November 14, 2023 • 41 mins
In this invention-themed episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Rob and Joe discuss the origins and ingenuity of the crossbow.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
is Robert.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And on today's episode
of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we're going to be
doing one of our invention episodes where we look at
an invention from history, look at what came before, what
this invention changed, how it works, and Rob the subject
you have picked for today's series is the crossbow. Now
(00:36):
I have to ask, is there a Dungeons and Dragons
related origin story to you wanting to cover this?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I mean pretty much, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I think there often is. With you, I feel like
I can I can tell when it's coming.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah, because the crossbow, of course, is all over Dungeons
and Dragons. I've definitely role played characters that had crossbows.
But the thing that's always fascinated me about crossbows and
role playing games is that is how that is the
way they're depict it, because a lot of times they
do end up just becoming guns. You know, they're like blasters,
(01:11):
they'd shoot crossbow polts, and in a lot of games,
you don't put a lot of emphasis on the device
itself and how it's working, and any kind of like
realistic idea about how it's loaded and reloaded. In Dungeons
and Dragons, that's the way it tends to go, Like
you can just fire your crossbow every turn, it's no
big deal. But years back, my gaming group did another
(01:37):
role playing game, and this one was one that was
tied in with Dragon Age. I believe, and I may
have my memory may be crossed on some of these
things here and there, because it was like a good
ten years ago at this point. But if memory serves,
the crossbow mechanics in that game were perhaps a little
more accurate to a lot of crossbow technology and some
(01:57):
of the examples we'll discuss here. But it was also
decidedly un fine because there's one of these situations where
I often go into gaming, role playing gaming sort of
like imagination first, rules second, like I'll make choices that
may come back to bite me in the butt because
I didn't think about how the rules would impact my choices.
(02:18):
And this was definitely a case like that. Because I
had decided I was going to be a dwarf. I
was gonna have this cool crossbow, but said crossbow, as
it turns out, had to be reloaded for an entire
turn after use. So we get into a battle and
my dwarf would fire this crossbow, you know, probably miss,
and then the next turn he's just cranking this sucker
(02:41):
or you know, he has it on the ground like
redrawing the bow of the crossbow and then gets to
fire and miss on the following turn.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Now, that might not be more fun, but that is
more accurate because one of the big changes you see
across the history of crossbows is not so much changes
to the basic design of the crossbow itself, but spanning mechanisms,
mechanism for how you load and draw the string and
lock it into place. So, yeah, I can imagine D
and D would be a lot more cumbersome if you
(03:09):
know your rogue had to get out a cranic quin
every single time to crank the crossbow back and sitting
there like trying to wind it up.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, it could get It can get tedious, which is
I think is why in Dumers and Dragons you tend
to find the crossbow just fires each turn and you
just just assumed that you are you have enough skill
to make it happen. I don't know, there's probably some
sort of way you could make make the mechanics of
it more engaging, but I think probably just firing at
(03:39):
each turn is the best way to go well.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
And some of the loading or spanning mechanisms do appear
to have been faster than others in history, so not
all of them had like a like a windlass or
a cranic when one of these big cranking mechanisms. There
were also mechanisms where you just have like a stirrup
that you put your foot in, then you pull it
back and that works pretty quick.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, assuming you have firm ground underfoot. I ran across
mention of an ancient Chinese text that was warning against
using crossbows if you were on like damp ground, and
which makes sense, like suddenly you have your crossbowman out there.
They need the fire, they need a reload, but uh oh,
you have trouble either getting your foot down into it.
(04:20):
Or it may be a situation where you need to
lie on your back and then stretch it against your feet,
and that could also might or might not work, depending
on how muddy the terrain is.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah, you could imagine that, and I guess you would
probably need stable footing even though like so the stirrup
method you're pulling against yourself. You might have like a
hook on your belt or something to pull the mechanism
back while you push in the stirrup with your foot,
but then you'd probably need to have the other foot
on stable ground.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, but you know, I think all this is kind
of the appeal of the crossbow is as like an
idea we were talking before we came in to record here.
How like for my own part, growing up in Tennessee,
being in boy scouts, you had the opportunity to fire
rifles on shooting ranges, You got the opportunity to fire
to use bow and arrow on archery ranges. But I
(05:09):
never had the chance to try out a crossbow, And
so the crossbow was always this kind of like mysterious
thing in between. And yet unlike a gun, you could
still look at it and even as a kid, you know,
understand like the basic principles of how it worked. Well.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yeah, because with a crossbow, I mean, just like with
a bow, there can be a lot of different design
elements that could improve features of how it works, improve usability,
improve the energy delivered or the draw length or whatever
the speed of the projectile. But still at core. A
(05:45):
crossbow operates on the same principle as a bow.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah, and of course, yeah, to discuss the crossbow, we're
going to have to talk a little bit about the
bow at least. And there it's not just a situation
where well, we had the bow and then we created
the crossbow. Who just threw out those bows away? It's
not nearly as simple as that. And we'll discuss some
of the famous examples of crossbows going up against bows
(06:10):
and how that played out. But the oldest evidence for
the bow and arrow, as cited by Brian Imfigan and
Peter Rowley Conley in the seventy Great Inventions of the
Ancient World, goes back ten thousand years to the early
Mesolithic period in Denmark. This is a thousand years later
than the earliest evidence of arrows twelve thousand years ago
(06:31):
in what is now Germany. In stone erawhead date back
eighteen tho to twenty thousand years ago in Spain, and
possibly have arrow points from sixty to seventy thousand years
ago in South Africa. The problem with ancient bows, of course,
is that they were almost always made of organic materials
that just do not survive the test of time, with
(06:51):
the actual arrowheads being the most long lasting part of
the combined weapon technology.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Right, So you'll find evidence of arrowhead heads going back
longer than clear evidence of the bows themselves. And yeah,
I think that example you mentioned from South Africa, like
the Sibudu Cave, is one of the earliest I've read about.
But that's arrowhead evidence, right right.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
So no, absolutely, nobody that I've come across is making
any argument that the crossbows go back nearly that far.
I think it's it's clear, there's clear indication that the
bow came first, of course, but it is also you know,
worth noting that even with things like the crossbow, the
crossbow is still made out of mostly organic materials, with
(07:35):
the main differences being Okay, you have, of course the
head of the bolt, which may be made out of
a metal of some sort, and then, as we'll discuss
later on, you also have the lock of a crossbow.
This is the implement that holds back the drawn string.
And so when this is made out of metal, we
(07:55):
may find evidence of it, such as bronze crossbow from China.
Now on the show before we've talked a bit about
the history of projectile weapons, particularly, I think most recently,
we did a series of episodes on animals throwing things,
and then we did one on humans throwing things, and
that was really interesting because you got into a lot
(08:16):
of situations where you're not just throwing any rock, you're
throwing specially prepared rocks, or you're throwing things like hunting
sticks at animals that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, you can have modifications of the projectiles themselves, but
in terms of launching technology, we actually did a whole
other invention episode back when we had a separate invention
podcast on the odd loadel, which was a piece of
launching technology that was essentially a lever arm to get
increased leverage on a spear.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
So these various non bow and pre bow missile weapon technologies,
these had a huge impact on the world of hunter gatherers.
You know, extended the range of human violence beyond physical
human reas each and by the time the bow comes
along and starts spreading, this just extends the range even farther.
(09:08):
And of course it all served to extend human dominance
over animals and other hominids as well as transforming conflict
between humans. Now, one of the basics about the bow,
the bow and arrow. And this is something that is
obvious I think by watching it in action, is that,
as a Fagan and Raleigh Conley point out, the bow
is essentially a spring that stores energy when the bow
(09:30):
string is drawn. Then when the string is released, that
energy is transferred into the propulsion of the arrow. Different
types of wood provided different advantages, and eventually compound bows
made use of multiple parts to provide maximized performance.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yes, it is worth noting that despite the different form
and the different way you hold these weapons, a bow
and a crossbow both typically work on the same mechanical principle,
which is the principle of the spring, by storing energy
in the form of elastic potential and then releasing that
potential suddenly to propel an arrow in the case of
(10:06):
a bow, or a bolt in the case of a
crossbow at high speed. Now, when you shoot a bow,
there's actually a common misconception that the energy comes from
stretching the bow's string. Even though I know better, I
think sometimes my brain still wants to think this way.
