content_output-053_3 (Q6258)

Small cannon were used at Crecy, the first credited employment of them on the field of battle. Such weapons were of a semi-portable character, were removed in carts or carried by hand from battle-field to battle-field with the camp baggage. The only pieces designed specially for field use were the “ribeaudequins” or “orgues des bombardes,” which consisted of a number of small cannon on a common carriage, the cannon often supplemented by a “chevaux de frise,” or pikes were lashed to the carriage. It was rare that these weapons were fired more than once during a battle. Most of the early fire-arms shot arrows, stone, and iron shot, and in Germany the mortars were filled up with small stones about the size of walnuts—the first form of what was afterwards long known as grape-shot. Other German States forbade the use of “hail shot” entirely. Monro, writing in 1626, with reference to early cannon states: “It is thought that the invention of cannon was found first at Nuremberg for the ruin of man, being at first used for battering down of walls of cities... till at last they were used in the field to break the squadrons of foot and horse, some carrying pieces called spingards of four foot and a half long, and shot many bullets at once no greater than walnuts, which were carried on the fields on little chariots behind the troopers.”