Of the 9 extant wood crossbow laths I am aware of, 2 are backed, one of which (Royal Armouries Sweden) is definitely sinewed, the other (Alhambra) may be sinewed, or might only be backed with sinew but translations of the Spanish are not perfect . Sinewing offers significant advantages for crossbows but I am not aware of references in medieval texts to sinewed wooden crossbows. It could be that translators only picked up on crossbows and didn’t expound further, or they were sufficiently commonplace as to not be described separately from other wooden crossbows Does anyone know of any texts/sources mentioning adding sinew to wooden laths, or alternatively any papers or articles on the subject?

In some Italian sources of the fourteenth century, there are references of "baliste de nervo", i.e. crossbows of sinew. Probably these crossbows were, so to speak, something in between wooden and horn crossbows.

That’s really useful.! I don’t suppose you could give any references to this?

A while back I read about Andreas Bichler repairing a yew prod with sinews after it was damaged during tillering. Unfortunately, it was only as part of a preview online, and I am not able to read the relevant section now. I don´t know if he explains the historical background to repairing bows with sinews, but it works.

https://www.google.de/books/edition/Jahrblatt_der_Interessengemeinschaft_His/EJQvEAAAQBAJ?hl=de&gbpv=0

In that instance, the string caught in the nock and split a section of the lath which was glued back in and bound with a sinew wrap. He wrapped the other end as well just to be safe. Sinew is amazing stuff, I’ve seen it described as natural fibreglass by one modern bowyer.

Been a while but recently I found a translation of some of the regulations concerning the use of sinew on round wood crossbow laths written. by the guild of crossbow makers in the late 13th century. The translation is by S.Manning and on the website “ageofdatini”. The existence of rules controlling the quality of sinew application possibly written before 1270 is a bit of a game changer

So useful! How’s that for poor grammar? Wooden crossbows and wood/sinew crossbows are my current obsession. The insights into correct procedure have changed my own methods- I notice in the 13th item you leave the term”scanellum”, I’m not entirely sure but it might translate to slot or groove?? I guess it maybe a unit of measure for the area around the slot, which I imagine is perhaps the centre of the bow around the bolt groove ?

Thank you for the reading list, a quick search found Hewitt available at project Guetenberg . I spent a very pleasant morning reading his work. Really enjoyed myself :)

Intrigued, I had a search around and found

ant. venez. (sec. XIII) scanellum 'pezzo di legno scanellato per unire l'arco al teniere della balestra' (GLI 509)

My very limited Italian and online translation suggests

Scanellum - Piece of fluted wood for fixing the bow to the tiller of a crossbow.

I found this in SCAMONE «CUSCINETTO» DI DELIZIE
Remo Bracchi
Aevum, Anno 72, Fasc. 3 (Settembre-Dicembre 1998), pp. 801-816 (16 pages)

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20860890 (this is free to view on jstor)

Its p. 808. Beware - this is dense text in Italian with limited concession to readability.

Hope this is useful

So the belly of the bow (the side facing the shooter) becomes rounded as you carve it to a shape where it bends well. This round shape fits into a round socket on the tiller (stock). It is impossible to prevent the round bow rotating in this round socket and you constantly have to twist the bow back into line. Normally you leave the centre of the bow flat to prevent this but that can impact on how the bow bends. I think the Venetian makers glued a thin plate onto the bow which they could carve squared off to go into a square receiver in the stock. Because the bow bends it will break the joint between itself and the plate so the joint is reinforced by sinew which contracts as it dries and firmly holds everything together.