1908] on Ancient and Mediceval Weapons. 329 



an anathema, as being a dishonourable weapon, hateful to God and 

 unfit for Christians. The exception was made, however, that it 

 might be used against Infidels. At the close of the same century. 

 Pope Innocent III. confirmed this prohibition against the cross-bow. 



In the twelfth century, Anna Commena, in her history of her 

 father, Alexis I., gives a minute description of the cross-bow of about 

 the time of the first Crusade. 



The primitive form of cross-bow had a bow of wood, and hence 

 was comparatively weak in effect. For this reason the cross-bow of 

 early times, and for many years after the Norman Conquest, was in 

 great measure supplanted by the more powerful long-bow, in the use 

 of which European, and especially English archers, were steadily 

 progressing. 



But by about the beginning of the fourteenth century, the cross- 

 bow had been improved into quite a different arm to what it was in 

 the days of the Crusades. 



It had now a very powerful steel l)ow, and a stock and lock-work, 

 and an appliance for drawing its bow-string, that were mechanically 

 perfect. 



Its bow-string was no longer drawn by hand, as when it had a 

 bow of wood, as described by xlnna Commena. 



The weapon had at length developed into a very powerful and 

 accurate one, and though considerably slower in its action, it quite 

 equalled the long-bow in effect, and indeed more so when used in the 

 defence of a fortress, as it could be aimed through narrow apertures, 

 and from behind battlements and walls where a bowman could not 

 stand erect, or where he had not space to draw his bow. The cross- 

 bow, a Continental arm, was never popular in England, for our troops 

 adhered to their long-bows, and statutes were passed from time to 

 time forbidding the use of the cross-bow. This was partly from 



a jealousy, not quite unknown in these days, of foreign innovations, 

 and partly from the fear that the cross-bow might supersede the 

 historic and cherished long-bow, which had won for us fame at such 

 victories as Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt. 



Though very seldom seen in warfare in England, except in the 

 hands of foreign mercenary soldiers, our ancestors commonly carried 

 cross-bows for killing deer and other wild animals. Cross-bows, 



specially those for sporting purposes, in opposition to the plain and 

 simple long-bow, gave the artist, the worker in metal and the 

 decorator every chance of showing their skill. Near the close 



of the fourteenth century, this weapon had become such a costly and 

 important arm, that in Spain cross-bow men were even granted the 

 rank of knights, and on the Continent, generally, they were always 

 placed in the honoured position of the front line in battle. 



Though there are thousands of splendidly decorated and con- 

 structed mediaeval cross-bows to be seen in the Museums and 

 Armouries of Europe, many of them as sound and perfect as the day 



