One more with the cranequin. Some times the foot loop looks very small, as it does here. Note his foot doesn't seem to be in it. Maybe that is just a means to protect the prods, especially composite prods, when placing the crossbow nose down for spanning?

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I think I have seen some crossbows hanging from their stirrups. That would be a way to protect the horn or wooden bow in storage. The very small stirrups could be for that.

I heard that badger skin has good water resistance. If you choose to use quivers on the hunt or in the field, keeping water and debris out are important. The badger skin also communicates that you are the kind of person who takes pests.

I translate some primary sources on crossbows from the 13th and 14th century in another thread.

Aren't crossbow quarrels loaded tip up in a case or quiver instead of tip down like arrows with the 'fletching' on crossbow quarrels being made of harder wood or parchment?

It makes sense to have a broader base if that's where the additional bulk of those hard fletching is positionened.

I think that's correct - I always assumed that was specific to wooden-fletched bolts, to protect the thin brittle flights. I can't think of another reason.

Also, regarding the "very small stirrup", it is indeed simply a suspension ring. As far as I know, cranequins were used just holding the crossbow in your left hand while cranking away on the handle, which is why the rustung type didn't need a stirrup. Schnepper types typically had a large staple fastened to the front which doubled as an anchor point for the wippe (cocking lever) and as a suspension ring.

Makes sense to me, I wasn't aware crossbow bolts were stored point up, that's interesting.

You definitely see all kinds of different hunting bolt-heads in the art and in collections of actual bolts.

I think there might be a few more reasons to argue for a flaring shape on the quiver, though I don't have any answers - just a few questions worth contemplation:

1. Retention. Bolts are short and do not have the long length of arrows to help keep them grounded in their container. So, by tapering the mouth of the quiver and flaring the base, you can conceivably help to keep your missiles where you want them. The only thing a bit unusual is that the CG of a bolt should be nearer the tip than the fletchings, so you become dependent on the quiver's geometry more so for retention than the forces of nature, if you will.

2. Protection of the Fletchings. Well, maybe. I am not sure of how tough or not the fletchings on a bolt could be. But, perhaps if they tended to be made from wood, having them stick out of the quiver might result in breaking or cracking if you happen to bump into something, while if they are buried in a sturdy quiver this will be less of a problem?

3. Here is a legitimate question: how many bolts does a typical quiver hold?

Seeing as it's routine for archeologists to track medieval battles by finding the iron bolt heads with metal detectors I would assume a fairly high number of the bolts are lost after being shot. Even my modern 175 lb draw hunting crossbow tends to mangle the 'arrows' when you shoot them.

My original sources for that data were secondary - the relatively recent monograph by professor Ann Tlusty "The Martial Ethic in Early Modern Germany" has a lot of data on these, (derived from the surviving records) with a pretty good bibliography, and a much older (19th Century) but also pretty good source is Johannes Janssen's Geschichte des deutschen Volkes seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters which has a bit more detail. You can find that online if you look around a little.

There are a few books also published in the 19th Century which have the transcription of the special songs which were composed by the organizer of these events, someone called a pritschmeister. They include everything that happened at the event, names of all the winners etc., as well the rules. There is also separately an account of a specific one from Zwickau mentioned in the memoirs of From Hans Ulrich Krafft "Reisen und Gefangenschaft" published 1583.

I had a PDF of a book of five of the schutzenfest songs but I've lost track of them. I will try to track those down, I've asked some HEMA friends for help.

Another source you can look for are the actual invitations they sent out, several of which survived. They put on the invitation all the basic rules, as well as the main prizes, and the size of what they consider a foot or an ell or whatever, since each town had a slightly different measure, and the size and distance of the target. I found a scan of one of them (attached) but unfortunately it's too low res to read the script. You can make out the circle and the length of the unit of measure on the bottom. Also the prize of a silver cup and two oxen. I can't quite make out the date but I think it was 16th Century.

I know there are more of those out there and of course, better image but that's all I have at the moment. If I can find some more for you I'll post it here.

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I should add that, in the rules (including on the invitation) they apparently include

* The size of one unit of measure, physically indicated on the invitation
* The size of the target, also physically indicated on the invitation
* The distance in (units of measure) to the target for the different grades of crossbow or firearm shooting
* The time allowed between shots
* The rules for qualifying as in how close to the hits need to be to the center of the target etc.

So this gives us a lot of ideas as to a baseline of expected accuracy and performance.

Ok so I did some digging, I believe Hans Sachs wrote a few of these, I haven't found the specific 19th Century collection I used to have but i did find this, which includes a description of a Fechtschule in Würtemburg in 1575, with a partial description of a Schützenfest. (It’s about 20 pages long covering fights, dussack, long sword, dagger, staff, halberd, the Federfechter, the Marxbrüder and delineates the Meisterstuck as per Hans Sachs though I'm not sure if this is him).

https://books.google.com/books?id=o3pUAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA414&dq=%22hett+zu+ro%C3%9F%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wBCMVcfPG8uXNqfuuxA&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22hett%20zu%20ro%C3%9F%22&f=false

Here is a fairly clear image of the front page of one of these invitations (from Pforzheim in 1551), unfortunately the rules are on the back page and I can only find that in low-res,

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This is the back side of another invitation from 1606, I'm not sure what city but possibly Coburg. The circle on the bottom is the size of the target. Resolution is aaaalmost enough to make out the text but maybe not quite. If it follows the pattern of others I've seen ten years ago, the distance to the target and other details should be indicated in that text. The circle indicates the size of the target, and the line is (I believe) the length of their unit of measure, as they were different in each town back then.

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...still working on it! I have a line on two more from 15th Century origins.

Here is another one, fully legible, found by Olivier Dupuis who very kindly shared this with me. It is from Landshut, Bavaria in 1549.

https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht/?PPN=PPN1022206435

EDIT - I have tentatively confirmed the following:

"Screwed" [rifled] barrels are not allowed. Crossbowmen have 24 shots at the distance of 96 Landshuter cubits, riflemen 18 shots at 260 cubits (the measurement given at the bottom of the invitation is 1/4 Landshuter cubit).