The mangonel, also called the traction trebuchet, was a type of trebuchet used in Ancient China starting in the Warring States period and later across Eurasia by the 6th century AD. Unlike the later counterweight trebuchet, the mangonel was operated by people pulling ropes attached to one end of a lever, the other end of which had a sling to launch projectiles.
Although the mangonel required more men to function, it was also less complex and faster to reload than the torsion-powered onager which it replaced in early Medieval Europe. It was replaced as the primary siege weapon in the 12th and 13th centuries by the counterweight trebuchet.Chevedden, Paul E.; et al. (July 1995). "The Trebuchet". Scientific American: 66–71. http://static.sewanee.edu/physics/PHYSICS103/trebuchet.pdf . Original version. A common misconception about the mangonel is that it was a torsion siege engine.
Etymology
The word mangonel was first attested in English in the 13th century, it is borrowed from Old French mangonel, mangonelle (> French mangonneau).Hoad, TF (ed), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (1993), Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-283098-8, p. 280a The French word is from Medieval Latin manganellus, mangonellus, diminutive form of Late Latin manganum, itself probably derived from the Greek mangana, "a generic term for construction machinery." or mágganon "engine of war, axis of a pulley"
Mangonel was a general term for medieval stone-throwing artillery and was used more specifically to refer to manually (traction--) powered weapons. It is sometimes wrongly used to refer to the onager. Modern military historians came up with the term "traction trebuchet" to distinguish it from previous torsion machines such as the onager.
The mangonel was called al-manjanīq, arrada, shaytani, or sultani in Arabic. In China, the mangonel was called the pào (砲).
History
China
The mangonel originated in ancient China. "The earliest version of the trebuchet, which worked on the principle of a pivoted beam, that is, the man-powered traction trebuchet, was operated by a crew pulling on ropes, which were attached to the short end of the beam, in other words by using manpower rather than a counterweight. Such machines date back as far as ancient China." "The trebuchet, invented in China between the fifth and third centuries B.C.E., reached the Mediterranean by the sixth century C.E.". "The traction trebuchet, invented by the Chinese sometime before the fourth century B.C." "With regard to stone-throwers, however, China and the Mediterranean world had followed quite different paths of development. Hellenistic and Roman stone-throwers were torsion machines that derived their propulsive power from twisted fibers or sinews, whereas in China, as we have seen, traction-based stone-throwers (or trebuchets) had been employed since ancient times and torsion-based devices are not attested. There has been much debate about whether even the simplest of the torsion machines, the one-armed "onager," remained in use into the early Byzantine period. But the dominant trend was toward convergence, with the Byzantines adopting the traction trebuchet as their new stone-thrower (and possibly as early as 587)." Torsion-based siege weapons such as the ballista and onager are not known to have been used in China.
The first recorded use of mangonels was in ancient China. They were probably used by the Mohists as early as 4th century BC; descriptions can be found in the Mozi (compiled in the 4th century BC). "We do however know that the forerunner of the giant catapults of the Medieval era, simple traction catapults based on the lever principle, were already in use during the Warring States period in China in the 5th – 3rd century B.C. Their description appeared in the writings of Mozi, in a Mohist text under a section on Siege Warfare." According to the Mozi, the mangonel was high with buried below ground, the attached fulcrum was constructed from the wheels of a cart, the throwing arm was long with three quarters above the pivot and a quarter below to which the ropes are attached, and the sling long. The range given for projectiles are , , and . They were used as defensive weapons stationed on walls and sometimes hurled hollowed out logs filled with burning charcoal to destroy enemy siege works. By the 1st century AD, commentators were interpreting other passages in texts such as the Zuo zhuan and Classic of Poetry as references to the mangonel: "the guai is 'a great arm of wood on which a stone is laid, and this by means of a device [ji] is shot off and so strikes down the enemy. The Records of the Grand Historian say that "The flying stones weigh 12 catties and by devices [ji] are shot off 300 paces." Mangonels went into decline during the Han dynasty due to long periods of peace but became a common siege weapon again during the Three Kingdoms period. They were commonly called stone-throwing machines, thunder carriages, and stone carriages in the following centuries. They were used as ship mounted weapons by the year 573 for attacking enemy fortifications. It seems that during the early 7th century, improvements were made on mangonels, although it is not explicitly stated what. According to a stele in Barkul celebrating Tang Taizong's conquest of what is now Ejin Banner, the engineer Jiang Xingben made great advancements on mangonels that were unknown in ancient times. Jiang Xingben participated in the construction of siege engines for Taizong's campaigns against the Western Regions.
