Category:Hand-spanning of crossbows

This is a subcategory for images of crossbow hand-spanning, the oldest and simplest method for spanning crossbow strings into a position prepared for shooting.

Though hand-spanned crossbows also saw use in warfare, especially in earlier military history, most hand-spanned crossbows in history have been civilian weapons, used for hunting of small prey (including bow-fishing in some cultures) and for self-defence purposes. The main technological limitation of hand-spanned crossbows are increasing bow poundages of crossbow laths. For example, European late-medieval military crossbows had laths of such high poundage, the use of separate tools for crossbow spanning eventually became necessary. Methods gradually developed to improve upon hand-spanning included the "belt and hook" and "belt and pulley" methods, eventually followed by lever-based mechanisms (goat's foot lever, gaffe lever) or winch-based mechanisms (crossbow windlass, cranequin).

Some examples of historical crossbow types that utilised hand-spanning are the Roman arcuballista crossbows, the early-medieval crossbow found in Colletière à Charavines (France), various lower-poundage light crossbows of the High Middle Ages, the late-medieval/Renaissance "Skåne lockbow" found in Skåne (Sweden), Inuit hunting crossbows (similar in construction to the Colletière à Charavines specimen) and traditional hunting crossbows of western African cultures (similar in construction to the Skåne specimen) and traditional hunting crossbows of Southeast Asian cultures. Hand-spanning also saw a great deal of use in most forms of handheld Chinese crossbows used in warfare, even well into the early modern era (when hand-spanning of military crossbows had mostly fallen out of favour in Europe).

Detailed video demonstration of a late Roman hand-spanned arcuballista replica (with wooden self-bow)

Detailed video demonstration of an 11th century European hand-spanned hunting crossbow (with wooden self-bow) 1

Detailed video demonstration of an 11th century European hand-spanned hunting crossbow (with wooden self-bow) 2

Detailed video demonstration of a 12th century European hand-spanned military crossbow (with wooden self-bow)

Video demonstration of a 14th century European hand-spanned crossbow (with steel lath)