From the Didascalicon, Hugh’s handbook on the order of learning, where he treats the seven mechanical arts in turn. This is the second, “armament”, and the chapter gives the name and the divisions of the art before the other arts follow.
Read in contextThe second is armament. Arms are sometimes called any instruments whatever, as we say arms of war, arms of a ship, that is, instruments of war and of a ship. But properly arms are those with which we cover ourselves, as shield, breastplate, helmet, or with which we strike, as the two-edged sword, the pike. Weapons, however, are those with which we can hurl, as the spear and the arrow. Arms are named from _armus_, that is the arm, because they protect the arm, which we are accustomed to oppose to blows. Weapons are named from the Greek _telon_, that is long, because such things are long; hence also _protelare_ is said, that is to prolong. Armament, then, is called as it were the instrumental science, not so much because it uses instruments in working as because from a preexisting mass of some material it makes some, so to speak, instrument. To this belongs all material of stones, woods, metals, sands, clays. It has two species, the architectonic and the smith’s. The architectonic is divided into the masonry, which pertains to stonecutters and masons; and the carpentry, which pertains to carpenters and joiners, and other such artificers of both, with adzes and axes, file and little hatchet, saw and auger, planes, drills, trowel, square, polishing, hewing, sculpting, filing, chiseling, joining, lining, in any material, clay, brick, stone, wood, bone, sand, lime, gypsum, and any like things of those who work. The smith’s is divided into the hammering, which reduces a mass to form by striking; and the casting, which reduces a mass to form by pouring. Hence those are called casters who know how to express the form of a vessel from the confusion of a mass.