Historiography of gunpowder and gun transmission

In the history of gunpowder there are a range of theories about the transmission of the knowledge of gunpowder and guns from China to the rest of the world.

An "eruptor" as depicted in the Huolongjing. Essentially a fire lance on a frame, the 'multiple bullets magazine eruptor' shoots lead shots, which are loaded in a magazine and fed into the barrel when turned around on its axis.
An illustration of a 'flying-cloud thunderclap-eruptor,' a cannon firing thunderclap bombs, from the Huolongjing.
A 'poison fog divine smoke eruptor' (du wu shen yan pao) as depicted in the Huolongjing. Small shells emitting poisonous smoke are fired.

Theories of independent firearm invention

Although the oldest extant guns appear in the Yuan dynasty, the historian Tonio Andrade notes that there is a surprising scarcity of reliable evidence of guns in Iran or Central Asia prior to the late 14th century. He argues that, in the Middle East, no guns are mentioned prior to the 1360s, while Russian records do not contain reliable mentions of firearms until 1382, after the gun's arrival in western Europe, despite their closer proximity and interactions with the Mongol empires.[1]

European origin

There is some evidence that does point to the possible appearance of guns in Andalusia as early as the 1330s.[1] Thomas T. Allsen says that "in the Latin West the first uncontestable evidence of firearms is from 1326, surprisingly somewhat earlier than in the lands that lie between China ... and western Europe.[1] This has caused some doubt among historians on the gun transmission theory, and even whether or not there was a transmission at all.[2] One dissident opinion comes from Stephen Morillo, Jeremy Black, and Paul Lococo's War in World History which argues that "the sources are not entirely clear about Chinese use of gunpowder in guns. There are references to bamboo and iron cannons, or perhaps proto-cannons, but these seem to have been small, unreliable, handheld weapons in this period. The Chinese do seem to have invented guns independently of the Europeans, at least in principle; but, in terms of effective cannon, the edge goes to Europe."[3]

There was also a stream of thought in Europe that emerged as early as the 15th century that attributed the invention of both gunpowder and the gun to a certain Berthold Schwartz. However it's not exactly certain who Berthold was or if he ever existed as there are no contemporary records of him. Some consider him a mythical figure, used as a stand-in "for all the curious and ingenious experiments related to the new and dangerous mixture of saltpetre, sulfur (brimstone) and carbon."[4] William Camden declared in 1605:

Some have sayled a long course as farre as China, the farthest part of the world, to fetch the invention of guns from thence, but we know the Spanicsh proverb 'long waies, long lies'. One writeth, I know not upon whose credit, that Roger Bacon, commonly called Friar Bacon, knew how to make an engine which with saltpetre and Brimstone, should prove notable for Batterie, but he, tendering the safety of mankind, would not discover it. The best approved authors agree that guns were invented in Germanie, by Berthold Swarte, a Monke skilful in Gebers Cookery or Alchimy, who tempering Brimstone and saltpetre in a mortar, perceived the force by casting up the stone which covered it, when a sparke fell upon it....[4]

— William Camden

According to Henry Pratap Phillips, Berthold Schwartz was actually named Constantin Anchlitzen, and made gunpowder at Freiburg around the year 1330. However J.R. Partington believes Black Berthold is a purely legendary figure invented for the purpose of providing a German origin for gunpowder and cannon.[5] Others have tried to extrapolate ancient mentions of producing thunder as proof of gunpowder, but invariably run into problems with dating, anachronisms, and interpolations, leading modern arms historians to conclude that true gunpowder was unknown in Europe before the 13th century.[6]

Islamic origin

There is another independent invention theory supporting an Islamic origin of the gun, citing the Mamluk deployment of hand cannons in 1260 and a passage by Ibn Khaldun on the Marinid Siege of Sijilmassa in 1274: "[ The Sultan] installed siege engines … and gunpowder engines …, which project small balls of iron. These balls are ejected from a chamber … placed in front of a kindling fire of gunpowder; this happens by a strange property which attributes all actions to the power of the Creator."[7] The passage, dated to 1382, and its interpretation has been rejected as anachronistic by most historians, who urge caution regarding claims of Islamic firearms use in the 1204–1324 period as late medieval Arabic texts used the same word for gunpowder, naft, as they did for an earlier incendiary, naphtha.[8][9] Needham believes Ibn Khaldun was speaking of fire lances rather than hand cannon.[10]

