Ancient Armour and Weapons in Europe: From the Iron Period of the Northern Nations to the End of the Thirteenth CenturyHewitt, John
History
Ancient Armour and Weapons in Europe: From the Iron Period of the Northern Nations to the End of the Thirteenth Century
Hewitt, John
Armor; Weapons
In the East, however, the employment of incendiary weapons was
constant, and the variety of them very great. An Arabic treatise of
this century, published in the work named above by MM. Reinaud and
Favé, gives us the most curious information relating to them, and the
interest of the manuscript is heightened by its containing drawings
(somewhat rude, it is true) of the principal instruments and engines
described. From this "Treatise on the Art of Fighting," by Hassan
Alrammah, we learn that the Arabs of the thirteenth century employed
their incendiary compositions in four different ways: they cast them
by hand; they fixed them to staves, with which they attacked their
enemies; they poured forth the fire through tubes; and they projected
burning mixtures of various kinds by means of arrows, javelins,
and the missiles of the great engines resembling the trebuchets
and mangonæ of their Western neighbours. Among these fire-weapons
we have--"Balles de verre; Pots à feu; La Maison de feu; Massue de
guerre; Massue pour asperger; Lance de guerre; Lance à fleurs; Lance
avec massue; La lance avec la flèche du Khatay; Flèches en roseau;
Flèches du mangonneau; Flèches de la Chine; Marmite de l'Irac;
Marmite de Mokharram; Vase de Helyledjeh; Cruche de Syrie (the last
four for the mangonel); L'œuf qui se meut et qui brûle (Captain Favé
takes this to be a projectile on the principle of our rockets); Dard
du Khatay; Des Coupes; Des Volants; Des Lunes," &c.
The vessels of glass and pottery, discharged by hand or by machines,
were so contrived that on striking the object at which they
were aimed, their contents spread around, and the fire, already
communicated by a fusee, enveloped everything within its reach. A
soldier on whose head was broken a fire-mace, became suddenly soaked
with a diabolical fluid, which covered him from head to foot with
flame; and a flame of so terrible a nature that it was believed to
be absolutely inextinguishable. The receipt for making the Massue
de Guerre is given with great particularity: "Tu feras faire par le
verrier une massue, &c. Ensuite tu feras les mélanges usités, &c.
Tu mettras le feu à la massue et tu la briseras pour le service de
Dieu[390]." One of the lances is furnished with a firework "so that
the spear shall burn the enemy, after having wounded him with its
point." Another lance "brulera bien et s' étendra à plus de mille
coudées." It will be remembered that the Arabic superlative is
commonly expressed by "a thousand." What we learn, therefore, is that
this fire-missile was contrived to wound at a distance. In applying
the Massue à asperger, you are to break it against the person of
your antagonist, "but keep out of the current of the wind, lest the
sparks return upon and burn you." The machines for casting forth the
fire-pots and vases of larger dimension bear so close a resemblance
to the trebuchets and mangonas in use by the Christian nations, that
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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