulling power is described as 'traction power'. In some cases, both small counterweights and manpower were employed in these rotating-beam machines. Some authors see this combination as a 'hybrid' form in the evolution of the rotating-beam engines. In its final form, the robust rotating-beam engine operated entirely by the counterweight, and is sometimes described as a 'gravity engine'.

Stone or earth filled hutches gave the energy to launch and hurl very heavy objects. When constructed with due consideration for the geometric aspects of balance, these large machines had remarkable stability and endurance, allowing repeated firings upon the same target over a long period. Estimates are that the counterweight trébuchet was developed in the eastern Mediterranean region in the late twelfth century and its use spread rapidly to norhtern Europe. The obvious military benefit led to the counterweight rotating-beam engines replacing in the medieval era most of the ancient Greek and Roman arm-throwing catapults designs.

As with all weapons, there was continuous experimentation and variations in construction. Some rotating-beam engines had the hutches rigidly fastend to the pivoting arm. Many historians believe that these were called 'mangonels' by Western Europeans of the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries. However, the expression 'mangonel' can be traced to a Byzantine-Greek word for the rotating-beam machines used in the seventh century. Obviously the names for the machines did not remain constant as the configurations evolved during the medieval era. More on the controversy of the mangonel is addressed later in this page. In this document, the 'mangonel' will be portrayed as M. Beffeyte, a leading authority on medieval siege weapons, has judged most appropriate based upon the frequency he has found the term used by medieval observers/authors.

The most effective counterweight rotating-beam machine developed in the Western medieval armies had suspended hutches that swung on a piviot at the short end of the rotating arm. These are what M. Beffeyte calls 'trébuchets'. Expressions for 'trébuchet' ('trabuchis', 'trabuqet', etc.) reportedly first appear in Western accounts in the late twelfth century. The first references appear to be to rotating-beam machines, powered by swinging counterweight hutches, and using a sling to hold the projectile. There were variations of counterweight configurations. Some trébuchets had one hutch, others had two -- equally balanced on both sides of the beam. These were given (by some authors) a particular name, couillard.

The specific war machines shown below are divided into two broad categories according to their artillery role: Indirect Fire and Direct Fire.

Controversy surrounds using the term 'mangonel' to describe a particular medieval war machine. There is no documentary support for portraying the 'mangonel' as a single-arm torsion catapult, as do many dictionaries and English/American works on medieval weapons. The convention seems to have grown from assumptions of 19th century writers who were very familiar with ancient Roman mechanical artillery, and easily conveyed the meaning of the word 'mangonel' found in early medieval sources to mean the Roman single-arm torsion catapult.
In Western documents, one of the earliest reports of a 'mangana' (Latin plural for 'mangonel') is in the poem by Abbon de Saint-Germain-des-Prés (850-923) describing the Viking siege of Paris in 885/6. However, the monk Abbon's description of the configuration of the particular engine is vague, allowing later scholars' interpretations to be based upon on their preconceived concepts of the 'mangonel'. Guillaume le Breton's report (c. 1200s) of a 'mangonellus Turcorum' also fails to provide a useful description of the weapon. The modern French translator of Guillaume, Waquet, references a French scholar on medieval weapons, Camille Enlart, who states that the mangonel was a throwing machine with a fixed, not suspended, counterweight hutch. From Enlart's work, it appears that this positon was influenced mostly by that of the 19th century French author, Viollet-le-Duc. Guillaume le Breton's reference (ca. 1200s) to a 'Turkish' mangonel as being new to the crusaders supports the theory that this was one of the medieval rotating-beam engines introduced to western Europe by the eastern Muslims.
This makes medieval Muslim documents particularly important in the search to define the medieval 'mangonel'. One such work is a well illustrated, 1462 Arabic manuscript by Yusuf ibn Urunbugha al-Zaradkash called Kitab aniq fi al- manajaniq (An Elegant Book on Trebuchets). Western Arabists examining this work and that of other Muslim writers have not yet found an unchallenged resolution to the 'mangonel' question.
A leading scholar on Arabic and early medieval literature relating to the 'rotating-beam' artillery used in the Middle Ages is Dr. Paul Chevedden. He traces the expresion 'mangonel' to the Greek term manganikón, that came into the Arabic as manjaniq. The Muslims who are credited with further developing the 'rotating-beam' engines appear to have associated the term with the larger trestle-framed configuration of this machine. Dr. Chevedden is one who practices the convention of calling all rotating-beam machines 'trebuchets'. His works are included among the references given below, and provide valuable coverage for the English reading public on the topic.

Further references:
Waquet, Henri, ed., trans. of Abbon's. Le siege de Paris par les Normands, Poeme du IXe siecle, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1942.
Cahen, Claude, "Un traite d'armurerie compose pour Saladin," Bulletin d'etudes orientales, 12 (1947-1948), pp.103-63.
Chevedden, Paul E. et al., "The Trebuchet," Scientific American (July 1995), pp. 66-71.
Chevedden, Paul E. "The Artillery of King James I the Conqueror." Iberia and the Mediterranean World of the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Robert I. Burns, edited by P.E. Chevedden, D.J. Kagay, and P.G. Padilla, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996, pp.47-94.
Chevedden, Paul E, "The Hybrid Trebuchet: The Halfway Step to the Counterweight Trebuchet," On the Social Origins of Medieval Institutions: Essays in Honor of Joseph F. O'Callaghan, edited by Donald J. Kagay and Theresa M. Vann, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1998, pp.179-222.
Enlart, Camille, Manuel d'archeologie francaise depuis les temps merovingiens jusqu'a la renaissance, 3 vols., Paris, A. Picard, 1902-1916, 2nd ed., 1932, vol. 2, part 2, pp.491-92.
Hill, Donald. "Trebuchets," Viator, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, vol.4, 1973, pp.99-114.
Viollet-le-Duc, E., Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture française du xie au xvie siècle, vol 5, Paris, Morel, 1875.

West European and/or Muslim medieval observers may have employed the term 'mangonel' for any war machine that hurled large projectiles. The term may have had limited meaning for only a few of the medieval observers, or the meaning changed over time and among different societies. The evidence suggests that it was used most prevalently to refer to rotating-beam engines -- whether to all, or only to a particular type is unresolved. Following the count-based judgment of M. Beffeyte, this presentation classifies the mangonel as a rotating-beam throwing machine with a fixed counterweight hutch.