A few years ago while reading Gutierre Diaz de Gamez's biography of Don Pero Niño, El Vitorial, I came across two passages which gave me pause.

The first is from when he describes Pero as an exemplar of strength:

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Moreover, he used to bend the strongest crossbows from the girdle

The second comes when the King of Castile entrusts Pero with a privateering expedition against North African pirates in 1404

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the best crossbowmen should be sought for, men well knowing the handling of their arms, good marksmen and trained to bend the arbalest from the girdle

The translator, Joan Evans, helpfully provides an endnote to the first passage, which includes the original Castilian "Armaba muy fuertes ballestas à cinto". Evans considers this a reference to goat's foot levers, but to me it seems more likely to be a reference to a spanning belt. Drawing very strong arbalests, especially at the turn of the 15th century, with a belt hook would be quite a feat. I thought that belt spanning had been devalued to the point of obsolescence by the invention of the goat's foot lever, the wider proliferation of armour and the use of heavier armour, so that was a ding against my interpretation.

However, after examining some 15th century artworks, I found some corroborating evidence for my view. The belt spanning method, far from going by the wayside, seemed to be common even to the end of the century.

First the crossbowmen in Uccello's Battle of San Romano. Of those that you see spanning their weapons, they all seem to be using belts.

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And second, Signorelli's Martyrdom of St. Sebastian. In addition to the pulley system that seems to be in use here, the middle crossbowman is also wearing a spanning belt.

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Another detail I've observed in this painting is that the prod on the belt-and-pulley spanned arbalest is distinctly made of organic material (horn, wood, I don't know what), rather than the steel prods of the other two of which at one is spanned by goat's foot lever. Similar prods also feature on all the bows in the Uccello painting.

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I'm not sure of the significance of this, but it seemed worthwhile to mention!

I've found a number of other artworks of which I don't know the exact provenance, but can post them later if desired.


If these prods had weaker draw weights than other types of crossbow, why do they see such frequent employment, even against heavily armoured foes? My best guess is that aiming for the face was a key tactic for fully-armoured opponents, and wounds to the limbs could be made against ones armored with only a breastplate or brigandine, and the psychological effect of arrow fire would still be valuable. However, these same tactics could be adopted by someone using a 200 lb crossbow, rather than the very strong examples preferred by Pero Niño. So it seems to me they must have some kind of effectiveness beyond what I can guess at.

If anyone can tell me why the "best crossbowmen" should be proficient in this method, or why it was preferred by Pero Niño, I would very much like to know.

If I see it correctly, spanning from the belt is done with the foot, which means the arms doe not tire from spanning. Those same arms you need later to aim, and vigorous motion before precise motion can make the precise motion less precise.

This is but a guess from someone who has never spanned a crossbow by goat's foot or girdle, so take it at its value.

Crosbows loaded using belts survived into the XVIth century Iberia. Better rate of fire, easy to use, and against the very common unarmoured foe, works well.

BTW, the Victorial is a very interesting piece, and has been printed since centuries ago, so it's easy to find for free in Spanish.

A goatsfoot pulls the lever away from the tiller and over a locked nut while the wippe, belt-hook, windlass and cranequin all pull the string while holding it more or less against the tiller into a un cocked nut rolling it into locked position in the process. Could this have anything to to with goatsfoot levers being used less on organic prods. I would guess you would want less "uppwards" or "sideways" force on laminated prods especially but I am no expert.

In that case it might just be that the best crossbowmen used laminate bows an therefore belt hooks are the go to method, though I am wildly speculating here.

This is curious and I am more inclined to think it is some misinterpretation of the words or the actual meaning or indeed the guy who wrote it wrote badly or indeed misinterpreted what thought he knew.

There are many issues to address here.

"Very strong arbalest" - very strong period or very strong amongst belt spanned bows?

Belt spanning can in no way be used to load bows that are easily loaded with windlass or indeed a goats foot lever.

