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How Did Early Artillery Actually Change European Warfare? - The Gradual Integration of Gunpowder in Medieval Warfare | Sleepy Facts About History · Sleepy Facts About History

• 0:00
  Welcome to Sleepy Facts About History. The common
• 0:13
  picture of gunpowder in the Middle Ages is one
• 0:15
  of sudden, dramatic rupture. Cannons smashing
• 0:18
  stone walls, armored knights fading into obsolescence,
• 0:22
  and a clean technological line drawn between
• 0:25
  the medieval and modern worlds. But the practical
• 0:29
  realities of how these early weapons were made,
• 0:32
  moved, and funded tell a very different story.
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  This episode examines the slow, expensive and
• 0:40
  often dangerous integration of gunpowder into
• 0:43
  European warfare from the 14th through the 15th
• 0:46
  centuries. Rather than erasing the military world
• 0:50
  into which it arrived, gunpowder had to earn
• 0:53
  its place alongside highly developed siege methods
• 0:56
  like mining, trebuchets and blockade. From the
• 1:01
  unpredictable serpentine powder and the massive
• 1:03
  logistical burden of moving bronze bombards,
• 1:07
  to the evolution of angled fortifications like
• 1:10
  the Très Italienne, the medieval military world
• 1:13
  adapted to the new technology rather than being
• 1:16
  destroyed by it. The episode also explores how
• 1:19
  the enormous cost and organizational demands
• 1:22
  of artillery trains rewarded centralized state
• 1:25
  power, as seen in the French reconquest during
• 1:28
  the Hundred Years' War and the Ottoman siege
• 1:31
  of Constantinople. Some questions sound simple.
• 1:35
  until you try to answer them i kept returning
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  to the sheer difficulty of early gunpowder warfare
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  the fatal risks faced by the gunners the monumental
• 1:47
  administrative effort required to cast and transport
• 1:50
  a single weapon and the clever architectural
• 1:53
  responses that kept castles relevant it is a
• 1:57
  more interesting and accurate picture than a
• 1:59
  sudden revolution revealing how institutions
• 2:02
  and individuals adapted to a dangerous new tool
• 2:05
  under the persistent constraints of cost and
• 2:08
  uncertainty. The bombard that breached Constantinople's
• 2:15
  Theodosian walls in 1453 fired perhaps twice
• 2:18
  a day. It required weeks to haul into position,
• 2:22
  and it was only one element among mines, towers,
• 2:26
  and naval blockades during a 55 -day siege. So
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  the question is not whether gunpowder changed
• 2:32
  European warfare. The question is whether we
• 2:36
  have misunderstood, for centuries, what kind
• 2:39
  of change it actually was. Picture a stone castle
• 2:43
  on a hill in the year 1400. Around it, a besieging
• 2:48
  army has set up trebuchets. These are the massive
• 2:52
  wooden throwing engines with counterweight boxes
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  the size of hay carts. Their sling arms arc through
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  a slow, heavy rotation to hurl stone balls weighing
• 3:02
  200 pounds or more against the walls. There are
• 3:06
  siege towers as well. These are multi -story
• 3:10
  timber structures on wheels, pushed forward by
• 3:13
  gangs of labourers so that attackers can breach
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  from the tower's top directly onto the battlements.
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  Miners are digging beneath the foundations. They
• 3:24
  prop their tunnels with wooden supports that
• 3:27
  they will burn when the moment comes. Archers
• 3:30
  keep the defenders pinned down from behind mantlets
• 3:34
  which are portable wooden screens. The castle
• 3:37
  itself presents layered defenses. There is an
• 3:41
  outer ditch, a curtain wall with crenellations
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  and machicolations for dropping projectiles,
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  a gatehouse with murder holes, and the inner
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  keep beyond. And somewhere in the camp, Perhaps
• 3:54
  off to one side where the ground is slightly
• 3:56
  more level, a crew is loading a black powder
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  charge into a short, thick iron tube. They are
• 4:04
  not the center of attention. They are an experiment.
