ABSTRACT
In a typically ingenious and innovative manner, Bernard Bachrach demonstrated the importance of quantitative data in the study of medieval castles with an analysis of Fulk Nerra’s castle at Langeais. He was able to do this, in the absence of any building records, by using the surviving remains as the basis of his calculations and arguments. 1 The problems presented by the three great trebuchets built by Edward I at the Tower of London in 1278 are very different, for there are no remains, but there are detailed financial accounts for their construction, and for that of the springalds that replaced them early in Edward II’s reign. The trebuchet accounts in particular give a remarkable insight into the capabilities of medieval engineers, for these engines were probably among the largest of the sort ever built. Their construction was a major and very costly project, an important element in the refortification of the Tower, which took place in the early part of Edward I’s reign, but one which has been strangely neglected.
