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Updated: June 17, 2025
The castle contained many cross-bowmen and archers, and on the top of it was hoisted the imperial standard, adorned with representations of the sun and moon.
Then we have the Ram, cancer testudo, that battereth; next we have the Tower or Beffroi that goeth on wheels yonder you shall see them a-building. And these towers, moving forward against your city, shall o'ertop the walls and from them archers and cross-bowmen may shoot into your town what time their comrades fill up and dam your moat until the tower may come close unto your walls.
True, the swords of old days have been turned into pruning-hooks; the crenelles and embrasures which once bristled and blazed with cannon are now curtained with brambles and wall-flowers, and festooned with Virginia creepers; the galleries are no longer crowded with archers and cross-bowmen; the moat itself has blossomed into a garden, luxuriant with limes and acacias, elders, planes, chestnuts, poplars, walnut, willow and birch trees, or divided into carefully tilled little garden plots.
But their situation was eminently perilous, and was becoming more so with every moment. "Shame on ye all!" cried De Bracy to the soldiers around him; "do ye call yourselves cross-bowmen, and let these two dogs keep their station under the walls of the castle?
The galleys were all manned and armed by the State, and the crew of each amounted to three hundred persons; including a captain, four supercargoes, eight pilots, two carpenters, two calkers, a master of the oars, fifty cross-bowmen, three drummers, and two hundred rowers.
So saying, he strung his powerful bow, and laying arrows to his hand fell to drawing and loosing amain. So swift shot he and with aim so true, that in a while the enemy gave over their attempt and betook them to cover what time their archers and cross-bowmen plied the wall with a storm of shafts and bolts.
Paid to Geoffry le Chamberlin for the wages of twelve cross-bowmen and thirteen archers for twenty-four days; each cross-bowman receiving by the day 4d, and each archer 2d., 7l. 8s. Paid to one master mason, receiving 6d. per diem, and five masons at 4d., and one workman at 3d.; for twenty-eight days, 3l. 7s. 8d. Sunday next, after the feast of St.
There were also military sodalities of musketeers, cross-bowmen, archers, swordsmen in every town. Once a year these clubs kept holiday, choosing a king, who was selected for his prowess and skill in the use of various weapons. These festivals, always held with great solemnity and rejoicing, were accompanied bye many exhibitions of archery and swordsmanship.
As originally formed up, the latter's van should have been covered by archers and cross-bowmen, but, from the anxiety of the knights and nobles to be first to attack, the footmen had been pushed back to the rear, a position which they were doubtless not sorry to occupy, remembering how at Crecy the cross bowmen had been trampled down and slain by the French knights, desirous of getting through them to attack the English.
The king gave the order to halt; but the men in the rear, not understanding the message, pressed forward and forced the others to advance, thus throwing the army into confusion. Finding that it was too late to put off the battle, King Philip ordered to the front a great body of Genoese cross-bowmen, whom he had hired to fight against the English.
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