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  The tube might fire its stone ball with a deafening
• 4:12
  roar and a cloud of sulfurous smoke that drifts
• 4:16
  across the camp and makes horses skittish. Or
• 4:20
  it might burst. killing the crew and ending the
• 4:23
  experiment in a shower of jagged metal this is
• 4:27
  the world into which gunpowder arrived in europe
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  it arrived not as a revolution but as a dangerous
• 4:34
  expensive uncertain newcomer that had to earn
• 4:37
  its place alongside weapons that had worked for
• 4:40
  centuries that is where we need to begin because
• 4:45
  the common picture most of us carry is quite
• 4:47
  different We imagine cannon quickly smashing
• 4:51
  castle walls, making armored knights obsolete,
• 4:54
  and drawing a clean line between the Middle Ages
• 4:57
  and the modern world. The question this episode
• 5:01
  asks is whether that picture is accurate. Did
• 5:04
  gunpowder end medieval warfare? The answer, traced
• 5:09
  through the practical realities of how these
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  weapons were made, moved, paid for, and used,
• 5:15
  is that it did not end anything at a single stroke.
• 5:18
  It changed military practice gradually, unevenly
• 5:22
  and at enormous cost. Much of the medieval military
• 5:26
  world persisted and adapted well into the centuries
• 5:29
  that followed. To understand why, we first need
• 5:33
  to look at where this knowledge came from and
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  what the first European firearms actually were.
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  Gunpowder was not a European invention. The formula,
• 5:44
  saltpeter, charcoal and sulfur, originated in
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  China. There it was used for fireworks, incendiary
• 5:52
  weapons, and eventually explosive projectiles
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  by the 10th and 11th centuries. Norwich travelled
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  westward through the Mongol Empire and Islamic
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  intermediaries, reaching Europe by the 13th century.
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  The earliest European references appear in writings
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  associated with the English Franciscan Roger
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  Bacon around the mid -13th century. Scholars
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  debate whether the passage is encrypted, whether
• 6:21
  the formula was practical, or whether Bacon fully
• 6:25
  understood what he described. The earliest unambiguous
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  European references to gunpowder appear slightly
• 6:32
  later. What matters is that by the early 14th
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  century, Europeans were experimenting with gunpowder
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  weapons. The earliest depiction we have comes
• 6:44
  from a 1326 manuscript by Walter de Millimet.
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  It shows a small vase -shaped pot de fer, a metal
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  tube mounted on a wooden table, firing an arrow
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  -like bolt. It looks crude because it was crude.
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  These first firearms were small, unreliable,
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  and as dangerous to their operators as to anyone
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  in front of them. There are debated references
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  to early canon at the Siege of Metz in 1324 and
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  at the Battle of Crecy in 1346. The evidence
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  is contested and some historians argue these
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  may have been incendiary devices rather than
• 7:25
  true gunpowder artillery. They appeared in a
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  military world that already had highly developed
• 7:31
  methods of siege and battle. Stone castles had
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  been refined over centuries to resist mining,
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  battering and escalade. A well -built castle's
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  curtain walls might be ten feet thick at the
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  base, tapering upward, with foundations dug into
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  bedrock. The trebuchet, perfected in the 13th
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  and 14th centuries, could deliver repeated blows
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  against the same section of wall, eventually
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  creating a breach. Siege towers allowed direct
• 8:01
  assault. Mining and counter -mining turned the
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  ground beneath the walls into a subterranean
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  battlefield. Armies combined armored cavalry
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  with infantry wielding poliums, and with archers
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  or crossbowmen who could deliver massed projectile
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  fire. Siege warfare, in particular, was a sophisticated
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  art involving blockade, starvation, negotiation,
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  mining, and the use of heavy mechanical artillery
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  like the trebuchet. The gunpowder weapon did
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  not arrive into a vacuum. It arrived into a crowded
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  field where it had to prove itself against established
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  alternatives. And that proof was slow in coming.
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  To understand why, we need to examine what it
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  actually took to make these weapons work. The
• 8:54
  first problem was the powder itself. Early European
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  gunpowder was a fine, dry mixture of saltpeter,
• 9:02
  charcoal, and sulfur called serpentine powder.
