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Comburendos Hostes (The Book of Fires for Consuming the Enemy)
, contains recipes for explosive mixtures of various strengths. Graecus even notes that the mixtures mightbe loaded into “small tubes” that, when fired, would “rise into the air with a great whining noise.”
    These early propulsion formulas recorded by Graecus provided little more than entertainment initially. History reveals little about the origins of the chemical mixture of potassium nitrate (saltpeter), wood charcoal, and sulfur that eventually became gunpowder. There is evidence that Roger Bacon, Fellow of Merton College, England, successfully mixed the elements into gunpowder early in the thirteenth century. Spanish inventors must have discovered the correct ingredients at about the same time, for they employed primitive cannons during their defense of Seville in 1247.
    Despite this evidence, some historians credit German monk Berthold Schwartz for the invention of gunpowder, citing a drawing in
Buchsenmeisterey-Schul (School of the Art of Gunnery)
by Joseph Furtenbach published in Augsburg in 1643. The picture shows a monk, surrounded by laboratory instruments, creating a small explosion in a crucible. Above the drawing is an inscription. “Portrait of the Venerable and Ingenious Reverend Father called Berthold Schwartz, of the Franciscan order; Doctor, alchemist, and Inventor of the Noble Art of Gunnery in the year 1380.” More words below the image explain, “See here what time and nature have brought today through ingenious men: the art of shooting in guns has been born, created out of nature of fire and vapors of nature.”
    Despite Furtenbach’s claims, there is ample evidence that by 1250 the Europeans and the Chinese already knew about the explosiveness of gunpowder. While its discoverer would remain unknown, the destructive power of gunpowder and its influence on the battlefield would dominate all future history.
    Apparently the Chinese were satisfied for another century or so to use gunpowder merely for the manufacture of fireworks for use on ceremonial occasions. Europeans, however, recognized its military capabilities and began developing iron tubes that would fire a projectile with the explosive powder. The English began referring to these weapons as “guns,” a word apparently derived from the Teutonic words of
gunhilde
and
gundeline
, both meaning “war.” By 1340 references to“gonne,” “gounne,” and “gunne” appeared in English documents. The expenditure accounts of Edward III for February 1, 1345, list payment for the repair and transport of “13 guns with pellets.”
    By the end of the fourteenth century most European armies had crude cannons in their inventories, the majority of which were dedicated to defense of fortifications. Early handguns appeared at the same time and consisted of short iron or brass tubes less than one foot long with a bore of less than a quarter inch. Shooters poured powder into the tube’s open end and tamped a metal or stone shot into the closed base. A “touch hole” allowed the firer to ignite the powder with a coal. These “hand cannons” were extremely difficult to aim and became even more so with repeated firing because the barrel became hot.
    Innovators added wooden stocks to control the metal barrels and protect the firer from the weapon’s heat. Advances in powder production, particularly the combining of the ingredients into tiny pellets or “corns,” provided a quicker firing, more uniform explosive propellent. Touch holes were replaced by a pan to hold a bit of powder to ease ignition of the main charge. Tightly twisted rags soaked in saltpeter to enable them to smolder for long periods replaced coals as igniters. A serpentine device to hold the smoldering “match” could be lowered by hand, and later by a trigger, to touch the pan and fire the weapon. These “matchlocks” allowed the gunner to look at his target and aim his weapon with some degree of accuracy.
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