What is the difference between musket and arquebus?

[commando552]

The definition is very imprecise and varies with the time period and level of technology. I believe that originally the Arquebus was a smaller weapon with little or no stock. Conversely, the original muskets were rather huge, having a barrel of at least 4 foot and a caliber approaching and inch, and they were only ever fired from support on a shooting fork. During this same period you also had something called a Caliver, which was an intermediate between the two more closely resembling what we would today think of as a "musket" in its proportions.

As time goes on the whole thing becomes very muddy though, with the musket shrinking in size to the point where they didn't use forks gradually the terms arquebus and caliver were phased out in favour of calling everything a musket. An extra confusion is that whellocks seem to have been referred to as arquebusses even when the terms caliver or musket would have been more correct.

All in all, its best just to not worry about it too much as whatever you call something you will probably be right in one time/place or another.