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  The components separated during transport and
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  handling, making the mixture unpredictable. Sometimes
• 9:12
  it was too weak to fire the projectile properly.
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  Sometimes it was dangerously powerful. Saltpeter
• 9:20
  itself was difficult to source in quantity. It
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  had to be extracted from decaying organic matter
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  in stables, cellars, and manure piles, or leached
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  from soil beneath privies and animal enclosures.
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  Then, boiled down in copper vats. In some regions,
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  it was imported at considerable expense from
• 9:41
  areas where it occurred naturally in cave deposits
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  or evaporite deposits. The work of a powder maker
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  was physically demanding and extraordinarily
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  dangerous. Workshops were typically low wooden
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  buildings with earthen floors lit by rushlights
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  or tallow candles because open flames were too
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  risky. Workers used wooden tools never iron,
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  which might strike sparks. They wore leather
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  aprons that could be stripped off quickly if
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  they caught fire. The smell of sulfur and charcoal
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  dust clung to skin and clothing for days. The
• 10:19
  Feuerwerkbach, compiled around 1400, warns repeatedly
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  about the danger of stray sparks, the proper
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  storage of prepared powder in leather bags or
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  wooden casks, and the symptoms of powder poisoning
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  from prolonged inhalation of the dust. The later
• 10:35
  16th century treatise, the Laporitechnia, by
• 10:39
  Venocchio Byrincuccio, preserves detailed knowledge
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  of powder making and casting. It conveys both
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  the craft expertise and the ever -present risk
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  of catastrophic accident. The breakthrough came
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  in the 15th century with the development of corned
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  powder. The mixture was wetted, pressed into
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  cakes, broken into grains and dried. The grains
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  burned more consistently. delivered more power
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  and did not separate in transit this was not
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  a single moment of discovery but a gradual improvement
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  that made gunpowder weapons significantly more
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  reliable and effective then there was the gun
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  itself early bombards were constructed in two
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  main ways some were built from wrought iron staves
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  long strips of iron hammered into tubes and bound
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  together with iron hoops rather like a barrel
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  made of metal staves. Others were cast in bronze,
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  requiring foundries capable of handling molten
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  metal on a massive scale. Bronze casting for
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  a large bombard was a feat of empirical engineering.
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  A clay core shaped the interior bore, surrounded
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  by a wax model of the gun's exterior, which was
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  in turn encased in a clay mould, when molten
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  bronze was poured in. The wax melted and ran
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  out through channels, leaving the metal to cool
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  and solidify into the barrel shape. Founders
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  learned through catastrophic failure which alloys
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  worked, how thick the walls needed to be, and
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  how to avoid air pockets that weakened the casting.
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  Both methods were expensive, labor -intensive,
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  and prone to failure. A bombard might weigh several
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  tons. fire a stone ball weighing hundreds of
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  pounds, and require a crew of a dozen or more
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  men to operate. The crew included master gunners
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  who understood the temperamental relationship
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  between powder charge, ball weight, and barrel
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  strength. It included powder makers, smiths to
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  repair damage, carpenters to build and maintain
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  the wooden beds or carriages, and laborers to
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  move the massive pieces. Moving a single large
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  bombard required teams of oxen, reinforced roads,
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  specially built bridges or barges for river crossings,
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  and weeks of travel for distances that cavalry
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  could cover in days. The Feuerbach describes
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  the labour of hauling guns over difficult terrain.
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  It mentions planks laid across mud, winches and
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  rollers for steep sections. and the constant
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  fear that a barrel would slip its tackles and
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  roll down a slope. The danger to the users was
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  constant and severe. A bombard barrel might burst
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  on firing, sending jagged metal fragments through
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  the crew. Flashbacks from poorly sealed touch
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  holes burned gunners' faces and hands. Recoiling
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  barrels crushed limbs. The smoke and noise were
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  overwhelming. A single firing could leave a crew
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  temporarily deafened and the acrid cloud hung
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  in the air for minutes, making it impossible
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  to see whether the shot had struck its target.
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  The psychological stress of handling a weapon
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  that might kill its own operators cannot be underestimated.
