Key Takeaways
In the year 1304 , King Edward I of England laid besieging to Stirling Castle , home to the last holdouts of aScottishrebellion . Behind thecastle ’s thick wall , Sir William Oliphant and his Scottish loyalists run month of aerial bombardment from perhaps the greatest collection of " besieging engines " the world had ever see . Edward had ordered all Scottish church stripped of their lead , which was used to build powerfulcatapultscalled trebuchets , the largest of which could hurl bouldersweighing over 300 pounds(140 kilogram ) .
The greatest of Edward ’s trebuchets waschristened Ludgar , or " the War Wolf . “The War Wolf required five master carpenters and 50 working person to make , and was so terrifying in scale that Oliphant had no choice but to surrender . Not so tight , said Edward . He wanted to fire the War Wolf first , and even build a special watch program so the ladies of his courtroom would have a good view of the destruction it wrought .
" Edward almost ruin himself building all these trebuchets , and by God , he was going to use them , " saysWilliam Gurstelle , a scientific discipline diarist and author of " The Art of the Catapult . "
In a theatrical display of British domination , Edward pull in the induction on the War Wolf , sending its massive projectile arcing through the sky and crashing through the palace ’s 12 - animal foot ( 3.6 - beat ) thick-skulled wall . The uprising was formally over and Edward had earned himself a fresh sobriquet — the " Hammer of the Scots . "
Tension, Torsion and Trebuchets
Before gunpowder was vulgarize in the mid-14th 100 , there were no canons that could launch clayey hint balls through enemy bodies and walls . But that did n’t stop originative warfighters from excogitate way to toss projectiles at each other . One of the most effective was the catapult , a gadget that employ a spring - load up limb or a lumbering equaliser to hurl declamatory objects over big distances .
Gurstelle says there are three general types of arbalist :
The Physics of the Trebuchet
The very early arbalist , like those first used in China and subsequently in Europe in the other Middle Ages , were people - powered , meaning the lever weapon system of the catapult was swung by a group of soldiers deplume on a rope . But the tangible initiation in trebuchet technology came in the 12th - century with the Parousia of the counterweight trebuchet .
" It ’s all really basic physics at a fundamental level , " says Michael Fulton , a chronicle professor at Langara College in British Columbia and author of " Siege Warfare During the Crusades . " An elevated basketful is weighted with hundreds or even grand of pound of rocks — that ’s the counterweight . When the field goal is dropped , it draw out down on a Mexican valium connected to the short end of a retentive lever subdivision that swing on an axel .
" As the myopic remainder of the lever is pulled down , the foresighted end rises at a proportionately large pace , " says Fulton . " When you add a scarf bandage to the end of the arm , you force the rocket to travel even farther during the same amount of meter , which summate to your rate of acceleration . "
Gurstelle has make plenty of trebuchets , includinga DIY designing using woods and PVCthat he name " Little Ludgar " after Edward ’s catapult that leveled the Scots .
" The longer that lever tumbler and the grueling the weight , the farther the rocket go , " says Gurstelle , take note that the equalizer has to weigh approximately 100 times the object you ’re trying to throw . Gurstelle once made a large trebuchet with a 500 - pound ( 226 - kilogram ) balance that was still only powerful enough to launch a small cantaloup .
The Trebuchet and Siege Warfare
During the Middle Ages , the construction of bastioned cities go to a raw type of military political campaign — the siege . put siege to a walled metropolis required new warfare machines like dinge random access memory for splintering thick doors and military blockade tug for breaching high walls . But one of the earliest and most innovations was the trebucket .
One of the first recorded uses of a trebuchet in battle was during theSiege of Thessalonicain the late sixth - century C.E. Thessalonica was a convoluted stronghold under attack by the Avars , a collection of Central Asian tribe who used a people - powered catapult that was likely inspired by ancient Taiwanese weaponry .
Those primitive " traction " catapult could only launch small projectiles and serve as anti - personnel arm , says Fulton , not castle killer .
" Traction mangonel were like an archer on steroids , " says Fulton . " You ’re definitely not smashing down solid walls in the early Middle Ages . " That happens in the thirteenth century , when counterweight trebuchets were being built at large and larger scales all across Europe .
Those rightfully massive trebuchets would be constructed off - website and then assembled on the battlefield itself . While a counterweight trebuchet could toss a boulder over a castle paries , there were definitely trade - offs . For one , it call for a really long sentence to reload the counterweight . Fulton say that the small adhesive friction trebuchets could fire up to four shot a min , while the big trebucket were golden to get off one shot every half - hour .
Greek Fire, Dead Horses and Severed Heads?
Catapults and trebuchets were not circumscribe to elicit conventional rocket like stones and lead balls . fit in to one 14th - C account , the Mongols used their mangonel to plunge plague - ridden corps , an early character of biological weapon , into the medieval city of Caffa in forward-looking - 24-hour interval Ukraine . Other story severalise ofdead horsesbeing sling by trebuchet over castle walls to sicken the enemy with the stench .
Fulton , who has witness the forces unleash during the throwing successiveness of a large catapult , is skeptical about the truth of such accounts . " If you strain to put something constitutive into one of those slings , chances are it ’s hold up to be rip apart before you could throw it in effect , " he says .
Fulton has more confidence in the tales of human heads being lobbed back and forward by trebuchets at the Siege of Nicaea in 1097 , during the First Crusade .
" That was more psychological than biologic , " says Fulton .
In theopening sceneof the Netflix moving-picture show " Outlaw King , " Edward I loose his Warwolf on Stirling Castle with a fabulous explosion of what he calls " Greek ardour . " Did such a thing exist ?
Gurstelle explains that Grecian fire was a secret arm of the Byzantine imperium that was like " ancient napalm . "
" Once you fire up it and threw it , you could n’t put out the flames with water and it would burn very intensely , " says Gurstelle , adding that the recipe for Hellenic flack — pine tar , sulphur , naturally occurring crude — was " lost in the backbone of sentence . "
Fulton gibe that Greek fervency was a popular Byzantine incendiary arm , especially for naval attacks , but doubt that Edward or anyone else was launching Grecian flaming bombs from trebuchets with any regularity . It was more probable that castle defenders would attempt to fire incendiaries at the mangonel to burn the weapon to the ground .
Even if Edward ’s legendary trebuchet only launched rocks , there merely was no siege weapon that was as terrific to the enemy and as entertaining to the soldiery .
" At a key level , you ’re not going to make these engines unless they have value , but there is economic value in that intimidation ingredient , " says Fulton . " In world-wide , kings wish to have big things they can show off . "
