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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick,

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Speaker 3: and we're back with part two of our series on

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Speaker 3: the invention of the crossbow. In the previous episode, we

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Speaker 3: talked about some evidence of the crossbows invention in ancient China,

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Speaker 3: some differences between the crossbow design and regular bow design,

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Speaker 3: some differences in the physics of how they work, and

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Speaker 3: what different kinds of advantages they would have had in

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Speaker 3: historical usage. And today we're back to talk about crossbows

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Speaker 3: some more. Now, there is a subject I brought up

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Speaker 3: in the previous episode I think, or I think it

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Speaker 3: at least teased it, that I wanted to come back

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Speaker 3: to in detail, and that is the moral coding of crossbows,

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Speaker 3: specifically in like storytelling, especially in movies, in modern movies.

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Speaker 3: So I was reading a very interesting paper about this

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Speaker 3: that was like a history slash film studies paper called

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Speaker 3: X Marks the Plot Crossbows in Medieval Film by Peter Burkholder,

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Speaker 3: published in the journal Studies in Popular Culture in twenty fifteen,

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Speaker 3: and it starts with what I think is a pretty

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Speaker 3: good example, So, there's a scene many of you out

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Speaker 3: there will remember from the first Lord of the Rings movie.

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Speaker 3: It's from Fellowship of the Ring, which came out in

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Speaker 3: two thousand and one. It's when the heroes are at

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Speaker 3: riven Dell the fellowship is formed. For those unfamiliar with

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Speaker 3: the story, it's when the adventurers from various people's around

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Speaker 3: Middle Earth pledged to band together into a fellowship to

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Speaker 3: carry out a mission to destroy the story's mcguffin, a

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Speaker 3: wicked and powerful magic ring, to protect the people from

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Speaker 3: its demonic owner, Lord Sauron. So it's sort of the

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Speaker 3: ultimate good guy vibes scene. The good characters are all

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Speaker 3: pledging camaraderie, pledging to help each other in the service

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Speaker 3: of doing good. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: In fact, I reference this scene in the last episode.

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Speaker 3: You did yees yeah about how Legolis says it's my bow,

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Speaker 3: not my string. Yeah, it's not actually the string that stretches.

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Speaker 2: Though we will get back to that concept later on

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Speaker 2: in this episode when we get back into the technical

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Speaker 2: specifications of various crossbow designs, because sometimes it.

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Speaker 3: Is the string. Oh, I can't wait. Okay, So, but

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Speaker 3: you got the characters in the scene, you got Frodo.

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Speaker 3: That's the young hobbit who commits to taking the Ring

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Speaker 3: to Mordor to destroy it. He's your classic courage against

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Speaker 3: impossible odds character. Frodo is not a warrior. He's just

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Speaker 3: like a young, almost helpless little guy at first. But

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Speaker 3: he has courage and he wants to do the right thing,

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Speaker 3: so he's going to go destroy the ring. But then

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Speaker 3: the other characters say they're going to help him. Gandalf

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Speaker 3: the Wizard, holding the magic staff in his hand, he says, Frodo,

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Speaker 3: you're not going to do it alone. I will help.

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Speaker 3: And then Erragorn, the the sort of king of men

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Speaker 3: in Middle Earth, says, you will have my sword. I

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Speaker 3: don't remember it. Does Sean Bean say the same thing

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Speaker 3: or something like that, But Eric Gorn at least says

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Speaker 3: you'll have his sword. Legalis the Elf says you'll have

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Speaker 3: my bow. Gimli the dwarf says, and my axe. And

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Speaker 3: then Mary and Pippen, the perpetually second breakfasting Hobbits, also

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Speaker 3: offer the help of their intelligence. Yes, yes, but in

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Speaker 3: this scene, each of the principal heroes of the story,

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Speaker 3: they offer their commitment through the metaphor of the weapon

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Speaker 3: they carry, and this is basically in a medieval technological regime.

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Speaker 3: But the author of this paper notes that it's interesting

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Speaker 3: that it's sort of trying to like show the whole

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Speaker 3: span of recognizable medieval weapons, but none of these characters

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Speaker 3: offers up a crossbow to help, despite the fact that

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Speaker 3: berker Holder calls the crossbow quote one of the most

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Speaker 3: readily accessible personal weapons of the Middle Ages.

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Speaker 2: And I should say I still hold this to be true.

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Speaker 2: I think a crossbow is an excellent weapon for a dwarf.

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Speaker 2: I think everything lines up that dwarves should be using

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Speaker 2: crossbows by the dozen.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's just.

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Speaker 2: A perfect weapon for imagining them use some sort of

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Speaker 2: arranged weapon within an enclosed dwarven environment. It seems to

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Speaker 2: fit there. You know, their their build, their basic demeanor,

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Speaker 2: their technological proficiency. I think everything lines up. I think

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Speaker 2: I think Gimli should have had a crossbow.

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Speaker 3: Fair enough though the acts makes sense to me. It

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Speaker 3: seems at home in his hands. But this paper argues

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Speaker 3: that the absence of a crossbow among the ranks of

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Speaker 3: the good guys in the movie is neither a unique

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Speaker 3: nor happenstance. The point of this paper is that throughout

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Speaker 3: modern film there is a consistent principle that in settings

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Speaker 3: with roughly medieval European technology regimes, good guys do not

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Speaker 3: carry crossbows. The crossbow is the weapon of the wicked,

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Speaker 3: the barbarous, the treacherous, the cruel. And Secondly, in this paper,

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Speaker 3: the author argues that this implicit moral gloss on different

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Speaker 3: types of medieval weapons is not necessarily a modern invention.

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Speaker 3: In the case of the crossbow, there are elements of

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Speaker 3: this particular vilification of it going back to the medieval

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Speaker 3: period itself. So in the first half of the paper,

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Speaker 3: the author goes through this extensive list of movies with

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Speaker 3: medieval technology regimes that implicitly associate the crossbow with wickedness,

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Speaker 3: and note that these stories include both comparatively realistic period

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Speaker 3: dramas or historical films, as well as high fantasy and

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Speaker 3: other stories with fully fictional settings and magic that just

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Speaker 3: rely on the conventions of medieval technology. One thing he

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Speaker 3: notes is that crossbows are often used to establish setting

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Speaker 3: for medieval films, along with other visual cues like knights

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Speaker 3: in armor, castles, catapults, etc. And this is true even

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Speaker 3: in settings where it would be strictly anachronistic, for example,

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Speaker 3: in stories about King Arthur, which if you're trying to

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Speaker 3: sort of situate those roughly historically, that'd probably be something

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Speaker 3: like fifth century Britain, where there's really no evidence that

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Speaker 3: crossbows were popular, even though they had already been invented

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Speaker 3: by this point. It doesn't seem like century Britain had

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Speaker 3: a lot of crossbows in it, if any. But it's

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Speaker 3: sort of like a shorthand. You see knights in armor,

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Speaker 3: you see crossbow, you think, Okay, I know where I am.

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Speaker 3: It gets you to the correct mental setting very quickly. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And I don't know if you gets into this

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Speaker 2: at all, but I think one of the other things

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Speaker 2: about the crossbow in films is that there is a

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Speaker 2: gun like quality to the crossbow, where that makes the

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Speaker 2: visual language of say, armored guards or armored goons, whatever

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Speaker 2: the case may be, with crossbows like read very similarly

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Speaker 2: to modern tyrannical enforcement agencies.

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Speaker 3: I think you might make that comparison. We'll see when

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Speaker 3: we look at a few of the examples.

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Speaker 2: Okay, let's see what do you got.

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Speaker 3: Let's get some films. I'm not going to list all

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Speaker 3: the examples. Burke Holder gets into in this paper because

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Speaker 3: I suspect most listeners will in fact already recognize the

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Speaker 3: crossbow as evil pattern themselves, but it's just worth naming

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Speaker 3: a few. One he gets into that I've never seen

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Speaker 3: is the nineteen ninety five film First Night, which has

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Speaker 3: Sean Connery as King Arthur. So this is an Arthurian

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Speaker 3: legend film. Sean Connery is Arthur Richard Gear as Lancelot,

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Speaker 3: and in this movie, he says, the heroes such as

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Speaker 3: Lancelot are repeatedly shown demonstrating their skill with the sword,

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Speaker 3: and this is a recurring theme. The sword is often

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Speaker 3: represented as a kind of virtuous and honest weapon. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 3: in this film, the villain, a character named Prince Malagant

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Speaker 3: played by Ben Cross, commands gangs of marauders who are

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Speaker 3: all armed with crossbows, which he says are treated almost

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Speaker 3: like six shooters from a Western film. And also he says,

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Speaker 3: in this story, the heroic King Arthur is killed by

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Speaker 3: a barrage of crossbow bolts.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this comparison to cowboy flicks is pretty solid.

