With a Bended Bow E-Book

Erik Roth

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

In With a Bended Bow Erik Roth presents a comprehensive examination of the archer and his weapon in a time when archery was both economically and militarily vital to the security of England, based on the study of mediaeval writings and period artefacts. As an accomplished artist, his illustrations are an invaluable aid to understanding the manufacture and use of the bow. The book examines the types of weapons and kit produced by guildsmen, the materials used and the work of different specialists including bowyers, fletchers and stringers. It also details the life of the archer himself, how he cared for his equipment, learned to shoot and fought for his country on the battlefields of Scotland and France. With a Bended Bow gives an exceptional insight into the tools, training and fighting techniques of the soldier who defined mediaeval warfare.

Leseprobe

If Robin Hood never existed, then his outlaw band must have been led by someone else of the same name. To that person, this book is dedicated.

CONTENTS

Title

Dedication

Part I The Guilds

Introduction

1 The Artillers

2 Artillery Types

3 Standards of Length

4 Bows

5 Arrows

6 Out of Asia

7 Crossbows

8 The Archaeology of Archery

9 Range and Penetration

10 Modern Reproductions

11 The Bowyer

12 The Fletcher

13 The Stringer

14 The Arrowsmith

15 The Arbalastier

16 Sundry Gear

Part II The Archers

Introduction

17 Sources on Shooting

18 Learning to Shoot

19 Shooting Technique

20 Preparation and Maintenance of Gear

21 Mounted Archers

22 Accuracy of Mediaeval Shooting

23 Marks and Shooting Games

24 Hunting

25 Warfare

26 Archers of the Guard

27 Cognizances: Liveries, Badges and Standards

28 Archery and the Nobility

29 Robin Hood and Wilhelm Tell

30 Ballads, Religion and Symbolism

31 Archery and Medicine

Epilogue

Wainamoinen’s Journey

Bibliography

Copyright

PART I

THE GUILDS

On the head of the ship in the front which mariners call the prow there was a brazen child bearing an arrow with a bended bow. His face was turned toward England and thither he looked as though he was about to shoot.

Roman De Rou, Maistre Wace1

NOTE

1 The Roman De Rou, a verse history of the Dukes of Normandy commissioned by Henry II, was based on oral traditions passed on through the family of Maistre Wace. Here, Duke William leads his invasion fleet to Hastings.

Some bows from the Mary Rose were in good enough condition to be tested like this one (from a photograph). Ascham really meant the arc of a circle when he wrote that a bow should come round compasse.

INTRODUCTION

… a bow of yew ready bent, with a tough tight string,

and a straight round shaft with a well rounded nock,

having long slender feathers of a green silk fastening,

and a sharp-edged steel head, heavy and thick and an

inch wide, of a green blue temper, that would

draw blood out of a weathercock …

Iolo Goch (bard to Owen Glendower)2

It has been said that archery is about two sticks and a string. That is quite true of mediaeval European archery, but we shall see that there is much more to it than that.

The origin of the longbow is unknown, although some British historians give it a Welsh pedigree. However, early examples have been found throughout Europe, such as those in Danish bog finds, dated to the Roman period. Similarly, Ötzi the Iceman (a mummy discovered in the Ötzal Alps on the border of Austria, and dated to 5300 years ago) had with him a 713/4-inch D section yew longbow and 321/4-inch taper arrows with three-vane glued and bound fletching. The arrows were – in length, materials and workmanship – nearly identical to those issued to archers on Henry VIII’s carrack, the Mary Rose, except that Ötzi’s arrowheads were of chipped stone rather than forged steel and his bow lacked the optional horn nocks. To further confuse matters, in France during the Hundred Years War, the longbow was called the ‘English bow’.

The history of the bow and the longbow in particular is also the history of the wars of mediaeval England. Under King Edward I ‘Longshanks’, archery butts were ordered to be constructed and units of archers and crossbowmen were used during the wars in Wales and Scotland, in which Welsh mercenary archers were employed. A patent roll listed arrows an ell long with steel heads and four strings to each bow, a length indicating that they were to be used with longbows.

Military archery reached its furthest development when employed by English armies during the Hundred Years War with France. With a much smaller population than France, England could not put enough knights in the field to prevail, and had to arm its peasantry. The practical possibilities were pikes, staff weapons, crossbows and handbows. Having experienced the effectiveness of longbows in their local wars, the English chose these rather than the slower shooting and more expensive crossbows that had previously been the missile weapon of choice. But already by 1363, King Edward III complained that that the art of archery had become almost totally neglected, and demanded that everyone practise with bow and arrow or crossbows or bolts and avoid other games.

The military importance of archery, especially in mediaeval England, was such that a complex culture grew around the procurement of materials, and the manufacture and use of archery gear when archers usually outnumbered men-at-arms in English armies by three or four to one and sometimes by as much as ten to one. In hunting also, archery was more favoured in England than elsewhere, and more statutes concerning archery were proclaimed than in other kingdoms. With the end of English military archery during the reign of Elizabeth I, only vestiges of that culture remained. A late use of English military archery was during a moonlight raid by Sir Francis Drake’s men on Nombre de Dios, a Spanish town in New Spain (the West Indies).

