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The History of Catapults
We typically think of a catapult as something that was used in the Middle Ages to destroy the walls of a castle as in the poster shown here. But Catapults have a very long history dating long before the time of castles and they were developed and designed in many different ways by many different cultures over the centuries. What is a catapult? The general definition is that a catapult is a machine that stores energy then quickly releases the energy to fire a projectile. To be a catapult the machine generally has to be too large for a person to carry. If we just used the storage and release of energy to define a catapult then a longbow would also fit this definition. So the size of the machine is important. How did catapults develop? Catapults are an offshoot of the Crossbow. Over time crossbows got larger and larger. The went from being a hand-held weapon to something called the Belly-Bow which were so large they had to be braced against a knight's belly. From there they got even larger and became something called a stand crossbow where they were mounted on stands. Eventually they got large enough to be defined as something in their own right and no longer crossbows. This size change also brought about changes in how they operated.
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