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Speaker 2: Reminds me of the scene in the western The Cowboys,

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Speaker 2: in which Bruce Dern's character is a scoundrel is beat

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Speaker 2: up by John Wayne's character with fisticuffs, and then afterwards

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Speaker 2: he shoots John Wayne's character in the back. Clearly, if

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Speaker 2: this had been a medieval setting, he would have used

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Speaker 2: a crossbow.

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Speaker 3: Right, John Wayne would have the sword and the bad

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Speaker 3: guy would have the crossbow.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think I saw First Night, but I've

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Speaker 2: forgotten all of it. This is no ex caliber, but

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Speaker 2: I have to stress that Ben cross was always great.

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Speaker 3: Uh huh. Next movie. I also haven't seen this one.

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Speaker 3: Another Arthurian legend film. This is the two thousand and

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Speaker 3: four film King Arthur, which not only shows Arthur's Saxon

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Speaker 3: enemies using crossbows. Apparently, at one point of this movie,

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Speaker 3: one of the heroes picks up a crossbow from the ground,

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Speaker 3: only to like look at it and toss it away

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Speaker 3: in disgust.

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Speaker 2: I did not see this one was a This was

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Speaker 2: a strange decade for films. But I mean, Clive Owen

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Speaker 2: as author, that's got to be good.

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Speaker 3: To come back to Lord of the Rings, we've established

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Speaker 3: that the heroes don't use crossbows, but Burke Older mentions

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Speaker 3: that the only time we actually see crossbows used in

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Speaker 3: the Lord of the Rings trilogy the film the Peter

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Speaker 3: Jackson Films is by the Forces of Evil. He says

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Speaker 3: crossbows are used by the urik Hi during their attack

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Speaker 3: on Helm's Deep.

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Speaker 2: Those are elite orcs though you know so, yeah, give

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Speaker 2: it to him, he's in the elite weaponr here.

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Speaker 3: Another interesting thing he points out is how in some movies,

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Speaker 3: the use or discarding of a crossbow can signal a

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Speaker 3: change in the same character's moral or factional valence. So

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Speaker 3: maybe a character uses a crossbow when acting as a

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Speaker 3: villain or when we're supposed to wonder if they're a villain,

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Speaker 3: and then they stop using the crossbow when they become

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Speaker 3: good or are revealed as good. An example, sit here

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Speaker 3: is Lord Arthur in the movie Army of Darkness, where

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Speaker 3: he apparently used I didn't remember this detail, but he

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Speaker 3: apparently uses a crossbow when you assume he is an

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Speaker 3: enemy of Ash. But then when he becomes an ally

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Speaker 3: of Ash, the crossbow goes away and instead we see

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Speaker 3: crossbows used by the dead heites, the you know, the

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Speaker 3: bad the monsters of the movie.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I forgot this scene as well. There's so

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Speaker 2: many other scenes that definitely stick in your mind that

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Speaker 2: this is a nice nice subtle example of what you're

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Speaker 2: talking about here.

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Speaker 3: One more, this is not an example the author here

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Speaker 3: brings up, But I was just thinking about the most

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Speaker 3: prominent appearance of the crossbow in HBO's Game of Thrones adaptation,

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Speaker 3: which as a show is notable, especially in early seasons,

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Speaker 3: for moral ambiguity, and you know, what might be called

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Speaker 3: grim dark realism, there's kind of a in many ways

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Speaker 3: it resists the kind of classic hero villain tropes and

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Speaker 3: the clear delineation between those two. And yet even in

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Speaker 3: Game of Thrones, this crossbow pattern holds true. It is

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Speaker 3: as its most salient use is as a weapon of torture,

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Speaker 3: used by King Jeoffrey, one of the nastiest and most

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Speaker 3: sadistic characters on the show. The other main example I

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Speaker 3: could think of was it is later used by a

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Speaker 3: more sympathetic character, but in an act of patricide when

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Speaker 3: that character is at his lowest point. So it's still

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Speaker 3: it's a pretty like negatively coded weapon in Game of Thrones.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, in both of these cases where the Lanisters

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Speaker 2: are using them, and Lanisters are always at least in

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Speaker 2: a little bit in the gray area if not outright villains.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Now, the author does try to acknowledge some counter examples,

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Speaker 3: and I think it's interesting to look at movies that

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Speaker 3: violate the pattern. One he mentions, Oh boy, I think

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Speaker 3: you're gonna be excited about this. Rob is Rutger Hower

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Speaker 3: and Lady Hawk from nineteen eighty five.

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Speaker 2: Lady Hawk a movie that is never as good as

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Speaker 2: I remember it being whenever I rewatch it. Yeah, but

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Speaker 2: I still love it, like you gotta love Lady Hawk.

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Speaker 2: It's just kind of it's it's just pure romance, it's beauty.

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Speaker 3: I had the same experience. I remember, it's been years

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Speaker 3: since I watched it, but I remember wanting to like

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Speaker 3: it before I watched it, watching it and thinking wasn't

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Speaker 3: actually that great, but then still kind of loving it

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Speaker 3: for some reason. Yeah. Yeah, But anyways, so Rutger Hower

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Speaker 3: in this movie, he plays a renegade knight who uses

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Speaker 3: a crossbow. He is sort of the hero of the story,

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Speaker 3: but the author notes that he is portrayed as a

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Speaker 3: kind of rebel or renegade character, so so you know,

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Speaker 3: maybe it's more fitting that he uses the crossbow because

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Speaker 3: he's more outside the balands of the normal medieval night

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Speaker 3: type hero. And also here the author notes that he,

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Speaker 3: you know, uses the crossbow early in the movie, but

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Speaker 3: then he goes on to explain the prodigies of his

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Speaker 3: family's house sword, and then he uses that more in

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Speaker 3: the later parts of the film.

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Speaker 2: So again, perhaps an example of casting aside the villainous

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Speaker 2: crossbow and picking up the noble sword.

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Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, one more example. I had to mention another

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Speaker 3: movie for I haven't seen a lot of these are

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Speaker 3: like medieval movies from the two thousands that never got

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Speaker 3: in front of my eyes. But apparently the good guys

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Speaker 3: use crossbows in the medieval sci fi time travel movie

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Speaker 3: Timeline from two thousand and three, based on the novel

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Speaker 3: by Michael Crichton. Again, I haven't seen it, but the

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Speaker 3: author here notes that the movie flopped, and I laughed

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Speaker 3: out loud when I read that, because I was like, wait,

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Speaker 3: is he saying that it flopped because it depicted crossbows

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Speaker 3: coming to the rescue? Unclear?

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Speaker 2: There's probably no real connection here, but it is worth

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Speaker 2: notable that Lady Hawk and Timeline were both directed by

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Speaker 2: Richard Donners, So I don't know, maybe he just really

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Speaker 2: liked crossbos or had some sort of like there's so many,

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Speaker 2: so many factors that go into I guess making these

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Speaker 2: kind of decisions for film, you know, could have been

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Speaker 2: something where it's like, well, the crossbows are easier to

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Speaker 2: block and use.

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Speaker 3: I don't know, So it's not absolutely universal. You can

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Speaker 3: think of a few counter examples, but I do think

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Speaker 3: by and large this is very true throughout the language

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Speaker 3: of modern films with historical and fantasy medieval settings. I

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Speaker 3: would have to agree it is remarkably consistent how the crossbow,

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Speaker 3: in contrast to other medieval weapons like the sword and

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Speaker 3: the traditional bow, is used to convey the negative traits

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Speaker 3: of the person who wields it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is this is absolutely true when

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Speaker 2: you look at the you know, all the examples here,

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Speaker 2: and I'm certainly not gonna set around and come up

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Speaker 2: with a bunch of counter examples. But I think one

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Speaker 2: counter example is worth mentioning because it has folkloric origins

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Speaker 2: and then also resonates through media, and that's Swiss folk

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Speaker 2: hero William Tell. This was a fourteenth century mountaineer, assassin

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Speaker 2: and crossbow marksman, again of Swiss folklore and legend. The

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Speaker 2: legends range from shooting an apple off of a person's head.

