The Heavy Medieval Crossbow & Pavise: A Deadly Duo

Hi my name's Kevin Hicks, welcome to the History Squad. Now today we're out on location, one of my favorite shooting spots, the sandpit here. This is great for me because there's a bit of a safety zone around it. Now I brought out the beast. This was gifted to me by a chap called Dave Roberts many years ago down near Southampton. This is a windless crossbow, a heavyweight crossbow. If I remember correctly it was over 700 pounds raw weight and I hate it. In fact when I was at Warwick I first shot this for Dave because he hated it too. It's a beast but if you go back into the medieval times the crossbowmen were quite something. I'm actually dressed as a crossbowman in the service of the King of France. It's very difficult for me as an Englishman to actually do this but what I wanted to show you was first of all the crossbow. So let's have a look. I was always warned by Dave never fire this or never shoot it should I say unless you're wearing a helmet and I said why? He said well if that snaps it'll come around and crush your head. That's how dangerous these things can be. So I've got a helmet but I'm not wearing this at the moment. Let's put it down and bring this into view. Right it's fitted with the windlass. You wind put your foot in the stirrup down below there and you wind him up. As you're winding it up you must ensure you hit the back of the trigger push the nut forward and then it will engage but I'm not going to do that until I'm ready to shoot. As I say this whole thing when it's loaded up there's hundreds upon hundreds of pounds draw weight and if you want the truth I don't like it. I'd rather shoot a rocket than shoot this but I'm doing it especially for you. So I'm going to unhook the windlass and bring him down clip off the hooks which in itself is awkward it's not easy yeah there's one there we go right so that's undone now once this is off it's in danger of getting tangled up so I'd hand it to my reloader or to my pavisseur. I'll explain about the other guys in a minute so I'm just going to very gently lay it down try not to tangle it up so that I can show you the crossbow itself. Here it is without the winding mechanism this is a heavyweight late medieval crossbow it has a steel bow before then they weren't steel they were some of them were composite a mixture of leather wood and horn then before then they were wood until going all the way back to the Chinese apparently they had great big bows of wood and this one it's it's a killer without a doubt right now the wooden prod as you can see it's really heavy I'm not sure what this one is I think it's oak if you want the truth you have a groove here which is often waxed where the bolt actually sits bolt in English quarrel in French and we actually say go pick a quarrel so your bow string I'm not sure because I've never replaced this one but there's probably over a hundred yards of triple thread in this and this is the nut when it's loading it's put there the string passes over it and it locks the trigger now or the lever is there just to release it the bow itself is held in with these steel wedges to brace the whole thing and if you look it's marked just here in front of the stirrup to make sure you've got it right these have to be regularly checked this one's a heavy steel one the stirrup itself means that you can actually put the crossbow down put your foot into it and steady it you then put all of the winding mechanism on wind him up click and then you can shoot him if you look at it the other way all this is is a simple lever that's on a v spring as you pull him in the nut releases when you push him out it actually locks so it is a very crude trigger these are difficult to shoot they're not straightforward they're not a light crossbow that you can shoot from a horse these well if you want to be one of these crossbowmen you've got to be a member of a team now i'm wearing the french colors difficult for me i know being an englishman but the french had lots of crossbowmen and it was the french who hired the genoese crossbowman and the genoese have to be the most famous crossbowman of all time in the west now because this beast as i keep calling it of a crossbow is so heavy and hard to use you have to have a bit of protection on the battlefield voila this is a pavis or should i say it's kevin he's made a model of a pavis this is half inch wood it's got a central spine that allows you to have a wooden stake which i've hammered into the ground they were quite beautiful when they they were decorated i've just done this in the fleur de lis of france so the way it works with a pavis fair enough if you've got a little crossbow or a smaller crossbow you can carry a pavis on your back when you're reloading you can turn around offer your back to the enemy hey that's pretty neat isn't it if you've got the great big crossbow as i've got and then the enormous pavis you operate in a team of three and this is what the genoese crossbowmen were specialists at the pavis pavis you've got this guy who hammers the stake in steadies the pavis he has a spear so he is there also to defend you then you have your reloader who will have your second crossbow you will then take a shot having loaded you then turn you're handed a loaded crossbow bang another crossbow bang you are continually shooting loaded crossbows if you're tired if you're injured you take over the loading the loader comes and he shoots but if you have five thousand of these crossbowmen with these pavis and they are trained and they know how to use them you can advance to contact as we used to say in the british army you move towards the enemy you advance to contact these guys have got the pavis to stand behind to kneel behind to reload in comparative safety but once this is loaded it has a little nook in it there now i've got to be careful i would have to hammer that in a bit more but this would enable me oh gosh yeah it really does make a stable platform oh well