The BNF Lat. bows are pretty sophisticated. Cranks were uncommon in earlier bows (they existed, but not in high numbers), and the arm of the earlier bows was usually wood or composite material, not metal. More things were possible once they got better at metal fabrication.
But even the very finely crafted bows of the 17th and 18th centuries didn't have the trigger 2" ahead of the nut, maybe 1/2" or an inch at the most in rare instances, but not 2". It's just not practical.
In this 11th century drawing, you can see a bolt has been put through the shaft to secure the trigger to the contact point of the nut:
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This one is thought to be from the 14th century. It's quite primitive and the trigger is some distance behind the nut, but the distance is fairly natural if you consider the direction the nut turns when the trigger is depressed. If you reverse positions, so the nut is behind the trigger, it requires a reverse-mechanism that fights the natural direction in which the nut needs to roll to release the cord and is more complicated:
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Late 15th century, wooden crossbar:
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Drawing of metal parts, very detailed, even details of the nut are shown (c. 1500 to c. 1503) BNF Lat 255 f 78v:
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early or mid-15th century, one with a wooden crossbar:
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The metal arms gradually start showing up in drawings in the mid- to late- 15th century. I'm not sure exactly when they started making metal arms in quantity. I glanced through my files and couldn't find any metal arms in the early 15th century but that doesn't mean they didn't exist (and I looked quickly so I don't know if I missed any). Even if they did, the trigger was usually placed the same as wooden and composite bows.
There may have been a renaissance of innovation in crossbows in the c. mid 1500s (mostly the metal parts), but whether that was early enough to influence the VMS drawings, I don't know. If I see anything else of relevance, I'll post.