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St. George, by Antonio Pisano-‘Pisanello’ (c.1395 1455). The saint wcars a purely Italian armour of the mid-i5th ccntury. Notę the grcat pauldrons worn over his peculiar coat armour, almost overlapping at the back; and the stop-rib to prevent a lance glancing up on to the neck. His maił shirt is decorated with bands of‘latten’ or gilt links at the sleeves and lower edge. We may presume that his helmet is being carried by a page, so that hc may wear his rather bccoming straw hat. (Rcproduced by courtesy of the Trustees, National Gallery, London)

fired 5cm balls weighing 700gms.

They were stocked in wood, large ones being placed on trestles, smali ones hand-held, and were freąuently mounted on ribaudequins. In Charles the Bold’s reign heavy couleuvrin.es had hooks on the end of the barrel (couleuorines a croc) to take the recoil when shooting from ramparts. They were later known as arquebuses.

Serpentine

These guns, ideał for the field, appear c. 1430. Morę powerful than couleuorines, they were nonetheless very mobile, and were usually stocked and mounted on carriages with iron-tyred wheels. They were freąuently eąuipped with elevating devices, and were usually breechloading. From three and a half to seven feet long, they had a calibre of between two and six inches.

Couleuvrines a Main (Handguns)

Not to be confused with the true couleuorine, the medieval handgun is the ancestor of the later military musket and rifle. They occur infreąuently up to about 1360, but in 1411 Dukejohn the Good possessed no less than 4,000, and Charles the Bold eąuipped one-third of his infantry with them.

In early times handguns were constructed as small-scale bombards with short, sąuat barrels. The pre-1399 Tannenberg gun in Nuremberg has a barrel length of 16501111 with a borę of 14.501111, while a later i5th-century gun in Nuremberg has a barrel 37511101 long with a borę of 21 mm. The longer barrel allowed morę time for the powder to burn completely before the bullet left the muzzle.

Early handguns had no true stock, but were set on the end of a long wooden stave which was held under the arm while the smouldering match was applied to the vent. At the start of the 15th century two innovations, which ma'y have been simul-taneous, were to transform this erratic mini-cannon into the dominant weapori ofevery Europeąn army up to the present time: the stock'and the serpentine

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