Crossbowman

[david]

I think we can infer some important details from the crossbow depicted in the VMS, to wit:

• It is a stirrup priming crossbow (note the semicircle below the arrow in the front where the archer puts his foot).
  
• There is no winding mechanism; winding mechanisms were large enough (and important enough to be depicted).
  

It is, in fact, a bog standard mid 15th century crossbow. Look at these example from across Europe:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Le Roman d'Alexandre c.1430 (depicting the siege of Tyre in Flanders)


assasination of Owain Lawgoch c. 1480 Note the soldier in the centre who is manually reloading his crossbow


The bible of the duques of Alba (Spain) - a c. 1510 edition (note crossbow with stirrup left)


There is nothing special about the crossbow. It is a standard type of manual crossbow that would have been familiar to many. There is no attempt to depict it as a "special model".

But we can deduce some more from the figure:

• The crossbow is cocked and loaded.
  
• The figure is not preparing to fire it - his hand is off the staff, it is pointed carelessly downwards and he is not preparing to swing it up to his shoulder to fire this. The figure is as clear as a modern day one where a person is depicted loosely holding a gun only by the stock and pointing it downwards - it is of no immediate threat, even if it is loaded. He is a hunter, but hasn't spotted his quarry.
  
• The dress is not military (unless it is supposed to be a Turkish or Oriental style of garb, but in this case why depict Saguttarius as a peaceful Turk or a Hun?). Not is it religious. It is secular, of a fashionable type for the European period.
  

The figure may not be a crib into the text. But I feel it is a crib into the mindset of the illustrator, who may have been given free reign to draw as he wanted to without the constraints of the textual project - he draws a secular person as Sagittarius, using a modern weapon for the period (as he has seen in local Germanic calendars, see MarcoP's et al research on this subject). It is as if we drew the Hunter as a modern day big-game safari hunter, with modern dress and modern weapons.