Historian Ahmad Y. al-Hassan, based on his analysis of 14th-century Arabic manuscripts which he argues to be copies of earlier texts, claims that hand cannons were used at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260.[11] However Hassan's claims have been refuted by other historians such as David Ayalon, Iqtidar Alam Khan, Joseph Needham, Tonio Andrade, and Gabor Ágoston. Khan argues that it was the Mongols who introduced gunpowder to the Islamic world,[12] and believes cannons only reached Mamluk Egypt in the 1370s.[13] According to Needham, the term midfa, dated to textual sources from 1342 to 1352, did not refer to true hand-guns or bombards, and contemporary accounts of a metal-barrel cannon in the Islamic world do not occur until 1365[14] Similarly, Andrade dates the textual appearance of cannon in middle eastern sources to the 1360s.[1] Gabor Ágoston and David Ayalon believe the Mamluks had certainly used siege cannon by the 1360s, but earlier uses of cannon in the Islamic World are vague with a possible appearance in the Emirate of Granada by the 1320s, however evidence is inconclusive.[9]

Indian origin

The idea that ancient Hindus had knowledge of gunpowder traces back to two 18th century authors: N.B. Halhed and Q. Craufurd. Halhed's Persian translation of a Sanskrit digest of laws, Code of Gentoo Laws (1776), translates agni-astra as "firearms" or "fire-arrow discharged from bamboo," and sataghni, which literally means "hundred-killer" as "cannon." Craufurd's text published in 1790 thought the old Hindus used gunpowder but was doubtful of their use before Europeans. In 1848, Professor Wilson, Director of the Asiatic Society at Calcutta, wrote that Indians were well acquainted with gunpowder and that rockets were an Indian inventioin. According to H.M. Elliot's The History of India as Told by its own Historians (1875), saltpetre may have possibly been used in explosives mentioned in the Ramayana and Sri Bhagavat.[15] In 1880, Gustav Oppert claimed that the oldest documents describing gunpowder were the Sanskrit texts Sukraniti and Nitiprakasika. The Sukraniti contains descriptions of firearms and a formula for agni-curna (fire-powder): 5 parts saltpetre, 1 part sulphur, and 1 part charcoal. The two firearms mentioned in the Sukraniti are a musket and a cart-drawn gun. There are no definite dates for these works despite claims of their antiquity.[16] The Arthashastra lists recipes for explosive and inflammable powder which do not contain salt or sulphur. However A. Kalyanamaran argues that sulphur was not needed to create gunpowder and nitre could be obtained from fermented dung mentioned in the ingredients.[17] The Greek historian Philostratos cites a letter written by Alexander saying that the reason why the Greek army refrained from advancing from Hydaspis to Ganges was because of the frightful dangers it encountered when people of Oxydraces threw flaming thunderbolts from the top of their forts. H. Wilkinson, who also believes Greek Fire was first discovered by the Indians, considers this as the earliest evidence of gunpowder in the world.[18] According to J. Backman, gunpowder was invented in India and brought to Europe by Muslims.[6]

Many western military and arms historians, as well as some Indian scholars, have cast doubts on the authenticity of the Sukraniti, mainly for two reasons. First, this work could not be dated with reasonable certainty and, second, the descriptions of gunpowder and firearms given in it appear to be far too advanced for the period to which this work is generally assigned. A few scholars are also of the opinion that the entire book is a clever piece of forgery.[6]

— Henry Pratap Phillips

According to Henry Pratap Phillips, some content in the Sanskrit works resemble that found in the Wujing Zongyao and it is possible that it was borrowed from the latter. However he believes it is the opposite and the gunpowder formula in the Wujing Zongyao came from the Sukraniti. Phillips and Oppert both consider The Rajalakshminarayana Hradaya, which Oppert dates to a "very remote period,"[19] as proof of ancient Indian knowledge of gunpowder since it mentions charcoal, sulphur, and other materials in the preparation of fire. The lack of saltpetre is explained by Phillips as a conscious omission for the sake of secrecy.[6]

