Stone shot, which had been used in machines for countless centuries, were on trial for cannon in France in 1346;[511] and, unless a ballad written about this time refers to machines and not to guns, we employed them at the siege of Calais the same year:— “Gonners to schew their art Into the town in many a parte Schot many a fulle great stone. Thanked be God and Mary mild, They hurt neyther man, woman, nor child; To the houses, though, they did harm.”[512] Stone shot were in use in Italy in 1364,[513] and in 1378 Richard II. ordered 600 stones to be bought for the cannon in the castle of Brest.[514] They were employed more or less in England and elsewhere until the Great Rebellion, and possibly even later. The earliest mention of iron shot, perhaps, is that in the Arderne MSS., say 1350;[515] although we should not be justified in inferring from it that they were then in actual use. There were 928 iron shot in the arsenal of Bologna in 1381,[516] but iron seems to have been sparingly employed until the time of Charles VIII. of France, 1483-98.[517] The only iron projectiles mentioned by (or, we may infer, known to) the authors of the Berlin Firebook, 1400-50,[518] and of the _Tractatus de Pugnaculis_ of the same period preserved in the Hof-Bibliothek at Vienna,[519] are iron bullets for handguns. When used against troops in wooden buildings, &c., they both recommend that the balls should be heated red-hot Hot (cannon) balls were introduced much later, in 1579, by Stephen Bathory, King of Poland.[520] It was a simple matter to discharge hot projectiles from a machine, but a delicate operation to load a gun with them without exploding the charge. In fact, it was impracticable until the thick wet wad had been devised. It appears from Petrarch’s _De Remediis Utriusque Fortunæ_,[521] which must have been written in or before 1344, that bronze shot—_glandes æneas_—were then in use among the Italians; and Valturio mentions bronze shells—_pilæ æneæ_—in his work, which, although not published until 1472, was already written in 1463.[522] A document, dated 29th April 1345, proves that the French were employing lead shot at this time;[523] and the accounts of Robert de Mildenhale, Keeper of Edward III.’s Wardrobe, show that we sent to Calais on the 1st and 2nd September 1346, 73 large leaden shot, 31 small shot, and 6 pieces of lead.[524] Finally, the accounts of John de Sleaford, Clerk of the King’s Privy Wardrobe, prove that in 1372-74 workmen were employed in the Tower in making leaden “pelottes” for guns.[525] In a battle at Taro, 1491, the Venetians are said to have fired upon the French with shot of all three metals—iron, bronze, and lead.[526]