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  Contemporary technical treatises describe these
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  dangers with a matter -of -fact precision that
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  suggests they were routine occupational hazards.
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  records the deaths of fellow founders and gunners
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  with a professional fatalism that conveys how
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  normalized the risk had become all of this meant
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  that early gunpowder weapons were not simply
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  adopted because they existed they had to be funded
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  organized and integrated into military operations
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  by states or rulers with the financial and administrative
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  capacity to sustain them and even then their
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  effectiveness was not guaranteed The question
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  became whether these expensive, dangerous machines
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  could deliver results that justified their cost.
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  Two major sieges in the mid -15th century showed
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  that they could, though with important qualifications.
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  The first is the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
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  The Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II assembled a massive
• 15:14
  siege train against the Theodosian walls. the
• 15:17
  late antique fortifications that had protected
• 15:20
  the Byzantine capital for centuries. Among his
• 15:23
  artillery was a particularly large bombard cast
• 15:27
  by a Hungarian or Transylvanian founder named
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  Urban. Urban had first offered his services to
• 15:33
  the Byzantine emperor and, when refused, turned
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  to the Ottoman court. Urban's great gun, according
• 15:41
  to contemporary accounts including those of the
• 15:44
  Greek historian Critobroulos, could fire a stone
• 15:48
  bull weighing something like 1200 pounds we should
• 15:52
  treat specific figures in chronicles with caution
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  the transport of this weapon from its foundry
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  to the siege lines was itself a major operation
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  teams of oxen hauled it over reinforced roads
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  and the journey likely took weeks once in position
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  the bombard could fire only once every few hours
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  perhaps two or three times a day The barrel had
• 16:17
  to cool between shots. The heavy stone ball had
• 16:21
  to be carefully loaded and rammed, and the powder
• 16:25
  charge had to be measured with care to avoid
• 16:27
  the catastrophic failure that every crew feared.
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  The recoil drove the gun backward against its
• 16:34
  wooden cradle, requiring laborers to wrestle
• 16:37
  it forward into firing position again. The bombard
• 16:41
  did breach sections of the walls, creating gaps
• 16:44
  that Ottoman infantry eventually forced. But
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  the siege lasted 55 days and artillery was only
• 16:51
  one element among many. Mehmed's forces also
• 16:56
  dug mines beneath the walls, constructed siege
• 16:59
  towers, maintained a naval blockade using ships
• 17:02
  hauled overland into the Golden Horn and subjected
• 17:05
  the defenders to constant attrition. The Byzantine
• 17:08
  garrison was small, exhausted and isolated. The
• 17:12
  walls had been damaged by previous earthquakes
• 17:14
  and not fully repaired. When the city finally
• 17:18
  fell, it was through a combination of factors
• 17:20
  in which artillery played a significant but not
• 17:22
  exclusive role. The bombards had demonstrated
• 17:26
  that well -built stone walls could be breached
• 17:28
  by gunpowder artillery. They had not demonstrated
• 17:32
  that such artillery made other methods obsolete,
• 17:34
  or that it could achieve results quickly or cheaply.
• 17:38
  The second example comes from the French reconquest
• 17:41
  of English -held territories in the final phase
• 17:43
  of the Hundred Years' War, particularly between
• 17:46
  1449 and 1453. Under Charles VII, the French
• 17:52
  monarchy developed something new, a permanent,
• 17:55
  state -funded artillery train, organized largely
• 17:58
  by the Bureau brothers, Jean and Gaspard. Jean
• 18:03
  Brurot in particular served as master of artillery
• 18:06
  and brought systematic organisation to what had
• 18:08
  previously been ad hoc arrangements. The French
• 18:12
  Royal Artillery included numerous bronze and
• 18:14
  iron guns of various sizes, with standardised
• 18:17
  calibres that allowed interchangeability of shot.
• 18:20
  It included dedicated crews who trained together
• 18:24
  rather than being assembled for each campaign.
