There is frequent mention of firearms in German and Italian “chronicles” late in the first half of the fourteenth century, but these references are invariably characterised by extreme vagueness. Froissart frequently alludes to cannon, and says that these weapons were used by the besieged at Cambray in 1339;[47] his remarks concerning them are quite casual, and convey the impression that he attached very little importance to them. A French MS. of about 1338, in the Republican Library at Paris, mentions ordnance. This occurs in an account of the war treasurers, “To Henri de Vaumechon for buying powder and other necessaries for cannon;” and a year later reference is made to cannon in the Archives of Bruges, “niewen enginen di men heet ribaude.” The statement of Villani, so often repeated, that artillery was in operation at the battle of Creçy, in 1346, is open to very considerable question, as it is tolerably certain that there were no field-pieces so early, or indeed any cannon whatever that could be moved about to any useful purpose in a battle. Froissart makes no mention of any used in campaigning; but he refers to a bombard at the siege of Oudenarde, “the noise of its discharge could be heard five leagues away,” and he also states that bombards and cannon were in operation at the siege of Quesnoy in 1340--“Those of Quesnoy let them hear their cannon,” when huge bolts were used as missiles; and that artillery was in use at the siege of Vannes, both by the besieged and the attacking English.[48] What gave rise to the tradition, if it be one, is probably the fact that Edward III. had established an ordnance factory, for siege guns, two years before the battle. Artillery of this date was quite unsuitable for field operations, and was only employed with other engines, as these examples show, in the reduction of fortified places. Demmin gives a drawing of a breech-loading cannon, open at both ends, strengthened by iron coils, which he states came from the field of Creçy, but we know not on what authority. This weapon was of forged iron, like all the earlier ordnance. Grose, in his _History of the English Army_,[49] cites a MS., which has already been referred to in these pages, giving the force constituting the English army in Normandy and before Calais, in the twentieth year of the reign of Edward III., in which items appear for payments to gunners and artillerymen; but it would seem that their duty consisted in serving siege guns before Calais. Still, why should there be mention of what would appear to be two classes of gunners?