But the string of a bow really doesn't stretch you
very much at all, So that's not where the energy
(10:27):
has come from. Coming from the energy comes from bending
the bow itself, bending the limbs of the bow, and
when you pull the string, it bends the bow. When
you release the string, the bow returns to its original shape,
and it propels the arrow as it does so because
it is pulling the string taut, so the string is
sort of a medium. It's how you pull the bow
(10:49):
back and how the snapping back energy of the bow
is delivered to the arrow.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
This is why Leglas says, and my bow and my strength.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
That's right now. If you've never actually shot a bow
at a target, you might be shocked how much strength
it takes to draw back a bow. You know, I've
done this at various points in my life. Most recently
several years back, I did a goofy little archery range
at a Renaissance festival, and even in that setting, I
(11:22):
remember being shocked at how difficult it was to pull
back the bow, and surprised at how aiming the bow
was made so much more difficult than it looks because
of the tension when you're holding a drawn bow, so
you're flexing, you know, maybe as hard as you can
(11:43):
when you pull a bow string back, and that intense
exertion makes it harder to aim your shot. Your arm
might want to tremble your straining with your whole body,
You're also putting a lot of strain on your hand
and your fingers that are holding the bow string back.
So imagine trying to aim something precisely while you're in
(12:03):
the middle of a bench press or some other weight lift.
And so it's easy to see how a crossbow really
changes the game. There. A crossbow allows the tension of
the bow to be locked in place and then released
by an external mechanism instead of being drawn, held and
released purely by the strength of your muscles and bones.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
That's right, and this is where the genius of the
crossbow comes in because the crossbow, I mean you can
almost think of the crossbow as like a robotic or
technological replacement for the arm or the arms in this scenario,
because once the bow is drawn back, this trigger or
lock holds everything in place, holds all of that potential
(12:50):
power in place, and then it can be released by
pulling a trigger.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
And this is a point I actually saw emphasized by
the author of a book I'm gonna mention at some
point in the series that a big difference between say
somebody who was a skilled archer with a long bow
versus somebody who was a skilled crossbow operator. In the
medieval period, say, a big difference would be the level
(13:14):
of fitness required in order to be a long bow operator.
There is just like way more requirement of real upper
body strength and training, of physical training, not just skill training.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Yeah, there's a lot of skill involved for the use
of a bow, and I should highlight they are going
to be differences depending on where and how a bow
is utilized for what specific hunting or military uses and
so forth. I mean, for example, there's a difference between
the skill of of of a bowman on foot and
(13:49):
a mounted archer out there in a battle scenario. But
one of the primary examples of archery expertise that I'm
gonna mentioned here and also pops up in a lot
of the literature is, of course the archers who used
the English long bow. This was a powerful bow that
(14:10):
required a considerable amount of upper body strength, and you
had to work for years to build up the strength
to use these weapons, and generally had to start at
a very early age. More on the English long bow
in a minute here, but one of the key factors
to consider in all this is drawweight. None of this
will come as a shock to any bow hunters out
(14:31):
there for sure, And maybe you can write in and
tell us a few things about all of this. But
the idea is that pulling back on I say, sixty
pound drawweight bow would be like lifting a sixty pound
weight off the ground. But then, of course, as we've
been discussing, it's not just lifting that sixty pound weight,
it's holding it, aiming it, perhaps with your life on
(14:53):
the line in a military scenario, and then releasing it.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, trying to finally control both aim and timing while
you are holding back this extremely heavy weight. Now, regarding
the basic physics of a bow draw, I was looking
around on this and one great source I came across
(15:18):
was actually an old school house stuff works article takes
me back.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, yeah, who wrote this one?
Speaker 3 (15:23):
One buyer, Our friend Tracy Wilson, now host of stuff
you missed in history class.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Oh nice.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
But Tracy's article on how the crossbow works goes into
several of the main variables that determine the energy of
a bow shot. So, as you were just saying that,
there is what's called a bow's draw weight, and this
is the force it takes to draw the bow, and
this depends on multiple things like the material properties of
the bow, material on the size of the bow, its
(15:51):
shape and design, and so forth. There is also the
draw length, which is the distance between the bow strings
resting position and the point that you draw it back to.
And of course draw length is not an intrinsic property
of the bow, but changes with each draw, like you
could draw it back to different lengths, and so it
would be a characteristic of a bow shot. Also, generally
(16:14):
the draw weight increases along with the draw length, so
the farther you pull the bow string back, the more
force it takes. So you might say that there a
bow has a certain draw weight at a certain draw length.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Because even with say an English long bow, a child
would be able to pick it up and pull pull
the bow back a little bit, but not enough to
actually get to the full the full draw and the
full potential of the boat.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yes, and this actually comes back to questions Medieval history
nerds like to ask, like, you know, how exactly how
much strength does it take to shoot an English long
bow of the thirteenth century or something, And you could say, well,
you know, if the bow is made like this, it
would take this much strength to shoot it at its
full potential, you know, with this amount of draw length.
(17:04):
But probably anybody could underdraw the bow. So it's just
a question of like how effective you are at using it.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
But regarding these these variables draw weight and draw length,
they can affect the shot in various ways. For example,
the longer the draw length in terms of distance, the
longer in terms of time the string will be pushing
the arrow before it is released. Does that make sense,
so that imparts more energy if you pull it actually
(17:32):
farther back, the string is pushing the arrow and giving
it force longer, and so the energy stored for a
bow shot can be calculated as roughly draw weight times
draw length divided by two, and then the energy of
the shot would be measured in units like foot pounds,
(17:53):
you know, the energy required to lift one pound by
one foot, or jewels. So the design of a bow
can make a big difference in the energy it can deliver.
A long bow with a longer draw length and a
heavier draw weight tends to impart more energy to the
arrow and thus increase its range, and a long bow
can shoot over longer distances and tend to shoot heavier arrows.
(18:17):
But materials matter. Traditionally, bows were made out of strong
and elastic woods, you know, in the case of the
English long bow, the wood of the yew tree is
often mentioned. But modern bows are often made of different
materials and parts designed to flex and store energy in
different ways. Not just one piece of wood anymore, but
(18:38):
different kinds of materials. And there is also a difference
that's important to remember between compound bows and composite bows.
You can mix them up because they both start with
com but composite bows are regular bows made out of
a combination of different materials, often laminated together so traditionally
by combining wood with different types of animal parts like
(19:01):
horn and sinew, Whereas compound bows are bows that use
different parts such as pulleys or other levering machines to
give the archer mechanical advantage in drawing back, to allow
maybe for more rigid bow material to be used.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
So it's composite materials and then compounded force.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Right, Compound bows have machines in them, like pulleys or levers.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Yeah, yeah, And I think I think everyone's probably seen,
especially like it's kind of like an almost iconic of
modern say bow hunters, you'll see those various pulleys on
the bow.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
And so all of these mechanical principles basically apply to
crossbows as well. Though there are some common design differences
that you would observe with crossbows, even though they're not
necessarily they're not necessary to the principle of crossbow. For example,
crossbows typically have shorter limbs than long bows h and
(19:56):
also shorter bolts, so a shorter draw length. Though that
that's not fundamental to what a crossbow is. It just
happens to be that crossbows are usually like that now.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
One source I was looking at for different stats on
draw strength was a website called bowhunting dot com, which
points out that modern compound bows are pretty excellent. They
say you can comfortably hunt with a forty pound draw bow,
and that's perfectly reasonable for most hunting scenarios with big
game I'm assuming they're mostly talking about something like a
(20:27):
deer in this case. They specify sixty to sixty five
for something like a moose or an elk, and they
point out that some shooters today can handle seventy eighty
or ninety pound bows. So this brings us to the question,
all right, well we're talking about the English long bow
is sort of the bow part excellence. Well what kind
(20:47):
of draw are we talking about on those Well, it
turns out it's a matter of some debate, but the
best you English longbows may have required and a mistress
may it depends on whose crunching the figures here, but
it may have required between one hundred and fifty and
one hundred and eighty pound draws. That's eighty one point
six kilograms on the upper end.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
And even if it's not that high, I mean a
over one hundred pound draw, which I think is widely
agreed upon, is that's still incredibly h That is, it's
hard to imagine.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
And like I've been saying, it would not only be
a test of strength to draw that bow to aim
and then release it just a single time. You have
to remember that, especially in a warfare situation, the archer
would be firing over and over again. Repetition is key,
even in a hunting scenario. According to bowhunting dot Com,
(21:42):
the rule of thumb is that whatever weight you're using
on your bow, you need to be able to do
it thirty times in a row without feeling fatigued.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
That's a lot of reps.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Yeah. I don't think that means that you're necessarily firing
thirty arrows at a single deer, but I think that's
the general idea is if you can't do that, then
you need to cut back on your draw strength.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
I hesitate to speculate because I know nothing about bow hunting,
but I imagine that would be about trying to aim
and time the correct shots. So you might be drawing
in cases where you wouldn't actually be releasing the arrow.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, not every time you
drawback are you're actually going to fire that in that arrow?
