Artillery

Gunpowder artillery was apparently in use in Germany by the 1320s, a later source recording the use of serpentine et canons at the siege of Metz in 1324; indeed, many continental authorities even attribute the invention of gunpowder to a German monk of Metz or Fribourg named Berthold, dating the discovery to 1313 (based on erroneous dating of one ms.) or 1320. In early German sources the term Biichsen or Piichsen was generally used for firearms of all types, but later these terms came to refer only to handguns. Amongst the many types of early gun referred to by this term were Pfeilbiichsen (quarrel-guns, for which see page 160 and figure 145 in volume 1); Karrenbiichsen (light guns on chars or charrettes as described on page 157, volume 1, firing shot weighing about 3 lbs); Wagenbiichsen (wagon-guns, probably like that illustrated in figure 170); Centnerbuchsen (guns usually firing 100 lb shot); and Tarasbiichsen (tarasnices as depicted in figures 167 and 168, copied from the Hussites).

Much bigger than any of these were the massive bombards used in siege-work here as elsewhere in Europe, with the one difference that, judging from the size of their shot, the very largest of them appear to have been in the same class as the giant guns used by the Ottomans rather than those developed in France and the Low Countries. One fielded by the city of Frankfurt for the siege of the Count Palatine’s castle of Tannenberg in 1399 required 20 horses to draw its barrel and another 34 to draw its stand, plus 14 wagons to transport 16 large shot, 12 smaller shot and the requisite gunpowder. It is on record that Tannenberg’s walls were pierced at the second shot from this monster (appropriately named Der Grosse Frankfurter Buchse), which is unsurprising when one learns that shot discovered in the rubble of the castle weighs some 925 lbs.

By the late-15th century individual German princes and cities could field considerable quantities of artillery. Markgraf Albrecht Achille of Brandenburg, for instance, proposed in 1474 that his army of 30,000 men should be accompanied by 30 serpentines, 10 mortars and 70 ribaudequins, while the city of Innsbruck in 1486 had 8 large cannon, 2 large mortars of 24-inch calibre, 4 medium-sized mortars, 5 medium-sized cannon, 13 serpentines and 15 cortaux. The Duke of Lower Bavaria-Landshut had a similarly large yet diverse collection of guns in 1488-89, comprised of 4 large cannon, 3 mortars, 9 medium-sized cannon, 18 small bombards, 17 serpentines, 1 cortaud and 31 culverines.