Trebuchet

A trebuchet is a medieval siege engine, a weapon employed either to smash masonry walls or to throw projectiles over them. It is sometimes called a "counterweight trebuchet" in order to distinguish it from an earlier weapon that has come to be called the "traction trebuchet." Sometimes the word trebuchet is used to refer ambiguously to either weapon, but originally it referred to the counterweighted weapon. All trebuchets were made from wood.

The counterweight trebuchet appeared in both Christian and Muslim lands around the Mediterranean in the twelfth century. It could fling three hundred pound (140 kg) projectiles at high speeds into enemy fortifications. On occasion, disease-infected corpses were flung into cities in an attempt to infect the people under siege--a medieval variant of biological warfare. Trebuchets were invented in China in about the 4th century BC, came to Europe in the 6th century AD, and did not become obsolete until the 16th century, well after the introduction of gunpowder. Trebuchets were far more accurate than other medieval catapults.