Going over some old notes, I stumbled upon an old calculation I made, comparing prices of Arquebus and Crossbow in the early 16th century so I decided to share it. It's nothing special but might be interesting to some.

The source of data is the inventory and purchase list for Magellan's voyage around the world 1519-1522, as published in English here. The list is meticulous and offers many insights into supplies necessary for a long voyage of exploration. But let's just focus on the two weapons for now.

Here is the table of relevant entries. First two columns are directly taken from the document, the third column is compiled by me and is price of one unit of item with weights recalculated into british pounds (lbs) where necessary

Item	Total Price	Price per unit
60 crossbows with 360 dozen arrows from Bilbao	33,495	558.25
50 arquebuses from Biscay	10,500	210
50 flasks and prickers for the arque buses, and 150 yards of fuses	5,611	112.22
221 arrobas 7 lbs. of lead for bullets (...)	39,890	7.22 (per lbs)
50 quintals of gunpowder from Fuenterrabia and freight	109,028	21.5 (per lbs)

There are 60 crossbows and 360 dozen arrows so it's 6 dozen, or 72 arrows per crossbow. As we can see, components for arquebus are scattered through several entries like gun itself, gunpowder, lead etc. Also lead and powder where given in aggregate, and we must analyze how much each shot expended of the materials to see how much each shot cost, so we can calculate how much 72 shots cost, that we could contrast it with crossbow.

So to get to it, I actually don't have any concrete information on arquebus shot and powder weights of that period, but I managed to find some rough estimates. Feel free to correct it with more accurate information. I assumed that arquebuses of ~1520 shoot 50 gram lead bullets (this is an upper limit I found, some sources claim 25-45g) and used up ratio of 1:1 shot to powder weight for firing. Based on those estimates, and the data on price of lead and gunpowder per lbs from the list, we get:

This gives us

Total price of 1 arquebus and equipment and munitions for 72 shots = ~553 maravedis

Contrasting this with

Total price of 1 crossbow with 72 arrows = 558.25 maravedis

Overall we get the final value that effective prices of crossbow and arquebus and 72 shots at around 1520 was pretty much the same, or at least in order of the same magnitude. Honestly I am a little surprised, as I assumed gunpowder weapons would be considerably more expensive but it seems it was not the case. I haven't factored in any losses that might occur, like using more lead to make a bullet or gunpowder for a shot and things like that, but I do not think it would make much difference.

The Magellan list gives prices of different items as well, such as weapons (list link) or foodstuffs (list link).

While we are here let's give some examples of price of some general weapons:

100 corselets with armlets, shoulder-plates, and helmets, and 100 breastplates with throat-pieces and helmets from Bilbao ...... 110,910
200 shileds from Bilbao ...... 6,800
95 dozens of darts, 10 dozen javelins, 1000 lances, 200 pikes, 6 boarding-pikes &c from Bilbao .... 44,185

This means you could equip one soldier with armour for 554.55 maravedis. Shields cost 34 maravedis per piece, and bunch of weapons including 1000 lances and 200 pikes cost 44,185 all together, meaning under 40 maravedis per lance/pike (possibly closer to 30 when counting in darts, javelins etc). Basically, equipping an infantry soldier with basic armor, lance and a shield would cost around 650 maravedis. A crossbowmen or arquebuser would cost 600 to equip without armor or 1200 if armored in a similar way.

Better armour and weapons cost more as we see:

Coat of mail and two complete suits of amour for the Captain-General from Bilbao ... 6,375

For comparison and context, the monthly salary of a mariner on Magellan voyage was 1,200 maravedis per month, and according to Warriors for a Living: The Experience of the Spanish Infantry in the Italian Wars, 1494–1559 by Idan Sherer, wages of Spanish pikemen was 900 maravedis per month and arquebusier earned 1200 maravedis per month. Here are some wages of professions from the same book.

Also here is a index of wages and prices of various items in 16th century compiled in book Spain's Men of the Sea: Daily Life on the Indies Fleets in the Sixteenth Century by Pablo E. Perez-Mallaina.

