Pt9
In the very late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, a new word comes to be used to describe hurling engines, variously spelt trabuchetum, tribok or trabocco. In about 1270, the French engineer, Villard de Honnecourt, drew a plan for a trabucet, and his description of the counterweight-trebuchet is supported by Egidio Colonna, writing in c. 1280, and Marino Sanudo, in about 1320.
This kind of machine acted on the lever principle, but its load end was pulled down by a gang of men against a massive weight attached to its front end, normally using a winch for the purpose. The sling was then attached to the load end with a missile inserted, and when the rope securing it was released, the load end swung up, propelled by the massive weight at the front end. A radical improvement was the attachment of the weight in a pivoted basket.
The range and power obviously depended on the size of the beam and the weights employed, but this kind of engine was capable of throwing substantial missiles. The front-end weight made for much greater accuracy than could be provided by a team of men, whose pull on the traction-trebuchet inevitably varied, thus altering the range. As in the traction-trebuchet, the principle was of a beam pivoted on a triangular frame. Comparison of two good modern replicas – one Danish and the other at Caerphilly castle – indicates the scale of the machine:
Danish (m) Caerphilly (m)
Arm length 6.5 6.5
Behind pivot 5.5 5.15
Tower height 4.8 4.2
Frame length 8.5 6
Frame width 7 4.2
Massive beams of timber are used in both machines, and the Danish example has cast a 47kg missile 100m. This would certainly be enough to inflict real damage on the main structure of a stone castle.
The earliest use of the term “trebuchet” is by Codagnellus, who says that a trabuchis was used at the siege of Castelnuovo Bocca d’Adda in 1199: this has been seized upon as evidence of the first appearance of the new counterweight-trebuchet in the west. However, on three of the occasions when he uses the word, Codagnellus seems to indicate a light weapon.
The Genoese annals of the early thirteenth century mention trebuchets along with other weapons, sometimes specifically referring to them as quickly built. Rolandino of Padua mentions trebuchets and other machines mounted on a wooden belfry tower at the siege of Mussolente in 1249. This suggests that the term could be applied to a light weapon. But an illustration from the Genoese annals of 1227 offers very different evidence. It shows large traction-trebuchets with their firing beams in the characteristic semi-horizontal rest position; by contrast, two other machines at rest have their beams vertical, which is the characteristic position of the counterweight-trebuchets. The scale of the drawing makes it clear that these were very large, heavy machines.
French evidence from the early thirteenth century indicates very clearly that the trebuchet was a large engine. The Chanson de la Croisade Albigeoise reports that Simon de Montfort used a trabuquet against Castelnaudary in September 1211: this was evidently a large and powerful machine, for with a single stone it demolished a tower, and with another a hall. Even allowing for poetic licence, this is suggestive. The Count of Toulouse attempted to retake the castle a little later, but was forced to abandon his camp and with it a trebuchet.
Later in the Chanson there is a much clearer indication that the word trabuquet is being applied to a counterweight-trebuchet. As the defenders of Toulouse in 1217 prepared to meet the crusader attack, they “ran to the ropes and wound the trebuchets”, while later we are told that, having set dressed stone in the slings of their trabuquetz “they released the ropes”. These are very clear indications of what we are dealing with: the beam of a counterweight-trebuchet had to be “wound” or tensioned down and then “released”: these actions are quite different from what was required of a traction-trebuchet. Moreover, the general descriptions offered in this poem suggest sizeable engines, for these weapons did great damage to the citadel of Toulouse held by the crusaders.
At Toulouse in 1219, trebuchets were prepared for use against Louis VIII; they were differentiated from other stone-throwers by being put in the charge of men who were experienced in using them. The Tours chronicler reports that in 1226 the Avignonese used a similar array of machines, including trebuchets, against Louis. The first mention of a trebuchet in Germany, in 1212, says that it was then regarded as a new machine.
English sources do not use the term “trebuchet” much in the thirteenth century. The Dunstable annalist says that Prince Louis of France brought a tribuchetta to the siege of Dover in 1217, but mentions only petraria, maggunella and balisterii quam fundibularii being used against Bedford in 1224, and Matthew Paris mentions the same range of machines. In 1224, Jordan the Carpenter made a trebuchet for Dover and in 1225 another for Windsor. At the siege of Kenilworth in 1266, Edward I deployed a number of balistae, some mounted on a tower, and 11 petrarii; the defenders replied with mangonellae.
The huge machine built in August 1287 to attack Dryslwyn, and subsequently transported by between 40 and 60 oxen to batter Newcastle Emlyn into submission in January 1288, was probably a trebuchet, but the word is not used. The great engine which Edward I was so anxious to use against Stirling in 1304 is described by a chronicler as immensis tormentis and by neutral terms in the records, although it is almost certain, as Michael Prestwich comments, that a counterweight-trebuchet was actually used.
