Swords, daggers and lances were very good for fighting battles that were up close and very dangerous. There were different kinds of swords like the thrusting sword (14th century), the falchion sword (13th century), and the hand-and-a-half-sword (14th century). At the end of the 13th century, swords were more pointed and the section of the blade was diamond-shaped rather than flat. That made the sword stronger. There was even ones that were serrated to cut wooden axe handles and one called the two-handed sword; it could cut through bone. These are "used by knights on foot" and "is longer and heavier than" other swords. (Knight-Meyr) A knight's sword was his most important weapon. There were two different types of daggers. They were the 15th century bullock dagger, and the 14th century rondel dagger. Sometimes, peo

ple could hide daggers in walking sticks. Lances were for knights on horseback to knock off the enemy knight. They used the lance for battles and jousting. "The jousting knight uses a lance to knock his opponent from the horse. It is second only to the sword as a knight's weapon, and is used in battle or tournaments." (Knight-Meyr) A very unusual weapon was the bola. It was a spiked ball on a short chain that is attached to a wooden handle. The ball reached high speeds when swung and delivered forceful, crushing blows.

One of the biggest weapons of all was the catapult. Catapults were weapons to attack the castle. They could destroy a whole wall of a castle in one single shot. The two other names the by which the catapult was called were the Mangon and the Trebuchet. The differences between the two were that the Trebuchet catapults were slingshots with a very large boulder in an enormous cup that springs up to the castle. They didn't only use a cup to launch the boulders; they would use a sling pouch. They launched anything that was heavy or would cause destruction. Sometimes, they would even launch decapitated heads.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Middle Ages, Mangon Trebuchet, cross bow, 14th century, short bow, middle ages, knights bows arrows, war middle ages, longbow short bow, bow cross bow, 13th century, bow cross, bows arrows, short bow cross, knights bows, war middle, attack castle,
Approximate Word count = 886
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)