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Speaker 2: If you're aware of nothing else concerning this character. You

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Speaker 2: probably know aboubout that little episode just because it's been

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Speaker 2: portrayed in cartoons and so forth. But other things he

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Speaker 2: gets into, like he slays a chimera, so he does

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Speaker 2: all sorts of stuff. But his his more realistic exploits

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Speaker 2: position him as an assassin of evildoers and tyrants with

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Speaker 2: a crossbow, a a weapon that, as we've discussed before,

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Speaker 2: democratizes ranged lethal violence, you know, and certainly factors into,

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Speaker 2: for instance, in the Chinese one of the Chinese examples

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Speaker 2: we mentioned the last episode a way that people outside

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Speaker 2: of an actual military group could potentially do harm or

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Speaker 2: fight back against their overlords. So I think it's you know,

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Speaker 2: it's worth considering this as a notable folkloric exception to

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Speaker 2: the rule. And of course, there are also numerous depictions

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Speaker 2: of this in film and television, including the late nineteen

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Speaker 2: eighties TV series Crossbow, which I remember seeing some in

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Speaker 2: syndication later on, and I also distinctly remember seeing a

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Speaker 2: VHS sawbit. You know, maybe it was just like a

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Speaker 2: few episodes cobbled into a movie. I'm not sure, but

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Speaker 2: I remember seeing that on the video shelf as a kid,

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Speaker 2: and then There are other older adaptations from the fifties.

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Speaker 2: There is a nineteen ninety eight TV series that looks

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Speaker 2: really bad. There's a nineteen thirty four movie, The Legend

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Speaker 2: of William Tell. So certainly a figure with staying power

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Speaker 2: within Swiss Swiss culture, but also seems to resonate beyond

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Speaker 2: it into other media. Two more examples do come to

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Speaker 2: mind because I imagine people write in there's The Walking

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Speaker 2: Dead's Darryl Dixon always using that crossbow to shoot zombies.

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Speaker 2: I'm not sure. I guess he's kind of positioned as

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Speaker 2: an antihero in some respects, like he is kind of

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Speaker 2: like a neutral character who's you know, obviously he's not

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Speaker 2: gonna side with the zombies, but you know, he has

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Speaker 2: his own kind of like rogue outsider energy. And then

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Speaker 2: let's not forget what up?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? Sorry, I don't mean to derail, but I've never

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Speaker 3: seen that much Walking Dead. Do some people side with zombies?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think in later seasons that I have not seen.

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Speaker 2: There are certainly individuals who become more like the zombies

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Speaker 2: their cruelty and and their wretchedness, And there are some

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Speaker 2: that find ways to use zombies and become more zombie

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Speaker 2: like in their use of them. So in a sense,

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Speaker 2: there are those who side with zombies. But yeah, Walking

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Speaker 2: deads mostly about like humans being horrible and zombies just

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Speaker 2: being zombie. Zombies are kind of neutral, like you can't

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Speaker 2: hate the zombie for being a zombie, but there are

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Speaker 2: plenty of reasons to hate most of the human characters

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Speaker 2: in my experience.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I think that's a classic zombie movie thing,

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Speaker 3: where usually the villain is other living humans and the

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Speaker 3: zombies are more like the setting. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: But Darryl Dixon a favorite character of many on the

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Speaker 2: TV show. I don't think he's in the comics at all.

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Speaker 2: But the other one that came to mind, and this

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Speaker 2: is what movie I've not seen, But I again just

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Speaker 2: remember seeing that the VHS box art all the time.

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Speaker 2: Patrick Swayze's Next of Ken from nineteen eighty nine. I

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Speaker 2: think he uses a bow in it as well, but

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Speaker 2: there are also scenes where he's using a crossbow. There's

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Speaker 2: some sort of an action sequence in a cemetery where

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Speaker 2: he's running around with.

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Speaker 3: That cross I've never seen this one either.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well it it has Bill Paxton in it, and

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Speaker 2: it also has Nissance.

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Speaker 3: Wow.

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Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, it's not supposed to be very good.

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Speaker 3: It exists. Well, so uh, to come back to the

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Speaker 3: points made in Burkeholder's paper, we sort of already raised this,

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Speaker 3: but it's interesting to contrast the villainous associations in film

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Speaker 3: of the crossbow with the sword, which is almost always

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Speaker 3: used to convey admirable traits and moral virtue. And of

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Speaker 3: course this seems like if you really think about it,

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Speaker 3: it's it's kind of a silly way to split things up.

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Speaker 3: Like they're both weapons, and so they could both be

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Speaker 3: used for evil, Like just as easily a sword or

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Speaker 3: a traditional bow could be used for murder or or

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Speaker 3: something else evil, and a crossbow could be used by

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Speaker 3: whatever we see the good characters using swords for in

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Speaker 3: this movie, I don't know, self defense or defense of

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Speaker 3: others or something.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, I mean a sword carries a great deal

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Speaker 2: of symbolic power, but at the end of the day,

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Speaker 2: it is a murder weapon and a symbol of terror.

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Speaker 2: No one is out there hunting a deer with a

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Speaker 2: long sword.

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Speaker 3: That's well, I was gonna say that's true, but I

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Speaker 3: don't know. Maybe some people hunt deer with swords. It

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Speaker 3: seems unlikely to me.

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Speaker 2: It's unlike it would be a highly ineffective weapon to

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Speaker 2: use that way for hunting. Yeah, it was clearly not

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Speaker 2: designed as such, But the long sword was designed with

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Speaker 2: clear intention. The long sword, the dagger that dirk most

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Speaker 2: of these, these these implements, they are made to kill

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Speaker 2: and mutilate human beings.

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Speaker 3: So one wonders, like, where do these associations come from?

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Speaker 3: How come it is in these modern stories, especially on film,

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Speaker 3: that the sword is seen as good and the crossbow

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Speaker 3: is seen as bad. And a question raised in this

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Speaker 3: paper is was the crossbow scene as fundamentally more evil

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Speaker 3: than other weapons at the time when its use was common,

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Speaker 3: especially in war and say medieval Europe? And the answer

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Speaker 3: is complicated, but to some extent, and in some cases, yes,

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Speaker 3: there are medieval writings indicate something uniquely bad about the crossbow,

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Speaker 3: But I want to stress this was clearly not everyone's opinion,

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Speaker 3: and it certainly didn't stop people, especially armies and militias,

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Speaker 3: from using it. One extremely famous example of a medieval

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Speaker 3: work vilifying the crossbow in particular over other weapons, and

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Speaker 3: you'll see this example cited very often is from the Alexiad,

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Speaker 3: a biography of the eleventh to twelfth century Byzantine Emperor Alexios,

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Speaker 3: the first Komnena, written by his daughter, the Byzantine Princess

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Speaker 3: Anna Komnena.

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Speaker 2: Listeners of the show might remember our episode on Greek Fire.

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Speaker 2: We cite this source as well in that episode, and

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Speaker 2: I believe we had Annie Reese come on and read

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Speaker 2: it in the cold open.

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Speaker 3: M Oh yeah, well, thanks again to Annie for that.

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Speaker 3: We didn't get her on hand today, so I'm going

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Speaker 3: to have to read from it myself for this time.

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Speaker 3: But yes, so there is so. Anna Kamnena was writing

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Speaker 3: this work while she was in exile in a monastery

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Speaker 3: in the later years of her life, and a passage

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Speaker 3: of this work that has attracted a lot of attention

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Speaker 3: is Anna's eyewitness account of the arrival of crusaders in

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Speaker 3: Constantinople in the years ten ninety six and ten ninety seven.

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Speaker 3: The account is very vivid and it contains some confusing claims.

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Speaker 3: So I'm going to read what she says about the crossbow,

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Speaker 3: and the translation that I'm using here is the one

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Speaker 3: block sited in a book that I mentioned in the

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Speaker 3: last episode, but I'll mention it again here. The Medieval

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Speaker 3: Crossbow by Stuart ellis Gorman from Pen and Sword Military

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Speaker 3: Press in twenty twenty two. So this is what Anna

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Speaker 3: Komneno writes. The crossbow is a weapon of the barbarians,

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Speaker 3: absolutely unknown to the Greeks, and by barbarians. There she's

402
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Speaker 3: referring to Western European crusaders, probably especially the Franks. She

403
00:21:51,280 --> 00:21:53,959
Speaker 3: goes on, in order to stretch it, one does not

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Speaker 3: pull the string with the right hand while pushing the

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Speaker 3: bow with the left away from the body. This instrument

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00:21:59,520 --> 00:22:03,000
Speaker 3: of war, which fires weapons to enormous distances, has to

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Speaker 3: be stretched by lying almost on one's back. Each foot

408
00:22:06,920 --> 00:22:09,960
Speaker 3: is pressed forcibly against the half circles of the bow,

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Speaker 3: and the two hands tug at the bow, pulling with

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Speaker 3: all one's strength towards the body. At the midpoint of

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Speaker 3: the string is a groove shaped like a cylinder, cut

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Speaker 3: in half and fitted to the string itself. It is

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Speaker 3: about the length of a fair sized arrow, extending from

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Speaker 3: the string to the center of the bow. Along this groove,

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Speaker 3: arrows of all kinds are fired. They are short but

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Speaker 3: extremely thick, with a heavy iron tip. In the firing,

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Speaker 3: the string exerts tremendous violence in force, so that the

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Speaker 3: missiles wherever they strike do not rebound. In fact, they

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Speaker 3: transfix a shield, but through a heavy iron breastplate and

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Speaker 3: resume their flight on the far side. So irresistible and

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Speaker 3: violent is the discharge. An arrow of this type has

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Speaker 3: been known to make its way right through a bronze statue,

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Speaker 3: and when fired at the wall of the very great town,

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Speaker 3: its point either protruded from the inner side or buried

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Speaker 3: itself in the wall and disappeared altogether. Such is the

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Speaker 3: crossbow a truly diabolical machine. Now. Ellis Gorman makes a

427
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Speaker 3: few observations about this passage. First of all, even though

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Speaker 3: it is clearly exaggerating in some cases about like the

429
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Speaker 3: power of a handheld crossbow bolt, saying that it will

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Speaker 3: go through a city wall, or like through it straight

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00:23:22,640 --> 00:23:24,800
Speaker 3: through a bronze statue and come out the other side,

432
00:23:25,280 --> 00:23:28,199
Speaker 3: it does give a clear description of how the crossbow works.

