The arbalest (also arblast) was a late variation of the

crossbow A crossbow is a ranged weapon using an elastic launching device consisting of a bow-like assembly called a ''prod'', mounted horizontally on a main frame called a ''tiller'', which is hand-held in a similar fashion to the stock of a long fi ...

coming into use in Europe during the 12th century. A large weapon, the arbalest had a steel prod (the "bow" portion of the weapon). Since the arbalest was much larger than earlier crossbows, and because of the greater

tensile strength Ultimate tensile strength (UTS), often shortened to tensile strength (TS), ultimate strength, or F_\text within equations, is the maximum stress that a material can withstand while being stretched or pulled before breaking. In brittle materials t ...

of steel, it had a greater force. However, the greater

draw weight This is a list of archery terms, including both the equipment and the practice. A brief description for each word or phrase is also included. __NOTOC__ A *anchor point – A point to be touched by the draw hand or string when the bow is fully d ...

was offset by the smaller which limited its potential in fully transferring the energy into the

crossbow bolt A bolt or quarrel is a dart-like projectile used by crossbows. The name "quarrel" is derived from the French word ''carré'', meaning square, referring to their typically square heads. Although their lengths vary, bolts are typically shorter an ...

. The strongest

windlass The windlass is an apparatus for moving heavy weights. Typically, a windlass consists of a horizontal cylinder (barrel), which is rotated by the turn of a crank or belt. A winch is affixed to one or both ends, and a cable or rope is wound arou ...

-pulled arbalests could have up to of force and be accurate up to . A skilled arbalestier (arbalester) could loose two bolts per minute.

Nomenclature

The term "arbalest" is sometimes used interchangeably with "crossbow". ''Arbalest'' is a

Medieval French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligibl ...

word originating from the Roman name ' (from ' 'bow' + ' 'missile-throwing engine'), (arbalist, arblast) which was then used for crossbows, although originally used for types of

artillery Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during siege ...

Modern French French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in No ...

uses the word ', which is linguistically one step further from the stem (disappearance of the ''s'' phoneme in the last syllable, before the ''t''). The word applies to both crossbow and arbalest (the latter may be referred to as a ''heavy crossbow'', but an actual heavy crossbow may not be the same as an arbalest). In some cases, the word has been used to refer to arbalists, the people who actually used the weapon.

References

Bibliography

* . * {{Medieval mechanical artillery and hand-held missile weapons, state=collapsed Crossbows Medieval archery