It's the first week of classes for me as I start my doctorate program and already I feel a little overwhelmed. I knew that the workload for grad classes was a lot, I have an M.A. after all. However, it has been a couple of years since I have taken a class. I have to reteach myself how to manage my time in order to get the readings done on time. There is an added bonus in which many of the classes require the grad students to present/lead discussion and I've been saddled to do so for two out of three of my classes. So my weekend will be busy and full of work.

On the bright side, everyone I have met within the department (professors and students alike) have been very friendly and welcoming. I don't feel so isolated and alone like I did when I started my MA. On the down side, I am a cold weather person and it has been 100F+ everyday this week. AC is great and all, but not when you're outside going from one building to the other.

A few weeks ago, as my advisor and I were walking around the "Little Metropolitan" church in Athens and examining the various ancient inscriptions repurposed as building material, I happened to notice the frieze bearing cultic symbols of the Eleusinian Mysteries. I'll share a photo of it here (link, with the frieze in the center above the doorway) and quote the description by Margaret Miles: "From left, carved over the two triglyphs of the frieze are two crossed bundled rods of myrtle over three poppies, and a plemochoe, and in the metopes, a phiale and a boukranion."

The frieze probably originates from the Hadrianic (?) propylon of the City Eleusinion (i.e. the city "branch" of the Eleusinian cult), which lies in the Old Agora, on the northern slope of the Acropolis. Unfortunately, I couldn't access the site itself, since a team from UCSB is conducting some type of work in the area.

Nothing profound; just something that I found interesting. :)

Source: Margaret M. Miles, "Entering Demeter's Gateway: The Roman Propylon in the City Eleusinion," in Architecture of the Sacred: Space, Ritual, and Experience from Classical Greece to Byzantium," ed. Bonna D. Wescoat and Robert G. Ousterhout (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 114-151.

Applicable XKCD.

I wasn't sure whether this was good for an independent Meta post.

What can someone do about what looks like an error in an AskHistorians post but they're not an expert?

Suppose it's a smaller case, it's something that's apparently wrong or incomplete but doesn't significantly affect the overall point? What made me think of this was a statement in a recent reply about the U. S. Civil War, saying that the Northern states had had a duty to return fugitive slaves. (At least I think it said that, but I can't find it now.) Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842) held that the states as states need not coöperate, or so McPherson summarized one part of it in Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 78-9 in my edition.

Is it possible to raise that point?

If I just reply with the bit that I understood, or think that I understood, isn't that subject to removal because (1) I'm not an expert (so how can I say I understand that?) and (2) it's not in-depth?

If I object in the form of a question, isn't that evading the rule? (For an analogy, I think it's absurd how parliamentary "question time" usually gets speeches in the form of questions.)

I can ask for sources, but in this case, the reply didn't get to the objection.

One can just drop it (and I did), because it's not crucial to the conclusion or it's not worth it or whatever, but that means that "someone is wrong on AskHistorians", which just makes my teeth itch.

Which Mesopotamian city-states (In Sumer/Babylon/Assyria) had female patron gods?

(When I say "patron god," I mean the single primary god of a given city-state.)

The official number for the deaths from the Holocaust have been updated to over 17 million by the United States Holocaust museum in Washington DC the best way to combat denialism is with facts https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/documenting-numbers-of-victims-of-the-holocaust-and-nazi-persecution

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Some place like the Teutonic State that dealt with a lot of foreign fighters and commanders but had a limited number of men-at-arms/Knights?

I recently came across this critique of Jean Edward Smith's Bush biography. It is written by Will Inboden, historian who was also a part of the Bush administration. I understand that both Smith and Inboden have their biases. What I'm curious is if Inboden's arguments as a historian have merit.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/15/its-impossible-to-count-the-things-wrong-with-the-negligent-spurious-distorted-new-biography-of-george-w-bush/

PS: Would this question be valid as a normal submission to this subreddit? I could see it going either way. Bush falls within the last 20 years, but my question is more about the argument than the conclusions either draws.

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