France, June, 1210. Count Simon de Montfort leads campagne in southwestern France against Chatar heretics. Within this campagne he besieged fortress of Minerve where was two hundreds knights, citizens and priests. The fortress of Minerve was impregnable, stood on the top of the gorge, at over 200 yards, with ample stock of food and internal water source, Minerve’s defenders could defend the fortress for the months, maybe a year. Count Montfort knew that, and he had no patience. He decided to take action. His engineers started with work and in within days had built machine with a balance beam with weighted bucket on one end. This weapon was relatively new on the European ground. With four of these war engines, pounding fortress was…show more content… The weight was attached to the short end of the throwing arm. The counterweight extended the range of the machine. To gain the full advantage of motion and better accuracy the hybrid trebuchet had an added wheels and a sling attached to the longer end of the beam. Those trebuchets are gaining widespread acceptance during the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth century, especially among Byzantine and Midle East armies. Hybrid trebuchets are mentioned in chronicles of Anna Komnene during the Siege of Nicaea, and also in some Arab chronicles from the time of Saladin, in the Siege of Damietta.
Finaly, after traction and hybrid trebuchets, european engineers improved those war engines by developing the counterpoise trebuchets. Unlike previous versions, on this version, the human intervention in operating is minimized. This Trebuchet, which we mentioned at the beginning due the gravity usage had elevated destructive power. European engineers who built this machines them interesting nickname such as ''God's stone-tower'', ''the daughter of the ethquake''.''big mother'', ''war wolf'' and ''bad neighbor''. Arab chronicles describe them as ''manjaniq ifiranji''-Frankish war