In 617 Li Mi (Sui dynasty) constructed 300 mangonels for his assault on Luoyang, in 621 Li Shimin did the same at Luoyang, and onward into the Song dynasty when in 1161, mangonels operated by Song dynasty soldiers fired bombs of lime and sulphur against the ships of the Jin dynasty navy during the Battle of Caishi. During the Jingde period (1004–1007), many young men rose in office due to their military accomplishments, and one such man, Zhang Cun, was said to have possessed no knowledge except how to operate a Whirlwind mangonel. When the Jurchen Jin dynasty (1115–1234) laid siege to Kaifeng in 1126, they attacked with 5,000 mangonels.
Chinese mangonels The Wujing Zongyao lists various types of the mangonel:
Whirlwind – a swivel mangonel for shooting small missiles that could be turned to face any direction Whirlwind battery – five whirlwind mangonels combined on a single turntable Pao che (catapult cart) – a whirlwind mangonel on wheels Crouching tiger – medium-sized mangonel considered stronger than the whirlwind type but weaker than the four-footed Four-footed – a trestle-frame mangonel for shooting heavier projectiles Two-seven component – different weight classes for the four-footed type indicated by the number of poles bound together to create the swinging arm
Weapon Crew Projectile weight: kilograms (pounds) Range: meters (feet) Whirlwind 50 (rotating) Crouching tiger 70 (rotating) Four footed (one arm) 40 (rotating) Four footed (two arm) 100 (rotating) Four footed (five arm) 157 (rotating) Four footed (seven arm) 250 (rotating)
Spread
The mangonel was adopted by various peoples west of China such as the Byzantines, Persians, Arabs, and Avars by the sixth to seventh centuries AD. Some scholars suggest that Avars carried the mangonel westward while others claim that the Byzantines already possessed knowledge of the mangonel beforehand. Regardless of the vector of transmission, it appeared in the eastern Mediterranean by the late 6th century AD, where it replaced torsion powered siege engines such as the ballista and onager. "Historians had previously assumed that the diffusion of trebuchets westward from China occurred too late to affect the initial phase of the Islamic conquests, from 624 to 656. Recent work by one of us (Chevedden), however, shows that trebuchets reached the eastern Mediterranean by the late 500s, were known in Arabia and were used with great effect by Islamic armies." "Although neither the role of the Avars in the diffusion of the traction trebuchet and many other items of military technology westward across Eurasia nor the connection between the European Avars and the East Asian Rouran can be established with certainty, the fit is nevertheless a good one. The theory of an East Asian origin for at least a key component of the Avar elite is congruent with the evidence for the arrival of East Asian technologies in western Eurasia in the last decades of the sixth century ce." "Neither the precise date, then, nor the route of its arrival can be determined with certainty. What is certain is that the only place known to have developed this form of artillery was China. It is equally possible that the Avars (with their origins in Central Asia), the Byzantines, or the Persians could have been the first to learn of and make use of the weapon in the western world." The rapid displacement of torsion siege engines was probably due to a combination of reasons. The mangonel is simpler in design, has a faster rate of fire, increased accuracy, and comparable range and power. It was probably also safer than the twisted cords of torsion weapons, "whose bundles of taut sinews stored up huge amounts of energy even in resting state and were prone to catastrophic failure when in use." At the same time, the late Roman Empire seems to have fielded "considerably less artillery than its forebears, organised now in separate units, so the weaponry that came into the hands of successor states might have been limited in quantity." Evidence from Gaul and Germania suggests there was substantial loss of skills and techniques in artillery further west.
According to the Miracles of Saint Demetrius, probably written around 620 by John, Archbishop of Thessaloniki, the Avaro-Slavs attacked Thessaloniki in 586 with more than 50 mangonels. The bombardment lasted for hours, but the operators were inaccurate and most of the shots missed their target. When one stone did reach their target, it "demolished the top of the rampart down to the walkway." The Miracles does not provide a clear date of the siege, which could have been in 586 or 597. An argument has been made that the Byzantines were already acquainted with mangonels prior to this based on the History written by Theophylact Simocatta in the late 620s. The account describes a captured Byzantine soldier named Busas who taught the Avars how to construct a "besieging machine" which led to their conquest of Appiaria in 587. The word used for the machine is helepolis, which does not indicate a specific siege engine. It has been variously interpreted as a battering ram, a stone-throwing trebuchet, and a siege tower. Theophylact's account is vague on descriptions of the device and why it allowed the Avars to take Appiaria after they had already taken many Roman cities beforehand. The Greek term manganikon, from which the Arabic word for trebuchet mandjanik is derived, was also first used to describe Avar machines used against Constantinople in 626. Peter Purton notes that the account by Theophylact is not contemporary and likely written when the mangonel was more common. David Graff and Purton argue that the account by Theophylact has chronological problems and does not explain why the machine used by the Avars in the Miracles was treated as a novelty in either 586 or 597, since the Byzantines would have known about it in both cases. Yet there are no descriptions of the mangonel in the west prior to the encounter with the Avars.