In the Market place the Spaniards saluted them with a volley shot; Drake returned their greeting with a flight of arrows, the best and ancient English compliment, which drave their enemies away.

This first part of With a Bended Bow will deal with the manufacture of bows, arrows, and sundry gear as produced in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

NOTE

2 Iolo Goch’s description makes it clear that in his time Welshmen had come to use bows of yew and used broadheads in combat.

1

THE ARTILLERS

If you come into a shoppe and find a bowe that is small, long, heavy and strong, lyeing streyght, not windyng, not marred with knot, gaule, wyndeshake, wem, freate or pynche, bye that bowe of my warrant.

Roger Ascham, Toxophilus3

To grow in the hall

did Jarl begin.

Shields he brandished

and bow strings wound.

With bows he shot

and shafts be fashioned.

Arrows he loosed

and lances wielded.

Rigsthula4

In the early Middle Ages, archers probably made most of their own gear, and even a Viking jarl (earl) is described as doing so in the Rigsthula. In fact, Vikings of rank prided themselves on doing their own blacksmith work. By 1252 the Assize of Arms of Henry III required English freemen to own and use bow and arrows, and those of a certain income were also to have a sword, dagger and buckler. In the following year villeins and serfs were included, military age being specified as 16 to 60. The Winchester Statute of 1275 required all males under a certain rank to shoot from the age of seven. The outcome of these acts was a great deal of business for artillers, the collective name for those who manufactured bows and arrows.

Such was their importance to the country’s security, the artillers of thirteenth-century Paris were exempt from watch duty on the city walls along with other guilds of craftsmen who directly supplied knights. At that time the same guild made both bows and arrows. In England The Worshipful Company of Bowyers of London were granted the right to wear liveries in 1319. The fletchers, or arrow makers, properly titled ‘The Worshipful Company of Fletchers of London’, formed a separate guild in 1371 and were granted liveries by King Henry VII. After the separation, a bowyer who sold arrows was subject to legal penalties, as was a fletcher who sold bows. Fletchers were however permitted to have three or four bows for personal use, as was expected of every man. In 1416 The Ancient Company of Bowstringmakers was established, although the longbow stringmakers soon formed a separate guild. They and the arrowsmiths seem to have been the poor relations among the guilds that manufactured artillery, and were not granted arms until much later. The names of the guild members often hinted at their profession; ‘Flo’ was once a common term for an arrow and thus men called John le Floer or Nicholas le Flouer would likely have been involved with arrow making.

The artillers supplied English citizens legally required to possess bows and arrows, as well as filling military contracts of livery (military) equipment for the crown. In this time of extreme division of labour, the well equipped archer required the services of five or more different guilds.

The guildsmen both made their product and sold it to the public in their own open fronted shops, usually located in specific areas with others of their company; Ludgate in London became known as ‘Bowyerrowe’. In the morning a pair of horizontal wooden shutters would be opened. The upper one supported by two poles formed an awning while the lower one, supported on two legs, served as a counter. The craftsman and an apprentice worked in full view of prospective customers. At nightfall he retired to his residence above the shop and the shutters were locked and bolted; the guilds discouraged working at night.

The craft guilds acted much like modern trade unions. They restricted membership to guarantee full employment at decent wages to provide a fair return to all. They provided for members who were unable to work, held a local monopoly on their product and prohibited underselling below a fixed price. As no one had an advantage over another guildsman, innovation in tools or techniques was discouraged as well as claims of product superiority.

Employing extra apprentices, one’s wife or young children was discouraged and thus product standards were theoretically maintained, although Ascham (author of England’s first book on archery, Toxophilus) had some complaints on this score, criticising ‘hastiness in those who work ye kinges Artillerie for war thinkynge yf they get a bowe or a sheafe of arrowes to some fashion, they be good ynough for bearynge gere.’ There were other complaints as artillers had increasing difficulty in getting suitable wood and other materials. In 1385 a seller of false bowstrings was put into a London pillory and the bowstrings burned under his nose. In 1313 bowyers were accused of using poor wood, and in 1432 there were complaints about fletchers using green wood and working at night, which had been forbidden in 1371.

Each year a ‘Warden of the Misterie’ was chosen to oversee the guild and ensure that the ordinances (rules) were observed. The misterie was learned during an apprenticeship that would last from seven to ten years, after which the apprentice would be declared free or sworn of the city, when he would have the right to open his own shop and take on apprentices. While nearly all guild members were men, at least one female bowyer is recorded.

Some guilds and guild leaders amassed considerable wealth. The Worshipful Company of Fletchers of London still exists, although unsurprisingly it no longer has anything to do with the manufacture of arrows. Today it manages property and investments left over from the functional days of the guild.

Once a year the guildsmen held a great feast; a description of one from the time of Henry IV gives an impression of the sumptuousness and bizarre theatricality of mediaeval catering. The hall was hung with hallings of stained worsted and birch branches and the floor was covered with mats or rushes. When all had washed and wiped themselves the feast began with good bread and brown ale.

