Identifier: gri_33125008050011 (find matches)
Title: Military and religious life in the Middle Ages and at the period of the Renaissance
Year: 1870 (1870s)
Authors: Jacob, P. L., 1806-1884
Subjects: Middle Ages Civilization, Medieval Civilization, Renaissance Costume Military art and science Christian life
Publisher: London : Bickers & Son
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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anuscript of the Fourteenth Century (Library of M. Amhroise Firmin-Didot). tected by mantlets stuck in the ground, drove away with their arrowsany of the defenders who attempted to show themselves above the parapetsor at the loopholes. If the siege, in spite of the efforts of the besiegers, promised to be a longone, a blockade was the sole remaining means of reduction, though this was a WAJR AND ARMIES. 67 thing difficult to carry out with forces which were not permanent, and whichwere generally far from numerous. It therefore became necessary for thebesieger to protect his approaches by wooden, earthen, or even stone works,constructed under cover of the night, and solid and lofty enough to enablehis archers to aim right on to the battlements of the besieged place.Wooden towers, several stories high, were also frequently resorted to, puttogether piece by piece at the edge of the moat, or constructed out of bow-shot, and subsequently rolled on wheels to the foot of the walls (Fig. 59).
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Fig. 60.—Siege of a Town: Summons to lay down the arms and open the gates.—From aCopperplate in the Kreigshuch of Fronsperger. At the siege of Toulouse, in 1218, a machine of this kind was built by theorder of Simon de Montfort, capable of accommodating, according to theballad of the Albigeois, five hundred men. When the missiles hurled from the higher stories of these towers—termedehattes in the south, chats, chateaux, bretesches, in the north—had driven thebesieged from their ramparts and battlements, a movable bridge was loweredacross the moat, and a hand-to-hand struggle then took place (Fig. 59). Thebesieged, to prevent or retard the approach of these dreaded towers, were b8 WAR AND ARMIES. accustomed to hurl immense stones and lighted darts against them, or toundermine or inundate the ground on which they stood, so that their ownweight might cause them to topple over. Besides the means we have just described, there still remained the sapand the mine. Miners, equipped wit

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