433
00:23:28,560 --> 00:23:31,200
Speaker 3: And I thought it was interesting where she describes people

434
00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:33,679
Speaker 3: having to lie on their backs on the ground in

435
00:23:33,760 --> 00:23:36,320
Speaker 3: order to disband it or to pull back the mechanism

436
00:23:36,359 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 3: to lock with the trigger, like you were talking about

437
00:23:39,800 --> 00:23:42,600
Speaker 3: in the last episode, possibly with the ancient Chinese example.

438
00:23:42,640 --> 00:23:46,879
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, yeah, about there being like different different

439
00:23:46,880 --> 00:23:49,120
Speaker 2: ways of loading some of these different crossbows, and one

440
00:23:49,119 --> 00:23:51,040
Speaker 2: of them was like laying down and having to use

441
00:23:51,080 --> 00:23:53,880
Speaker 2: your feet to pull it back in a position.

442
00:23:54,240 --> 00:23:58,240
Speaker 3: Ellis Gorman says, it's confusing why she says the crossbow

443
00:23:58,359 --> 00:24:01,960
Speaker 3: was unknown in Byzantium, because other evidence indicates it was

444
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:05,199
Speaker 3: probably known at least somewhat, if not widely, used in

445
00:24:05,280 --> 00:24:09,159
Speaker 3: Imperial Rome, and the Byzantine Empire was descended from the

446
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:12,639
Speaker 3: eastern half of the Roman Empire. But it's possible that

447
00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:15,400
Speaker 3: the technology had fallen out of favor in Byzantium, had

448
00:24:15,400 --> 00:24:18,480
Speaker 3: been and had been forgotten by many. But the point

449
00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:21,600
Speaker 3: of the passage, more than to create a continuous history

450
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:25,239
Speaker 3: of military technology, was to praise her father and to

451
00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:29,520
Speaker 3: condemn the barbarity of the Western European crusaders. So her

452
00:24:29,560 --> 00:24:33,120
Speaker 3: comments about the crossbow seem kind of aimed at that purpose.

453
00:24:33,640 --> 00:24:36,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, she has a clear agenda here, because otherwise, if

454
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:39,880
Speaker 2: you take her literally, it's like she's saying, crossbow absolutely diabolical,

455
00:24:40,359 --> 00:24:43,520
Speaker 2: our secret fire weapon, totally above board.

456
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:48,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's possible. It's just like here it is

457
00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:52,159
Speaker 3: described as particularly a worse weapon than others, because it

458
00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:55,200
Speaker 3: is the weapon used by people she saw as wicked

459
00:24:55,240 --> 00:24:59,800
Speaker 3: and barbaric. So coming back to Burkeholder's paper, he discusses

460
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,720
Speaker 3: at some length of this passage by anakom Nina, but

461
00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:06,320
Speaker 3: he also points out medieval sculpture depicting crossbows in the

462
00:25:06,359 --> 00:25:10,359
Speaker 3: hands of demonic figures. So, for example, at the church

463
00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:13,960
Speaker 3: of Saint Sernan in Toulouse, France, there is a twelfth

464
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:17,200
Speaker 3: century pillar that has sculptures of demons squatting on top

465
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:20,480
Speaker 3: of it clutching crossbows and bolts, and there are others

466
00:25:20,520 --> 00:25:24,560
Speaker 3: as well. But he tempers these observations by pointing out

467
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:29,120
Speaker 3: that medieval European personifications of like death and disease and sin,

468
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:33,720
Speaker 3: these sort of demonic embodiments are often wielding other weapons

469
00:25:33,760 --> 00:25:36,840
Speaker 3: as well, like swords and traditional bows, so you shouldn't

470
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 3: read too much into the cases where they are holding crossbows.

471
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:42,200
Speaker 2: Joe I had to look up one of these demons

472
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:45,400
Speaker 2: with the crossbow, of course. I can't not look this up.

473
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:49,280
Speaker 2: And it's pretty fabulous because it's like a gargoyle esque figure,

474
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:52,360
Speaker 2: you know, on a corner part of a pillar motif,

475
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 2: and the demon appears to be sort of squatting but

476
00:25:57,119 --> 00:26:00,440
Speaker 2: also sort of loading a crossbow, like he's putushing down

477
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:02,359
Speaker 2: with his feet and pulling up on the string with

478
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:05,959
Speaker 2: his hands or claws. But also there's something kind of

479
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:09,000
Speaker 2: perverse about it, like the demon's kind of humping the

480
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 2: crossbow as well.

481
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:14,439
Speaker 3: Yeah, that checks out. Now. If you read sources about

482
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:18,880
Speaker 3: historical views on crossbows, it is very often pointed out

483
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:23,919
Speaker 3: that the Catholic Church produced a sort of ban on

484
00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 3: the use of crossbows in war at the second lateran

485
00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:32,439
Speaker 3: council in eleven ninety three condemning quote the hateful and

486
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:37,119
Speaker 3: death bringing art of crossbowmen. However, Burkholder adds a lot

487
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 3: of context to this that shows how just this fact

488
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 3: in isolation could be misleading. So some context is. First

489
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:49,000
Speaker 3: of all, the church's ban on the crossbow only originally

490
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:53,560
Speaker 3: applied to use against fellow Christians, and then later in

491
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:56,960
Speaker 3: the same century, the church amended that band to say, okay,

492
00:26:57,000 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 3: you can even use the crossbow against fellow Christians as

493
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 3: as long as it is quote a just war. Okay,

494
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:06,040
Speaker 3: I assume the people using it would always claim it

495
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:06,760
Speaker 3: was a just war.

496
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:09,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, they should probably go to warning on the side

497
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:12,240
Speaker 2: of the crossbow just in case only for use in

498
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 2: just war.

499
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:17,680
Speaker 3: Also, according to some scholars, this ban was essentially completely ignored,

500
00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:21,920
Speaker 3: like Christian armies just continued to use crossbows to fight

501
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:26,480
Speaker 3: each other all the time. Also, the church's proclamation didn't

502
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:30,520
Speaker 3: just attempt to ban crossbows, it attempted to ban regular

503
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:34,240
Speaker 3: bows as well, and this was also generally ignored. And

504
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:38,600
Speaker 3: then also Burkelder sites some other scholars named Contamine and

505
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:43,680
Speaker 3: Strickland who point out that one among multiple possible utilities

506
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 3: of these bands, one of them it was that it

507
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:51,159
Speaker 3: was possibly just being used by military leaders to quote

508
00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:54,800
Speaker 3: keep deadly missile weapons out of the hands of non elites.

509
00:27:55,240 --> 00:27:57,080
Speaker 2: Well, this absolutely checks out with a lot of what

510
00:27:57,080 --> 00:27:59,880
Speaker 2: we've been discussing. Yeah, it's okay if we have the crossbows,

511
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 2: we just don't want the people were oppressing to have

512
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:06,239
Speaker 2: the crossbows. I was reading about this as well in

513
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:09,960
Speaker 2: Vincent van Derven's Crossbows and Christians from a twenty twelve

514
00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:14,080
Speaker 2: edition of Medieval Warfare. There's a quote from this very

515
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:17,200
Speaker 2: church ruling from eleven thirty nine. I wanted to read

516
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:19,719
Speaker 2: it here, doing my best attempt at a Michael Palin

517
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 2: accent from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

518
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:26,760
Speaker 3: Yes, quote, we prohibit.

519
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 2: To under anathema, that murderous art of crossbowmen and archers,

520
00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 2: which is hateful to God, to be employed against Christians

521
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 2: and Catholics from now on.

522
00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 3: Who being naughty in my sight? Yeah, not bad, Michael

523
00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 3: Palin rob But still apparently this ruling was not much heated.

