Siege in the SCA

Siege is one of my favorite historical subjects, as it is the application of science and engineering toward military objectives. I've been heavily involved in siege since authorizing in 2013.

Siege warfare in the SCA is primarily carried out as part of larger Armored Combat melees, with engines acting as field artillery that can kill through shields or destroy defensive structures. However, siege is also an educational pursuit where the science behind historical engines' functions are examined and recreated. Additionally, there are several types of informal target-shoot competition, using both full-sized engines and smaller scale models.

Siege Engines I've Built

The Staff Sling or Fustibalus

The staff sling is an interesting and frequently overlooked weapon in history. By the Middle Ages, the hand-sling had more or less fallen out of use due to superior archery technology becoming common, but the staff-sling persisted even to the age of gunpowder weapons. It was primarily used in siege warfare as a sort of miniature, one-person trebuchet, by throwing heavy rocks, clay pots filled with incendiary substances, or early forms of explosive grenade.

My own practice confirms that the staff sling has a very different learning pattern than the hand-sling, which is probably why the former persisted for so long. The staff sling isn't really going to achieve pin-point accuracy like the hand-sling can (which takes decades of practice), but can achieve a reasonable amount of combat-effective accuracy with a few weeks. The staff sling wasn't intended to throw it's projectiles at single, rabbit-sized targets, but rather against groups of infantry or over castle walls.

Both the hand-sling and staff sling are prohibited from being used in SCA Armored Combat by society policy, per the July 2020 Marshal's Handbook, Section VII, Part A, Paragraph 13. They were legal previously and were used to throw tennis balls as simulated stones, but were banned some time in the late 1990s. The details on why are varied and somewhat sketchy.

Still, I've been enjoying building these slings and throwing things with them for the sake of historical study into how siege warfare was conducted.