1911.] DANA— NOTES ON CANNON. 161 



duction of cannon. Xot only did ordinary mechanics make the new 

 artillery, they also served it; letting their cannon for hire as one 

 lets carts and drivers ; and it was not until the death of Charles VII, 

 1461, that they formed companies of bombardiers and culveriniers, 

 heavy and light artillery, like the companies of cross-bowmen and 

 archers, gave to them military organization, and placed them under 

 the command of the grand master of artillery. 



The fifteenth century was one of development, very important 

 but less startling than its predecessor. 



The most marked advance was in cast bronze and iron guns. 

 Pretty much any date after 1400 may be taken as the beginning of 

 that phase of the smelter's art. Erfurt claims 1377 as her begin- 

 ning; it seems needlessly early, but no one can say her nay. There 

 are two cast-iron guns in the Leipzig ]\Iuseum, one between 1400 

 and 1420; another, less archaic. 1420 to 1430. 



Francis Grose says : 



It seems extremely strange, that none of our workmen attempted to 

 cast them, [cannon] till the reign of King Henry VIII. when in 1521, accord- 

 ing to Stowe, or 1535 [Camden says], great brass ordnance, as canon (sic) 

 and culverins, were first cast in England, by one John Owen, they formerly 

 having been made in other coimtries; . . . 1543. . . [Stowe] . . . the King 

 minding wars with France, made great preparations and provisions, as well 

 of amunitions and artillery as also of brass ordnance ; amongst which at that 

 time, one Peter Bawd, a Frenchman born, a gun-founder, or maker of great 

 ordnance, and one other alien, called Peter Van Collen, a gun-smith, both the 

 King's freedmen, conferred together, devised and caused to be made, certain 

 mortar pieces, being at the mouth, from eleven inches up to nineteen inches 

 wide. . . . and after the King's return from Bullen [Boulogne], the said 

 Peter Bawd by himself in the first year of Edward VI. [1547] . . . did also 

 make certain ordnance of cast yron of diverse sorts and forms, as fawconets, 

 falcons, minions, sakers, and other pieces. Chamber'd pieces for throwing 

 stones, called cannon-perriers, port-pieces, stock-fowlers, sling-pieces, port- 

 ingale-bases, and murtherers, were about this time much used in small forts 

 and on shipboard.^ 



Of course all these guns were cast hollow ; that is a core covered 

 with clay, was suspended in the center of the mould while the metal 

 was poured in. Despite all precautions it was very nearly impossible 

 with the imperfect means then in use, to keep this core in place and 

 true; cavities formed in the metal about it, and the scoria did not 



° Francis Grose, " Military Antiquities."' London, 1788, II., p. 383. 