524
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:52,080
Speaker 3: It was mostly ignored. But anyway, there's a brief passage

525
00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 3: where Burkeholder cites another scholar named Van Kreveld to describe

526
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:02,640
Speaker 3: some of the possible mental justicifyations people had for especially

527
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:05,080
Speaker 3: demonizing the use of crossbows. Again, you know, it's not

528
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 3: hard to see why any any deadly weapon would have

529
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:11,640
Speaker 3: negative connotations attached to it, but like why the crossbow

530
00:29:11,760 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 3: more than like a regular bow or more than a

531
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 3: sword when comparing missile weapons, which would include regular bows

532
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:23,240
Speaker 3: to swords. One thing that gets mentioned in this paper

533
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 3: is that it, in some ways quote threatened an idealized

534
00:29:28,280 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 3: form of close quarter combat. So maybe not that there's

535
00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 3: actually anything beautiful or noble about people like swinging swords

536
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 3: at each other and bashing each other with handheld weapons,

537
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:43,480
Speaker 3: but that was an activity that had been idealized in

538
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 3: literature and storytelling, and thus had more poetic drama to it.

539
00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 3: Totally apart from the reality of that physically happening.

540
00:29:53,440 --> 00:29:55,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it again, it makes sense that this kind

541
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:58,000
Speaker 2: of view would be very would very much be a

542
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:02,360
Speaker 2: top down viewpoint, whereas something like William Tell that would

543
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:06,280
Speaker 2: be something that arises from from the people as opposed

544
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 2: to from the powers that be. Though saying that without

545
00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 2: again not being an expert on William Tell, you can

546
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 2: also imagine the case where you know, the people would

547
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 2: have their folk hero and then the powers that be

548
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:19,720
Speaker 2: might be like, wow, yeah, but he was using a crossbow.

549
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:21,080
Speaker 2: What does that tell you about this guy?

550
00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 3: Yeah. Another possible mental motivation for this focus on the crossbow,

551
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:29,320
Speaker 3: as like the weapon of a villain, is the idea

552
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:34,760
Speaker 3: that it somehow gives users a supposed unfair advantage. That

553
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 3: the idea and again we talked about this in the

554
00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:41,600
Speaker 3: last episode. It's not like you didn't have to train

555
00:30:41,840 --> 00:30:44,040
Speaker 3: to use a crossbow. Like it did take skill, and

556
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:47,880
Speaker 3: it did take training, but it probably didn't take the

557
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 3: level of like muscular physical fitness required and probably maybe

558
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:58,480
Speaker 3: not the same amount of practice required for a traditional

559
00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:00,719
Speaker 3: bow that you would you know, draw and hold with

560
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 3: just the strength of your arms, or maybe a sword

561
00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:04,120
Speaker 3: as well.

562
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating to think about about this though,

563
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:14,720
Speaker 2: because of course the crossbow is eventually replaced by advances

564
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 2: in gunpowder technology, and of course the coming of the

565
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:21,160
Speaker 2: age of the gun and reading the gun by any

566
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 2: of these moral standards, like the gun is inherently a

567
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:26,880
Speaker 2: coward's weapon and a weakling's weapon, but of course it

568
00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:27,880
Speaker 2: comes to rule the day.

569
00:31:28,280 --> 00:31:30,640
Speaker 3: That's true. But some sources do say that a lot

570
00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:34,160
Speaker 3: of the ways the crossbow is viewed and treated in

571
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 3: culture do end up sort of mapping on to early

572
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:41,400
Speaker 3: uses of gunpowder weapons. I wanted to mention one more

573
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 3: thing that might be motivating a sort of demonization of

574
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 3: the crossbow in compared to the long bow in films,

575
00:31:50,520 --> 00:31:54,520
Speaker 3: which is a sort of inherited bias in favor of

576
00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 3: the English in the depiction of English versus French conflicts,

577
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:02,440
Speaker 3: where in reality both sides actually did use crossbows at

578
00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:06,840
Speaker 3: various times, but the use of crossbows by the Continental

579
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 3: armies by the French is more. I think that it

580
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:14,720
Speaker 3: did actually happen more, and it certainly is emphasized more

581
00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 3: in historical accounts that the French had crossbows. So like,

582
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 3: for example, the author of this paper mentions movies about

583
00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:26,719
Speaker 3: Joan of Arc which depict Joan's French armies carrying crossbows

584
00:32:26,720 --> 00:32:31,680
Speaker 3: against the longbow armed English and that how showing things

585
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:35,200
Speaker 3: like this feels like it's sort of violating the normal

586
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:38,440
Speaker 3: language of cinema. If like, the audience is supposed to

587
00:32:38,520 --> 00:32:42,280
Speaker 3: be on Joan's side and they're the ones that have crossbows.

588
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 2: You know, real quick. Coming back to Monty Python and

589
00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:48,240
Speaker 2: the Holy Grail, there of course is a scene where

590
00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:52,160
Speaker 2: they encounter the French, and if memory serves the frenchmen

591
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:56,760
Speaker 2: do not have crossbows, but they do wield an unfair

592
00:32:56,920 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 2: ranged weapon against our English knights, and that of course

593
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:04,440
Speaker 2: is insults. So perhaps there's some connective tissue there.

594
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:06,880
Speaker 3: I'm not sure. It leads to one of my favorite

595
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:10,400
Speaker 3: details in that whole movie that is quite easy to miss. Actually,

596
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 3: it's not even a spoken line. It's the fact that

597
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:17,959
Speaker 3: John Cleae, playing a Lancelot, after they get insulted by

598
00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:20,400
Speaker 3: the French, he draws his sword and starts hitting the

599
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:24,280
Speaker 3: castle with the sword. I think it's one of the

600
00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 3: best gags in the movie. But to sum it up,

601
00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:33,080
Speaker 3: is there a bias in contemporary historical sources about the

602
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:35,600
Speaker 3: use of crossbows that treats them in this same way,

603
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:39,440
Speaker 3: that views them as villainous. It's not universal, but there

604
00:33:39,520 --> 00:33:42,240
Speaker 3: are some sources like that, and it may be that

605
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:46,680
Speaker 3: those sources have been influential and have sort of come

606
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:50,040
Speaker 3: through and become inherited as part of the language of

607
00:33:50,280 --> 00:33:51,240
Speaker 3: medieval films.

608
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is going to be very interesting to think about,

609
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 2: just in general, as we all continue to watch films

610
00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:01,840
Speaker 2: that have at least a medieval flavoring to them, or

611
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:03,960
Speaker 2: to read books that have medieval flavoring to them. I

612
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:06,760
Speaker 2: was just reading from a fantasy novel last night, and

613
00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:08,880
Speaker 2: there's a scene where people were being shot out by

614
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:12,720
Speaker 2: cross with crossbows, and of course it's it's like rogues

615
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:17,280
Speaker 2: and assassins who were using the crossbow. Yeah, and certainly

616
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:29,000
Speaker 2: on future episodes of Weird House Cinema. Now, to come

617
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:32,279
Speaker 2: back to the crossbow itself, first of all, I just

618
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 2: want to pick up a few odds and ends that

619
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:37,720
Speaker 2: I didn't get to discussing, just sort of the history

620
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:41,160
Speaker 2: and innovation of the crossbow, particularly first of all, more

621
00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 2: in the West. According to Fagan and Rowley Conway, the

622
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:48,200
Speaker 2: Romans have for them an early explicit textual reference to

623
00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:51,160
Speaker 2: the crossbows, and they would have been in use by

624
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 2: the Roman army by the fourth century CE. The Viagettius

625
00:34:56,440 --> 00:34:59,959
Speaker 2: actually refers to these in the book Concerning Military Matter,

626
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:03,839
Speaker 2: but the authors here point out that even the bow

627
00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:06,880
Speaker 2: drawing mechanisms varied. We've discussed some of these already, laying down,

628
00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 2: you know, strap putting your feet into straps, you know,

629
00:35:11,719 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 2: kind of like bootholes on the end of the crossbow.

630
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:20,080
Speaker 2: There was also the Greek belly bow, or the gastrafettis.

631
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:23,720
Speaker 2: This described in the first century CE, and was loaded

632
00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:27,000
Speaker 2: by bracing the crossbow against the ground and forcing the

633
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:29,480
Speaker 2: butt of the thing into your belly. I don't know

634
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:32,439
Speaker 2: if that makes complete sense. I included an illustration here

635
00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 2: for you, Joe.

