Firearms: the earliest European image, 1326-7

In the second quarter of the 14th century, the use of cannons suddenly became quite widespread in Europe: their use is first documented in France in 1324, in Florence in 1326, in England in 1327, and by German troops in Italy and the Moors of Granada in attacking Aragon in 1331. By the 1350s, Petrarch could write that ‘these instruments which discharge balls of metal with tremendous noise and flashes of fire ... were a few years ago very rare and were viewed with great astonishment and admiration, but now they have become as common and familiar as any other kind of arms.  So quick and ingenious are the minds of men in learning the most pernicious arts.’*
 
‘No verbal description can convey the awkwardness of these first [fire]arms more vividly than the first artistic impression’, preserved in an English manuscript dated 1327.* Moreover, many of these early guns were almost as deadly for the unfortunate person selected as a gunner as for the enemy: in this image, the odds of the giant arrow flying forwards to its target do not appear substantially better than the odds of the gun recoiling backward and killing the valiant knight. Recoil was in fact a problem not adequately solved before the 17th century; but an even more dangerous problem was that of casting. Casting of iron was still something of a novelty in this period; and the tiny air pockets, fractures and other flaws in cast iron caused many of the earliest cannons to explode. Some progress was made in producing wrought-iron cannons, but here too the results were far from perfect. Since the welding was often imperfect, the gunpowder of varying strength, and the cannon balls (often of stone) of varying size, wrought-iron cannons also frequently exploded -- most momentously in 1460, when a gun employed in the siege of Roxburgh Castle exploded, killing King James II of Scotland, who had chosen the wrong moment to inspect the performance of his artillery at close range.

Image. Walter de Milemete, 'De Nobilitatibus, Sapientiis, et Prudentiis Regum', 1326-1327. Source: Christ Church MS 92, fol. 70v. Photo: © The Governing Body of Christ Church, Oxford.

Source. Walter de Milemete wrote his book on the nobility, wisdom and prudence of kings as an offering to King Edward III at the end of 1326. An ambitious project, the text is dominated by the decorative borders, crammed with heraldry, contorted hybrids, combats between man and man, man and beast, half-man and half-beast, hunting scenes and tournaments. It is one of the most beautifully illuminated manuscripts in the world and one in the highest demand by specialists. A detailed description of the manuscript can be found here. 

Quotations. * G. M. Cipolla, Guns, Ships and Sails in the Earliest Phase of European Expansion (London, 1965), p. 22