Then came the bruets, joints, worts, gruel ailliers and other pottage, the big meat, the lamb tarts and capon pasties, the cockentrice or double roast, (griskin and pullet stitched together with thread) or great and small birds sewed together and served in a silver posnet or pottinger, the charlets, chewets, callops, mawmenies [spiced chicken], mortrews [meat in almond milk] and other such entremets of meat served in gobbets and sod in ale, wine, milk, eggs, sugar, honey, marrow, spices and verjuice made from grapes or crabs [crabapples]. Then came the subtleties, daintily worked like pigeons, curlews, or popinyays [parrots] in sugar and paste, painted in gold and silver, with mottoes coming out of their bills; and after them the spiced cake-bread, the French bread, the pastelades, doucets, dariols, flauns, painpuffs, rastons, and blancmanges, with cherries, drages, blandrells and cheese and a standing cup of good wine.

Guildsmen had various civic duties. During the fourteenth-century war with France, they were required to take turns on watch at the London waterfront, the bowyers taking theirs on Monday nights. Similarly, the guilds of the bowyers and fletchers were amongst those that supplied the torches to be borne by warders during the funeral procession of Henry V to Westminster.

Especially in the later Middle Ages, one aspect of the guilds’ civic duties was the production of elaborate morality and mystery play cycles. These often lasted for days at a time and the plays had to be well performed on pain of a fine. In 1467 at Beverley the Fletchers were responsible for the pageant of Envy, while during a pageant in 1449 at Norwich the bowyers and fletchers were amongst those who bore the lights around the body of Christ.

The pressures of production on the artiller guilds during times of war were enormous, as the following orders made by the Crown attest. Hundreds of thousands of arrows and crossbow bolts were required during the Welsh campaign of 1282–83, and in 1304 the city of London supplied 130 bows and 200 quivers of arrows. In 1325 the Black Prince, running short of artillery, ordered 1000 bows and 2000 sheaves of arrows from king’s ordnance, but demand exceeded supply. In 1333, the year of the Battle of Halidon Hill, the sheriffs of London were to send 4680 arrows, as it was their duty to fill the crown’s quotas. In 1336 Edward III ordered the mayor and sheriffs to provide 300 bows and four chests of arrows; but the next year he claimed the throne of France and his requirements increased still further and in 1341 he ordered 7700 bows and 130,000 sheaves of arrows. In 1345 the Keeper of the King’s privy wardrobe was to receive 1200 bows, 1000 sheaves of arrows and 4000 bowstrings from the City of London, and in 1359 the Keeper of the Wardrobe was ordered to buy 10,000 sheaves of ‘good’ arrows and 1000 sheaves of ‘best’ arrows.

With the renewal of the war with France by Henry V, production was again increased. In 1415 the King took an astonishing one and a half million arrows to France, some of which saved his campaign at Agincourt. In 1472 Parliament authorised a grant for a 23,000-man force of archers as a home guard. In the first year of his reign, Henry VIII imported 40,000 yew staves from Venice, without horn nocks but marked with his Rose and Crown badge, which were distributed to five bowyers. In 1523, approaching the final years of English military archery, a Tower of London inventory listed 11,000 made bows ready for use, 6000 staves, 16,000 sheaves of livery arrows, 4000 sheaves of arrows with 9-inch fletchings and 600 gross of bowstrings. With these numbers, it is not hard to see that problems with supply or quality control could arise.

As archers became an ever larger part of English armies in France during the fourteenth century, the Crown took a more active role in the production of artillery. The Royal Fletchers were established in the Tower, followed by the Maker of the King’s Bows and the Keeper of the King’s Bows, and both bows and arrows were made in the Tower by impressed labour at the king’s wages.

However, as the cost of imported materials rose, the crown instituted price controls which, coupled with scarcity of materials, made their situation less desirable. While the companies had the advantages of monopoly, there were restrictions. In 1357 and 1369, proclamations forbade the export of bows and arrows, from 1399 there was an embargo on any weapons being sold to the Welsh rebels and in 1413 there was an embargo on selling bows and arrows to the Scots. In 1426 the Duke of Burgundy had to send a man to England to get bows for him secretly. There were also limits on the materials a craftsman could buy; in 1394 no bowyer was to buy more than 300 bowstaves for himself. At times the law strove to control even the day-to-day existence of the artisans. In 1368 sumptuary laws restricted the value of clothing and the diet of yeomen and craftsmen. They were permitted only one meal a day of meat or fish, being limited to bread, milk, butter and cheese for the rest of the day. However, these laws could not have been rigidly enforced.

Archery gear was a military necessity, and in time of need guild members were sometimes forcibly relocated to where their services were required for local supply. The Black Prince even had the fletchers of Chester arrested just to be sure of their availability. Some were attached to army units to repair equipment, such as the six bowyers and six fletchers present at the Battle of Agincourt. In 1436 a fletcher was commissioned to repair and trim used war arrows with new feathers and arrowheads.

Even before the loss of the Mary Rose, bowyers and fletchers lamented the decay of archery and consequent lack of work that forced them to move to Scotland and abroad to find employment. During the reign of Elizabeth I, the regulation of apprenticeships, previously managed by each guild, became controlled by the Crown, under the Statute of Artificers. For many bowyers and fletchers, Elizabeth’s decision to eliminate archery for the trained bands meant an end to their craft anyway. In 1599 there were 14,204 bows and staves in the armouries of the Tower of London. By 1636 only 35 remained.