The Chinese texts are usually fairly precisely dated, whilst Indian works are often not. This difficulty must not be allowed to impair the interest or value of Indian works, but they must also be examined from the point of view of their scientific and technical contents with due care and with a suitably critical attitude. I feel that Oppert's treatment does not satisfy this requirement.[19]

— J.R. Partington

J.R. Partington rejected Oppert's claims in his A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder. Partington believes that the sataghni mentioned in Sanskrit text was an iron-mace rather than a cannon while Joseph Needham is of the opinion that its translation as cannon cannot be sustained.[20] The word for cannon, nalika, does not appear in any Sanskrit dictionary, and the source of Sukratini is the mythical Usanas of Sukracharya. There is also no classical Sanskrit word for saltpetre while shoraka in late Sanskrit is derived from Persian. Rajendralala Mitra raised doubts about the age of another work by Usanas, Nitisara of Sukracharya, noting that it contains descriptions of firearms as they were a hundred years ago. In Partington's opinion the work is legendary.[21] In 1902, P.C. Ray raised doubts about the authenticity of textual evidence supporting ancient Hindu knowledge of gunpowder. Ray pointed out that the gunpowder mixture of 4:1:1 saltpetre, charcoal, and sulphur found in Sukraniti was the most efficient for guns and was not known in Europe until the 16th century, leading him to believe that the content was an interpolation by "the handiwork of some charlatan."[22] P.K. Gode provided textual evidence that pyrotechnical recipes recorded in the Sanskrit treatise, Kautukacintamani, were copied from a Chinese source. Similarly H.L. Blackmore wrote in 1965 that Oppert's theories were absurd and no proper attempt to date the sources had been made.[6] H.W.L. Hime goes as far as to say that "early Indian gunpowder is definitely a fiction"[23] while Partington calls it a "legend."[24] According to Kaushik Roy, the ancient and medieval Indians used saltpetre for incendiary devices but not for gunpowder.[25]

Arguments for and against transmission

Historian Tonio Andrade supports the gun transmission theory, noting that while records of gunpowder weapons and their evolution into the gun exist in China, "there are no records of any such developments in Europe,"[1] and that the arrival of the gun in Europe was such that it "appears fully formed around 1326."[1] This is not strictly true, as Kelly DeVries points out that compilers of early gunpowder recipes in Europe understood that should the instrument carrying gunpowder be enclosed on one end, the gunpowder reaction inside would produce "flying fire."[7] Andrade goes on to analyze the nature and etymology of gunpowder in Europe and comes to the conclusion that it is intrinsically in favor of the transmission theory rather than an independent invention. There are the older and more numerous formulas of gunpowder using a variety of different proportions of key ingredients – saltpeter, sulphur, and charcoal – which he believes is proof of its evolution and experimentation in China, where gunpowder was first applied to warfare as an incendiary, then explosive, and finally as a propellant. In contrast gunpowder formulas in Europe appear both later and offer very little divergence from the already ideal proportions for the purpose of creating an explosive and propellant powder.[26] Another facet of the gunpowder transmission theory is the appearance of gunpowder in Europe ready made for military usage, and is generally referred to as gunpowder rather than a civilian term such as the Chinese "fire-drug," which suggests an originally non-military usage, whereas in Europe it was almost immediately and exclusively used for its military qualities.[27] Muslim terms of saltpeter may also point toward a gunpowder transmission, if not the gun itself, as an Andalusian botanist referred to it as "Chinese snow," while in Persia it was called "Chinese salt."[27] Perhaps even further in the Sinocentric gun transmission camp is Joseph Needham who claims that "all the long preparations and tentative experiments were made in China, and everything came to Islam and the West fully fledged, whether it was the fire-lance or the explosive bomb, the rocket or the metal-barrel hand-gun and bombard."[1] However, theories of European, Islamic, and Indian origins for the gun and gunpowder still persist today in tandem with the transmission theory.[7]

