[Marc]

Hello, Brian.

Ok, let's see...

Originally Posted by B.I

marc -
you mentioned Cantigas de Alfonso X showing muslims carrying crossbows. has this been published in any form that i can access?

Yes, it's a well-studied book... but not from the point of view of military matters. So, in many of the published works related to it you can't be sure the illuminations you're interested in are in fact reproduced. Your best bet is a facsimile of the original illuminated manuscript (held at the El Escorial Library), but these tend to be... well, quite extremely expensive. Also, the book by Álvaro Soler del Campo is absolutely out of print, near-impossible to get. You can try, if you want, maybe you're luckier than me:
SOLER DEL CAMPO, Álvaro. "La evolución del armamento medieval en el reino Castellano-Leonés y Al-Andalus (Siglos XII-XIV)", Ed. by Servicio de Publicaciones del E.M.E (Colección Adalid, #33), Madrid, 1993.
ISBN: 84-86806-44-5
But I wouldn't hold my breath.

Nonetheless, I think the best course of action is the following: I'll try to photocopy the relevant figures in the book, together with the related text (in Spanish, I'm afraid) and send them to you. The images are small, in b&w, and, sincerely, quite bad overall. But should be OK if strictly for reference purposes. If you want better images, I found that there's what seems to be a good facsimile of the Cantigas original book in the BL:

Here's the reference

Next:

also, is there an illustration anywhere of the frescoes found in the Torre de las Damas and do they indeed show mounted crossbowmen?

Yes, they're mounted crossbowmen. As far as I know there's only one illustration of these frescoes: the pencil sketch done by Gómez Moreno at the end of the 19th c. It is the one you'll find reproduced everywhere. I have it Soler del Campo's Book and some other sources, I'll photocopy it for you. Funny how things go... the drawing was done by Gómez Moreno senior, a painter and proto-archaeologist. His son was a famous and prolific archaeologist, and I went a couple of weeks ago to Granada to research his personal archives, now in a Foundation that bears his name, and got a book about Gómez Moreno senior only to have a better example of these drawings...


Next:

and you mentioned the death of King Jaume I of Aragon. is this legend or can i find a published account. i did search for a while, but only found reference of his death, and no actual details. is there a book i can find?

Yes. The incident with the crossbow bolt is described in the King's own words in a Crònica (Chronicle) written (or made written) by himself. It is also known as Llibre del Feyts or "Book of the Deeds". There's some English translations, I found one in PDF for you here. Look at chapter/paragraph number 266 (page 136), where the mentioned incident is described. If you look for the word "crossbow" in the text some other references of thier use in Muslim hands could appear, tough I think the majority of them relate to its use by Christians.

the treatise from 1180 written by Al-Tartusi - can i find this published anywhere to see the reference to crossbows.

I'm sorry, no idea, here, but there is an article (in French, I'm afraid), by Claude Cahen that might be of interest. I'ts published in the Bulletin d’études orientales, and it's entitled Un Traité d’armurerie compose pour Saladin. [On the treatise of Murḍā ibn 'Alī al-Ṭarsūsī contained in Bodleian MS. Hunt. 264. With extracts.]. The reference I found in the BL is here

I would like to, again, strongly recommend you to take a look at the article I referenced you here as it deals with the references to the crossbows in a Moorish manuscript on archery, the original text of which is dated to around 1069-1091. The PDF version of this article is here

is the facsimile copy of the Cantigas de Alfonso X available anywhere (British library - or better to buy?)

See above for the reference to an exemplar in the BL

also, you said -
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.do you mean the frescoes are shown in soler del campos book? also, which nicholle book are you refering to?

See also above. The Nicolle's book is the one I referencied in my first post:
NICOLLE, David. "Early Islamic Arms and Armour", Ed. by Instituto de Estudios sobre armas antiguas, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid(?), 1976.
Also absolutely out of print, I'm afraid.

Pleas, give me a couple of weeks to gather all the information I said I would send you, and you'll have it there. I’m swamped in work, right now.
Feel free to e-mail me for any details about the shipping…