page_title: Cannon
section_title: Western Europe
hierarchical_section_title: Cannon / History / Western Europe
caption_attribution_description: English: Šibenik, Croatia - cannons at city walls (side view) Hrvatski: Šibenik, Hrvatska - topovi kod gradskih zidina (pogled sa strane)
context_page_description: A cannon is a type of gun classified as artillery that launches a projectile using propellant. In the past, gunpowder was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during the late 19th century. Cannons vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees, depending on their intended use on the battlefield. The word cannon is derived from several languages, in which the original definition can usually be translated as tube, cane, or reed. In the modern era, the term cannon has fallen into decline, replaced by guns or artillery if not a more specific term such as howitzer or mortar, except for high calibre automatic weapons firing bigger rounds than machine guns, called autocannons. The word 'cannon' can be both singular and plural.
  The earliest known depiction of cannon appeared in Song dynasty China as early as the 12th century; however, solid archaeological and documentary evidence of cannon do not appear until the 13th century.
context_section_description: Outside of China, the earliest texts to mention gunpowder are Roger Bacon's Opus Majus (1267) and Opus Tertium in what has been interpreted as references to firecrackers. In the early 20th century, a British artillery officer proposed that another work tentatively attributed to Bacon, Epistola de Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae, et de Nullitate Magiae, also known as Opus Minor, dated to 1247, contained an encrypted formula for gunpowder hidden in the text. These claims have been disputed by science historians. In any case, the formula itself is not useful for firearms or even firecrackers, burning slowly and producing mostly smoke.
  There is a record of a gun in Europe dating to 1322 being discovered in the nineteenth century but the artifact has since been lost. The earliest known European depiction of a gun appeared in 1326 in a manuscript by Walter de Milemete, although not necessarily drawn by him, known as De Nobilitatibus, sapientii et prudentiis regum (Concerning the Majesty, Wisdom, and Prudence of Kings), which displays a gun with a large arrow emerging from it and its user lowering a long stick to ignite the gun through the touchole In the same year, another similar illustration showed a darker gun being set off by a group of knights, which also featured in another work of de Milemete's, De secretis secretorum Aristotelis. On 11 February of that same year, the Signoria of Florence appointed two officers to obtain canones de mettallo and ammunition for the town's defense. In the following year a document from the Turin area recorded a certain amount was paid "for the making of a certain instrument or device made by Friar Marcello for the projection of pellets of lead." A reference from 1331 describes an attack mounted by two Germanic knights on Cividale del Friuli, using gunpowder weapons of some sort. The 1320s seem to have been the takeoff point for guns in Europe according to most modern military historians. Scholars suggest that the lack of gunpowder weapons in a well-traveled Venetian's catalogue for a new crusade in 1321 implies that guns were unknown in Europe up until this point, further solidifying the 1320 mark, however more evidence in this area may be forthcoming in the future.
  The oldest extant cannon in Europe is a small bronze example unearthed in Loshult, Scania in southern Sweden. It dates from the early-mid 14th century, and is currently in the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm.
  Early cannon in Europe often shot arrows and were known by an assortment of names such as pot-de-fer, tonnoire, ribaldis, and büszenpyle. The ribaldis, which shot large arrows and simplistic grapeshot, were first mentioned in the English Privy Wardrobe accounts during preparations for the Battle of Crécy, between 1345 and 1346. The Florentine Giovanni Villani recounts their destructiveness, indicating that by the end of the battle, "the whole plain was covered by men struck down by arrows and cannon balls." Similar cannon were also used at the Siege of Calais (1346–47), although it was not until the 1380s that the ribaudekin clearly became mounted on wheels.
caption: Cannon from the 15th century at Šibenik city walls
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