50 Fun Facts About Crossbows

What is the bow part of a crossbow called?

It is also called the lath; the word prod apparently comes from a 19th-century mistranslation of rodd in a 16th-century inventory.

The main frame of a crossbow, held like the stock of a gun, is called what?

The bow-like assembly is mounted horizontally across it, which is what puts the cross in crossbow.

The arrow-like projectiles shot by a crossbow are called bolts or what?

The word comes from Old French for a square thing, after their typically square heads.

Compared with arrows shot from a traditional hand bow, crossbow bolts are typically what?

A crossbow's short draw length means the bolt has to be stiff and heavy to take the energy from a very high draw weight.

A crossbow shooter may be called an arbalist, after the arbalest, a European crossbow of which century?

The name descends from the Roman arcuballista, bow plus missile-throwing engine.

The arbalest, the heavy late-medieval crossbow, had a prod made of what?

The metal's tensile strength gave huge force, but a skilled arbalestier could still loose only about two bolts a minute.

About how many bolts per minute could a heavy medieval crossbow shoot?

The slow reload is why crossbowmen often sheltered behind a large shield called a pavise.

Which of these was a mechanical device used to span, or cock, a heavy European crossbow?

Levers, belt hooks, pulleys and windlasses were the other main options for overcoming very high draw weights.

European crossbow prods of the 10th to 12th centuries were made of wood, most often ash or what?

Steel prods took over around the 14th century as the metal became more widely available.

Medieval European crossbow names mostly derived from the word for which Greek torsion siege engine?

The two look alike but work differently: a crossbow bends a prod, while that engine used twisted-rope springs.

The earliest known crossbows were invented in which civilisation?

They transformed projectile warfare during the Qin unification wars and the Han campaigns against the northern nomads.

Cast bronze crossbow locks found in China have been dated to around what year?

Bronze bolts from the mid-5th century BC have also turned up in a Chu burial in Hubei.

The Chinese crossbow trigger was typically made from how many cast bronze pieces?

The bearing surfaces between them gave a mechanical advantage, so a light pull could hold a very heavy draw.

Which classic Chinese military text refers to crossbows and compares a drawn crossbow to might?

The earliest documents to mention the weapon are texts of the 4th to 3rd centuries BC attributed to the followers of Mozi.

Crossbowmen of which state ambushed Wei commander Pang Juan at night at the Battle of Maling in 342 BC?

The strategist Sun Bin drew him in with the tactic of the missing stoves, making his army look as if it were melting away.

The Terracotta Army guarding the tomb of Qin Shi Huang includes kneeling figures armed with what?

More than 40,000 bronze weapons have been recovered from the pits, among them crossbow triggers with interchangeable parts.

What draw weight did a Han dynasty soldier have to manage to qualify as an entry-level crossbowman?

A few elite troops were said to arm bows of more than 340 kg using both hands and feet.

The Chinese repeating crossbow is popularly named after which Three Kingdoms strategist who did not invent it?

The design dates back to the Warring States period; handheld versions were so weak that bolts were often tipped with poison.

The Ming dynasty repeating crossbow was armed by doing what?

A Ming writer called it a handy little weapon that even a Confucian scholar or palace women could use in self-defence.

The gastraphetes, the ancient Greek hand-held crossbow, takes its name from which part of the body?

The shooter pressed a concave rest at the back of the stock against his stomach to push the slider back and cock it.

According to Marsden, craftsmen of which city's tyrant invented the gastraphetes in 399 BC?

Heron of Alexandria's Belopoeica describes it and calls it the forerunner of the catapult.

The only pictorial evidence for Roman hand crossbows shows them used for what?

The historian Vegetius mentions manuballistae only in passing, saying they were too well known to need describing.

Early medieval carved stones showing crossbows used for hunting survive from which people of Scotland?

Four such stones date from the 6th to 9th centuries, long before the weapon reappeared in French sieges in 947.

The Byzantine princess Anna Komnene described the crossbow as a bow of the barbarians unknown to whom?

She associated it with the Western European crusaders, though some think Byzantium had crossbowmen earlier.

Crossbows were used at which famous 1066 battle, and were common on battlefields by the 12th century?

The oldest surviving European crossbow remains, found at Lake Paladru, date from the same century.

Canon 29 of the Second Lateran Council of 1139 prohibited the use of crossbows and bows against whom?