• 18:27
  and it included logistical support that allowed
• 18:30
  rapid movement and deployment. The Crown maintained
• 18:34
  permanent foundries, stockpiled powder and shot,
• 18:38
  and funded the whole through centralized taxation
• 18:41
  rather than relying on contractors or feudal
• 18:44
  levies. This was fundamentally different from
• 18:48
  the English system, which still raised artillery
• 18:50
  for individual campaigns through private contractors
• 18:53
  and local arrangements. lacking the institutional
• 18:57
  continuity that the French had built. This artillery
• 19:01
  train proved devastatingly effective against
• 19:04
  English -held towns and castles in Normandy and
• 19:07
  Gascony. Places that might have resisted for
• 19:10
  months under traditional siege methods fell in
• 19:13
  weeks or even days. The fortress of Cherbourg,
• 19:17
  for instance, surrendered after a brief bombardment
• 19:20
  in 1450. French guns positioned on high ground
• 19:24
  overlooking the walls delivered stone balls in
• 19:27
  concentrated fire, creating breaches that the
• 19:30
  defenders could not repair under continuous bombardment.
• 19:33
  The psychological effect of the noise and destruction
• 19:36
  wore down the garrison's will to resist. The
• 19:40
  rapid reduction of English strongpoints transformed
• 19:43
  the strategic situation, allowing French forces
• 19:47
  to recover territory that had been held for generations.
• 19:50
  The victory at Castillon in 1453 often described
• 19:56
  as the last major battle of the hundred years
• 19:58
  war featured french artillery deployed in prepared
• 20:02
  positions that devastated english cavalry charges
• 20:05
  yet even here we need to be careful about what
• 20:10
  the artillery alone achieved the english position
• 20:14
  in france had been weakened by political divisions
• 20:16
  the absence of effective relief expeditions and
• 20:20
  the gradual erosion of English financial and
• 20:23
  military commitment, French numerical superiority
• 20:26
  and the organizational coherence of the royal
• 20:30
  artillery train mattered as much as the technical
• 20:33
  capabilities of the guns themselves. The artillery
• 20:38
  did not win the war in isolation. It won because
• 20:41
  it was part of a system that could fund, move
• 20:44
  and sustain it. This was something the English,
• 20:48
  with their more decentralized military administration,
• 20:51
  struggled to match. By this point, the central
• 20:55
  question had shifted. It was no longer whether
• 20:58
  gunpowder weapons could be effective. They clearly
• 21:02
  could in specific circumstances, when properly
• 21:05
  organized and financed. The question became whether
• 21:09
  their effectiveness was universal. immediate
• 21:12
  and transformative enough to mark the end of
• 21:15
  medieval warfare as a whole. The Italian campaign
• 21:18
  of Charles VIII of France in 1494 and 1494 provides
• 21:24
  a crucial test case and a more complicated answer.
• 21:28
  Charles invaded Italy with a large mobile artillery
• 21:31
  train that moved rapidly down the peninsula Contemporary
• 21:36
  observers, including the French diplomat Philippe
• 21:38
  de Comines and the Florentine historian Francesco
• 21:42
  Guicciardini, recorded the shock that this force
• 21:44
  produced. Italian fortifications, many of them
• 21:49
  outdated or poorly maintained for an age of warfare
• 21:52
  that had emphasized maneuver and negotiation,
• 21:55
  proved vulnerable to French bombardment. The
• 21:59
  speed of the French advance seemed to demonstrate
• 22:02
  that resistance was futile. But this was not
• 22:05
  because Italian states were unfamiliar with siege
• 22:08
  warfare. Rather, the French artillery train's
• 22:12
  speed, organization, and concentration of firepower
• 22:16
  caught them off guard. But the story did not
• 22:19
  end with Italian collapse. Instead, Italian military
• 22:24
  engineers responded with remarkable speed. They
• 22:28
  developed what we now call the Trace Italian,
• 22:31
  a new style of fortification. with angled bastions,
• 22:36
  low thick walls, and extensive earthworks that
• 22:39
  could absorb artillery fire and provide defensive
• 22:42
  positions for gunners of their own. The physical
• 22:45
  logic was elegant and practical. Angled bastions
• 22:50
  projected outward from the main walls, presenting
• 22:53
  oblique faces that deflected cannonballs rather
• 22:56
  than absorbing them head -on. The stone walls
• 22:59
  were built lower and thicker, with earth piled
• 23:02
  against their exterior faces. The earth absorbed
• 23:05
  the impact of shot far better than stone alone,
• 23:08
  preventing the wall from shattering. The bastion's
• 23:12
  geometry allowed flanking fire along the faces
• 23:15
  of the fortification, eliminating the dead zones
• 23:18
  where attackers could shelter against the walls.
