Heroic Dreams - All Things Medieval

I write and read a lot of stuff about siege engines and one things I have noticed - Maybe you have too is that there is some discrepancy in the naming of these engines of war. It is a rather interesting little quirk that has developed over the centuries and it comes down to something rather interesting.

You have to think about the fact that there were as many different variations of siege engine as there were engineers who made them throughout the past two or three thousand years. And these variations were further influenced by cultural differences and the different needs of the armies that used them. Remember that people didn’t always live in stone fortresses so the need to throw big rocks wasn’t always there.

One of the biggest ways that we know about these search engines is from the writings and drawings of clerics and monks who catalogued and transcribed much of what we know today about medieval times. And much of this translation was from Latin and other languages. To top it off, monks and clerics are usually not experts in the art of war so they made guesses, and made mistakes when it came to identifying siege machines.

So sometimes a mangonel is really a catapult and a trebuchet is really a mangonel etc…

So what is really what?

Generally, but not always, it comes down to the means of storing the energy for the projectile.

• Trebuchet: Used gravity in the form of a counter weight. Think of it as a see-saw. If you put a heavy weight on one end the other end moves pretty fast (thus throwing a projectile)
• Catapult: Kind of a catch all for any siege machine that doesn’t use gravity but something else for storing energy.
• Mangonel: Generally a catapult that uses twisted ropes or cords to store up the energy
• Ballista: Generally used to describe a siege engine that throws a large bolt like that of a crossbow - But this isn’t always the case!
• Petrary: The word itself means “stone Thrower” so I guess any siege engine could be called a petrary as long as it throws stones

Here are some other interesting names for big siege engines that have been used over the centuries:

algarradas, brigoles, fundae, tormenti, springalds and calibres.

With all these variations in names, styles, energy storage, projectile and what not I propose we rename them all from a different perspective. Instead of naming them according to any of these systems we just name them according to what the people they were used on would think. “Wow, we are so screwed, that is one big a$$ war machine!”

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