Most emerging medieval polities maintained centralized arms manufacturing sites with foundries and villages or quarters housing skilled smiths, fletchers, bow-makers, and materials of war. Other polities likely did as well, but records are not extant for most. Early in the period crossbows and quarrels were the most important and numerous items stored. Other stockpiled equipment included basinets, padding to be worn by knights and men-at-arms beneath their armor, various mail, doublets, gorgets, plate, halberds, and pikes. Additionally, catapults and trebuchets and their hand-cut, stone ammunition were stored. Still, general stockpiling of weapons was not common practice until the 15th century, but from that point large concentrations of artillery, ammunition, and gunpowder were added to military storehouses kept by kings and the greater nobility.
Armories were also maintained by most large towns in expectation of defense against a siege. The most famous was the Arsenal of Venice. From the early 15th century cannon and iron cannonballs were cast there for the galley fleet as well as stored in great warehouses near the docks. In England the main royal armory was the Tower of London; in Muscovy artillery and firearms were stored in the Kremlin. Austrian dukes and emperors kept an arsenal and foundry in Innsbruck, while the dukes of Saxony located their substantial arsenal in Dresden.
There were several advanced arsenal systems outside Europe in this period. In China the Palace Armory-as well as much Ming military production-was located in the Forbidden City and controlled by court eunuchs. The Ottomans carefully monitored weapons production and storage. They maintained numerous powder mills and stockpiles of charcoal, saltpeter, and sulphur, as well as copper, lead, iron, and tin, the latter imported from England. The Ottomans produced siege guns and other artillery at central foundries at the Imperial Arsenal (''Tophane-i Amire''), the state cannon foundry set up by Muhammad II at Pera. Assisted by renegade gunsmiths from Europe, the Ottomans produced unique styles of guns and effective recipes for gunpowder. In general, their technology kept pace with European developments in artillery almost to the end of the 17th century. This is the conclusion of newer research, which corrects an older view of the Ottomans as culturally closed to advances in military technology and already ''backward'' by 1600.