NOTES

3 Ascham’s advice is helpful to Englishmen who were required by law to purchase bows from licensed bowyers.

4 This verse from the Rigsthula, a Norse poem about the origin of different classes of people, illustrates the activities of a young Norse nobleman, including the making and use of archery gear.

2

ARTILLERY TYPES

He purveyed him an hondred bowes,

The strenges were welle dight,

An hondred shefe of arrowes good,

The hedes burnished full bright,

And every arrowe an elle long,

With pecocke well y dight,

I nocked all with whyte silver,

It was a semly sight.

A Lytel Geste of Robyn Hode5

There is hardly any without a helmet, and none without bows and arrows; their bows and arrows are thicker and longer than those used by other nations, just as their bodies are stronger than other people’s for they seem to have hands and arms of iron. The range of their bows is no less than our arbalests; there hangs by the side of each a sword no less long than ours, but heavy and thick as well. The sword is always accompanied by an iron shield.

Dominic Mancini6

As stated in the previous chapter, the combination of bows and arrows was called ‘artillery’. This was the original meaning of the word, later expanded to include ordnance. Bows were of two major categories, handbows and crossbows. Most European handbows were what have come to be known as self bows, made of a single stave of wood, either straight or curved by heat bending. There is the possibility that some European bows were of composite construction but there is no real evidence of this.

Some handbows were longbows. While the British Longbow Society restricts the term ‘longbow’ to a Victorian ideal, we may define longbows as wooden handbows other than flatbows, long enough to take at least a draw to the ear. They would be of about the archer’s own height or longer, up to six and a half feet in the case of the great longbows to shoot yard-long arrows. Most handbows were slightly wider than thick and evenly tapered to the tips. Exceptions were the Alemanni bows with some similarity to Bronze Age flat bows.

Short Saracen or ‘Turkish’ handbows of composite construction (a wood core strip, a sinew back and horn belly) were in limited use in Europe from the crusades onward, and the type had been in general use in Asia from time immemorial.

While handbows have been used in Europe for at least 8000 years, crossbows are a much more recent innovation. Also known as ‘arbalests’ from the French, they seem to have originated in China, being first brought to Europe by Roman armies returning from the Middle East, but they did not become popular until the crusades. The Saracens were crossbow specialists but they used at least one type of European origin. The crossbow consisted of a wooden stock (tiller) and a bow (lath) of wood, composite or steel construction. The illustration below shows the one foot crossbow.

Not all bows were meant to shoot arrows, nor were all arrows meant to be shot from bows. Both handbows and crossbows had from ancient times been made for shooting stones or pellets only, and were then called stonebows. A type of crossbow for this purpose was called a rodd.

Arrows were of wood, from one foot in length for crossbows, up to five feet. The latter and others of varying lengths were intended to be thrown by hand and were called darts or javelins, favoured by ‘the nimble Irish, that with darts doe warre’. Arrow throwing has remained a pastime in Yorkshire into the modern day and a length of string wrapped around the shaft enables a cast to an astonishing 280 yards. Some arrows were made to be fired from early ordnance such as muskets and bombards, the only situation in which arrows can properly be described as being ‘fired’, unless one wishes to include the igniting of incendiary arrows.

Bearing arrows, six feet in length, were carried ceremonially. In 1514 runners accompanying the Earl of Northumberland were provided with long arrows like ‘standarts with socetts of Stell for my Lord’s foutemen to bere in their hands when they ryn with my Lorde.’

Arrows were armed with heads of various types, usually of iron or steel, although stone was used in prehistoric times, and some of the Roman period Danish arrows had heads made of bone. For practice and hunting small game, large blunt heads of wood or horn were used. For a stable flight, arrows were provided with feather vanes. Crossbow shafts for war carried vanes of thin wood, parchment, leather or even copper. Some arrows, for use at short range, had no fletching at all.

Types of arrows were named according to shaft style, arrowhead style or use, for example: breasted arrow, bolt, bearing arrow, sheaf arrow, broad arrow and butt arrow. Merke or mark arrows, made specifically for target practice, were paired to match in weight. While the term ‘bolt’ is used for blunt crossbow missiles, it seems also to have been used as a designation for blunt handbow arrows and perhaps other types as well. The term ‘quarrel’ is derived from the French quarré, meaning square, and is applied to short crossbow arrows with armor piercing heads of square section.

NOTES

5 The arrows given to Robin Hood by the Knight are fletched with brown peacock wing feathers. The silver nocks are something of a mystery. We know that bow nocks were sometimes of silver and brass nocks were used in pre-Viking Scandinavia. One version of the ballad says silk instead of silver.

6 Dominic Mancini, a visitor from Venice and probably a spy, visited England in 1483 during the reign of Richard III. There he observed and reported on Richard’s archers.

3

STANDARDS OF LENGTH

An archar off Northumberlande

Say slean was lord Perse,

He bar a bende bowe in his hand,

Was made of trusti tre;

An arow that a cloth-yarde was lang,

Toth harde stele hayld he;

A dynt that was both sad and soar,

He sat on sir Hewe the Mongonbyrry.

