. Military and religious life in the Middle Ages and at the period of the Renaissance. Fig. 57.—Mortars on Movable Carriages.—From an Engraving in the Kriegsbuch ofFronsperger: in folio, Frankfort, 1575. battering-rams of the besiegers. The employment of machines or enginesof this description was much less frequent after than before the fall of theRoman empire, when the art of war knew no higher flight than to lay siegeto a place or sustain a siege. The first operation of the besiegers was to destroy the outworks of thebesieged place, such as the posterns, the barbicans, the barriers, &c. Asmo
. Military and religious life in the Middle Ages and at the period of the Renaissance. Fig. 57.—Mortars on Movable Carriages.—From an Engraving in the Kriegsbuch ofFronsperger: in folio, Frankfort, 1575. battering-rams of the besiegers. The employment of machines or enginesof this description was much less frequent after than before the fall of theRoman empire, when the art of war knew no higher flight than to lay siegeto a place or sustain a siege. The first operation of the besiegers was to destroy the outworks of thebesieged place, such as the posterns, the barbicans, the barriers, &c. Asmost of these outworks were built of wood, attempts were generally madeto cut them to pieces with hatchets, or to set them on fire with arrows to K 66 WAR AND ARMIES. which were fastened pieces of burning tow steeped in sulphur, or some otherincendiary composition. If the main body of the place were not so strongly fortified as to rendera successful assault by force impossible, it was usual to attempt an Fig. 58.—Caltrop, or Crows-foot (Fourteenth Century). With this end in view, the moat, which was generally literally strewnwith caltrops (Fig. 58), was filled up with fascines, on which ladders werereared against the ramparts, while archers on the brink of the ditch, pro-
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