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Revision as of 12:58, 21 December 2015 by 69.200.228.170 (talk) (approve removal of large paragraphs recently added; primary sources and other are necessary to categorize trebuckets (trebuchets) as 'perrarries' or petraries--in traditional scholarship distinction is made; question added to that effect.)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) | This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Petrary" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Petrary is a generic term for a medieval stone-throwing siege engine (from the Greek "petra", "stone"), used to hurl large rocks against the walls of the besieged city, in an attempt to break down the wall and create an entry point.
Petraries can be either gravity operated, where a large counterweight drops to propel the missile, or tension operated, where the throwing arm is pulled back against twisted rope or animal sinew, which then provides the power when released.
Catapult, trebuchet (trebuckets are similar in general nature; whether they were considered to constitute petraries per se, is...constested), mangonel are all types of petrary, but ballista style armaments, which shot bolts or arrows, would not fit into this category.
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