Just discovered this thread. I have a question about sinew over wood on prods; I found a ref in the Medieval Combat Society page on crossbows which says:

From the mid 12th century ... bows were used, copied from the bows of Asia, this type of bow was made from a wooden core to which the back was attached a thick layer of sinews held together by fish glue, but generally lacking the horn on the belly, see Josef Alm.

but I have seen virtually no comment or debate on this type of crossbow lath. I have made a low poundage yew and sinew prod and the advantages of the sinew are substantial in a short and highly stressed bow. Surely most wooden cross bows in Europe would have been sinewed in the 12th to 15th centuries?

From what I understand it is made from a specific ligament that holds a horses head up. It's called the nuchal ligament.

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So, this is a 16th (?) century 2 axis crossbow currently in Stockholm. It has a wood and sinew lath with a stained parchment covering the sinew only. To my mind, this shows that heavy crossbows of high status were not exclusively equipped with either a steel or a 3 part horn-bow composite. I think this also demonstrates that these 2 part composite bows were a persistent technology that may have been more common than current theories suggest, i.e. only in cheap bows used by those who could not afford anything 'better'. It seems to me that if this lath were fully covered it would have been identified as a horn-bow, and, if this is the case, then there may be others in collections that have been incorrectly identified



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Hi Andrew thanks for posting, very interesting and quite a beautiful crossbow. Can you explain the difference between the two and three part composite crossbow lathes? I wasn't aware of the distinction.

Sure, so a composite is a material, a 3-composite crossbow lath is (usually) a layer of wood, a layer of horn and a layer of sinew. A 2-composite crossbow is normally horn and sinew, typical of later horn-bows, but, it can also be a wood and sinew cross-bow as this is also made of 2 layers of material.

There is virtually no evidence for wood-and-sinew crossbow laths in literary sources that I have been able to find, but there are wood-and-sinew bows in the archaeological record - for instance the Berkhamsted bow seems to have been yew/sinew. I have a suspicion that writers of the period may not have felt a sinewed wooden bow unusual enough to warrant defining it - in 1382 German hunting ordinance instructs the hereditary master of the hunt to deliver to the Emperor on his visit, a crossbow with a bow of yew, a tiller of maple, a nut of ivory and a string of silk, (G. Landau., TheMCS web-page) - and I wonder if a yew bow, counted as only used by the poorest people in most sources, would have been a suitable presentation for the Emperor if it had not been sinewed, covered and decorated? Particularly as it is in a very high quality stock. Still that is entirely my supposition and I would be very glad to have it refuted or supported by someone more knowledgeable than me.

Thank you Andrew, very interesting! I know from the Teutonic Knights records they usually classified the lowest category of crossbow, 'knottlearmbrust' as a yew prod weapon and there are a lot of records about them buying yew wood to make prods, and having prods made and so on. The more powerful weapons seem to just be categorized by the spanner so I don't know what they were made of, except there are some mentions of the risks of steel prods in cold environment (subject to snapping in very cold weather) whereas the horn or composite prod weapons seem to get better in the cold.

Andreas Bichler has two new videos out. Again getting pretty impressive performance.

This is an all-wood 'knottelarmbruste' type, with no stirrup so it has to be spanned on the ground. Draw weight is 127 kg / 276 lbs making it a 'light' crossbow compared to some of the late medieval military types, but this type was around probably since the 13th Century.

As usual with his weapons performance is good, he got 50 m/s shooting relatively light 43 gram bolt and and 46 m/s with a slightly heavier 54 gram bolt. Ranges were 228 m / 249 yards and 204 meters / 233 yards respectively.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjDnHU9LQII

This is 'version 2' of his great horn bow, what I'd call a 'wall crossbow' of 1257 lb draw shooting enormous 220 + gram bolts.

He got 51.6 mps / 167 fps with a 320 gram bolt, and 58 mps / 190 fps with a 222 gram bolt.

Range was 250m / 273 yards (presumably with the 222 gram bolt, though I couldn't tell).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA5M0QKXtWU

And as a bonus (in case you missed it) here is another interesting video of him shooting a 485 lb draw, steel prod hunting crossbow at a deer skull.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p42q320X8YQ

Not really "heavy arbalest" but I figured out it would be the best place to post this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHF1f67zgAE

Someone tested dense mail collar pattern (2mm x roughly 6 mm ID) agasinst bolts.

Test maybe isn't optimal, tested piece is tiny, target perhaps bit too springy, and we don't know the ballistics of the bolt, but still very interesting.

It was an interesting watch,, thanks for posting it, another fairly major issue is the draw weight of that very lovely crossbow- 330 lb is very much at the bottom end of the spectrum of war bows which ranged from perhaps 300ish all the way up to 1200 lb…

Thank you for posting those, especially enjoyed the first one. Andreas makes a beautiful crossbow.