Medieval Crossbow Spanning Devices - The Gaffle and the Wooden Lever

Рет қаралды 3,811

Күн бұрын

This video shows two crossbow spanning devices that first appeared at the end of the Middle Ages - the gaffle or goat's foot and the wooden push lever.
0:00 Intro
0:45 What about the goat's foot?
1:36 Gaffle or Goat's foot
4:30 Wooden spannig lever

Пікірлер: 47

@piero1964 Ай бұрын

welcome back Andereas! we had to wait a while but the new video is fantastic! finally some attention also for the southern part of the Holy Roman Empire! I also have a reproduction crossbow made in Italy, but to be honest, using it gives me a little discomfort on the cheek with its squared profile, I feel more at ease with the rounded profile of the typical Central European crossbow.... greetings from Liguria!

@markcorrigan3930 Ай бұрын

you are back

@MrShinyObject Ай бұрын

Thank you so much for covering the goat's foot! I wasn't expecting you to, but I'm glad you did, as it was very informative. I always loved the design (in both senses of the word, visually and mechanically) but I understand that it was probably a late invention. The wood spanning one always looks so awkward to use, but I totally understand it as a simple crossbow spanner.

@roman_sudneko Ай бұрын

Thank you for sharing!

@alternator7893 Ай бұрын

3:39 up until today, I had only seen that type of goats foot lever on books. I believe this is the first video on KZbin of someone actually using it 😮

@Man_fay_the_Bru Ай бұрын

No, Todd’s workshop has had many videos about these, he makes them& sells them

@alternator7893 Ай бұрын

@@Man_fay_the_Bru i meant like the one specifically used at 3:40, were instead of resting the crossbow on your hip and pulling on the gaffle, you rest the gaffle on your hip and pull on the crossbow. The reverse of how goats foot levers are usually used. Until now, I had only seen depictions of those goats foot levers in a book called: “A deadly art: European crossbows” by Dirk H. Breiding

@leeho8746 Ай бұрын

@@alternator7893不，有一个俄罗斯频道在几个月前就上传了如此上弦的视频

@lscibor Ай бұрын

Windlass spanned crossbows ("arbalète à tour") were likely known at least as early as 13th century. Book of deeds of James of Aragon, (supposedly autobiographical, so written no later than in the 1270s) tells us about one of those being used during the siege somewhere around 1230 - Saracens dug counter tunnel and stormed the tunnel of the besiegers - but someone carried the crossbow in there, and shoot trough two Saracens and their shields at once. It clearly had to be very powerful crossbow, and likely a war machine, not personal weapon, but still portable enough to be carried to the tunnel, even if with great difficulty. Probably some kind of huge wall crossbow. Kinda surprising that all those levers are more Renaissance than medieval, since they are very handy. But I guess belt with a hook was just way less cumbersome, since if it was at your waist, you didn't have to worry about carrying it. And with sufficient strength and training, allowed to span pretty powerful bows, likely.

@guntherhuemer1767 Ай бұрын

" shoot trough two Saracens and their shields at once" that´s my friend, is sraight impossible😀

@PeregrinTintenfish Ай бұрын

Some believe that early windlass crossbows were spanned using a bench or a giant lever, and were quite big. The types of windlass crossbows where the windlass is attached to the tiller only show up later.

@medievalcrossbows7621 Ай бұрын

You are right - Winches were actually used as early as the 13th century, but these were large, stationary spanners. You can see such a wooden windlass in my first video about spanning devices ;-)

@lscibor Ай бұрын

@@PeregrinTintenfish Yes, it's quite probable that those early winches for crossbows were some entirely stationary., or at least very cumbersome contraptions. Andreas claimed so too, dunno if he retracted his comment, or it's just YT glitching. Still, ability to span such a powerful crossbow anywhere you go certainly was tempting, I wonder when first serious attempts occurred.

