[Alain D.]

I've seen mentions on this forum and Youtube videos suggesting that crossbowmen typically went into battle in pairs with a second person who would load the crossbow between shots and/or hold a pavise shield.

I've never seen any period images depicting, or accounts describing, using a second person as a loader in the field. It seems like handing the crossbow back and forth would be more time-consuming and cumbersome than just having individuals handling their own weapon. If this were effective due to the loading procedure, then presumably the same benefit would also apply to loading muskets, though I've only come across a few siege-scenario examples of this being done with firearms in later periods and the vast majority of soldiers loaded their own muskets.

Does anyone have any primary source references to crossbow loaders in battle?

Alain

[Mikko Kuusirati]

I'd be curious to see period references, as well, but just to clarify - I think the idea here isn't that they'd hand one crossbow back and forth, which would indeed seem counterproductive, but that they'd cycle through a number of crossbows with the loader loading one while the shooter is shooting another. That's how it was done with firearms, anyway.

[Anthony Clipsom]

The only example of the practice I know of was at the Battle of Jaffa in 1192. I'm afraid I don't know the original source quoted but will look if a get a moment.

Add : The description is from Ralph of Coggeshall, Chronicon Anglicanum. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be an accessible English translation but the Latin text is available online for those competent in that language here
https://archive.org/details/ChroniconAnglicanum/

[Alain D.]

Thank you, Anthony, that's helpful. I'm wondering if the entire concept might have originated from one or two references like this?

Mikko, I thought about that scenario as well, but that was even harder to imagine as it would necessitate carrying multiple crossbows for each crossbowman and for an army that could mean thousands of extra crossbows.

I'm inclined to believe that the practice may have been used during some sieges, but probably never happened on the battlefield.

Definitely open to evidence showing the contrary, genuinely curious.

Thanks,
Alain

[Ryan S.]

I think there are two different things here. Crossbow loaders and shield carriers. At least at the battle of Jaffa, this appears to be two different things. The crossbowmen stood behind the spearmen, who were carrying the shields. As Stuart Ellis-Gorman describes it, the English were in a strong defensive position, but at the same time out numbered. I don’t think they were constantly shooting, but more important was to always have one crossbowman ready to shoot. The goal was to repel the calvary charges and not to leave a weak spot. In this case, it might have been more like a siege than a typical open field battle (it was an unusual battle because it involved an amphibious landing).

I used to think that there were dedicated crossbow-loaders or shield carriers, but now I think that unlikely. Art often depicts the person shooting a crossbow wearing a hook for loading the crossbow. Also, people without a crossbow wouldn’t have had the chance to practice loading them. As far as shield carriers, they might just have been spearmen using their shield to protect their comrades or superiors or assigned to transport and carry standing shields.

I think it is a reasonable hypothesis that a crossbowman loading his own weapons was the norm in battle. Anything else would have been a tactical choice that would have depended on various factors. Crossbow spanners were used in hunting and shooting contests, though.

[Anthony Clipsom]

I don't think I've seen a reference to shield bearers loading crossbows, but then the only crossbow loaders I've ever come across are in the Battle of jaffa. At Jaffa, as far as I know, two crossbowmen are swapping weapons so that one is shooting or preparing to shoot, the other is spanning a weapon to hand to him. It is likely, I think, that the shooter actually places the arrow on the bow - less chances of accidents and fumbles. The crossbowmen at Jaffa seem to have been Italians. It is not clear to me, because I haven't studied it in depth, whether the spearmen are just the army's infantry or whether they are dedicated shield bearers.

[Sean Manning]

Windlass crossbows show up as early as the Third Crusade in the twelfth century, but portable steel windlasses only appear in art in the fifteenth century, so I have always expected that in any siege there were people spanning crossbows with bulky wooden machines and running them out to the best shots. Turning a crank, pulling a giant lever, or doing seated squats are work that anyone could do but good shots were rare.

I don't think the 15th century military ordinances mention assistants for the crossbowmen http://myArmoury.com/feature_armies_burg.html

The book by Stuart Ellis-Gorman sounds like a good place to start especially if he reads German.