So the English longbow was the ultimate missile weapon during
the one hundred Years of War and saw use into
the sixteenth century. I played an important role in multiple battles.
We'll get to one in a minute, but another one
is the Battle at agin Court from fourteen fifteen, in
which the English force is famously focused I think eighty
(22:40):
percent of their battle force on arranged weapons to secure victory.
In this and other examples, we should point out like
it's not as important as the weaponry choice is. It's
not the only factor. Of course, there are other factors
involved in any given warfare scenario, the bows may not
survive all that well, as we've discussed, but and stew
And while this is apparently also not a one hundred
(23:02):
percent agreed upon issue, you do have this situation where
in nineteen eighty two the wreck of the Mary Rose
was raised. This is a ship that sank English ship
that's thank in fifteen fifty four, and the skeletons on
board displayed a disproportionate amount of a shoulder ossification condition
(23:24):
known as os acromali. This is actually associated with elite archery,
so you know, repeatedly drawing back on some sort of
a powerful bow, for example, and there were long bows
on board. It's not one hundred percent again, but it's
an often cited correlation when it comes to just like
(23:44):
talking about like what sort of physical prowess would be
required to use these bows efficiently in a warfare scenario.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
So the point being that both the longbow and the
crossbow could be highly effective in various scenarios for hunting
or for warfare or whatever. But the long bow required
incredible physical strength and intense physical training, whereas the crossbow
did require some skill training. You had to know how
to use it, but did not place the same kind
of demands on the human body.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Right, And even in cases where you didn't have any
kind of a pulley system, etc. To aid you in
drawing the crossbow, you at least did not have to
do any kind of precision aiming while doing it. All
you had to worry about was getting it drawn back
all the way and then the lock would come into place,
and then you can aim without having to endure that
(24:35):
physical strain. So yeah, as Fagan and rally Conway point out, Yeah,
the crossbow can be kept drawn for much longer than
an archer can possibly hold a drawn bow, and the
crossbow can be made even more powerful than the strongest bow.
But I have to stress on this as we'll discuss.
I mean, this all comes down to scale, right, I mean,
(24:56):
and range. There are number of factors involved there, because
any given crossbow is not necessarily more powerful than a bow,
as we'll discuss. But yeah, one of the key advantages
here is that it kind of democratizes the use of
a bow weapon. While a bow's power is limited by
the strength of the archer, a crossbow can again be
drawn via mechanical devices so you can end up with
(25:18):
a weapon that ensures greater accuracy, at least at short
to medium ranges, with less specialized training required. The downside,
of course, as we already alluded to, is that actually
drawing the crossbow tends to take more time than drawing
a bow. Again, if on one side you have somebody
who can effectively draw the long bow that they're using,
and on the other side you have someone who has
(25:40):
a nice crossbow. And this is especially true if you're
having to employ some sort of mechanical apparatus to draw
the crossbow, but it also seems true if you're having
to do something like, you know, stick it in the
ground and then draw back using your arms and your legs.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
One other difference in the calculation I have come across
is the idea that the crossbow equipment would generally be
more expensive than longbow equipment.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
That's a good point too, so either more gears and
so forth that are involved, it may make it easier
for everyone to use it, but it becomes a more
specialized technology as well. Now, another important battle to touch
on is another scenario involving the English longbow, and that's
the Battle of Creasy from thirteen forty six, in which
(26:28):
the technology of the English longbow ensured victory over French crossbowmen.
And I was reading about this in the book Connections
by James Burke, who we've brought him up on the
show before, and I think fairly recently somebody wrote in
about James Burke's work on our listener mail episodes. But
Burke points out that the English longbow had exceptional range.
(26:49):
He cites four hundred yards and special steel arrowheads that
were designed to punch through armor at close range, and
he points out that experienced archer could loose nine arrows
in a minute, while the French crossbowmen required lengthier reload time.
So the idea is like, the archers have fired, the
crossbowmen fire, and then before the crossbowmen can reload their weapons,
(27:14):
the archers have fired again. However, the experienced archer part
of the scenario is key. Once More, Burke writes that
within decades of this pivotal battle that saw the championing
of the English longbow over crossbows and traditional armored knights,
it was after this ten years later, increasingly impossible to
find enough skilled archers to power the long bow and
(27:38):
provide the sort of overwhelming fire power that ruled the
day at Creasy. Burke discusses the possible reasons for this
at length in the book, and I believe in them
of course the documentary TV series as well, and he
cites a number of different, different different reasons than tailing
the continued recovery from the plague, improvements in plowing technology,
(28:00):
various other inventions and innovations, improved diets, and also a
general improvement in the quality of life for the average human.
Burke writes, quote, it took years for a man to
be trained to use the six foot u bo, and
here was the adult male population frittering away valuable training
hours enjoying itself. The reason, therefore, that the long bow
(28:24):
enjoyed such a brief spell of success lay in the
rising standard of living which the agricultural revolution had brought about.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Although interestingly, I was reading historical fact about how the
introduction of widespread crossbow use did not eliminate this tension
between between sort of like free time and enjoyment and
the military leaders emphasis that everybody really should be training.
So there's a book I've been looking at called The
(28:54):
Medieval Crossbow by Stuart Ellis Gorman published in the year
twenty twenty two and Sword Military Press, and this is
a book length investigation of the crossbow. And I was
reading a reddit ama with this this author who points
out that you have multiple ordinances from the government in
(29:15):
various places throughout medieval Europe, in England but also in
late medieval France and at some point in Genoa that
were like banning leisure activities and telling people to be
doing archery or crossbow practice instead. So like Genoa at
some point banned tournaments and banned gambling and said you
should be practicing your crossbow instead of doing these things.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yeah, it's like the Conan the Barbarian principle. You know,
you watch Conan the Barbarian, It's like, yeah, he's a
great warrior, but man, he seems miserable. He's not he's
not really making any time or is given any time
to do anything else. So you know, of course he's
this mighty warrior, but is it becomes less as people
begin to have other choices in their life. They're not
(29:59):
there just constantly, constantly practicing those archery skills. And therefore
you can see the shift perhaps being made to something
like the crossbow that is usable by the average person,
but without all of this extensive training.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Though as the shows, it wouldn't require the same level
of physical training, but you would still have to practice.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yeah, yeah, you couldn't. You couldn't just hand them out
and expect everyone to just automatically hit everything you're aiming at.
Though I guess there's room in that statement for various
arguments about what sort of scale are you handing them
out at? And certainly, as we may discuss in this
episode in the next, I mean, there are examples where
a lot of crossbows are deployed in given battles in
(30:42):
different scenarios. Now, this leads us to the question, of course,
when do we see the earliest crossbows. And of course,
one of the issues again and in dating earliest crossbows,
of course, or the organic materials that aren't going to
(31:05):
survive the test of time and you're having to rely
on things like crossbow bolt heads and also the locks.
