Did the Pope's crossbow and archery bans have any effect?

Question

One of the more famous and certainly curious decisions at the [Second Council of the Lateran](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Council_of_the_Lateran) in 1139 was a ban on using missile troops against Christians. Specifically, Canon 29 states that: > We prohibit under anathema that murderous art of crossbowmen and archers, which is hateful to God, to be employed against Christians and Catholics from now on. > > [Papal Encyclicals Online](http://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum10.htm) This is frequently misrepresented as a crossbow only ban, usually accompanied by far fetched claims such as likening the crossbow to ["weapons of a mass destruction"](http://militaryhistorynow.com/2012/05/23/the-crossbow-a-medieval-wmd/) (more likely, it was an attempt by the Church to take the moral high road). In any case, it seems similar bans were issued by [Pope Urban II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Urban_II) in 1097 and repeated again towards the end of the century by [Pope Innocent III](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Innocent_III), but I cannot locate definitive sources or texts for either. Obviously, the bans didn't last. Archers and crossbowmen continued to feature in European battles everywhere. For example, the famed [Genoese crossbowmen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genoese_crossbowmen) dueled English Longbowmen at the [Battle of Crécy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cr%C3%A9cy). I even [found references](http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/military-history/the-crossbows-role-in-medieval-warfare/) claiming [Pope Gregory IX](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_IX) employed "Provençal mounted crossbowmen" against the Lombard League in 1239 (but that seems a bit dubious since AFAIK they were allied against the Holy Roman Emperor that year). What I am curious about, is whether the ban had any actual effect on European warfare (or diplomacy!) at all. Did any feudal lords ever take the ban seriously, or had it been unenforced right from the start? Was there any outrage when the ban was violated, or was it always ignored by the secular world? Did any contemporaries actually take note of the ruling?

Answer 1

So far as I know, the answer is NO. Like the prohibition on usury, it was a hopelessly impractical measure for which the people of Christendom had no option but to ignore. Leaving aside the issue of crossbows, the use of bows in warfare was as old as civilization and was widely relied upon, to one degree or another, by practically every people in Europe and beyond. In the legislation issued by European Monarchs detailing how different subjects were to arm themselves for military service, the least wealthy were commonly required to obtain either a spear or a bow. I know of no instance in which such regulations were revoked due to the Papal bans.

It's more than likely that the Papal bans on archery and, in particular, the use of crossbows, had less to due with the horrors of war than with preserving the social order. The value of the crossbow was that it was more effective than any other existing weapon in penetrating mail armor, the most widely used type of armored protection among the nobility (knights, barons, dukes, earls, etc...). And this was the rub, with a crossbow a mere commoner had the power to fell one of his betters in combat. It's no coincidence that the nobility expressed a similar, initial revulsion towards the first practical hand-held firearms.

But it was the effectiveness of crossbows in battle that guaranteed their continued use, Papal ban or no Papal ban. If just one of Europe's kingdoms ignored the ban, that kingdom's armies would have a significant advantage against the armies of all of the other kingdoms.

Of course, those Pope's who sought to ban the use of bows and crossbows in war failed to take into consideration the common pattern in the development of military technology; as in physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Invariably the increase in the power of missile weapons represented by the crossbow provoked the search for improvements in armored protection, a search that led to a growing reliance on forms of plate armor (which, in turn, led to the development of increasingly powerful crossbows equipped with steel bows).

It's interesting to note, however, that the death of King Richard 'the lionhearted' by a crossbow bolt was interpreted by some contemporaries as God's punishment for Richard's employment of crossbowmen in his numerous military campaigns.