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Updated: May 15, 2025
But other foes were near, for as Beltane reined his snorting steed about, he swayed in his stirrups 'neath the shock of a cross-bow bolt that glanced, whirring, from his bascinet, and in that moment Sir Fidelis cried aloud: "My lord, my lord! alas, my poor horse is death-smitten!" Glancing round.
The French had never taken to archery, but the cross-bow was in use among them, and half of the French men-at-arms had been trained in the use of this weapon, which was considered more valuable in the case of sieges than of warfare in the field.
No, we have certainly nothing to go upon that would justify our making a report on the subject, but quite enough to induce us to keep a watch on this fellow, whoever he may be. Let us see, to begin with, if he shoots again." They waited for an hour, but the head of the cross-bow was not again thrust out of the window. "He may have ceased shooting for either of two reasons," Geoffrey said.
Of these, it chanced that the Lady Eleanor, taking more pleasure in the sport than Matilda, and being a less burden to her palfrey than the Lord Boteler, was the first who arrived at the spot, and taking a cross-bow from an attendant, discharged a bolt at the stag.
Lying upon the Calendar Stone was what at first I took to be a cross-bow made of gold; but more careful examination convinced me, especially in view of the place where I had found it, that this certainly was an arbalest called also a Jacob's staff and a cross-staff such as in no very ancient times, until the invention of the quadrant, was used by Europeans in taking the meridional altitude of the sun and stars.
The skirmish was well over; farther down the road, a fellow in green was already calmly gathering the arrows; and now, in the evil pleasure of their hearts, they gave themselves the spectacle of their poor fellow-sinner in his torture. Selden began to understand; he uttered a roar of anger, shouldered his cross-bow, and sent a quarrel at a venture into the wood.
An hour passed, and then the ship floated again, drawn up by Simon's left hand, while in his right he brought a gigantic fish from the depth of the ocean for the royal table. Whilst this was going on the fifth Simon had built his forge and hammered out his iron, and when the king returned from the harbour the magic cross-bow was made.
The irresistible cross-bow was their main reliance. Its shot was so deadly that the Lateran Council, in 1139, strictly forbade its employment among Christian enemies. It combined with its stock, or bed, wheel, and trigger, almost all the force of the modern musket, and discharged square pieces of iron, leaden balls, or, in scarcity of ammunition, flint stones.
'May the foul fiend, booted and spurred, ride down his bawling throat with a scythe at his girdle, quoth Albert Drawslot; 'here have I been telling him that all the marks were those of a buck of the first head, and he has hallooed the hounds upon a velvet-headed knobbler! By Saint Hubert, if I break not his pate with my cross-bow, may I never cast off hound more!
In after-days this defect in the cross-bow was removed, but it existed in full force in 1346.
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