The council was convened by Pope Innocent II and attended by nearly a thousand clerics; the ban did little to stop the weapon's spread.

Which English king died in 1199 after a crossbow bolt struck his shoulder at the siege of Châlus-Chabrol?

The wound turned gangrenous; the crossbowman, named variously as Pierre Basile or Bertrand de Gourdon, may have been a boy.

At the siege of Acre, the sick king was carried on a stretcher under a silk quilt to do what?

He was suffering from arnaldia, an illness resembling scurvy, at the time.

The famous mercenary crossbowmen of the Middle Ages came from which Italian republic?

A team was usually one shooter and two assistants, one holding the pavise and one spanning a second bow to double the rate of fire.

At Crécy in 1346, the French crossbowmen were routed partly because wagons carrying what were left behind?

Without the big shields to reload behind, some 5,000 mercenaries were shredded by English longbowmen and their commander Ottone Doria ordered a retreat.

The Battle of Crécy established which weapon as dominant in Western European warfare?

The French army that day included around 6,000 crossbowmen alongside 8,000 men-at-arms.

The Swiss folk hero William Tell is famed for shooting what off his son's head with a crossbow?

The legend, set around 1307, has him prepare a second bolt for the tyrant Gessler in case the first shot went wrong.

In the legend, William Tell assassinated Albrecht Gessler, a tyrannical reeve serving which ruling house?

Gessler was posted at Altdorf in the canton of Uri; the first written records of the tale come from the late 15th century.

Which composer's 1829 William Tell opera has an overture later used for The Lone Ranger?

The opera was based on Schiller's 1804 play, itself built on Tschudi's chronicle.

By roughly what year had the military crossbow been largely supplanted by firearms in Europe?

The sporting crossbow lived on as a hunting weapon until the eighteenth century, and late-15th-century models were as accurate as modern handguns.

Which country won the 1503 Battle of Cerignola, the first major battle won with hand-held firearms?

Matchlock arquebuses did the work; the crossbow's battlefield days were numbered from then on.

What was King An Duong of Au Lac's legendary crossbow said to do?

The maker Cao Lo christened it the Saintly Crossbow of the Supernaturally Luminous Golden Claw.

US Green Berets in Vietnam integrated crossbow-armed fighters from which indigenous people into strike teams?

The Central Highlands peoples had long used crossbows for hunting before turning them on the Viet Cong.

The Sauterelle, a crossbow-like WWI device used by French and British troops, was designed to throw what?

The name means grasshopper; it weighed 24 kg and could hurl a Mills bomb up to 140 metres before mortars replaced it in 1916.

Until the late 1980s, the Indian Navy's MARCOS commandos carried crossbows with bolts tipped with what?

They were an alternative to suppressed handguns for silent work.

Scientists use a specialised crossbow bolt to collect what from whales?

The bolt takes a small plug of skin and blubber and bounces off, letting researchers study animals without capturing them.

In modern use, the most common crossbow bolt head is a four-sided point called what?

Historically some heads were sickle-shaped for cutting rope and rigging aboard ships.

The crossbow-wielding character Daryl Dixon in The Walking Dead is played by which actor?

The role was written specifically for him and has no counterpart in the comics the show is based on.

In some countries, such as Canada, why are crossbows popular for hunting?

Some jurisdictions run bow-only or crossbow-only hunting seasons, though the weapon's legal status varies widely.

A Song dynasty crossbow of 1068 was recorded as able to pierce what at 140 paces?

The Song also tried to keep military crossbows and armour out of private homes.

Sixth-century BC bronze crossbow locks were found in tombs at Qufu, the former capital of which state?

Bronze bolts from the mid-5th century BC turned up at a Chu burial site in Hubei; some early crossbows may have shot round pellets.

Which late 4th-century Roman author describes 'arcubalistarii' working alongside archers in De Re Militari?

Historians still dispute whether these arcuballistas were true crossbows or small torsion engines.

The Oyumi, an artillery piece that appeared in Japan in the 7th century, may have been able to do what?

Japanese records distinguish it from the handheld crossbow in use at the same time during the Asuka period.

By roughly which decade had firearms completely displaced crossbows among the Spanish in the Americas?

Conquistadors kept using crossbows there long after they had vanished from European battlefields.

Which Arctic people traditionally used light hunting crossbows, similar to African designs but of separate origin?

In the US South, crossbows were likewise used for hunting and warfare when gunpowder was scarce.