But another interesting point that's brought up by Fagan and
Riley Conway is that sometimes it's difficult to say what's
a crossbow and what's a catapult. They point out that
the earliest crossbows in some regions anyway kind of resembled
(31:26):
small catapults, and there was likely they think some sort
of transformative step from stationary to mobile weaponry here, And
I can kind of imagine this is kind of like
you can imagine people thinking, what if we made a
bigger bow, Well, we wouldn't be able to pull that back.
We'd have to do something else. And then they're like, Okay,
I've created it, and what have you created. It's kind
(31:46):
of like a cross It's kind of like a big crossbow.
It's kind of also like a catapult. And then you
might think this is interesting, what have we scaled this
back down? And then you could hold it?
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Yes, though I do think scale does tend to place
different requires on like what kinds of mechanisms you can use.
For example, you can look at the ballista, which is
like a siege weapon which has existed since ancient times,
and say, well, that looks a lot like a crossbow,
but it does have a different mechanism for storing energy
(32:17):
than the crossbow does. The crossbow stores it in the
tension of the bow of the limbs, whereas I can't
remember exactly what the mechanism is for the ballista, but
it's different. I think it has to do with like
winding ropes or something.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Yeah, so catapults, we might have to come back to
another siege equipment, because there's a lot of interesting innovation
that goes on there. Apparently, Biblical accounts point back to
the reign of Uzaiah around eight hundred BCE as a
possible time during which people were using catapults, and then
there's a definite mention of them in Sicily around four
(32:55):
hundred BCE. But of course all this stems from ancient
world scenarios which you had walled city states encountering siege situations,
and of course the besiegers would have to devise various
ways to have to contend with this, and of course
the besieged on their end would come up with various
means of defending themselves. So Fagan and Rowley Conway point
(33:17):
to two key dates for earliest crossbow emergence, one in
second century BCE Rome, which will come back to in
a bit, and the other in fifth century BCE China.
Now you can well ask for these independent advances. Perhaps
it's also been theorized by many that the Chinese invention
simply spread to the West, perhaps more than once. And
(33:40):
we can't necessarily connect all the dots here, but you
can point out the key dots and some of the
time periods that are associated with them.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Yeah, so you don't know exactly how it traveled, though
it does seem to me uncontroversially agreed upon that the
earliest crossbow usage was in ancient China.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yes, century BC dating believe concerns bronze crossbow components, bronze
bold heads, bronze crossbow locks, and these have been dated
to the mid seventh century BCE. Bolts have also turned
up in Chinese tombs from this time period. John Key,
in his book on Chinese history, rights that the crossbows
(34:20):
long quote the weapon of first choice in the Chinese military,
but advancements in equestrian power did end up limiting its
effectiveness somewhat. So these would not so much be the
fact that people were riding the horses, but people were
armored on the horse. The horse and the strength of
the horse and the speed of the horse were able
to convey an armored individual around more easily. But of
(34:41):
course this comes a good bit later.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
But it's not just artifacts, right, because I think ancient
Chinese texts do make explicit mention of the crossbow.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Yeah, Sun Zoo in the Art of War from the
fifth century BCE definitely mentions them. It brings up like,
sort of philosophically right that he says, quote in energy
may be likened to the bending of a crossbow, decision
to the releasing of a trigger.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Ah, So the physical device there being so familiar by
the point of Sunsu's writing that it's a proper source
of metaphor.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like, this is not what
he's talking about, but it's kind of like you can
imagine someone saying, hey, when it comes to slinging insults,
do you want to be an archer or a crossbow wielder?
You know, be a crossbow wielder, Think up that insult
in advance, store it away, store its potential away, and
then when the time comes, you pull the trigger. Now.
One source that we often come back to when we
(35:35):
discuss technology and innovation and invention in ancient China is
of course the work of Joseph Needham's, particularly his Science
and Civilization in China series, which Gosh, off the top
of my head, I can't remember how many volumes are
in this series. Anytime I read it, I'm always I
always get excited about it, and I'll take a moment
(35:56):
to see if i can just buy them all, and
then I quickly realized that I cannot do that. They're
they're not necessarily in print, and there are a bunch
of them.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
If I'm not mistaken. Though Joseph Needham was the original author,
the Science and Civilization in China series has sort of
continued after his death, right.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
That's right. And then also some volumes have been somewhat
abbreviated because they are there by other authors. They're they're
pretty extensive, but I've always found them to be very
readable and enjoyable. And his mastery and the mastery of
those he was working with, not only historically but linguistically,
it's just awe inspiring. But one thing that he points out,
(36:38):
I'm going to mention a few things that he mentioned
about the crossbow in these books. He writes, quote, it
has been demonstrated that in ancient times in China, the
progress of invention in offensive weapons, especially the efficient crossbow,
far outstripped progress indefensive armor. This, he points out, is
reflected in various accounts of feudal lords in ancient China
(37:00):
being overtaken by peasants armed with crossbows. So this is
just like another case of like a very very broad
generality you can make about the crossbow in that it
democratizes the use of the bow weapon. You don't have
to be an expert archer to wield it. And especially
if like Needham was riding here, if you have defensive
(37:23):
innovation is lagging behind offensive innovation, you may have the
upper hand. Now, there wasn't just one Chinese crossbow, and
I think in the next episode I'll talk about a
specific innovation, but there were multiple innovations of the crossbow,
and and Needham discusses that one of the standard Chinese
crossbows would be loaded by either lying on your back
(37:45):
or standing on the bow using leg thrusts and arms
to cock the bow. Now, another thing he points out
concerns gunpowder. We did an episode or episodes about the
invention of gunpowder, and we talked a bit in that
about es innovations concerning gunpowder, even an offensive capacity. And
he points out that, yeah, crossbows were also used with
(38:07):
various incendiary implements of flammable or explosive crossbow bolts, et cetera.
On the other hand, sometimes crossbow was used in the
naming of a pyrotechnic ranged weapon, even if it was
not actually a crossbow. He brings up the example of
the fire crossbow meteoric arrow shooter. That's like the literal
(38:29):
translation of the Chinese here, But he points out it's
not as the name implies a crossbow. It's also not
as the name implies a rocket. He describes it as
a quote proto gun firing ten poisoned arrows at a time,
which came out quote like a flock of locusts. So
still kind of hard to imagine what that is, but
(38:49):
apparently not an actual crossbow. But it's like, again, the
technology is along so so long it becomes a metaphor.
It also becomes a way of thinking about subsequent innovation
and discoveries. But on the crossbow itself, he writes that
quote China of the Warring States period fifth century PCE
was almost certainly the home of the crossbow, and by
(39:10):
the time that this became the standard weapon of the
Han armies, it had acquired a bronze trigger mechanism of
beautiful and intricate construction. The crossbow was introduced to the
Western world probably twice before the fifth century and again
during the tenth century. He also contends that in this
the trigger as we know it extends from Chinese technological origins,
(39:34):
so the trigger as something that would be used to
fire guns. But then also we can take that even
further and just think about like the use of a
trigger again as a technological metaphor.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Right, well, I mean there are tons of inventions that
are that are not weapons, that have like elastic potential
stored in some way and there's a trigger lock holding
it in place that can be released.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
All right, where we're going to go ahead and close
out this episode, but we will be back with more
discussions of the crossbow, the invention of the crossbow. We
want to get more into early examples of the crossbows
in Western traditions and Mediterranean traditions specifically. Also, there are
a couple of key innovations I want to touch on
(40:21):
from either the Middle East or again Chinese crossbow innovation
of later years. And in the meantime, Yes, if you
have any personal experience of crossbows you'd like to chime
in about or with the bow. We did a good
bit of discussion there about the bow or if you
just have experience in the imagined worlds of Dungeons and
Dragons and other games. Concerning the use of a crossbow,
(40:42):
well that's fair game as well. Just a reminder. The
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science podcast,
with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays we
do listener mail. On Wednesdays we usually have an artifact
or monster fact episode, and then on Fridays we set
aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird
movie on Weird House.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
So huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer
JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch
with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff
to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
is Robert.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And on today's episode
of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we're going to be
doing one of our invention episodes where we look at
an invention from history, look at what came before, what
this invention changed, how it works, and Rob the subject
you have picked for today's series is the crossbow. Now
(00:36):
I have to ask, is there a Dungeons and Dragons
related origin story to you wanting to cover this?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I mean pretty much, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I think there often is. With you, I feel like
I can I can tell when it's coming.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah, because the crossbow, of course, is all over Dungeons
and Dragons. I've definitely role played characters that had crossbows.
