Medieval Crossbow Spanning Devices - The Gaffle and the Wooden Lever

This video shows two crossbow spanning devices that first appeared at the end of the Middle Ages - the gaffle or goat's foot and the wooden push lever.
0:00 Intro
0:45 What about the goat's foot?
1:36 Gaffle or Goat's foot
4:30 Wooden spannig lever

[@piero1964]

welcome back Andereas! we had to wait a while but the new video is fantastic! finally some attention also for the southern part of the Holy Roman Empire! I also have a reproduction crossbow made in Italy, but to be honest, using it gives me a little discomfort on the cheek with its squared profile, I feel more at ease with the rounded profile of the typical Central European crossbow....
greetings from Liguria!

[@markcorrigan3930]

you are back

[@alternator7893]

3:39 up until today, I had only seen that type of goats foot lever on books. I believe this is the first video on UA-cam of someone actually using it 😮

[@Man_fay_the_Bru]

No, Todd’s workshop has had many videos about these, he makes them& sells them

[@alternator7893]

@@Man_fay_the_Bru i meant like the one specifically used at 3:40, were instead of resting the crossbow on your hip and pulling on the gaffle, you rest the gaffle on your hip and pull on the crossbow. The reverse of how goats foot levers are usually used. Until now, I had only seen depictions of those goats foot levers in a book called: “A deadly art: European crossbows” by Dirk H. Breiding

[@leeho8746]

@@alternator7893不，有一个俄罗斯频道在几个月前就上传了如此上弦的视频

[@MrShinyObject]

Thank you so much for covering the goat's foot! I wasn't expecting you to, but I'm glad you did, as it was very informative. I always loved the design (in both senses of the word, visually and mechanically) but I understand that it was probably a late invention. The wood spanning one always looks so awkward to use, but I totally understand it as a simple crossbow spanner.

[@lscibor]

Windlass spanned crossbows ("arbalète à tour") were likely known at least as early as 13th century.
Book of deeds of James of Aragon, (supposedly autobiographical, so written no later than in the 1270s) tells us about one of those being used during the siege somewhere around 1230 - Saracens dug counter tunnel and stormed the tunnel of the besiegers - but someone carried the crossbow in there, and shoot trough two Saracens and their shields at once.
It clearly had to be very powerful crossbow, and likely a war machine, not personal weapon, but still portable enough to be carried to the tunnel, even if with great difficulty. Probably some kind of huge wall crossbow.
Kinda surprising that all those levers are more Renaissance than medieval, since they are very handy.
But I guess belt with a hook was just way less cumbersome, since if it was at your waist, you didn't have to worry about carrying it. And with sufficient strength and training, allowed to span pretty powerful bows, likely.

[@guntherhuemer1767]

" shoot trough two Saracens and their shields at once" that´s my friend, is sraight impossible😀

[@PeregrinTintenfish]

Some believe that early windlass crossbows were spanned using a bench or a giant lever, and were quite big. The types of windlass crossbows where the windlass is attached to the tiller only show up later.

[@medievalcrossbows7621]

You are right - Winches were actually used as early as the 13th century, but these were large, stationary spanners. You can see such a wooden windlass in my first video about spanning devices ;-)

[@lscibor]

@@PeregrinTintenfish Yes, it's quite probable that those early winches for crossbows were some entirely stationary., or at least very cumbersome contraptions. Andreas claimed so too, dunno if he retracted his comment, or it's just YT glitching.
Still, ability to span such a powerful crossbow anywhere you go certainly was tempting, I wonder when first serious attempts occurred.