There are problems on both extremes of the gun transmission debate. Its proponents emphasize the older history of gunpowder evolution as attested by historical records and archaeological samples in China, its less obviously militarily focused name as "fire medicine," the Mongol role as a catalyst in disseminating gunpowder technology, and criticizes the scant or absent evidence of prior experimentation with gunpowder in Europe for non-military purposes before the arrival of the gun.[28] However, there are still several blanks in the history of a gun transmission theory and the questions they raise which its proponents have been unable to answer. The rapid spread of guns across Eurasia, only 50 years from China to Europe, with non-existent evidence of its route from one extreme of the continent to the other, remains a mystery. Other Chinese inventions such as the compass, paper, and printing took centuries to reach Europe, with events such as the Battle of Talas as perhaps a possible takeoff point for discussion. No such event exists on record for either gunpowder or the gun. There is simply no clear route of transmission,[27] and while the Mongols are often pointed to as the likeliest vector, Timothy May points out that "there is no concrete evidence that the Mongols used gunpowder weapons on a regular basis outside of China."[29] According to Kate Raphael, the list of Chinese specialists recruited by Genghis Khan and Hulagu provided by the History of Yuan includes only carpenters and blacksmiths, but no gunpowder workers.[30] A conclusion most military historians in the transmission camp have come to is that the rapid diffusion of gunpowder and the gun is probably best explained by its clear military applications.[27]

Although the spread of gunpowder is directly related to the rise of the Mongols and the Pax Mongolica, it is unclear whether the Mongols themselves contributed to the spread. Some historians have claimed the Mongols used gunpowder weapons, essentially bombs hurled by catapults, in the Middle East and perhaps Eastern Europe; unfortunately there is no definite documentary or archaeological evidence to confirm it. Considering the Mongols rarely met a weapon they did not like, we can be certain that if they found a way to transport it safely it would have been incorporated into their arsenal outside China. Nonetheless, it remains speculation... However... the Mongols used it in their wars against the Jin, the Song and in their invasions of Japan.[31]

— Timothy May

Opponents of the transmission theory criticize the vagueness of Chinese records on the specific usage of gunpowder in weaponry, the existence of gunpowder or possibly lack thereof in incendiary weapons as described by Chinese documents, the weakness of Chinese firearms, the non-existent route of diffusion or evidence of guns between Europe and China before 1326, and emphasize the independent evolution of superior guns in Europe.[28] This too becomes problematic as already discussed above. Notably there is an acute dearth of any significant evidence of evolution or experimentation with gunpowder or gunpowder weapons leading up to the gun in 1326, which can be found in China.[32] Gunpowder appeared in Europe primed for military usage as an explosive and propellant, bypassing a process which took centuries of Chinese experimentation with gunpowder weaponry to reach, making a nearly instantaneous and seamless transition into gun warfare, as its name suggests. Furthermore, early European gunpowder recipes shared identical defects with Chinese recipes such as the inclusion of the poisons sal ammoniac and arsenic, which provide no benefit to gunpowder.[33] Bert S. Hall explains this phenomenon in his Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe: Gunpowder, Technology, and Tactics by drawing upon the gunpowder transmission theory, explaining that "gunpowder came [to Europe], not as an ancient mystery, but as a well-developed modern technology, in a manner very much like twentieth-century 'technology-transfer' projects."[27] In a similar vein Peter Lorge supposes that the Europeans experienced gunpowder "free from preconceived notions of what could be done," in contrast to China, "where a wide range of formulas and a broad variety of weapons demonstrated the full range of possibilities and limitations of the technologies involved."[34] There is also the vestige of Chinese influence, and not European, on Muslim terminology of some gunpowder related items such as saltpeter, which has been described as either Chinese snow or salt, fireworks which were called Chinese flowers, and rockets which were called Chinese arrows.[28] Moreover, Europeans in particular experienced great difficulty in obtaining saltpeter, a primary ingredient of gunpowder which was relatively scarce in Europe compared to China, and had to be obtained from "distant lands or extracted at high cost from soil rich in dung and urine."[35] Thomas Arnold believes that the similarities between early European cannons and contemporary Chinese models suggests a direct transmission of cannon making knowledge from China rather than a home grown development.[36] Whatever the truth may be, the first unambiguous references to guns appeared in Europe in the 1320s.[27]

