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Text of the page (random words):
e rivets a drill for making the rivet holes in the plates drill press ideally but it could be done with a handheld drill alternatively a punch something to cut the plates i use a bandsaw with a metal cutting blade but you could use a hacksaw or manual plate cutter and at least a file if not a belt sander for cleaning up the plates after cutting them the last three are the tools that could save you a lot of time and energy the bigger they are i e bandsaw instead of a hacksaw belt sander instead of a file so if space or money are concerns you might consider reaching out to a friend with these and knocking it all out in a day or seeing if there is a tool rental place near you feel free to contact me on the right if you want to make your own and need some advice if you found this helpful let me know in the comments below additionally if you d like to follow my medieval group s happenings check out the paston project on facebook or our website thanks for reading posted by the modern reenactor at 8 59 am no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels experimental archaeology projects thursday july 10 2025 some crossbows and windlasses to fire them with the construction of a 15th century windlass crossbow besieged by the duke of norfolk s army of 3 000 men the paston family s hold of caister castle in the summer of 1469 was doomed despite preparing the defenses for nearly a year the genteel east anglian family were simply no match for the duke of norfolk who could bear down on them with all of the power and resources his title came with stocked with longbows crossbows and even handgonnes the pastons had turned the all brick caister castle into a fortress they had hired four professional mercenaries the previous fall and by the spring just a few months before the siege they showed some signs of training hard as evidenced by john paston iii s request to replace four or five steel crossbows on september 26 though 37 days into the siege surrounded low on supplies and having lost a devoted servant to a crossbow bolt the pastons were forced to accept norfolk s terms of surrender the letters surrounding the siege of caister castle offer a glimpse into the defenses of an english genteel family s property during what is now called the wars of the roses it should be noted here however that the duke of norfolk s capture of caister castle from the pastons was the result of a decade long dispute over land claims and thus with only a small exception had nothing to do with who sat on the throne the one exception was the timing norfolk seized his opportunity to siege the castle when word got out that the earl of warwick had captured king edward iv at the battle of edgcote and the kingdom was without a ruler for the next couple months regardless this was just one of several fights that the pastons found themselves in during the 15th century as during this siege the pastons also recorded the defenses of their castle at gresham two decades earlier in 1449 six years before the traditionally understood start of the wars of the roses at the first battle of st albans in both instances the letters highlight the family s reliance on a piece of military technology not normally associated with late medieval english history the crossbow while the longbow understandably reigns supreme in the popular history of late medieval english warfare it did have its drawbacks in early 1449 margaret paston wrote her husband john paston i requesting military supplies to shore up the defenses of gresham castle they rightly suspected that a local rival lord moleyn had designs on their property especially after they discovered that he was amassing men and equipment at a nearby manor in her letter margaret requested crossbows and windlasses to fire them with together with quarrels because your houses here are so low that no one can shoot out with a longbow despite the renown of the longbow agincourt was only 34 years earlier they seemed better suited to open battlefields than to defending buildings while gresham castle fell without a single quarrel shot the pastons clearly did not abandon the use of crossbows twenty years later to defend their castle at caister they not only relied on them but they may have been responsible for the two casualties on the duke of norfolk s side interestingly to prepare for its defense sir john paston also referred to as john paston ii hired four mercenaries whom he described as experienced men cunning in war and feats of arms and they can shoot guns and crossbows well they can mend and string them they can build defences or anything else that is needed to strengthen the place sir john did not hire longbowmen but rather men with experience with crossbows and guns weapons better designed to defend their castle with despite their expertise they clearly could not repair the four or five crossbows that got damaged that winter or following spring as the castle s defender john iii wrote to his brother asking to have them repaired in london by a maker of steele bowys it is in this letter that john iii describes them as steel crossbows and his brother s in particular as a great bow pétrarque des remedes de l une et l autre fortune traduction rouennaise anonyme en français bibliothèque nationale de france département des manuscrits français 225 fol 78v 1503 by the 15th century steel crossbows were catching on in europe they had been around for some time already perhaps as early as the 13th century but by the 15th century more reliable steel production had caught up with the demand while they did not outright replace the more traditional wood or composite crossbows the latter seem to have remained popular for hunting steel crossbows were favored for war due to their heavier draw weight lower cost and faster production time compared to composite in particular while soldiers clearly favored them by the end of the 15th century for these reasons they did have some glaring disadvantages while steel production notably an understanding of heat treatment was better it was not unheard of for a bow to break under pressure additionally while a 1 000 pound 454 kg crossbow sounds impressive due to mechanical inefficiency it performed only marginally better than a top tier composite bow again though speed of production not having to wait for the glue to cure in a composite bow and cost were probably the most deciding factors for soldiers or those who hired them to buy steel crossbows pierre choinet le livre des trois âges en vers bibliothèque nationale de france département des manuscrits smith lesouëf 70 second half 15th century the pastons were those people who found the argument compelling enough to invest in steel crossbows while it can t be known if they used steel bows in particular at gresham in 1449 it is clear that they were employed at the defense of caister castle in 1469 at gresham though the letters offer one more insight into the use of heavy crossbows in england the spanning device while contemporary depictions of crossbows show a range of spanning methods from hand spanned to goatsfoot levers cranequins to windlasses margaret paston specifically requested windlasses a pulley based spanning device her knowledge of crossbows and spanning devices might be explained by the fact that she grew up around them she was a cousin of the infamous sir john fastolf or perhaps she learned about them while discussing strengthening the