MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
218 
history assigns to the son for the invention of these gigantic pieces. In short, 
Baron de Tott cannot be implicitly relied on for the age or the size of the 
gun he refers to, which, was beyond a doubt the one we now possess, or for 
the charge he employed with it. The chamber does not hold half the 
quantity. 
I have observed that Muhammad's cannon were probably copied from a 
Blemish original. This will appear on comparing our gun with the great 
Bombard of Ghent, which I am enabled to do with great precision, by the 
aid of a drawing made by Professor Pole in 1864. The dimensions, 
allowing for the necessary difference between wrought-iron and bronze, 
correspond so closely that I cannot believe the resemblance to be accidental, 
and it extends to the method of construction. In both pieces the powder 
chamber is in a separate forging or casting, and screwed to the body. 
Mons Meg presents us with a similar example on a smaller scale. This 
famous gun, the Dulle Griete, Marguerite Enragee , Raging Meg , of 
mediaeval writers, is considered by Pave to be the piece referred to by 
Proissart in a well-known passage :— 
<e Pour plus ebahirceux de la garnison d’Oudenarde, ils (les Gantois) fierent faire 
et ouvrir une bombarde merveilleusement grande, laquelle avait 53 polices de bee, 
et jettait carraux marveilleusement grand, gros etpesants ; et quand cette bombarde 
decliquait, on ouiait par jour bein de 5 lieues loin et par nuit a 10. Elle menait 
un si grand bruit au decliquer qu’il semblait que tous les diables d’enfer fussent 
en chemin.” 
There are however two difficulties in this identification, first, from the 
dimensions he gives, and next from the arms on it. 53 ponces de bee 
cannot possibly be 53 inches of calibre, a wholly incredible size; it doubtless 
means 53 inches in circumference of bore, measured round the mandril on 
which the bars were assembled, which as we have seen was a common way 
of measuring in the 15th century. This corresponds with a bore of 17 
inches nearly, whereas the Dulle Griete has 25 inches; then as to the 
arms, we find round the vent those of the order of the Golden Pleece, which 
was not instituted until 1430, whereas the event described by Proissart 
occurred in 1382; it is objected that they may have been engraved after 
1452 when the piece fell into the hands of the citizens of Oudenarde (who 
retained it to 1578), but this is at best conjecture; and the opinion of the 
highest antiquarian authority at Ghent, is that the piece cannot be anterior 
to 1430. This is sufficiently early to favour the supposition that Munir Ali, 
the maker of our gun, was possessed of drawings or particulars of it, easily 
obtainable through some of the adventurous Europeans who, like Urban 
the Hungarian,* sold their swords to the highest bidder. The shield of 
arms is that of Phillipe le Bon, Duke of Burgundy and Count of Planders, 
who was born in 1396 and died in 1467. 
It is to be regretted that Professor Pole's visit to Ghent was not pro¬ 
ductive of any of the amusing incidents which attended his previous visit 
to Mont S. Michel, and of which he gave us so lively an account.! His 
* To yei/os Ovyypos, Ducas. Opfiavos Aa£ to yevos, Chalcondyle. See von Hammer 
II. 380. 
t Vide Vol. IV. p. 14. 
