Medieval Siege Weapons (2): Byzantium, the Islamic World & India AD 476-1526

Osprey New Vanguard #69

by David Nicolle, Sam Thompson (Illustrator)

When it came to non-gunpowder machine development, the medieval period was one of the most inventive in military history. During this era, the pre-existing military-technological traditions from the ancient worlds were brought together. Three civilisations were primarily responsible for this evolution: the Late-Roman or Byzantine Empire, the Islamic World, and latterly the Mongol ‘World Empire’. This book examines the resulting stone-throwing machines from torsion ‘energy storage’ systems, to manpowered and counterbalance sling devices, rockets and others.

Genres: History

48 pages, Paperback

First published March 11, 2003

About the author

David C. Nicolle is a British historian specialising in the military history of the Middle Ages, with a particular interest in the Middle East.

Reviews

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoy these Osprey Publishing small history books. Very focused text with a great selection of pictures really lets you get a good start on a new area of history or just get a better visual of how things looked and worked. Recommended

[A.L. Sowards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Greek fire, giant crossbows, and mangonels—interesting stuff. As with the first volume (on Western Europe), this book is standard Osprey: lots of information and illustrations in a concise rather than narrative account. I found this one a little less organized than the one on Western Europe—I think because the book was organized by weapon type, so with each type of weapon, the reader it yanked around from Byzantium to India to Russia to Egypt. On the other hand, organizing it by geographic region might have had roughly the same effect, and probably would have necessitated repeating information on the various weapons. I guess the broad, scattered approach is a result of the broad, scattered topic. I’d recommend the book to readers with an interest in the subject, and give it 3.5 stars, rounding up for Goodreads.

[Truls Ljungström · Rating 3 out of 5]

En intressant liten genomgång av medeltida belägringskonst i östeuropa. De flesta verktygen är inte annorlunda än de som användes i väst - större betoning finns dock på antimanskapsvapen, såsom eldtunnor, och sifoner för grekisk eld, jämfört med den mer terrängförändrande belägringskonsten i väst. Med tanke på att den är så kort, är meransträngningen nästan noll att gå igenom den.

[Rindis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second volume of Osprey's New Vanguard books on medieval siege weapons is pretty much just like the first: Thompson's gouache illustrations do a good job of showing some specific examples, while the text goes through variations on terminology and tries to make sense of them.

India probably should have just been left out of the book, as most references are 'there's no evidence'. The Byzantines talked about siege machinery often enough, and Islamic writers somewhat less so, but there's very few known references to siege machines in India. In fact, all but one of the illustrated machines are from Byzantium or the Islamic world, and the one exception is surprisingly enough from Russia. That one is a little unsatisfying, as there doesn't seem to be any indication that an idea of the size or form of the 'fire wheel' (other than the name) is given in the source; that said, the reconstruction given is more logical than anything I'd come up with.

India isn't entirely absent, and there's even a mention or two of siege machines in SE Asia, so the effort is there. In combination with the volumes on China, and Greece and Rome, Osprey has probably covered all the pre-gunpowder siege engines of the world. At least as far as scholarship has uncovered mentions of them.

[Anatolikon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps calling this a "book" is a little too generous. "Pamphlet" is perhaps slightly more accurate. The information in the 'book' is generally well-balanced between Byzantium and the Islamic world, with a good focus on Greek fire and other incendiaries which comprised a larger part of the siege retinue in the east than in the west. The book says that it also covers India, but this is largely neglected, although there is a short section on northern Europe and their siegecraft. As is typical with many an Osprey book, it is extremely well illustrated. However, in this work, many of the colour illustrations are all the wrong ones. There are a good number of manuscript pictures in this little book, and some are in colour in their original form, but none of those colours have been preserved. I'd much rather have that than some recreations by Osprey's artists.

3 stars for being short even by Osprey standards, a hefty price for such a tiny thing, and some poor choices in what plates were produced in colour.