A belt with a doubler pulley can be used to span a bow much heavier than a straight belt, but the action required is of course 2:1 and this in fact is rather tricky and height of user really starts to be relevant. Composite bows often have slightly longer draws and this of course compounds the issue. In reality this does limit the power that can be spanned. I am no athlete, but can span around 220lbs with a belt, maybe a bit more. with a doubler belt around 380lbs. I am sure a better men than me can improve on this.

The action of loading and shoot a belt spanned bow is pretty much your whole body being used and so all of you gets tired; it is very physical.

The rate of discharge with a goats foot bow is about the same as a belt spanned, is easier to load physically and you can load more powerful bows, maybe up to 600lbs.

There is no inherent accuracy differences between the spanning types.

M.Nordlund brings up an interesting point here

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A goatsfoot pulls the lever away from the tiller and over a locked nut while the wippe, belt-hook, windlass and cranequin all pull the string while holding it more or less against the tiller into a un cocked nut rolling it into locked position in the process. Could this have anything to to with goatsfoot levers being used less on organic prods. I would guess you would want less "uppwards" or "sideways" force on laminated prods especially but I am no expert. In that case it might just be that the best crossbowmen used laminate bows an therefore belt hooks are the go to method, though I am wildly speculating here.

I too do not know the answer here, but M.Nordlund may perhaps have nailed it..........it is plausible.

Simply put, I can see no reason other than lower cost, to favour a belt over a lever.

Tod

Does anyone know how old the crossbow really is?
Was it used in Asia earlier than in Europe?

Didn't we have an old forum member and crossbow maker who said he could pull 400 to 500 lbs with a doubling hook with moderate effort and that he maxed out 700 lbs once.

I suppose that would qualify as 'bending the strongest bows from the girlde'.

http://myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.6838.html

The 15th century ordinance of the armourers and crossbow-makers of Angers, France takes "hook crossbows" and "windlass crossbows" as the two basic types for proofing purposes.

To be fair I'd say windlass and cranequin loading mechanisms do stand on their own since they will need anywhere from 20 to 40 seconds to span a crossbow. All others should manage in less than 10 seconds and may be grouped together as 'hand spanned' crossbows.

As for the French one; I still think it is possible that it was one that used a doubler/belt pulley. It is capable of spanning a heavier bow which makes sense if one accepts that it is supposed to be roughly on par with contemporary war bows.

There's also the fact that the French à crocq was used in those days to denote coulverines or arquebuses that had hooks on the bottom to stop the guns from recoiling, while recoil won't be a problem with a crossbow the hook for the doubler pulling does sit on the bottom on many examples.

I think John Smythe said that his proposed mounted crossbowers should have their gaffles hanging from thier girdles "after the german manner" or something along those lines. So it seems that a goats foot could also be hung from the belt for convienience.

As for why simple belt hooks might continue to be used alongside the goats foot lever if the latter could span higher draw weights. One thought that comes to mind is that for infantry the belt hook may have been more convienient for spanning crossbows with a longer power stroke if any such bows happened to exist..

I've been kind of obsessed with late-medieval crossbows over the last year. (Thanks Tod!!)

One thing I've come across quite frequently in at least online museum galleries are crossbows fitted with a lug for a belt doubler AND lugs for a cranequin.

It's not clear if the two were used contemporaneously. I guess it is possible that the bows were made first for use with the doubler belt. Possibly later in life, they were refitted with a stronger prod (the prods seem to be composite, mostly) and the cranequin lugs to support the cranequin necessary to span such a prod. My understanding being that composite prods had a finite life and had to be replaced when they wore out. Many of these crossbows are dated from the late 15th century and also show signs of having been fitted with bolt clips at some point during their lives.

Sven Ekdahl, who has published books on the Teutonic Knights, did a famous paper 20 years ago which is floating around various places on the interwebs which gets into many of these same details. You have probably already seen it but for those who haven't:

https://deremilitari.org/2014/03/horses-and-crossbows-two-important-warfare-advantages-of-the-teutonic-order-in-prussia/

J