Catapults versus Trebuchets

[Sean Manning]

Of course, most of the standard history of catapults (the one I criticize in chapter 6 of my PhD thesis) is based on one passage in Diodorus and another passage in one of the manuals for catapult-makers, both written hundreds of years after the events they describe (and Diodorus' history of siege engineering is as partisan as the grape farmer's history of land warfare).  Ancient bow artillery, for example, is known from a single manuscript, but it was probably the most common type in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE.  And the material culture in that manuscript is, at first look, perfect for 1411, its not the usual "20-40 year old stuff so they will know this is olden times."

So I find those manuscripts good evidence that there were one-armed skein catapults in Austria in 1411, but I would like to see supporting evidence such as an account with an entry "100 stones for springalds, 12 s. 2000 bolts for arbalests, 20 s."  Weak evidence is not no evidence.

Could you explain how a cast bronze washer was "was well known in antiquity, but was hardly possible in the Late Middle Ages"? This is a culture that produced clocks, automata, giant guns and bells, and suits of articulated steel armour, they could do mechanics.

And if it made sense to experiment with two-armed torsion engines in the 13th century, even though they had trebuchets and great crossbows, why wouldn't it make sense to experiment with one-armed engines in 1411, even though they had trebuchets and great crossbows and guns? Saying that we have some evidence for a type of machine in the 15th century is not saying that it existed a century earlier or that it was common.