Cross-bows shot darts called quarrels, or quarreaux, or quadrels, and in English bolts:  they were headed with solid, square pyramids of iron, and sometimes trimmed with brass instead of feathers.  According to Sir John Smith a cross-bow would kill point blank 60 yards, and if elevated above 160.  There was an officer styled Balistrarius Regius; and several estates were held by the service of delivering a cross-bow and thread to make the string, when the king passed through certain districts.  These you will find in Blount’s Tenures and Jacob’s Law Dictionary.[2]

We find that the pay of a cross-bowman, in the reign of Edward II., was sixpence per diem.[3] Few notices of archery are, however, upon record till an order by Edward III. in the 15th year of his reign, to the sheriffs of most of the English counties, to provide bows and arrows for the intended war against France:  these orders, however, relate to the long-bow.  In the famous battle of Crecy, fought in 1346, our chroniclers state that we had 2,800 archers, who were opposed to about the same number of the French; which, together with a circumstance to be immediately mentioned, seems to prove that by this time we used the long-bow whilst the French archers shot with the arbalest.  The circumstance alluded to is as follows:—­Previously to the engagement there fell a heavy rain, which is said to have much damaged the bows of the French, or rather the strings of them.  Now, the long-bow, when unstrung, may be conveniently covered, so as to prevent the rain injuring it; nor is there scarcely any addition to the weight from a case; whereas the arbalest is of a most inconvenient form to be sheltered from the weather.  It is also stated[4] that, at Crecy, “the Genoese archers, fatigued by their heavy cross-bows, in a sultry and tempestuous march, rushed forward with loud cries to attack the English bowmen, who were the strength of Edward’s army.  These last stood still; even on the second charge they stirred not one foot!  When they got within shot of their foes, they let fly their arrows so quickly that they came like snow.  The Genoese fled, and some of the heavy-armed troops were involved in their confusion.”  At Crecy the English ascribed their victory to their archers.  The battle of Poictiers, fought in 1356, was gained by the same means.  In 1417, Henry V. attributed his splendid victory at Agincourt to the archers, and directed the sheriffs of many counties to pluck from every goose six wing-feathers for the purpose of improving arrows, which were to be paid for by the King.  In 1421, though the French had been defeated at Crecy, Poictiers, and Agincourt, by the English archers, yet they still continued the use of the cross-bow; for which reason Henry V., as Duke of Normandy, confirms the charters and privileges of the balistarii, who had been long established as a fraternity in his city of Rouen.