• 23:21
  Ditches were widened and deepened, keeping besieging
• 23:24
  artillery beyond effective range. The result
• 23:28
  was that by the early 16th century, Fortifications
• 23:32
  had adapted to artillery rather than disappearing.
• 23:35
  The defensive advantage which had seemed momentarily
• 23:38
  lost was restored. But this came at the cost
• 23:42
  of much more elaborate and expensive construction.
• 23:45
  This adaptation reveals something essential about
• 23:48
  the relationship between gunpowder and medieval
• 23:51
  warfare. Castles did not become obsolete. They
• 23:56
  evolved. The trace Italian is not evidence that
• 24:00
  gunpowder ended medieval military architecture.
• 24:03
  It is evidence that medieval military architecture,
• 24:06
  with its long tradition of responding to new
• 24:09
  threats, continued to function and develop. Similarly,
• 24:13
  on the battlefield, archers and crossbowmen did
• 24:16
  not vanish with the arrival of hand cannon and
• 24:19
  arquebuses. Armored cavalry persisted, though
• 24:23
  its tactics and equipment gradually changed.
• 24:26
  Older siege methods, including blockade, mining,
• 24:30
  starvation and negotiation, remained essential
• 24:33
  components of military operations. The gunpowder
• 24:38
  weapon had found its place, but it had not displaced
• 24:41
  the world into which it had arrived. So if gunpowder
• 24:45
  did not end medieval warfare, what did it actually
• 24:48
  change? The answer lies less in the technology
• 24:51
  itself, than in the organizational and financial
• 24:55
  demands that effective gunpowder warfare imposed.
• 24:58
  The states that benefited most from artillery
• 25:01
  were those that could sustain the enormous costs
• 25:04
  involved. A single large bombard represented
• 25:07
  a massive capital investment in bronze or iron,
• 25:10
  in the skilled labor of founders and smiths,
• 25:13
  in the powder and shots required for operation,
• 25:16
  and in the transport infrastructure needed to
• 25:19
  move it. The French Royal Artillery train under
• 25:23
  Charles VII and his successors was an institutional
• 25:26
  innovation as much as a technological one. It
• 25:30
  was a permanent, state -controlled military organization
• 25:33
  with standardized equipment, trained personnel,
• 25:37
  and dedicated funding drawn from centralized
• 25:40
  taxation. The Ottoman Empire similarly invested
• 25:44
  in centralized foundries and artillery corps
• 25:46
  as part of its military system. Imperial arsenals
• 25:50
  produced guns, powder, and shot on a scale that
• 25:53
  required extensive administrative coordination.
• 25:57
  The Burgundian state under Philip the Good invested
• 26:00
  heavily in artillery, hiring specialist gun founders
• 26:04
  and maintaining an artillery train that became
• 26:07
  a model for other European powers. The Italian
• 26:11
  city -states, competing fiercely among themselves,
• 26:14
  hired gun founders from across Europe. and financed
• 26:18
  elaborate new fortifications. These were concrete
• 26:22
  institutional commitments, not abstract technological
• 26:25
  adoption. This meant that gunpowder warfare rewarded
• 26:29
  political centralization and administrative capacity.
• 26:33
  A local lord with a single bombard might achieve
• 26:36
  a local effect, but sustained, decisive artillery
• 26:40
  operations required the fiscal and bureaucratic
• 26:43
  resources of a major state. The transformation
• 26:46
  was not merely that armies now had guns. It was
• 26:50
  that states had to transform themselves to use
• 26:53
  guns effectively. Permanent taxation, centralized
• 26:57
  procurement, professional military administration.