The Hontyng of the Cheviat7

With Spanish yew so strong,

Arrows a cloth yard long,

That like to serpents stung

Piercing the weather.

Michael Drayton, Agincourt8

When constructing bows and arrows, craftsmen used the dimensions of their own bodies for measurement prior to standardisation. The shaftment, the fist with extended thumb was called the ‘fistmele’ (formerly the fist width). A ‘span’ was the space between thumbtip and fingertip of the spread fingers, a ‘cubit’ the space from point of elbow to extended fingertip, a ‘thumb’ from end of thumb to first joint, alternatively to the second joint. A yard of cloth was, and sometimes still is, measured between the end of the cloth between thumb and forefinger of the extended left arm and the hem held at the middle of the collarbone. Finger widths were also a useful measure.

Arrows were of various lengths according to whether they were intended to be drawn to the breast, to the ear, or to the point of the shoulder, and they also varied according to the size of the shooter. The length of the bow corresponded to the length of the arrow. In most cases, arrows were drawn to the head, and arrow length was measured from the base of the nock to the points of the arrowhead barbs or shouldering of the head. The word ‘nock’ means notch and it refers to the notches at the ends of the bow to hold the string, as well as the notch in the end of an arrow shaft to fit the string.

A bow casts an arrow by its speed of recovery from full draw. All other things being equal, the shorter the bow the faster it will be, for as the twentieth-century American bowyer/archer Howard Hill’s axiom states: ‘The more a bow limb is bent, the faster it returns.’ The optimum length of a bow is determined by how far the material of which it is made will bend without breaking. Mediaeval bows were made long enough to provide a safety factor, but those used for flight shooting to maximum distance were very close to breaking at full draw.

With regard to standard lengths, for longbows the earliest reference to mediaeval proportions is the French Book of Roi Modus written after the Battle of Crecy, around 1370. The term ‘long bow’ was not much used, even in the later Tudor period; Lartdarcherie (see below) uses the term ‘arc a main’. Roi Modus, which is mainly concerned with hunting, was probably written in Normandy. It states that the ‘English bow’ of yew is to be 22 poignees, measured between nocks, and the arrow is to be 10 poignees from base of nock to points of barbs, ‘poignee’ meaning a grasp or the width of a fist, a distance that varies from person to person. The stave and shaft could be measured by grasping with alternate hands, taking care to press one well down on the other, a method of measurement used by English country people well into the nineteenth century. It should be noted that a person who gains weight will find his poignee measurement increased, but in any case the crucial relationship will remain proportional.

As an example, I am 5' 8" tall and 22 poignees measured using my fists gave me a bow of 5' 11" and arrows of 311/2". Roi Modus says to draw to the ear and draw up the arrow to its head. The arrow worked out exactly right for this kind of draw at maximum stretch with a weaker bow, but if the arrow is too long to fully draw in practice, as mine were, Ascham (see below) says to cut it shorter. Roi Modus adds that the bowstring should be of silk, braced at a height of a palm and two fingers from the bow.

In 1515, Lartdarcherie, written in the Picard dialect, was printed in Paris. The Hundred Years War was long over and Paris was again a French city. Lartdarcherie, citing Roi Modus, tells us that according to custom the arrow should be ten poignees and the bow should be two poignees more than double the arrow length, exactly as previously specified. Flight bows should be a poignee shorter but only two or three arrows a day should be shot from them. It states that many archers draw longer arrows but many of these shoot a weaker arrow by doing so. There are also many who use a shorter shaft, still making long shots and shooting as strongly as others, but the book’s author suggests that they would be finer archers by using the 10 poignee draw length and adds; ‘I venture to say that it is impossible to shoot a long arrow in an ungraceful way, if the bow is pushed forward, that is, pressed toward the target when the arrow is loosed.’

Roger Ascham’s Toxophilus, printed during the reign of Henry VIII, was England’s first book on archery. Writing about longbows when practice with them was still compulsory, Ascham refrains from giving measurements of bows or arrows on the grounds that individual variations make that impossible. However, as the English also drew to the ear and drew the arrow to the head, the length of arrows shot in this way could hardly have been much different from the 10 poignee French arrows.

We now come to the famous ‘clothyard’ arrows, that supposedly had shafts three feet in length. Were they really used, or did the term refer to smaller arrows of perhaps 30 inches as author T. Roberts suggested in 1801 in his book The English Bowman? The Iron Ulna, an iron rod three feet long (an ell), was made in the thirteenth century to fix the measurement for cloth, and was also used for land measurements. The term ‘clothyard’, referring to this iron stick and applied to arrows, dates from 1465, and clearly describes an exceptionally impressive arrow. In 1336, the ninth year of the reign of Edward III, the mayor and sheriffs were to provide

… three hundred good and sufficient bows, with strings proportionable to them, and also fair chests of arrows of the length of one ell, made of good well seasoned wood; the heads of the said arrows to be duly sharpened, and the flukes or barbs of a large size.

