Thread by @alexdecampi

I’m drunk and want to yell at you about the weapon Pope Innocent II said would change the face of modern warfare forever and then had the Second Lateran Council ban it

yes that’s right THE CROSSBOW

who wants to talk 12th century ranged weapons?

(I mean, originally, Pope Urban II had his knickers in a twist about crossbows back in 1096, but the Second Lateran Council gets all the press)

So why should you give a shit about crossbows? Well, first, until about 1450 if you wanted a ranged weapon on an open battlefield you had two choices: longbow or crossbow. Artillery took a while to get to Europe after the Chinese invented gunpowder

Yeah, yeah, catapults / trebuchets / etc too, but those were siege weapons, built in front of a castle wall. They weren’t exactly mobile.

But crossbows were the first point and shoot weapon. What really terrified everyone about them was anyone could pick them up and SHOOT DOWN AN ARMOURED* KNIGHT WITH THEM

*at that time, chainmail. Plate wasn’t common until 1300s

At a range of 50-70 yards a crossbow bolt would go through ANYTHING

Now imagine you exist in a highly classist society divided into the very rich / inherited wealthy and then a bunch of serfs whose existence depends on you but you don’t really pay or take care of

sort of like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk but with chainmail

Do you see why you might be a little nervous about the proles suddenly being able to pick up a mass-produced weapon and shoot a knight off his horse?

There’s a great bit in the canonical from 2nd Lat Cncl about banning Christians from using crossbows against other Christians

Christian on Christian violence being a big thing then, even before Martin Luther’s “95 Problems (And An Indulgence Ain’t One)” mixtape dropped

Nah, I’m kidding. Mostly Pope Innocent wanted to be sure that his flock could still shoot infidels by any means possible

So, crossbows. They didn’t actually turn out to be the terror of the battlefields we were promised. Let’s look at why, and for that we’ll bring in our old friend the longbow, which is essentially a rapid-fire light artillery weapon vs the straight-ahead shot of the crossbow

In this, let’s go to the Battle of Crécy in 1346, one of the first proper dust-ups of the Hundred Years War. Edward III vs his cousin Philip of Valois for who actually belonged on the French throne (both had equal claim)

(I’m not going to go into the Capets running their dynasty into a ditch, morganatic succession, or why from a military history / standing army development point of view the Hundred Years War is really fucking fascinating, but trust me.)

Anyway. In about 1338-1340, Philip of Valois was either the greatest military genius of his era or a total chickenshit and nobody was exactly sure. His lack of engagement with Edward III on the BEL/FRA border meant England was bleeding money keeping so many troops Over There.

But finally in 1346 he actually engaged Edward at Crécy, and he hired 5,000 Genoese crossbowmen to mow those pesky English down. Victory assured? Victory ASSURED.

(Total troop size for the English was around 14,000, of which 5,000 were longbowmen; French mustered around 25k and just crossbows, no longbows)

So this entire battle should have boiled down to crossbow vs longbow.

but.

BUT.

It rained suddenly at 4pm the day of the battle, while all these chucklefucks were still forming up and deciding if they were *really* going to attack

(it was August; would have been light for another 4 hours)

Here’s the thing about cheap, mass-produced crossbows. You couldn’t take them apart very quickly at all.

And the strings were made from hemp or sinew which stretch out when damp

The English longbowmen unstrung their bows and tucked the strings in their hats to stay dry, waited out the rain, then casually demolished the French

(Alas the “two fingers” gesture did NOT come from either Crécy or Agincourt, from longbowmen being overbearing in victory. It was first recorded in the late Victorian era. Also the longbow’s draw was about 100lbs so at least 3 fingers)

In any case, the longbows, a peculiarly English weapon requiring a lot of training (trajectories are HARD), had a greater range and a much faster rate of fire than the crossbow (over 6 arrows a minute compared to maybe 1-2 bolts)

tl;dr guns are nice but it’s really great to be the only army on the field with anything approaching artillery

Also because somebody is going to ask, a professional longbowman of Edward III’s time had an effective range of 350-400 yards, vs max 150
for the crossbow

I also want to emphasise that the longbow was a peculiarly English weapon. The rest of Europe (including Scotland, bad call Scotland) were like “whew that looks like a lot of work to develop a trained local base, let’s just hire Genoese meecenaries”

In this regards it’s frankly embarrassing for England that the Hundred Years War lasted that long

Even if Philip of Valois kept deciding not to engage

Anyway, at some point ask me about the Tour de Nesle scandal and how one petty bitch sunk a 400 year old dynasty that had three sons in line for the throne

it is epic historical white girl pettiness and revolves around regifted needlepoint handbags

Also hi, I write books, here’s one that just came out, if you like noir thrillers: amazon.com/Bad-Girls-Alex…

And if you like Drunk Military History tweets, you should follow @pptsapper for (mostly) American stuff

Lastly, the reason I know so much about this is I wrote an action-thriller novel set in the 1330s, called THE SCOTTISH BOY, which I’ll be kickstarting in October. Alas, trad publishing doesn’t think medieval thrillers sell. Stay tuned tho! @JoeyHiFi doing a gorgeous cover

I’ve now got an #AlexDrunkHistory tag for these and if you search it, I’ve just spilled the mead on the Tour de Nesle Affair

And if you feel like tipping your snarkstress: ko-fi.com/alexdecampi