[@lscibor]

@@guntherhuemer1767
Well, I don't know why are you so sure.
You have countless accounts of modern hunters shooting completely trough, (to the point the arrow is lost somewhere in the woods), whitetail deer with arrow carrying as little as ~40 J of kinetic energy. Modern arrows, with very stiff, yet thin aluminium or carbon fiber shafts, and very sharp blades obviously likely carry and advantage over traditional ones, but still people achieve same feats with flint arrowheads, sometimes.
You have evidence of very large crossbows easily achieving 400J, on this very YT channel.
And those crossbows by Andreas are still of pretty ordinary size, you have few much larger wall/rampart crossbows preserved in museums. For example Erfurt bow is about 2.5m wide/long.
So with two light shields, first man hit trough the stomach, and with proper bolt (say, 500J with thin and very sharp head somewhere between bodkin and leaf in shape) I can easily see this happen.

[@ArbaletesduLimousin]

Your crossbows are awesome ! As well as the quality of your films !

[@roman_sudneko]

Thank you for sharing!

[@Ostarrichi996]

Gute Videoqualität und Präsentation. Zudem sehr schön gefertigte Armbrüste. Grüße aus dem Bgld

[@botavictor5832]

Beautiful!, I do love your intro :)

[@aleksanderuzelac3319]

Welcome back

[@martinbuchinger6946]

Ausgezeichnete Arbeit, wie immer!!!

[@medievalcrossbows7621]

Danke 🙂

[@Cahirable]

Do you know when the gaffle first appears in the written sources? At least with armour, it's very rare for something to show up in the art before it shows up in the written sources, and sometimes written sources can predate the visual record by more than fifty years.

[@medievalcrossbows7621]

That is indeed a good question - unfortunately we don't know what it was called in the individual languages. In English written sources, the "gaffle" only appears from the early 16th century onwards.

[@Cahirable]

@@medievalcrossbows7621 I'm really not across the sources the way I should be, but I don't think I've seen a reference before 1420 (the "besta de garrucha" in Ordenações Afonsinas, Livro 1 cap. LXXI, p492), which is only a tentative identification ("garrucha" deriving from the French "garroc/garrot" meaning "lever"). I was curious if you'd managed to find anything prior to this, but I'm also not surprised. I think I've read somewhere that the baffle first originated in Spain/Portugal, so it's only natural it would take time to reach Central Europe.

[@SB-qm5wg]

I sub'ed purely on the channel name 😆

[@killerkraut9179]

After my knowledge the earlyest depiction of a goats foot leaver is from Diebold Schilling anno 1478-1483!

[@medievalcrossbows7621]

hm - I don't know it.....

[@killerkraut9179]

@@medievalcrossbows7621 i think its Folio 67!

[@medievalcrossbows7621]

@@killerkraut9179 hm, can`t find it on this folio....

[@killerkraut9179]

@@medievalcrossbows7621
Links unten der Blonde vor dem Zelt mit der Armbrust!
Die Zeichnung ist nicht so toll!

[@medievalcrossbows7621]

@@killerkraut9179 Ah, jetzt aber - das ist eindeutig eine Winde. Deutlich zu sehen der Windbausch hinter der Abzugsstange ;-)

[@ethanpeeler3147]

How common were sinew backed crossbows? Were they ever used just wood and sinew or always horn, wood, and sinew? I have access to a lot of juniper which performs very well sinew backed.

[@medievalcrossbows7621]

In principle, all variants were represented. Until the 15th century, pure wooden bows, wood and sinew combinations and, of course, the elaborate horn bow were used.

[@guntherhuemer1767]

die armbrust bei 5:00 , hast du Maße des bogens für mich?

[@medievalcrossbows7621]

Länge 980mm, Querschnitt Mitte 40x30mm mit Sehnenbacking

[@guntherhuemer1767]

@@medievalcrossbows7621 wow! was für ein holz hast du genommen?

[@medievalcrossbows7621]

@@guntherhuemer1767 Esche

[@guntherhuemer1767]

@@medievalcrossbows7621 Hast du Stauchrisse? wie viel zuggewicht hat der bogen?

[@medievalcrossbows7621]

@@guntherhuemer1767 nein keine Risse, Zuggewicht ca 120kg