A summary of the history, construction and effects in warfare of the projectile-throwing engines of the ancients, with a treatise on the structure, power and management of Turkish and other Oriental bows of mediæval and later times

Note 13 — PART IV THE TREBUCHET

Reading edition

Egidio Colonna tells us that the trebuchet was sometimes made without a counterpoise, and that in such a case the arm of the engine was worked by a number of men pulling together instead of by a heavy weight. I cannot believe this, as however many men pulled at the arm of a trebuchet they could not apply nearly the force that would be conveyed by the gravitation of a heavy weight.

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