hello all, I am looking for sources on weaponry of the middle ages, specifically the use of slings, even if only by shepherds or what, as long as there is some sort of literature on it... anyone? otherwise i could use info on trebuches

to peanutchewslurpy...

how many slings have been found from say great britain after 1400? what about writings or stories?

what was more popular, slings or trebuches? did "arthur" use slings? how accurate was a shepherd sling? 

who is british? ask your great grand-dads if anyone would hunt rabbits or deers with slings.

ummm... what did slings have to do with history? how much is recorded?

History of the Northern Peoples, by Olaus Magnuss is a good source for late period slings. It was written in the late 1500's.

other than that, slings only get casual mentions in most history books. This is because of it not being considered a "noble " weapon. Knights and other nobility would not have used it.

[quote]Breaking a knight's neck? Unseating him? I have my doubts. Plate armor (including helms) was very thick, and all secured together to prevent such things from happening[/quote]

Well working on the principle that knights - being on horses are very conspicuous targets and at close range - less than 100 yards - stones weighing over 1lb can be slung accurately with real force. It's doable :-)
Get on a horse in plate armour and let me try and knock you off ;-) I reckon I can do it lol

Had  a series of similiar discussions last year with someone who 1) claimed big axes were unpractical because he couldn't use one and 2) that an armoured knight was more than  a match in a hand to hand contest with an unarmoured fighter.
It all boils down to the individual - I can use a big axe. And if you can't move faster than a knight in full armour - you deserve to be chopped up ;-)

But as for slings in common use in england - there is no mention in any tales or legends or records. They just don't seem to have been commonly used here and do seem to have been entirely replaced by the bow or not used in the first place. The only remnants in museums date from roman periods. Which tells you something :-)


[quote]The word 'British' typically covers England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, etc. Most of the English I've spoken to don't like being called English and prefer British, for some reason.
[/quote]
Which is odd as pretty much all the english I've met (and I live here ;-) tend to object to being lumped in with the welsh and irish :-)
English and british are two different identities. You'll find that the welsh, scots (particularly the scots) and the irish will tell you the same. You're english first and british second. And if you're scottish - well you're scottish, many of them object to the british label at all :-)

these days british tends to cover anyone born in the isles - indian, pakistani, west indian, bengali etc
The trend is very definitely towards british as a second identity and whatever ethnic background you own as your first identity.

So lumping celts and gaels in with the angles and the saxons - very bad idea, they were all very seperate peoples with different customs and cultures and weapons.
I suppose the picts might have used slings but, again I don't think there is any concrete evidence.

[quote]Plus, they're both essentially the same thing; a trebuchet is just a giant sling.
[/quote]
Nope - not having that :-). A sling is a man portable weapon consisting of two cords and a pouch - it can be made with very little skill. While trebuchets share the same principles - trebuchets require complex carpentry knowlege, are true artillery weapons, expensive to both make and maintain. You might say that a .22 pistol and a 50mm self propelled gun are the same thing as they both use the same principle. Or that a two handed sword is the same as a small knife because they both use the same principle.

Just because siege weapons are used it does not indicate that hand slings are also used - and vice versa.
Slings fell out of use in military terms very very quickly. You can train a man to fire a crossbow reasonably accurately in about 10 minutes. It takes years to be as accurate with a sling. A bow takes slightly longer to learn to use acceptably - a day or so.
So while bows and crossbows were more expensive to make, they could be used by everyone with minimal training. If your crossbowman died, someone else could pick up the weapon and continue. Not so with a slinger. He dies - you lose his weapons firepower.

Also personal weapons like bows were often held by the soldier, who was also a peasant. so slings also fell out of use domestically as bows took over.

the average joe was a militia man. He had no choice. As for afford a bow. Many probably made their own. Quality would have varied, but there were a lot more trees back then (in spades !) and wood was cheap :-)
The best would most likely have been provided by their squire and remained the squire's property.

It is a mistake to think of peasants as individuals. They were pretty much all owned and owed allegiance to one squire or another. squires in turn owed allegaince to a more powerful lord and so on.
But the peasants had very little choice in how their lives were lived.

hi casual universe

here are some links that might be of use:

http://www.chrisharrison.net/projects/sling/index.html

http://www.mnemosyne.org/mia/search

by this last one type "sling"in the search area and you will get a lot of midievel paintings from slings

hope this is helpfull

[quote]Remember that all these ranged weapons in the middle ages were used like we use machine gun fire: against massed targets[/quote]

Which of course depends on the skill of the slinger. There is absolutely no reason why slingers could not also have been used as snipers, concentrating on a particular knight or commander. 

Also bear in mind it's much easier to sneak around with a lsing than it is to sneak around with a longbow. So it's probable that slingers were used as ambush troops as well.

Please stop making these sweeping assumptions based on your own levels of skill.

[quote author=curious_aardvark link=1181444384/0#12 date=1183375855][quote]Remember that all these ranged weapons in the middle ages were used like we use machine gun fire: against massed targets[/quote]

Which of course depends on the skill of the slinger. There is absolutely no reason why slingers could not also have been used as snipers, concentrating on a particular knight or commander.[/quote]

Of course, slings could be used for precision shooting. I was merely decribing he normal military application in a pitched battle. There are few historical accounts of precision fire by slings or bows. Davids duel against Goliath comes to mind, but this was a legendary fight, and even the bible presents it as an unusual victory obtained with the help of god. There is also the legend about King Harold getting killed by an arrow at Hastings (1066), but this is historically unclear. Celtic Irish legends are full of precision slinging: Lugh killed Balor of the Evil Eye with a sling. Queen Medb was killed by a sling missile cast by the vengeful Furbaide while bathing, and so on.

However, I couldn't find any real-world account of sling sniping.