636
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:37,000
Speaker 3: Mmm, well, I'm seeing the figure in the illustration you're

637
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:39,760
Speaker 3: providing where it's like he's almost like lean He's leaning

638
00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:42,840
Speaker 3: down on the crossbow with his belly on it, with

639
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:46,239
Speaker 3: the bottom against the ground, so he's like pressing, And

640
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:49,800
Speaker 3: I guess I don't understand how the pressing would cause

641
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:53,399
Speaker 3: it to be spanned or to be what you might

642
00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:56,920
Speaker 3: call a loaded or cocked. I guess maybe one way

643
00:35:56,960 --> 00:35:59,719
Speaker 3: of interpreting this, though I don't know is like if

644
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:03,600
Speaker 3: they're there are two actual shafts that can slide across

645
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:06,840
Speaker 3: each other, So by pressing on one, he is sliding

646
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:09,240
Speaker 3: it down the length of the other and that draws

647
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:11,080
Speaker 3: back the string. I guess that's possible.

648
00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:14,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, Basically, it looks like he's giving himself an incorrect

649
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:18,000
Speaker 2: Heimlich maneuver with the crossbow with the business end pointed

650
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 2: at the ground. On the end of the crossbow, the

651
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:23,120
Speaker 2: business end of the crossbow, there's this shaft and is

652
00:36:23,160 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 2: that is pushed down. As that's forced down, it's going

653
00:36:26,280 --> 00:36:29,000
Speaker 2: to push the you see it, It would slide ice

654
00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 2: and push the push that and would draw the bow

655
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:33,399
Speaker 2: and then it would lock.

656
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 3: That makes sense now, yeah, okay, because a lot of

657
00:36:36,360 --> 00:36:40,800
Speaker 3: the later, like medieval European mechanisms I'm thinking of for spanning,

658
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:44,959
Speaker 3: it would involve more of a pulling mechanism, where say

659
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:48,040
Speaker 3: a common one is again the belt hook, which we

660
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:50,240
Speaker 3: talked about last time, say the combination of a belt

661
00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:52,560
Speaker 3: hook with a stirrup at the end of the crossbow.

662
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:55,680
Speaker 3: So you would hook something that's attached to the string

663
00:36:56,320 --> 00:36:59,320
Speaker 3: to a to a loop or a hook on your belt,

664
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:02,360
Speaker 3: and then you would push down with your foot in

665
00:37:02,400 --> 00:37:05,560
Speaker 3: a stirrup on the shaft of the crossbow, at the

666
00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:08,040
Speaker 3: stirrups at the end of the crossbow, so that pulls

667
00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:10,600
Speaker 3: the bow towards your foot, and it pulls the string

668
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:12,920
Speaker 3: back with the strength of your legs and your body

669
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:13,920
Speaker 3: away from it.

670
00:37:14,239 --> 00:37:18,320
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, the authors mentioned that there were also Greco

671
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:21,400
Speaker 2: Roman mentions of crossbows going back to the third and

672
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:25,760
Speaker 2: even fifth centuries BCE. The third century BC example seems

673
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 2: pretty valid, this is described and sustibious. But the fifth

674
00:37:29,560 --> 00:37:33,200
Speaker 2: century BCE mentioned seems to be a catapult or a

675
00:37:33,239 --> 00:37:36,920
Speaker 2: siege weapon rather than a handheld weapon. Again, getting back

676
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 2: to that something we mentioned in the last episode that

677
00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:42,759
Speaker 2: apparently looking back at some of these ancient texts, if

678
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 2: you get into this gray area when you're trying to

679
00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:46,640
Speaker 2: determine are we talking about a crossbow here or are

680
00:37:46,640 --> 00:37:48,400
Speaker 2: we talking about some form of catapult?

681
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:51,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that ambiguity doesn't stop there. By the way,

682
00:37:51,640 --> 00:37:55,720
Speaker 3: I've read that historical study of crossbows is in multiple

683
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:59,799
Speaker 3: ways complicated by ambiguity and confusion about the names used

684
00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:02,560
Speaker 3: for weapons and texts and trying to understand exactly what

685
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 3: they're talking about. Yeah.

686
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:08,520
Speaker 2: Now, one more sort of like cocking or drawing mechanism.

687
00:38:08,560 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 2: Of note, you also have the goat foot lever that

688
00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:15,000
Speaker 2: appeared on a number of crossbows, and this was basically

689
00:38:15,040 --> 00:38:18,800
Speaker 2: a lever device that was used to draw the bow.

690
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 2: I looked at looking at images of it. I guess

691
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 2: the goat foot comes because it kind of looks like

692
00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:27,320
Speaker 2: a cloven hoof. There's like sort of two hooks or

693
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 2: grooves in it.

694
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:32,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so in addition, so like the belt hook one,

695
00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:35,399
Speaker 3: you would be trying to span the crossbow just by

696
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:37,319
Speaker 3: using the strength of your body. But a lot of

697
00:38:37,360 --> 00:38:41,239
Speaker 3: these mechanisms have a machine with some kind of mechanical advantage,

698
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:43,400
Speaker 3: like a lever or later you would have you know,

699
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:45,839
Speaker 3: you could get a really powerful crossbow if you use

700
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:49,719
Speaker 3: objects like a windlass or a cranicquin that would give

701
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:53,240
Speaker 3: you the ability to essentially crank the string back.

702
00:38:54,239 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 2: And that's the kind of crossbow that a dwarf should

703
00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:58,719
Speaker 2: be using. I mean that just seems perfect. Certainly, a

704
00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:01,799
Speaker 2: gnome in dungeons and drags needs a crossbow that has

705
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:05,040
Speaker 2: cranks on it, cranks, levers, the whole nine yards.

706
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:07,480
Speaker 3: Lots of moving parts. Yeah, it makes it more like

707
00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 3: a modern machine.

708
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:12,759
Speaker 2: Now with military technology and certainly with the crossbow. You know,

709
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:15,600
Speaker 2: it often comes down to trade offs, right. So in

710
00:39:15,760 --> 00:39:19,680
Speaker 2: the last episode we definitely discussed the reloading limitations of

711
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:23,359
Speaker 2: the crossbow, and this was a problem that innovators threw

712
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:26,799
Speaker 2: themselves that pretty early on. The crossbow packs power and

713
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 2: it offers reasonable accessibility, but is there a way to

714
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:34,320
Speaker 2: speed it up again to be able to fire perhaps

715
00:39:34,360 --> 00:39:37,719
Speaker 2: more crossbow bolts before too many arrows are fired at

716
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 2: you by archers and so forth? Are there ways to

717
00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:44,080
Speaker 2: do that while retaining the advantages of the crossbow to

718
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:47,040
Speaker 2: some measurable degree. And so this is where we get

719
00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:50,840
Speaker 2: into the topic of the Chinese repeating crossbow. I was

720
00:39:50,880 --> 00:39:52,719
Speaker 2: looking at a couple of sources on this. One of

721
00:39:52,760 --> 00:39:56,080
Speaker 2: them is Mechanism Analysis of Ancient Chinese Crossbows by Don

722
00:39:56,120 --> 00:39:59,280
Speaker 2: Atol published in the Journal Mechanical Sciences in twenty twenty.

723
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:04,600
Speaker 2: Was all looking at structural analysis of ancient Chinese crossbows

724
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:06,920
Speaker 2: from twenty twelve in the Journal of Science and Innovation

725
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:13,000
Speaker 2: by Su and Yan, and the innovation in broad strokes

726
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:16,120
Speaker 2: seems to go back perhaps as early as four hundred BCE,

727
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:21,120
Speaker 2: at least in principle, though there are essentially two different

728
00:40:21,160 --> 00:40:24,440
Speaker 2: repeating crossbows from two different eras that you see mentioned.

729
00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:27,719
Speaker 2: So this first one, this four hundred BCE one. This

730
00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:30,640
Speaker 2: is sometimes referred to as the Choose State repeating crossbow,

731
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:36,359
Speaker 2: and the evidence for this comes from archaeological finds in

732
00:40:36,520 --> 00:40:40,080
Speaker 2: jung Ling Hube that have been dated to this period.

733
00:40:40,120 --> 00:40:42,839
Speaker 2: According to dong Atoll, So, this area was known as

734
00:40:42,840 --> 00:40:45,640
Speaker 2: the Choose State during the Warring States period that would

735
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:48,240
Speaker 2: have spanned four seventy five through to twenty one BCE.

736
00:40:49,200 --> 00:40:53,800
Speaker 2: So this this contraption seem to have had a vertical

737
00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:57,799
Speaker 2: magazine on top of the crossbow of twenty arrows that

738
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 2: drop down into firing position vehicle, and then you would

739
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:04,680
Speaker 2: you would draw back, fire, draw back, and every time

740
00:41:04,719 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 2: you would draw back with an empty slot for a

741
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 2: crossbow bolt, it would drop into place. Sounds pretty advanced,

742
00:41:11,239 --> 00:41:14,680
Speaker 2: sounds potentially useful, right. However, the thing to keep in

743
00:41:14,719 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 2: mind about the True State crossbow is that it's small.