But the thing that's always fascinated me about crossbows and
role playing games is that is how that is the
way they're depict it, because a lot of times they
do end up just becoming guns. You know, they're like blasters,
(01:11):
they'd shoot crossbow polts, and in a lot of games,
you don't put a lot of emphasis on the device
itself and how it's working, and any kind of like
realistic idea about how it's loaded and reloaded. In Dungeons
and Dragons, that's the way it tends to go, Like
you can just fire your crossbow every turn, it's no
big deal. But years back, my gaming group did another
(01:37):
role playing game, and this one was one that was
tied in with Dragon Age. I believe, and I may
have my memory may be crossed on some of these
things here and there, because it was like a good
ten years ago at this point. But if memory serves,
the crossbow mechanics in that game were perhaps a little
more accurate to a lot of crossbow technology and some
(01:57):
of the examples we'll discuss here. But it was also
decidedly un fine because there's one of these situations where
I often go into gaming, role playing gaming sort of
like imagination first, rules second, like I'll make choices that
may come back to bite me in the butt because
I didn't think about how the rules would impact my choices.
(02:18):
And this was definitely a case like that. Because I
had decided I was going to be a dwarf. I
was gonna have this cool crossbow, but said crossbow, as
it turns out, had to be reloaded for an entire
turn after use. So we get into a battle and
my dwarf would fire this crossbow, you know, probably miss,
and then the next turn he's just cranking this sucker
(02:41):
or you know, he has it on the ground like
redrawing the bow of the crossbow and then gets to
fire and miss on the following turn.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Now, that might not be more fun, but that is
more accurate because one of the big changes you see
across the history of crossbows is not so much changes
to the basic design of the crossbow itself, but spanning mechanisms,
mechanism for how you load and draw the string and
lock it into place. So, yeah, I can imagine D
and D would be a lot more cumbersome if you
(03:09):
know your rogue had to get out a cranic quin
every single time to crank the crossbow back and sitting
there like trying to wind it up.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, it could get It can get tedious, which is
I think is why in Dumers and Dragons you tend
to find the crossbow just fires each turn and you
just just assumed that you are you have enough skill
to make it happen. I don't know, there's probably some
sort of way you could make make the mechanics of
it more engaging, but I think probably just firing at
(03:39):
each turn is the best way to go well.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
And some of the loading or spanning mechanisms do appear
to have been faster than others in history, so not
all of them had like a like a windlass or
a cranic when one of these big cranking mechanisms. There
were also mechanisms where you just have like a stirrup
that you put your foot in, then you pull it
back and that works pretty quick.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, assuming you have firm ground underfoot. I ran across
mention of an ancient Chinese text that was warning against
using crossbows if you were on like damp ground, and
which makes sense, like suddenly you have your crossbowman out there.
They need the fire, they need a reload, but uh oh,
you have trouble either getting your foot down into it.
(04:20):
Or it may be a situation where you need to
lie on your back and then stretch it against your feet,
and that could also might or might not work, depending
on how muddy the terrain is.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah, you could imagine that, and I guess you would
probably need stable footing even though like so the stirrup
method you're pulling against yourself. You might have like a
hook on your belt or something to pull the mechanism
back while you push in the stirrup with your foot,
but then you'd probably need to have the other foot
on stable ground.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, but you know, I think all this is kind
of the appeal of the crossbow is as like an
idea we were talking before we came in to record here.
How like for my own part, growing up in Tennessee,
being in boy scouts, you had the opportunity to fire
rifles on shooting ranges, You got the opportunity to fire
to use bow and arrow on archery ranges. But I
(05:09):
never had the chance to try out a crossbow, And
so the crossbow was always this kind of like mysterious
thing in between. And yet unlike a gun, you could
still look at it and even as a kid, you know,
understand like the basic principles of how it worked. Well.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yeah, because with a crossbow, I mean, just like with
a bow, there can be a lot of different design
elements that could improve features of how it works, improve usability,
improve the energy delivered or the draw length or whatever
the speed of the projectile. But still at core. A
(05:45):
crossbow operates on the same principle as a bow.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah, and of course, yeah, to discuss the crossbow, we're
going to have to talk a little bit about the
bow at least. And there it's not just a situation
where well, we had the bow and then we created
the crossbow. Who just threw out those bows away? It's
not nearly as simple as that. And we'll discuss some
of the famous examples of crossbows going up against bows
(06:10):
and how that played out. But the oldest evidence for
the bow and arrow, as cited by Brian Imfigan and
Peter Rowley Conley in the seventy Great Inventions of the
Ancient World, goes back ten thousand years to the early
Mesolithic period in Denmark. This is a thousand years later
than the earliest evidence of arrows twelve thousand years ago
(06:31):
in what is now Germany. In stone erawhead date back
eighteen tho to twenty thousand years ago in Spain, and
possibly have arrow points from sixty to seventy thousand years
ago in South Africa. The problem with ancient bows, of course,
is that they were almost always made of organic materials
that just do not survive the test of time, with
(06:51):
the actual arrowheads being the most long lasting part of
the combined weapon technology.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Right, So you'll find evidence of arrowhead heads going back
longer than clear evidence of the bows themselves. And yeah,
I think that example you mentioned from South Africa, like
the Sibudu Cave, is one of the earliest I've read about.
But that's arrowhead evidence, right right.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
So no, absolutely, nobody that I've come across is making
any argument that the crossbows go back nearly that far.
I think it's it's clear, there's clear indication that the
bow came first, of course, but it is also you know,
worth noting that even with things like the crossbow, the
crossbow is still made out of mostly organic materials, with
(07:35):
the main differences being Okay, you have, of course the
head of the bolt, which may be made out of
a metal of some sort, and then, as we'll discuss
later on, you also have the lock of a crossbow.
This is the implement that holds back the drawn string.
And so when this is made out of metal, we
(07:55):
may find evidence of it, such as bronze crossbow from China.
Now on the show before we've talked a bit about
the history of projectile weapons, particularly, I think most recently,
we did a series of episodes on animals throwing things,
and then we did one on humans throwing things, and
that was really interesting because you got into a lot
(08:16):
of situations where you're not just throwing any rock, you're
throwing specially prepared rocks, or you're throwing things like hunting
sticks at animals that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, you can have modifications of the projectiles themselves, but
in terms of launching technology, we actually did a whole
other invention episode back when we had a separate invention
podcast on the odd loadel, which was a piece of
launching technology that was essentially a lever arm to get
increased leverage on a spear.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
So these various non bow and pre bow missile weapon technologies,
these had a huge impact on the world of hunter gatherers.
You know, extended the range of human violence beyond physical
human reas each and by the time the bow comes
along and starts spreading, this just extends the range even farther.
(09:08):
And of course it all served to extend human dominance
over animals and other hominids as well as transforming conflict
between humans. Now, one of the basics about the bow,
the bow and arrow. And this is something that is
obvious I think by watching it in action, is that,
as a Fagan and Raleigh Conley point out, the bow
is essentially a spring that stores energy when the bow
(09:30):
string is drawn. Then when the string is released, that
energy is transferred into the propulsion of the arrow. Different
types of wood provided different advantages, and eventually compound bows
made use of multiple parts to provide maximized performance.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yes, it is worth noting that despite the different form
and the different way you hold these weapons, a bow
and a crossbow both typically work on the same mechanical principle,
which is the principle of the spring, by storing energy
in the form of elastic potential and then releasing that
potential suddenly to propel an arrow in the case of
(10:06):
a bow, or a bolt in the case of a
crossbow at high speed. Now, when you shoot a bow,
there's actually a common misconception that the energy comes from
stretching the bow's string. Even though I know better, I
think sometimes my brain still wants to think this way.
