"Ainsi fina par le quarrel[225], Qu' Anglois tindrent à deshonneste, Li roís Richart, qui d'arbaleste Aporta premier l'us en France. De son art ot mal chevance."--_Chron. Métr._, l. 2644.
The form of the arbalest of this time may be seen in our woodcut, No. 50. It was bent by placing the foot in the loop or "stirrup" at the extremity, and then drawing the cord upwards with the hands. At a later period, the bow was made much stronger, and of steel, then requiring mechanical contrivances to bend it. The arrow of the cross-bow was shorter and stouter than that of the long-bow. As may be seen in our woodcut, No. 50, it was feathered; a particular which is noticed in the _Roman de Garin_:--
"Volent piles plusque pluie par prés, Et les saiettes et _carriax_ empennés."
This name of Carriaux (quadrelli or quarrels) was given to these missiles from the four-sided (or pyramidal) form of the head. Thus Guillaume le Breton, speaking of the death of Richard the First:--
"----Quadratæ cuspidis una Pendet arundo."
From an ordinance of Theobald, count of Champagne, in the next century (1256), we learn that the provision of quarrels for a cross-bow was fifty: "Chascun de la commune dou Neufchastel qui aura vaillant xx. livres, aura arbaleste en son hostel et quarraus jusqu'à cinquante." The arrow of the arbalest is sometimes called _vireton_, from the French _virer_, on account of its rotary flight. Compare the classical _verutum_, a javelin which owed its name to a similar property. Though the English appear to have used the cross-bow from near the close of the twelfth to the end of the thirteenth century, in the succeeding age the long-bow obtained a signal triumph over its rival.
In the hands of a stout soldiery, indeed, the long-bow is a much superior weapon; for a dozen arrows may be discharged while the arbalester is winding up his instrument and fixing a single quarrel: and the long-bow being a vertical arm, permits a close array, which cannot be attained with the horizontal cross-bow: again, the long-bow is a weapon of very light carriage, while its rival, with its thick bow of steel and its apparatus for bending, is both ponderous and unwieldy: the size of the quarrels also permitted only eighteen of them to be brought by each man into the field, ("et auront trousses empanées et cirées de dix-huit traits du moins:" Ordinance of Charles VII. of France), while the English archer carried "twenty-four Scotchmen under his belt." "Les arbalestriers Gennevois," says Froissart, "commencèrent à traire, et ces archers d'Angleterre firent voler ces sagettes de grand' façon, qui entrèrent et descendirent si ouniement sur ces Gennevois que ce sembloit neige. Les Gennevois, qui n'avoient pas appris à trouver tels archers que sont ceux d'Angleterre, quand ils sentirent ces sagettes qui leur perçoient bras, têtes et banlèvre, furent tantôt desconfits[226]." But to handle the long-bow thus effectively, required a race strong in sinew and practised in their art: to wind up and discharge a cross-bow was the feat of a boy.