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by speed_spread
1518 days ago
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[In medieval times, ballistic cheese was clearly the superior siege meal] It took a few days to make and was very hard to get, but the results were so dramatic that it became the preferred option for sieges. Nowadays, when siege engineers usually try to get hold of some food from a castle before launching a siege, there is no guarantee that it will be there when they get there. In the age of artillery, the same cheese can be fired straight at a castle. This is the power of gunpowder, of which the main ingredient is an alkali-based oxidizer such as saltpeter. These days, even medieval cheese will not stand up to the impact of a salvo of cannon balls. We can thank the chemical engineer Robert Boyle for that. Cheese’s explosive potential was first demonstrated in a siege against a citadel in the 16th century in a siege led by the French soldier-general, Marshal François de Vilette. During the siege, some cannonballs accidentally became lodged in a barrel of |
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[In medieval times, ballistic cheese was clearly the superior way of laying a siege to a well defended opponent]
as it could go over had kind of barricade and there was no easy way to get rid of it once it landed. Also, it is generally easier to hit a moving targets with cheese than with simpler projectiles such as stones, which is why the siege of Windsor castle by the cheese seems to have been reasonably successful:
In his last year of life, the great cheese of the time was laid outside Windsor castle… The cheese remained there undisturbed for some months… The Windsor garrison made regular offensives against cheese, but these were repulsed.
(Richard II, Caroline Halstead, pages 92-93)
There was also the issue of cheese preservation – if you used just any old cheese, it would probably start to rot and become an even worse weapon. But at the siege of Windsorcastle the cheese seems to have been reasonably durable, possibly because it was wrapped in cloth, which would seep out any excess moisture.
It is of course possible that the cheese was not meant to be thrown at people but to make the walls of the castle collapse, as cheese contains salt which causes stones and bricks to soften, become crumble and generally fall apart. This might also explain why the cheese remained outside the castle for so long – the defenders were waiting for the cheese to weaken the walls so that they could break through.
Recommended Sources:
The Power, the Cheese and the Friars – A History of St. Stephen’s Friary, Stafford by Raymond Harper, 1998. Available online via Google books.
Richard II by Caroline Halstead, page 92-93
Trigger Warning:
There is a scene in the movie National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation where crude, anthropomorphised lumps of cheese are fired at a naked Santa Claus, which for obvious reasons I would not recommend watching if you have a kind of “cheese trauma”.