But the string of a bow really doesn't stretch you
very much at all, So that's not where the energy
(10:27):
has come from. Coming from the energy comes from bending
the bow itself, bending the limbs of the bow, and
when you pull the string, it bends the bow. When
you release the string, the bow returns to its original shape,
and it propels the arrow as it does so because
it is pulling the string taut, so the string is
sort of a medium. It's how you pull the bow
(10:49):
back and how the snapping back energy of the bow
is delivered to the arrow.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
This is why Leglas says, and my bow and my strength.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
That's right now. If you've never actually shot a bow
at a target, you might be shocked how much strength
it takes to draw back a bow. You know, I've
done this at various points in my life. Most recently
several years back, I did a goofy little archery range
at a Renaissance festival, and even in that setting, I
(11:22):
remember being shocked at how difficult it was to pull
back the bow, and surprised at how aiming the bow
was made so much more difficult than it looks because
of the tension when you're holding a drawn bow, so
you're flexing, you know, maybe as hard as you can
(11:43):
when you pull a bow string back, and that intense
exertion makes it harder to aim your shot. Your arm
might want to tremble your straining with your whole body,
You're also putting a lot of strain on your hand
and your fingers that are holding the bow string back.
So imagine trying to aim something precisely while you're in
(12:03):
the middle of a bench press or some other weight lift.
And so it's easy to see how a crossbow really
changes the game. There. A crossbow allows the tension of
the bow to be locked in place and then released
by an external mechanism instead of being drawn, held and
released purely by the strength of your muscles and bones.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
That's right, and this is where the genius of the
crossbow comes in because the crossbow, I mean you can
almost think of the crossbow as like a robotic or
technological replacement for the arm or the arms in this scenario,
because once the bow is drawn back, this trigger or
lock holds everything in place, holds all of that potential
(12:50):
power in place, and then it can be released by
pulling a trigger.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
And this is a point I actually saw emphasized by
the author of a book I'm gonna mention at some
point in the series that a big difference between say
somebody who was a skilled archer with a long bow
versus somebody who was a skilled crossbow operator. In the
medieval period, say, a big difference would be the level
(13:14):
of fitness required in order to be a long bow operator.
There is just like way more requirement of real upper
body strength and training, of physical training, not just skill training.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Yeah, there's a lot of skill involved for the use
of a bow, and I should highlight they are going
to be differences depending on where and how a bow
is utilized for what specific hunting or military uses and
so forth. I mean, for example, there's a difference between
the skill of of of a bowman on foot and
(13:49):
a mounted archer out there in a battle scenario. But
one of the primary examples of archery expertise that I'm
gonna mentioned here and also pops up in a lot
of the literature is, of course the archers who used
the English long bow. This was a powerful bow that
(14:10):
required a considerable amount of upper body strength, and you
had to work for years to build up the strength
to use these weapons, and generally had to start at
a very early age. More on the English long bow
in a minute here, but one of the key factors
to consider in all this is drawweight. None of this
will come as a shock to any bow hunters out
(14:31):
there for sure, And maybe you can write in and
tell us a few things about all of this. But
the idea is that pulling back on I say, sixty
pound drawweight bow would be like lifting a sixty pound
weight off the ground. But then, of course, as we've
been discussing, it's not just lifting that sixty pound weight,
it's holding it, aiming it, perhaps with your life on
(14:53):
the line in a military scenario, and then releasing it.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, trying to finally control both aim and timing while
you are holding back this extremely heavy weight. Now, regarding
the basic physics of a bow draw, I was looking
around on this and one great source I came across
(15:18):
was actually an old school house stuff works article takes
me back.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, yeah, who wrote this one?
Speaker 3 (15:23):
One buyer, Our friend Tracy Wilson, now host of stuff
you missed in history class.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Oh nice.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
But Tracy's article on how the crossbow works goes into
several of the main variables that determine the energy of
a bow shot. So, as you were just saying that,
there is what's called a bow's draw weight, and this
is the force it takes to draw the bow, and
this depends on multiple things like the material properties of
the bow, material on the size of the bow, its
(15:51):
shape and design, and so forth. There is also the
draw length, which is the distance between the bow strings
resting position and the point that you draw it back to.
And of course draw length is not an intrinsic property
of the bow, but changes with each draw, like you
could draw it back to different lengths, and so it
would be a characteristic of a bow shot. Also, generally
(16:14):
the draw weight increases along with the draw length, so
the farther you pull the bow string back, the more
force it takes. So you might say that there a
bow has a certain draw weight at a certain draw length.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Because even with say an English long bow, a child
would be able to pick it up and pull pull
the bow back a little bit, but not enough to
actually get to the full the full draw and the
full potential of the boat.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yes, and this actually comes back to questions Medieval history
nerds like to ask, like, you know, how exactly how
much strength does it take to shoot an English long
bow of the thirteenth century or something, And you could say, well,
you know, if the bow is made like this, it
would take this much strength to shoot it at its
full potential, you know, with this amount of draw length.
(17:04):
But probably anybody could underdraw the bow. So it's just
a question of like how effective you are at using it.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
But regarding these these variables draw weight and draw length,
they can affect the shot in various ways. For example,
the longer the draw length in terms of distance, the
longer in terms of time the string will be pushing
the arrow before it is released. Does that make sense,
so that imparts more energy if you pull it actually
(17:32):
farther back, the string is pushing the arrow and giving
it force longer, and so the energy stored for a
bow shot can be calculated as roughly draw weight times
draw length divided by two, and then the energy of
the shot would be measured in units like foot pounds,
(17:53):
you know, the energy required to lift one pound by
one foot, or jewels. So the design of a bow
can make a big difference in the energy it can deliver.
A long bow with a longer draw length and a
heavier draw weight tends to impart more energy to the
arrow and thus increase its range, and a long bow
can shoot over longer distances and tend to shoot heavier arrows.
(18:17):
But materials matter. Traditionally, bows were made out of strong
and elastic woods, you know, in the case of the
English long bow, the wood of the yew tree is
often mentioned. But modern bows are often made of different
materials and parts designed to flex and store energy in
different ways. Not just one piece of wood anymore, but
(18:38):
different kinds of materials. And there is also a difference
that's important to remember between compound bows and composite bows.
You can mix them up because they both start with
com but composite bows are regular bows made out of
a combination of different materials, often laminated together so traditionally
by combining wood with different types of animal parts like
(19:01):
horn and sinew, Whereas compound bows are bows that use
different parts such as pulleys or other levering machines to
give the archer mechanical advantage in drawing back, to allow
maybe for more rigid bow material to be used.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
So it's composite materials and then compounded force.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Right, Compound bows have machines in them, like pulleys or levers.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Yeah, yeah, And I think I think everyone's probably seen,
especially like it's kind of like an almost iconic of
modern say bow hunters, you'll see those various pulleys on
the bow.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
And so all of these mechanical principles basically apply to
crossbows as well. Though there are some common design differences
that you would observe with crossbows, even though they're not
necessarily they're not necessary to the principle of crossbow. For example,
crossbows typically have shorter limbs than long bows h and
(19:56):
also shorter bolts, so a shorter draw length. Though that
that's not fundamental to what a crossbow is. It just
happens to be that crossbows are usually like that now.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
One source I was looking at for different stats on
draw strength was a website called bowhunting dot com, which
points out that modern compound bows are pretty excellent. They
say you can comfortably hunt with a forty pound draw bow,
and that's perfectly reasonable for most hunting scenarios with big
game I'm assuming they're mostly talking about something like a
(20:27):
deer in this case. They specify sixty to sixty five
for something like a moose or an elk, and they
point out that some shooters today can handle seventy eighty
or ninety pound bows. So this brings us to the question,
all right, well we're talking about the English long bow
is sort of the bow part excellence. Well what kind
(20:47):
of draw are we talking about on those Well, it
turns out it's a matter of some debate, but the
best you English longbows may have required and a mistress
may it depends on whose crunching the figures here, but
it may have required between one hundred and fifty and
one hundred and eighty pound draws. That's eighty one point
six kilograms on the upper end.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
And even if it's not that high, I mean a
over one hundred pound draw, which I think is widely
agreed upon, is that's still incredibly h That is, it's
hard to imagine.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
And like I've been saying, it would not only be
a test of strength to draw that bow to aim
and then release it just a single time. You have
to remember that, especially in a warfare situation, the archer
would be firing over and over again. Repetition is key,
even in a hunting scenario. According to bowhunting dot Com,
(21:42):
the rule of thumb is that whatever weight you're using
on your bow, you need to be able to do
it thirty times in a row without feeling fatigued.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
That's a lot of reps.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Yeah. I don't think that means that you're necessarily firing
thirty arrows at a single deer, but I think that's
the general idea is if you can't do that, then
you need to cut back on your draw strength.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
I hesitate to speculate because I know nothing about bow hunting,
but I imagine that would be about trying to aim
and time the correct shots. So you might be drawing
in cases where you wouldn't actually be releasing the arrow.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, not every time you
drawback are you're actually going to fire that in that arrow?