• 27:00
  These developments, which we associate with the
• 27:03
  early modern state, were driven in part by the
• 27:06
  demands of gunpowder warfare. Yet we should not
• 27:10
  overstate even this connection. The military
• 27:13
  revolution thesis. most associated with the historian
• 27:17
  Michael Roberts and later developed by Jeffrey
• 27:19
  Parker, argues that gunpowder and associated
• 27:22
  military changes fundamentally transformed European
• 27:26
  states and eventually enabled European global
• 27:29
  dominance. This thesis has generated enormous
• 27:33
  scholarly debate. Critics point out that many
• 27:36
  of the administrative developments attributed
• 27:38
  to gunpowder warfare had deeper roots in medieval
• 27:41
  precedents. They note that the pace of change
• 27:45
  was uneven across Europe, that many states developed
• 27:48
  effective artillery without undergoing broader
• 27:50
  political transformation, and that non -military
• 27:53
  factors, including economic, demographic and
• 27:57
  institutional ones, were equally important in
• 28:00
  shaping the early modern state. The relationship
• 28:03
  between gunpowder and state formation was real.
• 28:07
  But it was not simple, automatic or universal.
• 28:12
  What remains certain is that the period from
• 28:15
  the 14th through the 15th centuries saw a gradual,
• 28:18
  expensive, dangerous integration of gunpowder
• 28:21
  weapons into European warfare. The weapons themselves
• 28:25
  evolved from crude, unreliable experiments to
• 28:28
  increasingly effective instruments of siege and
• 28:31
  battle. Their use required and rewarded organizational
• 28:34
  sophistication and financial commitment. They
• 28:39
  changed the calculations of siege warfare and
• 28:42
  contributed to the transformation of European
• 28:44
  military practice. But they did not erase what
• 28:48
  had come before. Castles adapted. Cavalry persisted.
• 28:54
  Archers remained important. Older siege methods
• 28:58
  continued alongside the new. The medieval military
• 29:02
  world did not end with a single bombard's roar.
• 29:06
  It evolved. unevenly and contentiously, into
• 29:10
  something different. The listener who came expecting
• 29:14
  a clean technological turning point, a date when
• 29:17
  the Middle Ages ended because canon began, should
• 29:20
  leave with a more accurate and, I would suggest,
• 29:24
  more interesting picture. Change in history rarely
• 29:28
  arrives as a single dramatic rupture. It arrives
• 29:32
  through the accumulated decisions of individuals
• 29:35
  and institutions. through the gradual improvement
• 29:38
  of techniques through the adaptation of existing
• 29:41
  forms to new pressures and through the persistent
• 29:45
  constraints of cost danger and uncertainty the
• 29:49
  early gunpowder weapon was not a revolution in
• 29:52
  a tube it was a difficult expensive dangerous
• 29:56
  tool that had to be made moved paid for and operated
• 30:00
  by people who risked their lives every time they
• 30:03
  touched it off States that could manage this
• 30:06
  complexity gained an advantage. Those that could
• 30:10
  not fell behind. But the advantage was never
• 30:14
  total. The transformation never complete. And
• 30:18
  the medieval world never simply disappeared before
• 30:21
  the modern one replaced it. What we are left
• 30:24
  with is a process. It is the gradual transformation
• 30:28
  of European warfare by early gunpowder weapons
• 30:31
  across the 14th and 15th centuries. Visible in
• 30:36
  the smoke of Mehmed's bombards at Constantinople,
• 30:39
  in the systematic French artillery of the Hundred
• 30:41
  Years' War, in the shocked Italian response to
• 30:44
  Charles VIII's invasion, and in the adapted fortifications
• 30:48
  of the Trace Italienne that followed, the process
• 30:51
  was messy, expensive, and incomplete. It was
• 30:55
  also genuinely transformative, not because it
• 30:59
  ended an era at a stroke, but because it altered
• 31:02
  the conditions under which warfare was conducted.
• 31:05
  slowly and unevenly, favoring those who could
• 31:08
  master its demands. That is the history that
• 31:12
  survives the evidence. That is what gunpowder
• 31:16
  actually did.