Factfile

Weaponry

“In the very depths of winter they are running about bare-legged … I never saw them wearing armour … Their weapons were bows, arrows and swords. They also have javelins.” A Flemish observer with Edward's army [From: The National Trust Book of British Castles: Paul Johnson 1978]

The equipment for attacking castles gradually developed to include crossbows, wheeled battering rams and stone throwing engines; the Petriaria was used to hurl huge rocks and the Ballista or Mangonel was for stones around half a hundredweight. They also developed Penthouses or Cats which were used to defend the men who were throwing brushwood to make causeways across ditches, undermining castle walls or piling combustibles against wooden sections of the walls. Mining was an important way of undermining sections of castle wall to gain entry. A tunnel would be dug with wooden supports and a fire would then be started in the tunnel to cause subsidence.