content_output-045_4 (Q6150)

Early fire-arms were variously named in Europe, hence much confusion as to the dates at which fire-arms were used. Valturius, who wrote in the fifteenth century, terms both cross-bows and cannon “balistæ.” Before gunpowder was used to propel missiles it was employed in or upon projectiles, sometimes affixed to lanceheads made tubular for the purpose; hence, it is argued, the name “cannones” or tubes. Robert Norton has the following with reference to the naming of fire-arms:—