Arbalesters
The illustration, from a fourteenth-century manuscript, represents a siege. A walled town is on the right, and in front of the wall, acting on the part of the town, are the cross-bowmen in the cut, protected by great shields which are kept upright by a rest. The men seem to be preparing to fire, and the uniformity of their attitude, compared with the studied variety of attitude of groups of bowmen in other illustrations, suggests that they are preparing to fire a volley.
Archery.—XIV. Century
The Cornish men are spoken of as good archers, and shot their arrows to a great length; they are also, says Carew, "well skilled in near shooting, and in well aimed shooting;—the butts made them perfect in the one, and the roaving in the other, for the prickes, the first corrupters of archery, through too much preciseness, were formerly scarcely known, and little practised." Other marks are occasionally mentioned, as the standard, the target, hazel wands, rose garlands, and the popinjay, which, we are told, was an artificial parrot. I have not met with such a mark in any manuscript delineation; but, in the following engraving, the reader will find a cock substituted for the parrot, and the archer has discharged his arrow very skilfully.
Practising with the Cross-Bow
The reader may see the manner in which the cross-bow was formerly used, upon the representation taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the Royal Library.