744
00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:22,319
Speaker 2: It's it's only thirty centimeters long, it's less than a foot,

745
00:41:22,840 --> 00:41:25,759
Speaker 2: and the bow is so short that it would have

746
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 2: depended on the elasticity of the bowstring rather than the

747
00:41:29,719 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 2: bending of the bow. Huh.

748
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:34,520
Speaker 3: So it's more like a slingshot almost.

749
00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:36,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, And they say that it would have only had

750
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 2: a range of about twenty to twenty five meters, so

751
00:41:38,640 --> 00:41:40,520
Speaker 2: I think somewhere in the range of twenty two yards.

752
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:44,680
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, you'd have something like rapid

753
00:41:44,719 --> 00:41:48,800
Speaker 2: fire or you know, automatic or semi automatic fire as such.

754
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:51,520
Speaker 2: You know, this wouldn't have been a weapon of warfare

755
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:54,720
Speaker 2: or self defense, they stress, but rather a novelty invention

756
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:57,680
Speaker 2: that it could have best been used at best could

757
00:41:57,680 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 2: have been used to hunt small birds. The authors also

758
00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:03,440
Speaker 2: describe it as a quote toy of personal invention.

759
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:08,480
Speaker 3: That's interesting, so more of a demonstration of principle or

760
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 3: demonstration of ingenuity than something that would have been especially

761
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:13,719
Speaker 3: useful in this form.

762
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 2: Right, Like I guess if there were a Dungeons and

763
00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:18,880
Speaker 2: Dragon's weapon, it would just do zero damage across the board.

764
00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:22,840
Speaker 2: But it's interesting. So I should also point out that

765
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:25,239
Speaker 2: the author's stress that there are no historical writings that

766
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:29,239
Speaker 2: mention this particular crossbow, and that the idea of that

767
00:42:29,400 --> 00:42:32,000
Speaker 2: being like a toy of personal invention. It reminds me

768
00:42:32,160 --> 00:42:34,920
Speaker 2: even of our invention episodes on the wheel. You know,

769
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:39,480
Speaker 2: in certain cultures before the wheel could actually really be

770
00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:43,920
Speaker 2: capitalized upon for transportation and so forth, you know, or

771
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:46,880
Speaker 2: other applications. There are still evidence that it was around

772
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:49,759
Speaker 2: sometimes just as a novelty as a toy. There are

773
00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:53,560
Speaker 2: various reasons that an idea or a technological innovation just

774
00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:58,239
Speaker 2: cannot be you know, used, that cannot be employed for

775
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:01,720
Speaker 2: anything other than amusement, or at least for a certain

776
00:43:01,719 --> 00:43:02,319
Speaker 2: period of time.

777
00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:05,920
Speaker 3: Right. I'm almost tempted to wonder if in some scenarios,

778
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:11,759
Speaker 3: like making a toy version of a mechanical device would

779
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:14,000
Speaker 3: be kind of like taking a patent out, like you know,

780
00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:17,160
Speaker 3: you're not making this device at scale that it would

781
00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:19,320
Speaker 3: be or in a way that would be used for anything,

782
00:43:19,360 --> 00:43:21,560
Speaker 3: but you can you can show the principle in small

783
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:23,759
Speaker 3: scale in a toy. Yeah.

784
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:28,279
Speaker 2: Now. The second variety of Chinese repeating crossbow is the

785
00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:33,480
Speaker 2: Zugeiu or zugei Nu repeating crossbow, named for Zuge Lang,

786
00:43:33,520 --> 00:43:38,400
Speaker 2: apparently one one through two thirty four CE, military leader

787
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:42,400
Speaker 2: and prime minister of Shuhan during the Three Kingdoms period.

788
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 2: He's also apparently the main hero of the fictional Romance

789
00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:49,920
Speaker 2: of the Three Kingdoms, a fourteenth century historical novel, in

790
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:53,600
Speaker 2: that he's portrayed as a sage in a military Mastermind. However,

791
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:57,759
Speaker 2: apparently he did not actually create invent this crossbow. His

792
00:43:58,040 --> 00:44:01,840
Speaker 2: name just is associated with it in some records, and

793
00:44:01,880 --> 00:44:06,120
Speaker 2: it just kind of stuck. But this version of the

794
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:10,560
Speaker 2: repeating crossbow did see use and was powerful enough to

795
00:44:10,600 --> 00:44:14,760
Speaker 2: serve as a lethal weapon, sometimes aided by poisoned bolt heads.

796
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 2: Military historian Chris McNabb describes it as follows in a

797
00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 2: twenty twenty issue of MHQ, the Quarterly Journal of Military History.

798
00:44:24,640 --> 00:44:25,000
Speaker 3: Quote.

799
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:28,440
Speaker 2: It featured a top mounted magazine in which multiple bolts

800
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:32,000
Speaker 2: were stacked in a large operating handle. When drawn to

801
00:44:32,040 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 2: the rear, the handle both cocked and at the full

802
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:37,400
Speaker 2: extent of the draw released the bow string, firing the

803
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 2: bolt that had dropped automatically into the flight groove. There

804
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:45,040
Speaker 2: was no separate trigger. The crossbowmen then drove the handle forward,

805
00:44:45,080 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 2: pushing the whole mechanism to the front to re engage

806
00:44:48,200 --> 00:44:51,000
Speaker 2: the string for firing as the next bolt took its

807
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:54,480
Speaker 2: place in the flight groove, ready to go now. He

808
00:44:54,560 --> 00:44:57,400
Speaker 2: cites a fire rate of ten bolts in twenty seconds,

809
00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:01,239
Speaker 2: compared to a more standard than again very general crossbow

810
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:03,960
Speaker 2: fire rate of three or four bolts in a minute.

811
00:45:04,400 --> 00:45:07,400
Speaker 2: But as impressive as this is, the trade off was

812
00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:11,280
Speaker 2: limited power and range, thus the need for poison tips

813
00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:16,000
Speaker 2: on some of your bold heads. Still, one can imagine

814
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:18,720
Speaker 2: using this as kind of like a nuisance or shock

815
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:24,480
Speaker 2: weapon alongside other defensive weaponry. Now. Needum discusses the box

816
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:28,120
Speaker 2: and tube crossbow used around twelve fifty seven that featured

817
00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:31,120
Speaker 2: a vertical drop magazine atop the crossbow. This was noted

818
00:45:31,120 --> 00:45:34,080
Speaker 2: for its convenience and steadiness. It apparently could also be

819
00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 2: used easily at night because you didn't actually have to

820
00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:39,920
Speaker 2: see what you were doing with the loading. That raises

821
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:42,960
Speaker 2: questions about what you're shooting at I don't know that's

822
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:46,080
Speaker 2: more properly eliminated. I guess you can imagine a scenario

823
00:45:46,120 --> 00:45:48,440
Speaker 2: where there's moonlight in play and you're in the shadows.

824
00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:53,560
Speaker 2: And it's also worth noting, especially in the writings of

825
00:45:53,920 --> 00:45:58,520
Speaker 2: Needham about Chinese history and technology, that the repeated fire

826
00:45:58,520 --> 00:46:01,960
Speaker 2: innovations would continue to the gunpowder era of Chinese weaponry.

827
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:06,040
Speaker 2: Anita mentions the nine dragon guns that could shoot nine

828
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:09,279
Speaker 2: arrows at a time off a single ignition. This was

829
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:12,959
Speaker 2: part of the fifteenth century frontier arsenal. They also made

830
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:16,640
Speaker 2: use of a form of multi barrel gun that was

831
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:18,560
Speaker 2: This is much later on, but it was apparently in

832
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 2: line with the European concept of the roboticon or late

833
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:25,560
Speaker 2: medieval volley gun of the same time period. Now I

834
00:46:25,600 --> 00:46:29,800
Speaker 2: have one more kind of mystery weapon to bring up here.

