Notes Section VI
| 1. | A lever for bending the steel bow of an arbalist. |
| 2. | Arte de Ballesteria y Monteria en Madrid, en la emprenta real, 1644. 4to. Sir S. R. Meyrick, the great antiquarian of our own country, should also be consulted. |
| 3. | Antiq. Gauloises. |
| 4. | Lathe, steel bow. |
| 5. | In a collection of old engravings after Stradia, illustrative of the chase, entitled "Venationes Ferarum," 1562, we see a sportsman shooting in this attitude. |
| 6. | "BOLT IN TUN,"--the sign of a well-known London tavern. Few persons are aware that it represents a crossbowman's target. A tun or barrel of wine, sometimes of ale, being set upon a wooden horse, the shooter aimed at the bung, which was rubbed over with chalk. If his arrow pierced it, he had the liquor, and sometimes that of many others, for his reward. When properly represented, the sign should be a barrel with an arrow sticking in it. |
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What is the wager? said the Queen, That must I know here: Three hundred ton of Rhenish wine, Three hundred ton of beer; Three hundred of the fattest harts That run on Dallom Lea; &c. Ballad of Queen Katharine. | |
| 7. | A contrivance for bending the steel bow. |
| 8. | This proves the inferiority of the arbalist to the old, and even to the modern, English long bows. He is, indeed, a weak-armed archer who cannot drive a flight-shaft 430 of the paces described in the text. Many a ladies' bow (English I mean), will beat the two last-mentioned distances. |
| 9. | Sir S. R. Meyrick. |
| 10. | Caccie della Campagna di Roma, cioè della Trasteverina, dell' Isola de Latio, &c. &c. Roma, 1548. 4to. |
| 11. | This remark applies only to French and Spanish archery. In England the long bow has ever maintained its superiority. |
| 12. | Although they certainly never shot flying with the crossbow, yet, attached to a MS. copy of the "Marson Rustique du Laboureur des Champs," a work of the fourteenth century, there is a vignette representing a crossbowman aiming at a bird in the air; but it is only a fancy of the engraver. |
| 13. | See Sir S. R. Meyrick's work on armour. |
| 14. | Paris, 4to. 1583. |
| 15. | La fronde has been explained already. The loop, which lies immediately behind it, is slipped over a hook at the moment of drawing down the lever. The stone-bow has also a single bead strained across au iron fork at the end of the stock. With this the marksman covers his game, looking through a small hole made for that purpose in a part of the lock. |
| 16. | Golden Trade, or Discoverie of the River Gambia, 1623, p. 156. |
| 17. | In the thirteenth century they charged 3s. 8d. for an English crossbow, and 1s. 6d. per hundred for its quarrils. Even in this age of gunpowder, we could not purchase such of the former as have survived the corroding tooth of age for twenty times that sum. |
| 18. | Miscreant, unbeliever.--Vinesauf, p. 338. Sir S. R. Meyrick, Ancient Armour. |
| 19. | A fragment of Rufus's oak, is or was preserved in the Litchfield Museum. |
| 20. | Ipse etiam in sylvis, diabolus subhorribili specie Normannis se ostendere, plura eis de rege ab alilis palam locutus est.--Simio Dunelmensis, p. 225. |
| 21. | Ailredus Rievalliensis.--Ord. Vital., p. 780. |
| 22. | This scene and this mode of forest hunting are well elucidated in the Book of King Modus, p. 217. of this work. |
| 23. | Walpole's Historic Doubts. |
| 24. | Book of King modus, p. 220. |
| 25. | Ord. Vital. Henric. Knighton, p. 2573. |
| 26. | "A good marksman deserves good arrows" "Justum est ut illi acutis simæ dentur sagittæ, qui letiferos exinde noverit ictus configere."--Ibid. |
| 27. | See Book of King Modus, p. 217. |
| 28. | "Cum arcu et sagittâ in menu expectanti."--Henric. Knighton, Ord Vital. p. 2373. |
| 29. | "Sed fracta corda, cervus de sonitu quasi attonitus, restitit, circumcirca respiciens."--Ibid. |
| 30. | Shoot, Walter, shoot I as if it were the devil. Trahe, trahe arcum, experte diaboli.
Henric Knyghton, p. 2374. |
| 31. | In the face of all this, the Abbot of Seguin, prime minister of Louis le Gros, who wrote a life of Louis VII., relates that Tyrrel positively assured him he had not seen Rufus on the day he was killed.--Sir S. R. Meyrick. |
| 32. | I believe some of them reside there still. |
| 33. | "In the meantime Lord Stourton's men went to the pasture of William Hartgill, took his riding gelding, carried him to Stourton Park pales, and shot him with a crossbow, reporting that Hartgill had been hunting in his lordship's park upon that gelding."--Trial of Lord Stourton for murder of the Hartgills. |
| 34. | November, 1792. This periodical frequently contains very interesting papers on the ancient and modern history of the bow. |
| 35. | Page 65. |
| 36. | The forker is a bifurcated arrow. |
| 37. | Killed at the battle of Mauvilla, where an arrow pierced his eye, and came out at the back of his head. |
| 38. | See p. 233. |
| 39. | See Page 592. |