Sorry for the late reply
I thaught you were not coming back because you had enough material for you work on the Islamic crossbow, and i didn't check your recent posting.
Not that this is dramatic, as Mark's huge amount of information covers by far my humble contribution to the subject.
I have being trying for the last three days to spot again the web page about the narration of the torture inflicted to that Moor crossbowman, to insert it here for you. I don't remember whether it was in English, Spanish or Portuguese, and probably ununderstandable to you. I rather tell you here that "Historia Silense" is a sort of Epic of the Spanyards, in the period of the Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors.
... Eventually the quoted events in 1028 took place in cities of the Portugal region, but this was still a County, under Spanish rule, only becaming a Kingdom 1139 ...
This cronicle was written by a Spanish anonimous, eventually a Monk, around 1115, and was ( again?) edited in 1959 by Perez de Urbel and Ruiz Zorrilla, also eventually Monks.
This must be a current and acquirable book ... if ever you get it, or if you get copies of pages 189-190, i have no problem to translate them for you, or rather Mark will.
Also if you search the Web on Alfonso V de Leon, father in law of King Fernando I de Castela, you will spot several quotations, leaving no doubt that he was killed in 1028 ( some say 1027), by a bolt shot from the walls of Viseu, during its siege. This archer must be the guy that was tortured by Fernando I, whom was sieging Coimbra, some fourty miles away, and also a target in the same campaign. In pages 189-190 of the cronicle, there must be a closing link.
I have posted a reply on the Rhode Siege Illumination right after your previous question, which i recall here:
I found this illlumination by chance, in a book edited in portuguese, about piracy and corso.I later found that it is included in the written account of Guillaume Caoursin, titled " Descriptio Obsidionis Rhodiae urbis " ( circa 1490 ), an eye witness of the events, actually the vice-chancelier of the Knights siege defenders at Rhodes. It is kept at the Bibliotheque National in Paris, MS lat.6067, f. 55v.
But coming to the Turk crossbow version, you can also track, before the Ottomans Rhodes episode, already their antecessors, the Seljuks ( XI-XIII century ), had crossbowmen in their armies.
I take this chance to refine a statement i made in a previous posting, about crossbow and bow being undistinguishable in some ancient languages:
These type of texts are or come from writings of the period, and there is no misinterpretation of terminology. A bow is an "arco" ( arch ) and a crossbow is a "besta" ( beast ) or whatever subnames derived from the crossbow evolution and variations..
Amazingly the portuguese word for Beast and Crossbow is written the same way: Besta. The different sounding of the "e" makes it either be the actual Besta=Beast ( from Latin Bestia=Animal ) or Besta=Crossbow ( from Latin Ballista (( like for Balistic=Projectile throwing )).Reason why it's called Ballesta in Spanish.). Tricky situation, even for the common Portuguese.
But distinguishably a Bow is an "Arco" ( Latin Arcu - Arquu=Vault ), both in Castilian and Portuguese.
I have found meanwhile some other web sources. If i filter out something solid in them, i will post it in this thread.
Keep well.
Fernando
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