"Li charpentiers, ki emprès vindrent, Granz coignies en lor mains tindrent: Doloères è besaguës Orent à lor costez pendues."--_Line_ 11,650.
The Sling of this time may be seen, though rudely drawn, in the group from Add. MS. 14,789, copied in our woodcut No. 37. Compare also cuts 12 and 50. The Javelin is found at the close of the eleventh century; in the hands of the English in the Bayeux tapestry, and in the French manuscript, Harl. 603, fol. 60. In the twelfth century it seems to have fallen into discredit among these nations, though probably employed to a much later period by the Spaniards[219], with whom it was always a favourite weapon, and by those races who had retained the rough fashions and the heroic traditions of their Old-Northern ancestry.
The Long-bow was of the most simple construction: it appears frequently in the Bayeux tapestry, (Plates XIII., XV. and XVI.;) in the cotemporary manuscript, Harleian 603, and in many monuments of the twelfth century. The arrows are usually barbed. A curious variety of the arrow is seen in the Spanish codex, Addit. MSS. 11,695, written in 1109. This missile, which is frequently represented in the volume, has three pairs of barbs, fixed at a little distance from each other along the shaft; a cruel contrivance, which does not seem to have reached other nations of Europe, and, we may hope, was not long in vogue within the Pyrennees. Already in the twelfth century the English began to evince that skill in archery which afterwards gave them such celebrity. At the siege of Messina by Cœur-de-Lion, as we learn from Richard of Devizes, the Sicilians were forced to leave their walls unmanned, "because no one could look out of doors, but he would have an arrow in his eye before he could shut it." The king himself did not disdain occasionally to use the bow. When before the castle of Nottingham, which had been seized by "Earl John," the monarch, says Roger of Hoveden, "took up his quarters near the castle, so that the archers therein pierced the king's men at his very feet. The king, incensed at this, put on his armour, and commanded his troops to make an assault upon the castle; on which a sharp conflict took place, and many fell on both sides. The king himself slew one knight with an arrow, and having at last prevailed, drove back his enemies into the castle, took some outworks which had been thrown up without the gates, and destroyed the outer gates by fire[220]."