So the English longbow was the ultimate missile weapon during
the one hundred Years of War and saw use into
the sixteenth century. I played an important role in multiple battles.
We'll get to one in a minute, but another one
is the Battle at agin Court from fourteen fifteen, in
which the English force is famously focused I think eighty
(22:40):
percent of their battle force on arranged weapons to secure victory.
In this and other examples, we should point out like
it's not as important as the weaponry choice is. It's
not the only factor. Of course, there are other factors
involved in any given warfare scenario, the bows may not
survive all that well, as we've discussed, but and stew
And while this is apparently also not a one hundred
(23:02):
percent agreed upon issue, you do have this situation where
in nineteen eighty two the wreck of the Mary Rose
was raised. This is a ship that sank English ship
that's thank in fifteen fifty four, and the skeletons on
board displayed a disproportionate amount of a shoulder ossification condition
(23:24):
known as os acromali. This is actually associated with elite archery,
so you know, repeatedly drawing back on some sort of
a powerful bow, for example, and there were long bows
on board. It's not one hundred percent again, but it's
an often cited correlation when it comes to just like
(23:44):
talking about like what sort of physical prowess would be
required to use these bows efficiently in a warfare scenario.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
So the point being that both the longbow and the
crossbow could be highly effective in various scenarios for hunting
or for warfare or whatever. But the long bow required
incredible physical strength and intense physical training, whereas the crossbow
did require some skill training. You had to know how
to use it, but did not place the same kind
of demands on the human body.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Right, And even in cases where you didn't have any
kind of a pulley system, etc. To aid you in
drawing the crossbow, you at least did not have to
do any kind of precision aiming while doing it. All
you had to worry about was getting it drawn back
all the way and then the lock would come into place,
and then you can aim without having to endure that
(24:35):
physical strain. So yeah, as Fagan and rally Conway point out, Yeah,
the crossbow can be kept drawn for much longer than
an archer can possibly hold a drawn bow, and the
crossbow can be made even more powerful than the strongest bow.
But I have to stress on this as we'll discuss.
I mean, this all comes down to scale, right, I mean,
(24:56):
and range. There are number of factors involved there, because
any given crossbow is not necessarily more powerful than a bow,
as we'll discuss. But yeah, one of the key advantages
here is that it kind of democratizes the use of
a bow weapon. While a bow's power is limited by
the strength of the archer, a crossbow can again be
drawn via mechanical devices so you can end up with
(25:18):
a weapon that ensures greater accuracy, at least at short
to medium ranges, with less specialized training required. The downside,
of course, as we already alluded to, is that actually
drawing the crossbow tends to take more time than drawing
a bow. Again, if on one side you have somebody
who can effectively draw the long bow that they're using,
and on the other side you have someone who has
(25:40):
a nice crossbow. And this is especially true if you're
having to employ some sort of mechanical apparatus to draw
the crossbow, but it also seems true if you're having
to do something like, you know, stick it in the
ground and then draw back using your arms and your legs.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
One other difference in the calculation I have come across
is the idea that the crossbow equipment would generally be
more expensive than longbow equipment.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
That's a good point too, so either more gears and
so forth that are involved, it may make it easier
for everyone to use it, but it becomes a more
specialized technology as well. Now, another important battle to touch
on is another scenario involving the English longbow, and that's
the Battle of Creasy from thirteen forty six, in which
(26:28):
the technology of the English longbow ensured victory over French crossbowmen.
And I was reading about this in the book Connections
by James Burke, who we've brought him up on the
show before, and I think fairly recently somebody wrote in
about James Burke's work on our listener mail episodes. But
Burke points out that the English longbow had exceptional range.
(26:49):
He cites four hundred yards and special steel arrowheads that
were designed to punch through armor at close range, and
he points out that experienced archer could loose nine arrows
in a minute, while the French crossbowmen required lengthier reload time.
So the idea is like, the archers have fired, the
crossbowmen fire, and then before the crossbowmen can reload their weapons,
(27:14):
the archers have fired again. However, the experienced archer part
of the scenario is key. Once More, Burke writes that
within decades of this pivotal battle that saw the championing
of the English longbow over crossbows and traditional armored knights,
it was after this ten years later, increasingly impossible to
find enough skilled archers to power the long bow and
(27:38):
provide the sort of overwhelming fire power that ruled the
day at Creasy. Burke discusses the possible reasons for this
at length in the book, and I believe in them
of course the documentary TV series as well, and he
cites a number of different, different different reasons than tailing
the continued recovery from the plague, improvements in plowing technology,
(28:00):
various other inventions and innovations, improved diets, and also a
general improvement in the quality of life for the average human.
Burke writes, quote, it took years for a man to
be trained to use the six foot u bo, and
here was the adult male population frittering away valuable training
hours enjoying itself. The reason, therefore, that the long bow
(28:24):
enjoyed such a brief spell of success lay in the
rising standard of living which the agricultural revolution had brought about.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Although interestingly, I was reading historical fact about how the
introduction of widespread crossbow use did not eliminate this tension
between between sort of like free time and enjoyment and
the military leaders emphasis that everybody really should be training.
So there's a book I've been looking at called The
(28:54):
Medieval Crossbow by Stuart Ellis Gorman published in the year
twenty twenty two and Sword Military Press, and this is
a book length investigation of the crossbow. And I was
reading a reddit ama with this this author who points
out that you have multiple ordinances from the government in
(29:15):
various places throughout medieval Europe, in England but also in
late medieval France and at some point in Genoa that
were like banning leisure activities and telling people to be
doing archery or crossbow practice instead. So like Genoa at
some point banned tournaments and banned gambling and said you
should be practicing your crossbow instead of doing these things.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yeah, it's like the Conan the Barbarian principle. You know,
you watch Conan the Barbarian, It's like, yeah, he's a
great warrior, but man, he seems miserable. He's not he's
not really making any time or is given any time
to do anything else. So you know, of course he's
this mighty warrior, but is it becomes less as people
begin to have other choices in their life. They're not
(29:59):
there just constantly, constantly practicing those archery skills. And therefore
you can see the shift perhaps being made to something
like the crossbow that is usable by the average person,
but without all of this extensive training.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Though as the shows, it wouldn't require the same level
of physical training, but you would still have to practice.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yeah, yeah, you couldn't. You couldn't just hand them out
and expect everyone to just automatically hit everything you're aiming at.
Though I guess there's room in that statement for various
arguments about what sort of scale are you handing them
out at? And certainly, as we may discuss in this
episode in the next, I mean, there are examples where
a lot of crossbows are deployed in given battles in
(30:42):
different scenarios. Now, this leads us to the question, of course,
when do we see the earliest crossbows. And of course,
one of the issues again and in dating earliest crossbows,
of course, or the organic materials that aren't going to
(31:05):
survive the test of time and you're having to rely
on things like crossbow bolt heads and also the locks.