In mediaeval and Renaissance writings, the terms ‘clothyard’, ‘clothier’s yard’ and ‘tailor’s yard’ are sometimes used interchangeably with the word ‘ell’. But there was some confusion caused by local variations of measurements that had the same name. The ‘Statute of the Staple’ fixed the yard at 36 inches and the English ell was newly designated as five-fourths of the standard, or 45 inches. The Scottish ell was 37 inches, as was the yard of three Rhineland feet used by Flemish clothmakers brought to England under the Plantagenets, this yard being abolished in 1533. However the clothyard remained three feet of 12 inches, 36 inches in length. Such an arrow would require a longer bow and preferably a tall and strong archer. Archers with these characteristics were sought after and skeletons of archers on the Mary Rose were indeed taller than the average crewman. A contemporary wrote of the English archers at Agincourt that ‘the most part of them drew a yarde.’

In 1825 a Mr A.J. Kempe saw some arrows in Cornwall, which he believed to be old English, that were 3 feet two inches long. This measurement probably included the head. Cornish archers of the rebel party who defended the high road at Deptford Bridge in 1446 were reported to have shot arrows ‘in length a full yarde’. Francis Bacon (1561–1626) also reported the Cornish rebels as using arrows of a ‘tailor’s yard’. Richard Carew, in The Survey of Cornwall of 1602, tells us that the Cornishmen used shafts of a ‘cloth yard in length’ for long shooting. The English Board of Trade presently considers the 37-inch Flemish yard to have been the clothyard. These sources suggest that Cornishmen used arrows of a good 36 inches in length.

In 1590 Sir John Smythe wrote in his Certaine Discourses Military ‘Our English bows, arrows and archers do exceed all other bows used by foreign nations, not only in thickness and strength, but also in the length and size of the arrows.’ He doesn’t say just how large and thick they were, but Paulus Jovius does. A sixteenth-century traveller, he reported that the English shot arrows somewhat thicker than a man’s little finger and two cubits long, headed with barbed steel points from bows of extraordinary size and strength. These were war arrows. As mentioned above, a cubit is the measure of a man’s forearm from elbow to the extended middle fingertip, and my two cubits make 36 inches, our clothyard. This is a very thick and heavy arrow by modern standards, even taking into consideration that it was probably tapered and made of light aspen. Mary Rose arrows were of 1/2-inch maximum thickness.

Many modern archers might consider such an arrow impossible to shoot effectively. However Dr Pope, an archery enthusiast and researcher in the early twentieth century, tested a Chinese or Mongolian bow that his brother had purchased in China from a Chinese man who had demonstrated shooting with it. The accompanying arrow was 38 inches long by 1/2 inch in diameter with a forged iron head. Though it was tapered in the foreshaft it still weighed four ounces. By comparison, a modern hunting arrow weighs an ounce and a half or less. This Chinese arrow was scarcely to be differentiated from the late mediaeval clothyard.

The reflexed composite bow that accompanied this arrow drew 98lbs at 28 inches, a long way from full draw. Neither Pope nor his companions could draw it more than a foot and proper testing was impossible. Finally Dr Pope, a seasoned bowhunter, shot the arrow from his 85lb hunting bow, the strongest he could command. It flew only 115 yards.

Pope then made up an arrow based on a sixteenth-century Italian painting showing a bow and arrow realistically portrayed. The arrow, considering the bow length as six feet, worked out to a 1/2 inch shaft 35 inches in length with feathers nine inches long and 11/2 inches high. The broadhead was 31/2 inches long and weighed more than an ounce, the entire arrow weighing three ounces. It was doubtless with growing feelings of inadequacy that Pope, who had killed bears and lions with his arrows, managed to shoot this arrow 117 yards from a longbow of 72lbs at 36 inches.

The Winchester Statute of 1275 allowed bowstaves of six and a half feet long to be imported free of duty. A great longbow for shooting a yard-long arrow must have been at least six and a half feet between nocks, and staves of this length were ordered. Some statutes specified seven foot staves, squared, and 3 fingers thick, and a 6'11" bow was found on the Mary Rose. In his book Longbow: A Social and Military History, Robert Hardy mentions a record of Edward II giving a longbow of two ells in length to shoot a ‘clotharrow’. A bow twice as long as the arrow would not be long enough to fully draw safely.

It seems that clothyard arrows were too long to be fully drawn in a draw to the ear and may have been drawn to the right breast or the shoulder of the drawing arm. They were probably shot only at roving or flight distances with the bow hand elevated. For my part, I find that in drawing to the right breast, 36 inches is a bit more than the maximum length that I can draw. Drawing beyond the shoulder, as the Japanese did, is very difficult with a powerful bow. We may consider the yard-long arrows to have been the maximum length in use with handbows in mediaeval Europe. Longer then this, they would be used as javelins.

In the second half of the fifteenth century, Edward IV issued a curious statute, his fifth act. Referring to Ireland, it specified that every Englishman, or Irishman living with Englishmen, provide himself with an English bow of his own height plus a fistmele and with twelve shafts of the length of three-quarters of ‘the Standard’. (The word ‘fistmele’ at this time referred to the width of a fist, the ‘poignee’, and now included the extended thumb to determine a bow’s brace height.) This length of bow works out the same as the Roi Modus method, and also corresponds to an old rule that the bowstring should be the length of the shooter; bows used by Scottish mounted archers in the service of Louis XI and his opponent Charles of Burgundy in the wars of 1475–1477 were equal to a man’s height.