References
  1. Andrade 2016, p. 75.
  2. Andrade 2016, pp. 75, 334.
  3. Morillo 2008, p. 259.
  4. Liang 2006.
  5. Partington 1999, p. 96.
  6. Phillips 2016.
  7. Andrade 2016, p. 334.
  8. Purton 2010, p. 108-109.
  9. Ágoston 2005, p. 15.
  10. Needham 1986, p. 47.
  11. Hassan, Ahmad Y. "Gunpowder Composition for Rockets and Cannon in Arabic Military Treatises In Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries". Ahmad Y. al-Hassan. Archived from the original on 26 February 2008. Retrieved 8 June 2008.
  12. Khan 1996, p. 41-5.
  13. Khan 2004, p. 3.
  14. Needham 1986, p. 44.
  15. Buchanan 2006, p. 43.
  16. Buchanan 2006, p. 44-47.
  17. Kalyanaraman, A. (1963). The Saga Of The Indo-aryans. pp. 367–375.
  18. Kalyanaraman, A. (1903). The Saga Of The Indo-aryans. p. 372.
  19. Partington 1999, p. 214.
  20. Needham 1986, p. 68.
  21. Buchanan 2006, p. 48.
  22. Partington 1999, p. 213.
  23. Buchanan 2006, p. 49.
  24. Partington 1999, p. 211.
  25. Roy, Kaushik (2014). Military Transition in Early Modern Asia, 1400-1750. London: Bloomsbury Academic. p. 19. ISBN 978-1-7809-3765-6.
  26. Andrade 2016, p. 75-75.
  27. Andrade 2016, p. 76.
  28. Andrade 2016, p. 75-76.
  29. May on Khan, 'Gunpowder and Firearms: Warfare in Medieval India', Humanities and Social Sciences Online, retrieved 16 October 2016
  30. Raphael 2011, p. 107-108.
  31. May 2012, p. 146-148.
  32. Chase 2003, p. 58.
  33. Kelly 2004, p. 21.
  34. Lorge 2008, p. 17.
  35. Cressy 2013, p. 14.
  36. Arnold 2001, p. 24.

Bibliography
  • Andrade, Tonio (2016), The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-13597-7.
  • Arnold, Thomas (2001), The Renaissance at War, Cassell & Co, ISBN 978-0-304-35270-8
  • Buchanan, Brenda J., ed. (2006), "Gunpowder, Explosives and the State: A Technological History", Technology and Culture, Aldershot: Ashgate, 49 (3): 785–786, doi:10.1353/tech.0.0051, ISBN 978-0-7546-5259-5
  • Buchanan, Brenda J. (2006), Gunpowder, Explosives and the State: A Technological History, Routledge
  • Chase, Kenneth (2003), Firearms: A Global History to 1700, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-82274-9.
  • Cressy, David (2013), Saltpeter: The Mother of Gunpowder, Oxford University Press
  • Kelly, Jack (2004), Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards, & Pyrotechnics: The History of the Explosive that Changed the World, Basic Books, ISBN 978-0-465-03718-6.
  • Khan, Iqtidar Alam (1996), "Coming of Gunpowder to the Islamic World and North India: Spotlight on the Role of the Mongols", Journal of Asian History, 30: 41–5.
  • Khan, Iqtidar Alam (2004), Gunpowder and Firearms: Warfare in Medieval India, Oxford University Press
  • Khan, Iqtidar Alam (2008), Historical Dictionary of Medieval India, The Scarecrow Press, Inc., ISBN 978-0-8108-5503-8
  • Liang, Jieming (2006), Chinese Siege Warfare: Mechanical Artillery & Siege Weapons of Antiquity, Singapore, Republic of Singapore: Leong Kit Meng, ISBN 978-981-05-5380-7
  • Lorge, Peter A. (2008), The Asian Military Revolution: from Gunpowder to the Bomb, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-60954-8
  • Morillo, Stephen (2008), War in World History: Society, Technology, and War from Ancient Times to the Present, Volume 1, To 1500, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 978-0-07-052584-9
  • Needham, Joseph (1971), Science and Civilization in China Volume 4 Part 3, Cambridge At The University Press
  • Needham, Joseph (1980), Science & Civilisation in China, 5 pt. 4, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-08573-1
  • Needham, Joseph (1986), Science & Civilisation in China, V:7: The Gunpowder Epic, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-30358-3.
  • Partington, J. R. (1999), A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN 978-0-8018-5954-0
  • Phillips, Henry Prataps (2016), The History and Chronology of Gunpowder and Gunpowder Weapons (c.1000 to 1850), Notion Press
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.