835
00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:33,120
Speaker 2: This is one that came up pretty early in my research,

836
00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:35,640
Speaker 2: but coming to it last here because I couldn't really

837
00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:38,560
Speaker 2: get a straight answer on it. And it concerns something

838
00:46:38,640 --> 00:46:44,479
Speaker 2: called the punjagon. So this would have been a either

839
00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:48,760
Speaker 2: a bow or a crossbow, or some sort of a

840
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:54,279
Speaker 2: bow technique. It's uncertain associated with the Sasanian Empire. This

841
00:46:54,440 --> 00:46:57,799
Speaker 2: was of course an Iranian empire from two twenty four

842
00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:01,239
Speaker 2: to six fifty one. We've discussed to this empire on

843
00:47:01,480 --> 00:47:04,719
Speaker 2: past episodes of the show. But yeah, it seems to

844
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 2: have been a weapon or a weapon system or just

845
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:11,239
Speaker 2: a strategy. And it's unclear if descriptions are referring to

846
00:47:11,280 --> 00:47:14,400
Speaker 2: a projectile weapon or an archery technique. It's even been

847
00:47:14,440 --> 00:47:17,279
Speaker 2: speculated though that it might have been a repeating crossbow

848
00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:20,200
Speaker 2: of some form. I was looking at a book by

849
00:47:20,680 --> 00:47:26,160
Speaker 2: Cave Faruka titled Sasanian Elite Cavalry AD two twenty four

850
00:47:26,200 --> 00:47:29,240
Speaker 2: through six forty two. I should note that this book

851
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:31,319
Speaker 2: has an illustration on the front, and this may be

852
00:47:31,360 --> 00:47:33,359
Speaker 2: like a stock illustration, because I found it some other

853
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:38,000
Speaker 2: places as well, that shows a man on a horse

854
00:47:38,360 --> 00:47:42,040
Speaker 2: when in armor firing some sort of strange weapon that

855
00:47:42,160 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 2: has like five arrow slots or five grooves, and they

856
00:47:46,040 --> 00:47:50,799
Speaker 2: are like five arrows flying out of the thing. So

857
00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:55,120
Speaker 2: I assume that that is supposed to be an artist

858
00:47:55,360 --> 00:48:00,719
Speaker 2: depiction of the pandagon. But the book itself into more

859
00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:04,440
Speaker 2: detail here, so the name means five device, but there

860
00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:07,840
Speaker 2: are no known surviving examples to go on. The author

861
00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:10,560
Speaker 2: here writes that it might have been a quiver system

862
00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:14,439
Speaker 2: for accessing five arrows in a row fairly quickly, rather

863
00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:17,160
Speaker 2: than what was apparently the typical Sesanian approach of holding

864
00:48:17,160 --> 00:48:19,239
Speaker 2: three arrows in the same hand as the bow while

865
00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:23,560
Speaker 2: you were firing. He speculates that it was likely intended

866
00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:27,160
Speaker 2: whatever it was, as a as a spread fire weapon

867
00:48:27,360 --> 00:48:29,680
Speaker 2: or some sort of a technique to spread your fire.

868
00:48:30,120 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 2: While other, perhaps more highly skilled archers and certainly Roman

869
00:48:34,520 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 2: accounts speak of Sasanian archery skill could focus their fire,

870
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:41,399
Speaker 2: so you know, you have like say, multiple arrows flying

871
00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:45,040
Speaker 2: through the air and this proposes a certain threat. But

872
00:48:45,080 --> 00:48:48,200
Speaker 2: then perhaps you have more skilled archers that are actually

873
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:52,040
Speaker 2: doing the lethal work alongside this. But ultimately who knows.

874
00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:55,840
Speaker 2: Maybe it was some sort of repeating crossbow, but the

875
00:48:55,920 --> 00:49:00,640
Speaker 2: details are lost to history. Apparently interesting, where are the

876
00:49:00,719 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 2: repeating crossbows and dungeons and dragons?

877
00:49:02,680 --> 00:49:05,840
Speaker 3: Though not sure, I don't know. I've never come across one.

878
00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 3: I assume that means they're not there.

879
00:49:09,120 --> 00:49:11,360
Speaker 2: I mean they've got to be there. Someone has at

880
00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:13,200
Speaker 2: least home brewed or repeating crossbow.

881
00:49:13,320 --> 00:49:13,480
Speaker 3: Right.

882
00:49:13,719 --> 00:49:15,960
Speaker 2: Any quick search on D and D beyond shows that

883
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:20,000
Speaker 2: there are some references to them, so maybe the Darrow

884
00:49:20,080 --> 00:49:22,600
Speaker 2: use them in the under dark. Looks like they maybe

885
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:25,160
Speaker 2: show up in water Deep, but they don't have a

886
00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:27,520
Speaker 2: prominent place in the player's handbook or anything.

887
00:49:27,800 --> 00:49:29,800
Speaker 3: This might be a dumb question, but how do you

888
00:49:29,840 --> 00:49:32,279
Speaker 3: get lumber in the under dark? Because they don't have

889
00:49:32,320 --> 00:49:35,000
Speaker 3: trees down there, right, it's just big mushrooms. So do

890
00:49:35,040 --> 00:49:39,640
Speaker 3: you use mushroom fiber as lumber to make your your

891
00:49:39,680 --> 00:49:42,319
Speaker 3: wooden structures and tools or do you have to go

892
00:49:42,360 --> 00:49:44,480
Speaker 3: to the surface to get trees for lumber.

893
00:49:45,600 --> 00:49:47,799
Speaker 2: Well, you've answered your own question, because yes, you use

894
00:49:47,840 --> 00:49:51,200
Speaker 2: the mushrooms. There's a particular mushroom that is called Zerka

895
00:49:51,280 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 2: wood or zirk wood that is the primary building material

896
00:49:55,760 --> 00:49:56,480
Speaker 2: of the under Dark.

897
00:49:57,000 --> 00:50:00,239
Speaker 3: Man. You know all the answers, I didn't know there

898
00:50:00,280 --> 00:50:01,080
Speaker 3: was an answer to that.

899
00:50:01,640 --> 00:50:03,560
Speaker 2: I ran a campaign in the under Dark for a while,

900
00:50:03,600 --> 00:50:06,440
Speaker 2: So the Underdark I have a lot of answers on.

901
00:50:06,600 --> 00:50:09,480
Speaker 2: But other parts of the D and D world, I'm

902
00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:12,120
Speaker 2: my knowledge is a little more vague and.

903
00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:14,880
Speaker 3: Spread out, And I guess we end where we began

904
00:50:15,080 --> 00:50:17,880
Speaker 3: with with D and D. Well, does that do it

905
00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:19,640
Speaker 3: for you with the crossbow rope?

906
00:50:19,880 --> 00:50:21,600
Speaker 2: I think so. I mean, there are a lot of

907
00:50:21,600 --> 00:50:23,160
Speaker 2: things in the history of the crossbow that, you know,

908
00:50:23,160 --> 00:50:24,799
Speaker 2: we didn't have time to touch on, but I think

909
00:50:24,800 --> 00:50:27,680
Speaker 2: we had all the most important things. But we'd love

910
00:50:27,719 --> 00:50:29,799
Speaker 2: to hear from anyone out there if you have examples

911
00:50:29,840 --> 00:50:32,799
Speaker 2: of what we've been talking about in uh, you know,

912
00:50:32,920 --> 00:50:37,319
Speaker 2: medieval flavored media concerning the crossbow. If you yourself are

913
00:50:37,440 --> 00:50:40,720
Speaker 2: a crossbow enthusiast, then I'm sure you have some insight

914
00:50:40,760 --> 00:50:43,560
Speaker 2: to share with us. Everything's fair game will remind you

915
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:45,720
Speaker 2: that stuff to blow your mind is primarily a science

916
00:50:45,760 --> 00:50:49,680
Speaker 2: podcast with episodes core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays listener

917
00:50:49,680 --> 00:50:52,800
Speaker 2: mail on Mondays. On Wednesdays we'll usually do a short

918
00:50:52,840 --> 00:50:56,560
Speaker 2: form monster fact or artifact episode, and on Fridays we

919
00:50:56,600 --> 00:50:58,560
Speaker 2: set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a

920
00:50:58,560 --> 00:51:02,000
Speaker 2: weird film on Weird Health Cinema will remind you that

921
00:51:02,040 --> 00:51:04,839
Speaker 2: if you are on social media these days, well you know,

922
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:08,200
Speaker 2: check us out. Our accounts are up and active again

923
00:51:08,239 --> 00:51:10,560
Speaker 2: so you can follow what episodes are coming out on

924
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:15,520
Speaker 2: those accounts. If you use Instagram, check out sdby on podcast.

925
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:16,600
Speaker 2: That is our handle.

926
00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:16,839
Speaker 3: There.

927
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:19,920
Speaker 2: That is our newish handle. The old one has been

928
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:20,640
Speaker 2: lost to us.

929
00:51:21,239 --> 00:51:24,840
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

930
00:51:25,000 --> 00:51:26,560
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

931
00:51:26,560 --> 00:51:29,400
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

932
00:51:29,440 --> 00:51:31,480
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

933
00:51:31,640 --> 00:51:34,200
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow

934
00:51:34,200 --> 00:51:43,000
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

935
00:51:43,120 --> 00:51:46,040
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

936
00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:48,920
Speaker 1: more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

937
00:51:49,080 --> 00:51:51,800
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938
00:52:00,680 --> 00:52:04,360
Speaker 2: Past with Rapatatata