Brian,
Just trying to drown you with work, you know...
About the books:
If you manage to take a peek to a facsimile copy of the
Cantigas de Alfonso X (the tome in the
Monasterio de El Escorial's library, IIRC) you'll find the images (
Cantigas number 28, 99 and 187, crossbows in Muslim hands, there may be more). On the other hand, Soler del Campo's book may be easier to get...
The frescoes in the
Torre de las Damas in the Alhambra are also shown there, though in the form of a drawing. Said drawing was done long ago by Gomez-Moreno, an Spanish arabist and archaeologist, and I seem to remember (might be wrong, here, but it can be checked) that the original frescoes are almost illegible now. They are also found in Nicolle's book. By the way, given its date of publication, I'm sure that this information must be found in other, later books by Dr. Nicolle dealing with the same subject (like "Arms and Armour of the Crusading Era", maybe, and some others) that might be easier to find.
Sorry, not images of the Nasrid crossbow that I can be sure of. The sites have information about it, one is a reference for a monography and the other is about an old exhibition that displayed it and that probably have a catalogue somewhere.
Oh, and the incident in front of Valencia is told by the King himself in his
Crònica ("Chronicle"), that is quite faithful. It's not that strange, if one analyzes the circumstances, the helmet saved him from what it probably was a quite long-distance shot to start with. Besides, Jaume I, called
El Conqueridor ("The Conquerer"), was also a formidable man, standing more than 2 m. tall. And he says that he had an horrible headache for several days. Maybe not really the stuff of legends... but a good deal of sheer luck, at least, well, that's for sure.
Oh, and I thought it might be worth mentioning that, IIRC, the Mamluk Sultan Baybars I, who was involved in the coup of 1250 and took later the power in Egypt in 1260 after defeating the Mongols in Ain Jalut, at some point in his career was the commander of the Mamluk units of crossbowmen.
Jens, just a small nitpick, the crossbow was well-established in Europe in the 11th c. There's for example a representation of a crossbowmen in the
Beatus of Burgo de Osma dated in 1086.
P.D.
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Originally Posted by B.I
but my spanish doesnt get much further than ordering a couple of beers in a bar.
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Well, that's not bad at all, don't let you be led to think us Spaniards use our language for anything less important...