[Mikko Kuusirati]

[Anthony Clipsom]

[Anthony Clipsom]

Thinking about the question as a whole, I think I might be tempted to turn the question round and ask of these YouTube videos what the sources are for the idea that the crossbow-swapping tactic was routine or common.

As we discussed, there is certainly one sourced example, even if we interpret it differently. Against this, we have lots of evidence about crossbow usage e.g. muster lists, inventories, regulations, guild statutes which don't seem to mention crossbow loaders. We have records of equipment stored or issued that matches equipment to span the bow and a bow of appropriate type, suggesting a crossbow, loading equipment and quarrels were a package. No hint of a loader only set.

My suggestion would be that what we see is a unique (or rare) incident picked up in popular sources and turned into a standard operating procedure.

[Ryan S.]

Right, the crossbowmen seem to have been mainly if not entirely Italian. I also made a mistake, the battle of Jaffa involved an amphibious attack, but the use of one loader and one shooter came days later. Saladin had taken the city and was besieging the citadel. The amphibious assault was successful, with Richard being able to take a defensive position to protect the city. According to Ellis-Gorman, a shield wall was formed by infantry as well as unmounted knights. This is a good example of how a soldier that is, on paper one thing, will become another when needs be.

According to wikipedia, spikes were also driven into the ground. There seems to have been a lot more crossbowmen as infantry. Richard landed with about 2,000 crossbowmen and 50 knights and an unknown amount of infantrymen. Baha al-Din said that those he interviewed estimated the crusaders as having between 300 and 1,000 foot troops. * If the infantry was only one thousand spearmen wide, then not all of your crossbowmen are going to fit in a single row.

I think the main advantage of having a loader and a shooter, is that the shooter doesn’t have to leave his position. The degree of advantage is greatly going to depend on how the crossbow is spanned. I used to think that speed was the advantage, but I don’t think a high rate of fire was that important, in part because accuracy matters, but also, one doesn’t want to run out of bolts. Based on YouTube videos of Tod shooting his crossbows, I think that windlass crossbows are probably the ones that need the most practice. Ellis-Gorman mentions spanning stands, and describes the giant lever type, whereas Mike Loades mentions the bench with a screw type and even has a modern illustration of it in action. Both associate them with Grand Crossbows. They could be used with hand held crossbows, and Ellis-Gorman says there are records of them being used on the battlefield. Loades says that there is a great deal of sense in having one man span the bow while another shoots. Ellis-Gorman is a lot more careful when it comes to speculation. I am not sure if there has been any experimentation using a shooter and a spanner/loader.

*https://defendingcrusaderkingdoms.blogspot.com/2016/08/battle-of-jaffa-part-2.html

[Sean Manning]

[Ryan S.]

Ellis-Gormann said that he picked the battles that he included because they had the most description of the use of crossbows, and unfortunately, a lot of the times the role of crossbowmen is not mentioned. He does describe the use of crossbows by the Teutonic Order as well as the Hussites. He even compares the Wagenburg to the tactic used in Jaffa. He doesn’t mention loaders though. Perhaps looking more into Wagenburg tactics might bring more information.

I think the secondary sources in German for crossbows lean heavily towards technical information. It is possible that there are primary sources that have been overlooked. There are records in Germany about the equipment conscripts and mercenaries have. Some of them have been studied by reenactors, but as far as I know have been "published" only on facebook.

Interestingly enough, despite the Italians being famous crossbowmen, I haven’t seen any account from Italy.

[Anthony Clipsom]

I've been racking my brains for where I saw something on militia crossbowmen from Ghent, which might be useful. It was this

https://old.sintjorisgilde.be/en/history.php

OK, it's an English translation of a 19th century Flemish book but it does quote in-period records. This does give us the relationship between the shieldbearers (targedragers) and the shooters (scutters) - one shieldbearer per two crossbowmen. Also, we see that the shooters of the great crossbows have a servant (cnecht) attached to them. This may hint towards the use of spanning benches as a place where an assistant might aid the crossbowman, as discussed above. Alternatively, it may simply be that the weapon and associated kit is a handful that needs two men to manage.