But another interesting point that's brought up by Fagan and
Riley Conway is that sometimes it's difficult to say what's
a crossbow and what's a catapult. They point out that
the earliest crossbows in some regions anyway kind of resembled
(31:26):
small catapults, and there was likely they think some sort
of transformative step from stationary to mobile weaponry here, And
I can kind of imagine this is kind of like
you can imagine people thinking, what if we made a
bigger bow, Well, we wouldn't be able to pull that back.
We'd have to do something else. And then they're like, Okay,
I've created it, and what have you created. It's kind
(31:46):
of like a cross It's kind of like a big crossbow.
It's kind of also like a catapult. And then you
might think this is interesting, what have we scaled this
back down? And then you could hold it?
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Yes, though I do think scale does tend to place
different requires on like what kinds of mechanisms you can use.
For example, you can look at the ballista, which is
like a siege weapon which has existed since ancient times,
and say, well, that looks a lot like a crossbow,
but it does have a different mechanism for storing energy
(32:17):
than the crossbow does. The crossbow stores it in the
tension of the bow of the limbs, whereas I can't
remember exactly what the mechanism is for the ballista, but
it's different. I think it has to do with like
winding ropes or something.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Yeah, so catapults, we might have to come back to
another siege equipment, because there's a lot of interesting innovation
that goes on there. Apparently, Biblical accounts point back to
the reign of Uzaiah around eight hundred BCE as a
possible time during which people were using catapults, and then
there's a definite mention of them in Sicily around four
(32:55):
hundred BCE. But of course all this stems from ancient
world scenarios which you had walled city states encountering siege situations,
and of course the besiegers would have to devise various
ways to have to contend with this, and of course
the besieged on their end would come up with various
means of defending themselves. So Fagan and Rowley Conway point
(33:17):
to two key dates for earliest crossbow emergence, one in
second century BCE Rome, which will come back to in
a bit, and the other in fifth century BCE China.
Now you can well ask for these independent advances. Perhaps
it's also been theorized by many that the Chinese invention
simply spread to the West, perhaps more than once. And
(33:40):
we can't necessarily connect all the dots here, but you
can point out the key dots and some of the
time periods that are associated with them.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Yeah, so you don't know exactly how it traveled, though
it does seem to me uncontroversially agreed upon that the
earliest crossbow usage was in ancient China.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yes, century BC dating believe concerns bronze crossbow components, bronze
bold heads, bronze crossbow locks, and these have been dated
to the mid seventh century BCE. Bolts have also turned
up in Chinese tombs from this time period. John Key,
in his book on Chinese history, rights that the crossbows
(34:20):
long quote the weapon of first choice in the Chinese military,
but advancements in equestrian power did end up limiting its
effectiveness somewhat. So these would not so much be the
fact that people were riding the horses, but people were
armored on the horse. The horse and the strength of
the horse and the speed of the horse were able
to convey an armored individual around more easily. But of
(34:41):
course this comes a good bit later.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
But it's not just artifacts, right, because I think ancient
Chinese texts do make explicit mention of the crossbow.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Yeah, Sun Zoo in the Art of War from the
fifth century BCE definitely mentions them. It brings up like,
sort of philosophically right that he says, quote in energy
may be likened to the bending of a crossbow, decision
to the releasing of a trigger.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Ah, So the physical device there being so familiar by
the point of Sunsu's writing that it's a proper source
of metaphor.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like, this is not what
he's talking about, but it's kind of like you can
imagine someone saying, hey, when it comes to slinging insults,
do you want to be an archer or a crossbow wielder?
You know, be a crossbow wielder, Think up that insult
in advance, store it away, store its potential away, and
then when the time comes, you pull the trigger. Now.
One source that we often come back to when we
(35:35):
discuss technology and innovation and invention in ancient China is
of course the work of Joseph Needham's, particularly his Science
and Civilization in China series, which Gosh, off the top
of my head, I can't remember how many volumes are
in this series. Anytime I read it, I'm always I
always get excited about it, and I'll take a moment
(35:56):
to see if i can just buy them all, and
then I quickly realized that I cannot do that. They're
they're not necessarily in print, and there are a bunch
of them.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
If I'm not mistaken. Though Joseph Needham was the original author,
the Science and Civilization in China series has sort of
continued after his death, right.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
That's right. And then also some volumes have been somewhat
abbreviated because they are there by other authors. They're they're
pretty extensive, but I've always found them to be very
readable and enjoyable. And his mastery and the mastery of
those he was working with, not only historically but linguistically,
it's just awe inspiring. But one thing that he points out,
(36:38):
I'm going to mention a few things that he mentioned
about the crossbow in these books. He writes, quote, it
has been demonstrated that in ancient times in China, the
progress of invention in offensive weapons, especially the efficient crossbow,
far outstripped progress indefensive armor. This, he points out, is
reflected in various accounts of feudal lords in ancient China
(37:00):
being overtaken by peasants armed with crossbows. So this is
just like another case of like a very very broad
generality you can make about the crossbow in that it
democratizes the use of the bow weapon. You don't have
to be an expert archer to wield it. And especially
if like Needham was riding here, if you have defensive
(37:23):
innovation is lagging behind offensive innovation, you may have the
upper hand. Now, there wasn't just one Chinese crossbow, and
I think in the next episode I'll talk about a
specific innovation, but there were multiple innovations of the crossbow,
and and Needham discusses that one of the standard Chinese
crossbows would be loaded by either lying on your back
(37:45):
or standing on the bow using leg thrusts and arms
to cock the bow. Now, another thing he points out
concerns gunpowder. We did an episode or episodes about the
invention of gunpowder, and we talked a bit in that
about es innovations concerning gunpowder, even an offensive capacity. And
he points out that, yeah, crossbows were also used with
(38:07):
various incendiary implements of flammable or explosive crossbow bolts, et cetera.
On the other hand, sometimes crossbow was used in the
naming of a pyrotechnic ranged weapon, even if it was
not actually a crossbow. He brings up the example of
the fire crossbow meteoric arrow shooter. That's like the literal
(38:29):
translation of the Chinese here, But he points out it's
not as the name implies a crossbow. It's also not
as the name implies a rocket. He describes it as
a quote proto gun firing ten poisoned arrows at a time,
which came out quote like a flock of locusts. So
still kind of hard to imagine what that is, but
(38:49):
apparently not an actual crossbow. But it's like, again, the
technology is along so so long it becomes a metaphor.
It also becomes a way of thinking about subsequent innovation
and discoveries. But on the crossbow itself, he writes that
quote China of the Warring States period fifth century PCE
was almost certainly the home of the crossbow, and by
(39:10):
the time that this became the standard weapon of the
Han armies, it had acquired a bronze trigger mechanism of
beautiful and intricate construction. The crossbow was introduced to the
Western world probably twice before the fifth century and again
during the tenth century. He also contends that in this
the trigger as we know it extends from Chinese technological origins,
(39:34):
so the trigger as something that would be used to
fire guns. But then also we can take that even
further and just think about like the use of a
trigger again as a technological metaphor.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Right, well, I mean there are tons of inventions that
are that are not weapons, that have like elastic potential
stored in some way and there's a trigger lock holding
it in place that can be released.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
All right, where we're going to go ahead and close
out this episode, but we will be back with more
discussions of the crossbow, the invention of the crossbow. We
want to get more into early examples of the crossbows
in Western traditions and Mediterranean traditions specifically. Also, there are
a couple of key innovations I want to touch on
(40:21):
from either the Middle East or again Chinese crossbow innovation
of later years. And in the meantime, Yes, if you
have any personal experience of crossbows you'd like to chime
in about or with the bow. We did a good
bit of discussion there about the bow or if you
just have experience in the imagined worlds of Dungeons and
Dragons and other games. Concerning the use of a crossbow,
(40:42):
well that's fair game as well. Just a reminder. The
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science podcast,
with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays we
do listener mail. On Wednesdays we usually have an artifact
or monster fact episode, and then on Fridays we set
aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird
movie on Weird House.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
So huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer
JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch
with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff
to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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