The arrow lengths required by the statute are another matter. ‘The Standard’ is the 36-inch yard fixed in the ‘Statute of the Staple’, and three-quarters of the Standard was 27 inches. No explanation was given for a variable bow measurement coupled with a fixed, and proportionally short, arrow measurement for anyone over 4' 5" tall. This arrow measurement would appear to have been a standardisation for military purposes in a land in which small bows (Irish bows) and arrows had come into use. Perhaps Edward wanted the Irish who had not learned longbow shooting in childhood to at least become accustomed to longbows. Longbows and arrows were sent to Ireland to be sold to the King’s subjects but a statute of 1515 suggested that in default of longbows in Ireland, the people should apply themselves to the Irish bows.

A reference to a short arrow like those required in the statute can be found in a thirteenth-century Leicestershire coroner’s report. The de Banco Roll gives particulars of the killing of one Simon de Skeffington in 1298, the year of William Wallace’s defeat at Falkirk. The yew bow was one and one half elles (4' 6") long with a hemp string, while the arrow was a peacock-fletched ash stele three-quarters of an ell long, again 27 inches, and one inch in circumference. That would be 5/16 or at most 3/8 inches thick. It bore a head of iron and steel 3 inches long and 2 inches wide. This large head for a slight arrow would have to have been a swallowtail hunting broadhead.

Curiously, according to T. Roberts, writing in 1801, when men still drew to the ear and 5' 6" was considered average height, 27-inch arrows were used with six-foot bows as standard practice although many archers sensibly cut the bows down to 5' 8" or less. Of course by this time, bows were made with a stiff handgrip area rather than the even bend of mediaeval times, and thus had to be long. These 27-inch arrows may be considered the shortest that could be used with longbows and are better suited to use with the short handbows that were used throughout Europe during the Middle Ages.

Le Livre de Chasse gives specifications for the short handbow, called a ‘Turkish’ bow, referring to its length rather than its construction, also known as a ‘smallbow’, and its arrows. It was written in the fourteen century by Count Gaston de Foix, Foix being a county on the northern side of the Pyrenees. During the Hundred Years War he refused to aid either English or French forces and was passionately fond of hunting, in which pursuit a short bow has certain advantages. It is less cumbersome in brush country and can be readily shot from a kneeling position. It is also quick of cast although its light arrow has less impact than that of the longbow, making it suitable for killing deer but less so for warfare. Bows of this type changed little through the centuries and are pictured in manuscripts more frequently than longbows.

De Foix suggests a shaft of 8 poignees from nock to barbs. This gives me a 261/2-inch shaft, the same length as a method of recent tradition of placing an end of the shaft against the base of the neck, the other end between the extended fingertips of both outstretched arms. The bow is to be 20 poulcees between nocks. Under the assumption that this measurement is the length of the thumb from tip to second joint, I get a bow that measures 4' 8" between nocks. The completed bow matches those in the illustrations for the fifteenth-century edition of the book, which are shown being drawn variously to the breast or face. De Foix adds that the bow, designed for short-range shooting, should be ‘weak’, that the silk bowstring should be braced to the height of a ‘paume de large’, a palm’s breadth, and that the well filed and sharpened broadhead should be four fingers broad and five fingers in length, of course a swallowtail broadhead. The resulting bow is shorter than one made using the Roi Modus specifications, but as it is necessarily thinner than a longbow, it tolerates a greater bend. The ‘six small bows with a sheaf of long arrows’ that Sir Peter Courtney sent to France for the king’s gamekeeper in the time of Richard II would have been of this type. The one complete twelfth-century Waterford bow measures 4' 12", still a smallbow.

In all the foregoing examples we find equipment made to fit the size of the bowman, with the exceptions of the clothyard and the three-fourths of the Standard arrows. The ‘traditional’ English longbow of recent times most nearly matches the one described in the atypical Fifth Act of Edward IV, the only precisely specified old English measurements. This so-called ‘traditional’ six-foot longbow and 28-inch arrow left the archer with a bow that was, by other mediaeval standards, ten inches too long for optimum casting power. Because of the post-medieval fashion of the stiff handgrip and tips of the ‘traditional’ longbow, some of this additional length was necessary to avoid breakage, but some practical archers such as Dr Pope cut their bows to 5' 8" in length, thereby increasing their efficiency.

The Mary Rose find illustrates the specifications given above. Sir John Smythe had noted that military bows were made long enough that they ‘did but seldom break’. Most of the arrows were 30 inches, the longest nearly 32 inches. A bow measured as specified above would be 5' 11". The Mary Rose military bows, except for the very long one cited above, exceeded this by from two to six inches. A minority of the arrows, about a third, were about 28 inches, the shortest 24 inches. Both the long and the short arrows were bound together in the same sheaves to be shot from longbows of a minimum of six feet in length. A biography of Charlemagne describes the Emperor’s fondness for his hunting weapons, ‘a good silver-hilted Frankish sword, a spear, and a bow with long and short arrows’. It seems clear that both long and short arrows were shot from longbows.

