Why did the Pope ban Crossbows? (Short Animated Documentary)

Wait untill the pope hear about gunpowder

King: Wait a minute, I’m the king! You can’t depose me, you’re deposed! Pope: Aww. Wait a minute. I’m the Pope, you can’t depose me, you’re deposed!

The Pope that enacted the original ban on crossbows must've been horrified when he looked down from heaven and saw that those Christian kingdoms had developed firearms

The pope: "please stop killing each other, you're supposed to be on the same side" Kings: "... no"

Longbowman jobs matter.

Because James Bisonette is really more of a longbow kinda guy

Innocent II was secretly a Vampire trying to get his hands on the Vatican's treasurrrreeeee

This is one of the unexpectedly amusing titles to a video that I’ve ever seen on this website

- Did the weapon make you… - Don’t say it… - … cross? - Okay, you are now assigned to burning.

The problem here was that the Pope was trying to use soft power to enforce his will in a manner that requires hard power. The Pope may have a grip on the hearts of the people but the rulers aren't gonna listen to him if he doesn't have an army to back up his more bold proclamations.

Pope: we need common-sense crossbow reform Medieval rulers : You can try to take it from my cold, dead hands!

One of the most amusing moments of caesaropapism is King John of England being excommunicated and basically Enemy #1 as far as the Pope was concerned, but when John relented and accepted his crown as a fief from Rome, he became the apple of the Pope's eye overnight and had the assistance of the church in defending against the French invasion attempting to depose him (because the Pope had asked them to).

“Because I’m more of a longbow kind of guy” said James Bisonette calmly, while spinning 3 plates.

Everyone always talks about James Bisonette but no one ever even mentions “spinning 3 plates” or even care to ask how or why he is spinning those 3 plates. These are the real questions that need answering people!🤔

If you think about it, that's actually quite a "nice" reason. It's one of the many occasions the church truly tried to make things better. A shame that most people who know about the ban still believe the old trope that it was just about perserving the existing social order.

With melee weapons, it was common to for one party to get slightly injured, surrender and be taken hostage. This was especially common for nobles who would fetch a much higher ransom. You can't really surrender to an arrow/bolt, so there was a higher chance ranged exchanges would end... fatally. My guess why crossbows were banned and not all bows, was bows took years of training to use effectively, crossbows allowed a similar level of power to be available to anyone who had access to a crossbow and maybe a few weeks to practice.

1:18 to see unamused square-shapped Jesus was unexpected 💀

Thomas Aquinas famously felt that crossbows were unethical because they were too powerful and because you couldn't see the person you were killing due to range, thus making it inhumane. At least that's what I remember from university

Because Thunderers are objectively the better choice for a Dwarf battle line over Quarrelers.

Bro was a Crossbow-Hater