Among the weapons in use by the common soldiery are the cultellus, the guisarme, the pike, the bisacuta, the javelin, the sling, the long-bow, the cross-bow, (at the close of the twelfth century,) and some others in which fire was the offensive agent. The Cultellus, or coustel, was a short sword or long dagger, well calculated for use of the foot-troops, rushing upon the knights who had been unhorsed in the charge of the cavalry; and equally well adapted for close fight of foot against foot. A statute of William, king of Scotland, (1165-1214,) shews the identity of the coustel and dagger: "Habeat equum, habergeon, capitium e ferro, et cultellum qui dicitur _dagger_[215]." In the fourteenth century, Knighton has: "Cultellos, quos _daggerios_ vulgariter dicunt, in _powchiis_ impositis[216]." And Walsingham, in the fifteenth century, writes: "Mox extracto cultello, quem _dagger_ vulgo dicimus, ictum militi minabatur[217]." The cultellus, like the sica of classic times, not only became the weapon of the depredator, but gave its name to that class; as we see from a statute of the Count of Toulouse in 1152: "Si quis aliquem hominem malum, quem Cultellarium dicimus, cum cultellis euntem nocte causa furandi occiderit, nullum damnum patiatur propter hoc." The Guisarme, which we have already noticed in the previous chapter, was still in favour in the twelfth century, and is frequently mentioned by the writers of this period. A striking passage of the _Philippidos_ brings before us a rich group of the weapons of this day:-- "Nunc contus, nunc clava caput, nunc vero bipennis Excerebrat: sed nec bisacuta, sudisve vel hasta Otia vel gladius ducit."--_Page_ 213. The contus and the sudis of these lines are pikes, of which the particular difference from each other would be a vain enquiry for our times. The clava (mace) and bipennis have been already noticed. The Bisacuta appears to have been an arm of the pick kind. Père Daniel cites from a French poet who lived in 1376, these lines:-- "Trop bien faisoit la besaguë Qui est par les deux becs aguë."--_Mil. Franç._, i. 433. The phrase, _deux becs_, seems to indicate a form of the kind we have mentioned, and the exact structure of the weapon is perhaps presented to us in the well-known brass of Bishop Wyvil, at Salisbury[218]. A letter remissory of the fourteenth century appears to confirm this view: "Le dit Hue d'un gran _martel_ qu'il portoit, appellé besague, getta au dit Colart," &c. The head of the martel-d'armes was constantly, on one or both sides, of this pick or beak form. The besague was also a carpenter's tool. Thus Wace, on the invasion of England by the Normans, tells us:-- "Li charpentiers, ki emprès vindrent, Granz coignies en lor mains tindrent: Doloères è besaguës Orent à lor costez pendues."--_Line_ 11,650.