On Tuesday of this coming week (at least here in Philly – your local programming MV), Nova takes on the trebuchet. I think it’s a rerun, but as the cliche goes, if you missed it the first time, it’s new to you!
I’ll be watching. There are trebuchets in the book I’m reading now (13th century Welsh history) but the author hasn’t said much about how they’re built or used.
Why didn’t besieging armies simply starve out the folks holding the castles? Did they not have the manpower? Or were they just in a hurry?
I understand that a lot of food could be stored in a castle, but they had a lot of people to feed – hard to imagine they could last more than a few weeks. I wonder what’s the longest a castle held out against a siege.
Hoping for answers on Tuesday (or sooner, if Dopers know).
Re–built or used.
The metal parts were pre-fab, brought with an elite group of soldiers called siege engineers. The remainder of these machines were wood or rope, & manufacture on the spot, from local trees, or by trashing the peasants’ huts.
As for use, the flung big rocks or huge arrows/javelins at the target by store mechanical force or counterweights.
Siege Towers were often more effective, anyway.
Re–Starving out.
Often, they did starve out the locals. But sometimes help was on the way, & things had to be rushed. Other times, Winter was on the way, & if supplies were scarce (all armies lived off the lands they passed through, in those days) then the folks outside the castle walls were as bad off as the folks inside.
And sometimes, the attacking commander was immature/impatient. This was common in an era of Monarchs & hereditary military leaders.
This is an awesome program! The whole “Secrets of Lost Empires” stuff was just WONDERFUL. I never really understood what a trebuchet was before, so I totally loved this one. I think I saw all the programs in the series and HIGHLY recommend them all.
Sorry, I don’t gush over things very often, but this stuff is worth it.
Thanks. That makes sense. Supplying armies has always been a consideration, hasn’t it? It’s so mundane – many writers skip right over it. Not nearly as exciting as combat.
I hate to admit it but the Northern Exposure episode always comes to mind. 
You know, with the piano?
Yeah, what’s the difference between a trebuchet and a catapult?
A trebuchet uses counterweights to throw its payload, while a catapult uses the tension stored in the shaft of the machine itself.
Well, as the saying goes : “Amateurs study tactics, pros study logistics.”
I saw this show (or something very much like it) a few years ago. It’s really, really fucking cool.
One of my favorite “Nova” episodes.
Another reason it wasn’t always feasible to “starve out” a castle is that you (the attacker) might be relying on feudal levies for your manpower. They’d be required to give (usually) forty days service, then it was back to their farms.
I think Sun Tzu said that a cartload of supplies for an army out invading was equivalent to ten cartloads at home.
If you fancy some trebuchet construction whilst facing your monitor, check out the Trebuchet Challenge, complete with music!
Before they discovered how to knock down city walls that’s what they had to do. As I understand it, some places lasted years. That’s pretty much what the Greeks were doing to Troy for, according to Wiki, nine years.
Also, when any amount of people in an Army camped out, there was always the threat of disease present because of lack of sanitation. Latrines that are away from where evryone camps is a rather new development in warfare.
Which brings up another question – how did they knock down those walls? I’m reading The Brothers of Gwynedd Quartet by Ellis Peters. Llewellyn is marching around parts of Wales with a few men, and Peters has them “razing” castles in what seems to be a fairly short time.
All the castles I’ve seen (TV and movies, of course) look pretty sturdy, and these guys didn’t have explosives or wrecking balls. Did they use trebuchets for this?
I like that Peters doesn’t explain a lot of this stuff. To me, a historical should be written as if it were going to be read by contemporaries, and too much explanation takes me out of the story. But it also leaves a lot of questions.
Trebuchets, battering rams, fire & tunneling did the jog.
Don’t need high-tech to build in stone (look at the pyramids), why would you need it to tear stuff down?
Borrow THIS BOOK from your local library to help you learn more about Castles. If your library doesn’t have a copy, ask them about Interlibrary Loans.
Thanks! Amazon has used copies, bought one for $2. 
Not long ago I watched a movie where an army was sieging a castle with a trebuchet. Whenever the outside army activated the trebuchet, the people inside the castle would start shouting “Trebuchet! Trebuchet!” just like you would hear “Incoming!” in a modern war movie.
Except I could swear that they were pronouncing it as “trebulet”, and now I can’t remember which movie it was. Does that ring a bell with anyone?
I thought it was The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, but I scanned through it and couldn’t find the scenes I remember. (That was not a great movie, but the French army captures a trebuchet and one of the French commanders is thrilled to have the thing, and it’s fun to watch him admire it.)
Sometimes they did. But sieges in those days were problematical. Not only did you have to worry about supplies, but also disease and funding. Sanitation was pretty much unheard of, so anytime you had an army camped out in an area for more than a few days, mortality rates went way up. Armies weren’t particularly disciplined, either, and often consisted of mercenaries who had to be paid or they’d decamp and go to work for the other side. And there wasn’t a lot of glory involved in sitting around a walled city in the hot sun or pouring rain waiting for everyone to get hungry.