Re: Grapeshot

[Dave Key]

Hi Peter,
This is from memory and dashed off quickly so more checking is worth doing 
but ...

The Tudor reference almost certainly comes from the Mary Rose (1545) on 
which they have found canister shot (wooden canisters packed with flints).

English records for Ordnance in Calais and for the 1475 Expedition to 
France include lists of Shot of Stone and iron plus pellets for 
serpentines and for handguns but nothing clearly identifiable as canister 
shot. Similarly Ordnance listed in the Tower of London in 1495 is mainly 
Shot of Iron, Shot of Stone and Shot of Lead (according to the type of 
gun) but there is an interesting reference to "Hollow balles of brasse for 
wildfire  ..... xj" and "Dyce of yron of sundry sortes  .... DCCv"

It's not until the C16th that the Tower inventories start to list 
"jointed" and "crossbarred" shot alongside the more standard "round" 
shot.Also by C16th start to see dice, "Hailleshot", hollow and half shot 
start to be listed.

I have some more inventories so I'll see what I can find.

Cheers
Dave 

 



Peter Keel  
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16/11/2009 23:08
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Subject
Grapeshot






Hello

We've had some bags of grapeshot (canister/case; tough these are 
obviously 18/19th century words, where it referred to fine-grained
shots as opposed to grapeshot which then consisted of big balls),
or in german perhaps "Kartätsche" at our siege-engineer-display.

There was some commotion as somebody referred to them as Shrapnel,
which it obviously wasn't, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Shrapnel
Henry Shrapnel not born then, and not explosive either. 

Wikipedia now claims "Kartätsche" (the balls or whatever packed
in bags) was only invented around 1600, in the 15th century only
"Hagel" was used, essentially the same without the packing. 
The source wikipedia quotes is dubious at best ("Militair-
conversations-lexikon, 1834") Ospreys "Tudor Warships" mentions
grapeshot for 1545; no idea about heir source. My Books, among
them http://openlibrary.org/b/OL6719429M/Geschu%CC%88tz_im_Mittelalter
don't seem to say anything about it. The above one covers only 
the period up until about 1440, and it's not exactly easy to find
something in 14/15th century accounts if you don't know how it might 
be called.. 

So the question is: 
- Are there any sources for grapeshot/Kartätsche (not "Hagel")
  for the 15th century? Perhaps Patrice knows pictorial evidence? 
- How was that thing called? In english, french or german. 

Cheers
Seegras
-- 
"Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve 
neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
"It's also true that those who would give up privacy for security are 
likely to end up with neither." -- Bruce Schneier








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