NOTES

7 The poem is a somewhat fictionalised mediaeval version of the Battle of Otterborn between ‘Hotspur’, the son of the Earl of Northumbria, and Scots in the Earl Douglas’s lands in 1388. Here, a Northumbrian longbowman, seeing his lord slain, responds with an arrow that pierces a Scottish knight, Sir Hugh Montgomery. Lord Percy was in fact not killed.

8 Drayton refers to bows of the preferred Spanish yew and the celebrated clothyard arrows.

4

BOWS

‘Behind their wall,’ he was told, ‘There was a woman, covered with a green mantle, who kept shooting arrows with a wooden bow. She wounded several of us. She was finally overcome by several men. We killed her and brought her bow to the sultan. He was amazed at this happening.’

Baha ed Din9

A good bowe in his hand,

A brod arwe ther ine,

And foure and twenty goode arwys,

Trusyd in a thrumme

Robyn and Gandelyn10

Both longbows and shorter handbows were in use in Europe from prehistoric times. The longbow casts a heavier arrow that a short bow doesn’t have the mass to cast effectively, and weight means penetration. The long draw keeps the bowstring on the arrow longer, maximising the thrust. Also, the necessarily heavier arrow flies more steadily than a short one and stands better in a wind. These characteristics meant that the English found the longbow in the hands of a practiced archer a more effective war weapon than the crossbow, which was favoured by their French enemies during the Hundred Years War. At the Battle of Crecy, the Genoese crossbowmen shot first but their bolts fell far short, while the English longbowmen’s arrows did not. However, without a culture of longbow use from early childhood, most nations retained the crossbow. English livery (military) bows were often hurriedly mass produced and not always with the best materials. Yew bows were classified as yew ‘of the best sort’, others of ‘the second sort’, still others of ‘the coarser sort’.

We know most about the longbow, but shorter handbows were more usual in mediaeval times, especially for hunting. They were drawn to the breast, sometimes to the face. In both England and France, the longbow was used in practice shooting at marks. Serious archers brought several bows to practice. Of differing strengths, lengths and cross sections, they were for specific purposes like butt or clout/prick shooting (see here), or for flight shooting, the latter being a favorite French game for wagers.

Cross Sections

Some sharp their swords, some right their murrians set;

Their greaves and pouldrons rivet fast. The archers now their bearded arrows whet, Whilst every where the clam’rous drums are bras’d.

Drayton, Polyolbion11

The Parisian Lartdarcherie describes the advantages of variations in cross section.

Bows are made of two patterns that is to say, square and round, which are used for three kinds of shooting. The square are best for butt shooting for three reasons – first, because they have more back and therefore last longer; secondly, because the arrow lies better against their side, and thirdly because they shoot straighter and keep their cast longer. A bow should be of the same shape for the butt and chapperon shooting.

Nydam bow (see here) showing measurements at points of one limb.

While most mediaeval archery terms are directly translatable from one language to the other, it seems clear from the context that the word ‘back’ here means what in England is called the belly. French nomenclature of the present day continues to refer to a bow’s belly as the ‘back’ while the back is called the ‘face’. Through the FITA, the international archery federation based in France, these terms have become standard.

Round bows are recommended for chapperon and flight shooting.

Those made for chapperon shooting have a broader back than the others, as more arrows are shot with it, for if they had too narrow a back, they would not last. Those made for flight shooting have narrower backs and are the better for it, as the back only makes them slower and more sluggish.

The cross-sections are of the grip area of mediaeval longbows that were evenly tapered to the tips to bend in an arc. This measurement together with the length enables us to make a replica bow or to estimate draw weight of the originals. These are beyond the strength of most of today’s archers. We can see the increase in draw weight through the centuries.

The explanation for this is that the shearing line of a rectangular bow, the point between tension and compression, is midway between back and belly, so that tension of the back and compression of the belly are equal. In a narrow bow with a narrow belly section approaching a triangular shape, the shearing line, which can be found by balancing a paper cutout of the cross-section of the bow on a pinpoint, is closer to the back. The belly is then subjected to disproportionate compression. While this gives the bow a fast recovery and consequently excellent cast, it also causes an early crushing of the fibres on the belly and the bow soon loses efficiency. For this reason flight bows were used sparingly. Ascham felt that bows that were flat should be gathered round to have a faster cast for distance shooting as well as being more accurate at close range.

On the Mary Rose D section longbows were found, the only shape recognised as longbows by the British Longbow Society, as well as some rectangular and some trapezoidal bows. Most are of oval (elliptical) section, a compromise between the square and D shaped bows. Livery gear for military use was often hastily produced, explaining the lack of standardisation.

Viking bog find bows are of similar sections as well as lenticular. The ratio of thickness to width varies from 1-1 in the rare round section to the slightly wider 1-1.1 at the handgrip, sometimes flattening to 1-2 in the limbs of some self-nocked Viking bows. (‘Thickness’ here means depth, width means the section across the bow from left to right when held ready to use.)

Curvatures

My curving bows adorn my bench,

My mailcoats are of gold.

Brightest of all my helm and shield,

Heirlooms from kings of old.

The Lay of Atli12