it really does stabilize it that is quite something yeah easier than standing holding it i can tell you right so this is the first time i've ever shot behind a pavis so i'm going to load here so you can see it my foot's in and i can tell you now you kind of feel the whole thing bracing up and you really do have to watch as you're winding everything up that it doesn't tangle as it goes over the nut the nut should lock got it now don't forget my pavis would now be reloading i'm stepping in knocking him on there's that little groove there's my target over there let's have a see how she goes put a bolt on it i mean see if we can hit it the wind's blowing it it's amazing how the pavis changes the whole business of shooting a heavyweight crossbow first of all it's stable as i got down behind it i felt as if i could hold it like a machine gun and to my surprise i was above the target i'm close range i've got 30 40 yards i think you need to be 100 yards away to be able to shoot this and i can't do that at the moment here we'll have a look later on see what i can figure out but it really does open your eyes those crossbowmen of old with their pavis they really knew what they were doing and you've got to look at the genoese see how they trained how they formed their core to understand how the heavyweight crossbowman worked so when you take the genoese crossbowman this professional core of crossbowman the first crusade they proved themselves incredible the siege of jerusalem the third crusade jaffa that was 1192 now the way these guys worked they had their pavis their pavisure their reloader but they advanced to contact as i mentioned one lot moved forward then another lot leap frog until eventually that close to the enemy they can just charge they were not just crossbowmen they were heavy assault troops and that's quite something also they were all trained in genoa in northern italy in fact most of their recruits came from that area parva corsica milan all around there in fact i don't think they did come from milan i think the milanese had their own crossbowman oh my goodness me could there be a little bit of argy bargy there now as their reputation grew as mercenary cores that could be hired out in europe it was said if you capture a genoese crossbowman from the other side cut his fingers off so he can't shoot at us again oh i've heard that before cut their fingers off on the asian core and the french are saying they're going to cut off the english bowman's fingers well kind of resonates a little bit with me so leaving the genoese who by the way continued on to fight up into the 16th century the crossbowman every castle in england scotland ireland wales all throughout christendom over into the middle east had crossbows the crossbows are fantastic to shoot through the crossbow slits through the arrow slits i've done many of them at the siege of lincoln the crossbow was king and at dover castle just round to the side i did a documentary years ago where i shot through the specially made crossbow tower and that was brilliant because you got three apertures and three crossbowmen could shoot out of this one slit there are different angles and it's most amazing and of course if you're laying siege to the castle you have your pavise or you have your trenches and all that and you can take your time and shoot at the castle accurately with your crossbows one of my favorite crossbow pieces from a book bernard cormore where you have the blackbird shooting down from the castle and it does reflect that everybody knew about crossbows in england knew how to use them come the war of the roses you have the paston family out in norfolk the wife writes to the husband who's in london on business when you come back fetch back some crossbows i'm having trouble with the neighbors you can read those papers and read about the crossbows so in england medieval periods coming towards an end we have the wars of the roses lots of crossbowmen fighting in those different battles it's often overlooked in english history you know the longbowmen they are the the king but in fact without the crossbow you couldn't defend a castle you couldn't lay siege to a castle in fact the crossbow to me is as important as the longbow it just depends how and where you use it so for me this is difficult by the time i hooked it up wound him on and locked the nut and the string together i reckon i've taken about a minute and then i've got to undo the windlass put on a crossbow bolt and take aim and shoot so for kevin about a minute a minute and a half but your professionals they were doing it as a team and if you were behind a castle wall you can have a loaded crossbow just standing by you can be helping each other and it will take far less but you imagine going back to those genoese two men one loading one shooting you'd need a barrel full of crossbow bolts and there's just an interesting thing i found out when i was working at warwick castle crossbow bolts are kept by their thousands down in the cellars and they have a man who or a boy whose job it is to open up the cupboards and the barrels and the boxes and turn the crossbow bolts make sure they don't get damp make sure they don't get wet so it's more to this being a crossbowman than meets the eye complicated equipment good crossbow bolts i do know that a crossbowman would have his own sheaf 24 crossbow bolts but he will have no good and i actually do that i shoot a dozen crossbow bolts if they stick in the target great if they miss it's the bolt it's got nothing to do with me well i hope you enjoyed that video it's a little bit windy out here but if you did enjoy like share and subscribe and if you'd like to support the channel further why not have a look at joining our patreon community we do have some fun and before i go any further it's written down in front of me i have a shout out for some of our patreon members dan descenso martin hands and how about this one king henry book clerk hey guys thanks a million bye for now