Note 3 — Chapter LXX
Henry Yule translation
Thus Joinville mentions the journey of Jehan li Ermin, the king’s artillerist, from Acre to Damascus,
pour acheter cornes et glus pour faire arbalestres
—to buy horns and glue to make crossbows withal (p. 134).
In the final defence of Acre (1291) we hear of balistae bipedales (with a forked rest?) and other vertiginales (traversing on a pivot?) that shot 3 quarrels at once, and with such force as to stitch the Saracens to their bucklers—cum clypeis consutos interfecerunt.
The crossbow, though apparently indigenous among various tribes of Indo-China, seems to have been a new introduction in European warfare in the 12th century. William of Brittany in a poem called the Philippis, speaking of the early days of Philip Augustus, says:—
“Francigenis nostris illis ignota diebus Res erat omnino quid balistarius arcus, Quid balista foret, nec habebat in agmine toto Rex quenquam sciret armis qui talibus uti.” —Duchesne, Hist. Franc. Script., V. 115.
Anna Comnena calls it Τζάγρα (which looks like Persian charkh), “a barbaric bow, totally unknown to the Greeks”; and she gives a very lengthy description of it, ending: “Such then are the facts about the Tzagra, and a truly diabolical affair it is.” (Alex. X.—Paris ed. p. 291.)