@lscibor Ай бұрын

@@guntherhuemer1767 Well, I don't know why are you so sure. You have countless accounts of modern hunters shooting completely trough, (to the point the arrow is lost somewhere in the woods), whitetail deer with arrow carrying as little as ~40 J of kinetic energy. Modern arrows, with very stiff, yet thin aluminium or carbon fiber shafts, and very sharp blades obviously likely carry and advantage over traditional ones, but still people achieve same feats with flint arrowheads, sometimes. You have evidence of very large crossbows easily achieving 400J, on this very YT channel. And those crossbows by Andreas are still of pretty ordinary size, you have few much larger wall/rampart crossbows preserved in museums. For example Erfurt bow is about 2.5m wide/long. So with two light shields, first man hit trough the stomach, and with proper bolt (say, 500J with thin and very sharp head somewhere between bodkin and leaf in shape) I can easily see this happen.

@ArbaletesduLimousin Ай бұрын

Your crossbows are awesome ! As well as the quality of your films !

@Ostarrichi996 Ай бұрын

Gute Videoqualität und Präsentation. Zudem sehr schön gefertigte Armbrüste. Grüße aus dem Bgld

@botavictor5832 Ай бұрын

Beautiful!, I do love your intro :)

@aleksanderuzelac3319 Ай бұрын

Welcome back

@martinbuchinger6946 Ай бұрын

Ausgezeichnete Arbeit, wie immer!!!

@medievalcrossbows7621 Ай бұрын

Danke 🙂

@Ariovistvs 8 күн бұрын

Is there a detailed documentation of how you make your horn bows? There's a great YT channel called @McClawin. He shows how he does it but I would be interested in how YOU do it. I'm especially interested in what kind of horn you use and how you acquire it as well as how exactly you process and apply the birch bark. I got a copy of Holger Richter's book "Die Hornbogenarmbrust". It is an invaluable source of information on the topic but it is unclear about a few details of the making process. Unfortunately I was not able to get the latest edition - which is sadly no longer available. Do you have some sort of online article about how you do it? Maybe pinterest, instagram or the like? And is there a chance we will see videos about the making process in the future? :D Thanks for your great work and the best wishes to you.

@medievalcrossbows7621 8 күн бұрын

Thank you! I know his channel. You can find some articles about the construction of a horn bow and the printing with birch bark in the issues of the "Jahrblatt der Interessengemeinschaft Historische Armbrust".

@Ariovistvs 8 күн бұрын

@@medievalcrossbows7621 Thank you, I will check it out! Any specific issue? Edit: Found it. The article about printing the bark is in the 2015 issue.

@medievalcrossbows7621 7 күн бұрын

@@Ariovistvs The other article about a one foot crossbow is in 2017. But the most comprehensive article can be found in the latest edition of Holger Richter's book.....

@Cahirable Ай бұрын

Do you know when the gaffle first appears in the written sources? At least with armour, it's very rare for something to show up in the art before it shows up in the written sources, and sometimes written sources can predate the visual record by more than fifty years.

@medievalcrossbows7621 Ай бұрын

That is indeed a good question - unfortunately we don't know what it was called in the individual languages. In English written sources, the "gaffle" only appears from the early 16th century onwards.

@Cahirable Ай бұрын

@@medievalcrossbows7621 I'm really not across the sources the way I should be, but I don't think I've seen a reference before 1420 (the "besta de garrucha" in Ordenações Afonsinas, Livro 1 cap. LXXI, p492), which is only a tentative identification ("garrucha" deriving from the French "garroc/garrot" meaning "lever"). I was curious if you'd managed to find anything prior to this, but I'm also not surprised. I think I've read somewhere that the baffle first originated in Spain/Portugal, so it's only natural it would take time to reach Central Europe.

@SB-qm5wg Ай бұрын

I sub'ed purely on the channel name 😆

@ethanpeeler3147 Ай бұрын

How common were sinew backed crossbows? Were they ever used just wood and sinew or always horn, wood, and sinew? I have access to a lot of juniper which performs very well sinew backed.

@medievalcrossbows7621 Ай бұрын

In principle, all variants were represented. Until the 15th century, pure wooden bows, wood and sinew combinations and, of course, the elaborate horn bow were used.