Medieval siege engine brought to life in Utah
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Sarah Earnshaw and Brian Champagne, KSL
RICHMOND, Utah (KSL) — You don’t see a medieval siege engine launching bowling balls and human-sized arrows about 1,000 feet down a hill every day.
That’s how a former Utah State University student and a group of history buffs spent Saturday morning at the Tripp Family Farm, east of Richmond.
“We put a lot of work into the machine every year, maintaining it. Today, we get to get out what we put in,” said Daniel Bertrand.
Bertrand said he devoted his thesis to researching medieval trebuchet-building techniques before constructing one for his capstone project during his senior year at Utah State University several years ago. Since then, he’s continued maintaining the engine, which is about half the size and one-twentieth the weight of trebuchets actually used during medieval times.
“The heart and soul of this machine is the wooden axle,” Bertrand said.
His team used medieval techniques to build the machine, holding it together with mortise-and-tenon joints rather than screws.
“I’ve learned you need to band them with heat-shrunk iron to keep the wood from splintering,” Bertrand said.
Bertrand said the team has been able to launch the trebuchet with 50% more counterweight and is now using a metric ton.
Jeff Anderson, of Ogden, came to watch the launch Saturday and help wind up the machine. He said it was exciting to put his hands on technology used hundreds of years ago.
“A lot of the time, we like to think we’re so advanced as a society nowadays, but the things that they had technologically back then were marvelous at their age,” Anderson said. “It’s fun to be able to get hands-on and be able to experience something that not a lot of people have a chance to be a part of.”
Bertrand said he hopes to build a larger trebuchet one day but will settle for what he has for now. A smaller version of the trebuchet will be brought to Utah State University’s Pumpkin Toss on Saturday, Oct. 24, at Elk Ridge Park.
