You know, pictures like this really make the case for stirrups on crossbows
Yeah, sitting or standing, not a method I’d want to use. I had a crossbow (modern style) I used to shoot, and I spanned it using a cocking rope. For a lark, I spanned it by hand once - it’s miserable stuff. I can’t imagine doing it without a stirrup too.
What’s preventing the guy on the right from putting a bolt through his foot if something goes wrong while he’s drawing? Is the adoption of the stirrup just down to its benefits outweighing the safety risk, or were people good enough at not shooting themselves that it wasn’t a concern?
You don’t put the bolt on the rail until after it’s cocked.
…
…That makes sense.
With crossbows, you draw the string back and lock it in place, then raise it to horizontal, the you load the bolt into the carrier.
The stirruped version is so common that we have a specific word for it in Finnish, “jalkajousi” “footbow”, where any crossbow is “varsijousi” and a smaller ones can be “käsijousi” “handbow”. But jalkajousi is the most common word for a large crossbow I’d say, stirruped or not.
I shot one in my tweens iirc (as in I remember the shooting but not the age). A proper non-modern one as well, some class trip I think to an outdoors museum sort of thing.
