Firearm

Firearms are weapons designed to throw a projectile, usually a metal one, great distances. The motive power for these projectiles is gunpowder, which explodes when exposed to fire. This explosion is harnessed by trapping its expansion in a metal tube (the barrel) plugged with the projectile, causing great pressure. This extreme pressure causes the projectile to be launched from the tube at high speed. The explosion and the accompanying pressure changes as the projectile leaves the barrel cause a flash, a distinctive booming sound, and a cloud of thick white smoke.

Due to the limitations of metallurgy, firearms in period were primarily muzzle-loaders as opposed to modern breech-loading firearms. They were loaded from the open end of the barrel (the muzzle) rather than through a closable gap in the firing chamber. This made loading them slow and unwieldy.

Gunpowder was discovered in China early in period, but didn't make its way to Europe until the latter part of the medieval era.

Cannon

A Cannon is a very large firearm, and were the first gunpowder weapons to be used in Europe. Cannons are so large that they need to be mounted on frames, and are handled by several men. Using large amounts of gunpowder, they would fire a ball (usually metal, but sometimes stone) weighing several pounds distances of up to a mile or more.

Mortars and bombards were two types of cannon that lobbed their projectiles (often metal spheres filled with more gunpowder) in a ballistic arc over high walls.

Cannons were fired by igniting the gunpowder through a narrow channel (called the breech) by way of a slow match, a smoldering cord. Cannons were sometimes fired without a projectile, or blank, as a method of signalling messages.

For much of the medieval era, cannons were unwieldy, inaccurate, and often as dangerous to the men using them as they were to the target.

Infantry Weapons

A Wall Gun was essentially a very small cannon, able to be carried by single infantryman. However, they were still so heavy and unwieldy that they needed to be braced on a stand or a wall to be used, hence the name. They were extremely inaccurate and not widely used.

The Arquebus marked the development of the wall gun into a true infantry weapon. Arquebuses were light enough to be carried and aimed, but were still very inaccurate and lacked stopping power. In addition, they were fired by matchlock a smoldering cord, which made them very susceptible to damp.

Muskets were the next development of firearms, and proved more accurate and reliable than earlier arquebuses. Muskets tended to be flintlocks rather than matchlocks, that is, they were fired by the sparks from a flint striking steel. Later muskets also added the refinement of rifling, spiral grooves which caused the ball to spin, improving accuracy.

Pistols is a very small firearm, designed to be fired in one hand. While some early pistols were matchlocks, they only became common with the development of the flintlock. Pistols lack range, accuracy and stopping power compared with muskets or even arquebuses.

In the gothic period, certain melee weapons were adapted to incorporate gunpowder, but these were rare and never commonly used. Examples include maces or axes with a barrel built into the haft of the weapon. Others included daggers with a short barrel along the blade.

Firearms in Period

While large cannons were used during sieges and aboard ships throughout the late medieval period, most hand-held firearms were rare. Those that did exist could often be defeated by plate armour. By Elizabethan times, only arquebuses were in common use, and their unreliabilty put them in a supporting role to more traditional weapons.

The development of the flintlock musket did not occur until well after the end of the medieval period, and it was not until the English Civil War in the seventeenth century that large formations of infantry were exclusively armed with muskets by Oliver Cromwell to defeat the more traditional Royalist forces under King Charles I.

The technology to create modern breech-loading firearms was not developed until the mid-19th century.

Firearms in the SCA

For reasons of safety, firearms are not permitted at SCA events. Except for rare demonstrations of Rennaisance firearms, you are unlikely to ever see a period firearm at the SCA, and never on the battlefield.

One notable exception is the use of a single cannon at the Pennsic War, which is fired blank to signal the beginning and end of battle.