Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 1).djvu/199

 though very considerably reduced in size. He also carried on the saddle-bow the helm of the type illustrated (page 117, Fig. 141), and had as auxiliary weapons, lance, war-hammer, or mace. Finally he was mounted on a richly caparisoned war-horse, which, however, was still unprotected by armour.

From the early Norman times up to the period we have now reached—practically the end of the XIIIth century—the long-bow had been in continuous employment, as we see from its constant appearance in contemporary illuminations; but with the gradual introduction of the crossbow or arbaleste, which came into fairly general use by this time, it lost for a period some of its popularity.

About the origin of the arbaleste or mechanical bow there has been from time to time considerable discussion. Sir Samuel Meyrick states that it was an invention of the Roman Empire in the East, suggested by the more ancient military engines used in the besieging of fortresses; certainly the word arbaleste or arcubaleste is derived from the Latin arcus (a bow) and ballista (an engine for hurling missiles). As an instance of its earliest occurrence it has been suggested that Wace, in his description of how William the Conqueror hunting in his park at Rouen handed his strung and charged bow to a retainer on the receipt of the news of the death of Edward the Confessor, intended that the word arc should signify a crossbow, since it would be impossible to hand to any one an ordinary bow bent with the arrow in position ready to be discharged.

"Entre ses mainz teneit un arc Encordé l'aveit é tendu Et entésé é desentu."

This is a suggestion that is justified by facts; but its adoption would merely establish the early use of the arbaleste as a sporting piece.

In the second half of the XIIth century, in the reign of Stephen, the employment of the arbaleste in war was prohibited by the twenty-ninth canon of the second council of Lateran, under Pope Innocent II, "as a barbarous weapon and unfit for Christian warfare." It was therefore, for a time, condemned.

King Richard I, however, considering its use permissible against the infidels in the Crusades, again brought the arbaleste into general fashion and finally established a body-guard of crossbow men. It can but be con