defenses of gresham with a military minded confidant regardless the fact that she requested them suggests a common knowledge and availability if not in east anglia then certainly around london where her husband primarily worked in the artwork of the period windlasses seem most popular around france and the low countries i e belgium and the netherlands so it seems probable they were similarly known in england the only other spanning device that could handle the heavy draw weights of a steel crossbow 800 1200lbs was a cranequin but these are more often than not associated with central europe german speaking states in particular rationale about five years ago i co founded a medieval living history group the paston project with a bunch of friends who have a similar interest in medieval english history the purpose of our organization is to recreate some of the experiences of the paston family and the world around them during the third quarter of the 15th century some of it military but the bulk of it civilian as we only wanted to represent a couple of the actual paston family members the majority of our group took on personas related to the household i started as a cook and a longbowman but as we already had some longbowmen i began considering other portrayals to widen our interpretation reading the paston letters i saw a few solid references to their use of crossbows and became entranced as a guy who loves to make stuff i was intrigued by the challenge of making my own crossbow so i did just that i built a 200lb 91kg steel crossbow it was truly a joy to learn about crossbows by building one as it was to shoot it so much so that i entirely rebuilt it to really perfect the design that said i had a little whisper of a thought that kept popping up in the back of my mind this crossbow isn t really representative of the steel crossbows used by the pastons not only did i compromise a little historical accuracy for safety by making the roller nut out of delrin and keeping the protective rubber sleeve around the center of the bow but it is still such a low draw weight that i can hand span it i e pull the string back by hand in the paston letters margaret specifically requests windlasses this conforms to the broader historical understanding that crossbows meant for war should be very heavy at least 800lbs 363kg while hand spanned crossbows might work for hunting they re less useful for war as basic armor like padded jacks and maille stand a decent chance of stopping bolts shot from them while i wouldn t mind making a heavy steel crossbow my problem was sourcing the bow the journey to find a maker of steele bowys involved a fair amount of emails facebook posts and messages and plenty of dead ends truly the makings of a great story when i came close to buying a steel bow from jens sensfelder himself our geographic differences posed too great a challenge to complete the sale for those not in the know sensfelder has not only published a book on crossbows but the steel bows he makes are considered the gold standard in the european crossbow building community he s also one of the only artisans out there who makes reliable 100 accurate heavy bows when my hopes were dashed and i was about ready to give up i received a message request from someone in a crossbow building group i had posted to on facebook he had a spare steel bow made by sensfelder that he might be willing to sell to me it s here that i d like to take a moment to offer my appreciation to this seller as he not only sold me the bow but he guided me a number of times in the process of building mine while i had experience in making a crossbow this one would be five times heavier so i really didn t want to screw things up i owe a fair amount of my success in building this crossbow to him needless to say at long last i was able to obtain a proper heavy steel bow as a side note for anyone interesting in learning more about my medieval group the paston project please check out our facebook page here website coming soon additionally if you simply want to learn more about the pastons i highly recommend picking up a copy of a medieval family the pastons of fifteenth century england for the actual letters albeit digitized check out paston footprints here this is where i obtained quotes of the letters from in the above paragraphs the crossbow the crossbow is a fairly basic piece of technology albeit deadly it s composed of only a few main parts the bow also referred to as a prod the tiller or stock roller nut and trigger some crossbows usually earlier ones used linen or hemp cording to lash the bow to the tiller as in the example below while others usually later used steel bridles and wedges put simply the string is pulled back to the roller nut which holds it in place with its claw like hooks until it is ready to shoot the nut stays locked in place due to the trigger bracing against it see my diagram under the trigger mechanism below as soon as the trigger is depressed and is no longer bracing the roller nut the nut is allowed to rotate releasing the string casting the bolt forward crossbow object no h5927 powerhouse collection c 1470 for my crossbow i chose a simple design with steel bridles my portrayal in the paston project is based on peryn sale one of the four mercenaries that sir john paston hired in november 1468 to defend caister castle since i was interpreting a mid to late 15th century english crossbowman it made sense to choose steel bridles instead of lashing the bow with cord additionally since i haven t found anything about peryn sale other than his mention in the paston letters i figured it would be safer to assume he was a fairly common solder and not someone with a rich crossbow especially as the pastons had to apparently obtain armor for him croniques abregies commençans au temps de herode antipas david aubert bibliothèque nationale de france bibliothèque de l arsenal ms 5089 réserve fol 253r 1476 designing the tiller was straightforward as there seem to be few variations in the visual sources or even extants it s straight and almost sharply rectangular with the exception of the neck which has a curved cutout on the bottom it s also thinner than i d like thinking entirely too much about my safety at only two inches 5cm wide at the widest part at the nut narrowing to 1 5 inches 3 8cm at the butt that said this is still slightly wider than some extants which are between 1 and 1 5 inches wide at the nut this also conforms to the surviving windlasses which have sockets that fit a tiller with these dimensions building the crossbow while waiting for my steel bow to arrive in the mail i sketched out my tiller and began the basic woodworking for a basic design and some useable dimensions i highly recommend sir ralph payne galloway s the book of the crossbow you can even find a couple digital copies for free online if you look around i m not diving that deep in this article as to list all of the measurements so start with that and then find some extants in museums like the met or if you can get your hands on jens sensfelder s book crossbows in the royal netherlands army museum that will provide some excellent details while much ink has been spilled discussing the merits and faults of galloway s book the dimensions he provided for one heavy crossbow are very much real and can be super useful to see what an original crossbow looked like especially if like me you live in the us and don t have easy access to a lot of originals via museums alchem s ske...