The Invention of the Counterweight Trebuchet: A Study in Cultural Diffusion

Document Type

Article

Department or Administrative Unit

History

Publication Date

2000

Abstract

The counterweight trebuchet represents the first significant mechanical utilization of gravitational energy. In the military realm, this artillery weapon played a significant role in warfare across Eurasia and North Africa. It unleashed a revolution in siegecraft and provided the impulse for dramatic changes in military architecture to counter the greater destructive force of gravity-powered artillery. In the political realm, the emergence of the centralized state owes something to this machine, according to Joseph Needham and Robin Yates, due to the increased resource mobilization by the state that the new technology necessitated. In the field of technology, it influenced the development of such practical devices as clockwork, as Lynn White has demonstrated. According to White, this weapon may even have affected the evolution of pure science during the Middle Ages. This subject has been taken up by Vernard Foley, who has argued that the counterweight trebuchet played a role in the greatest single advance in physical science of the medieval period, the innovations in theoretical mechanics associated with Jordanus of Nemore.

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This article was originally published in Dumbarton Oaks Papers. The full-text article from the publisher can be found here.

Due to copyright restrictions, this article is not available for free download from ScholarWorks @ CWU.

Journal

Dumbarton Oaks Papers

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© 2000 Dumbarton Oaks

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