Talk:English longbow/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Accuracy

"Modern champion archers maintain that you cannot 'guarantee' a hit on an individual target at more than 80 yards with any bow whatsoever."

Source? This isn't true; top modern compound shooters can shoot round after round of 6-8" groups at 90 yards. Certainly this qualifies as an individual target. This statement should be restricted to longbows or other traditional bows, or removed.

Arrows

"Long Bow arrows were made from <<????>> (this could help Westminster boys answer a competition, so I'm not giving it away."

Will someone please explain this? At least explain this Westminster boys competition... is the competition over? I'm a Kansas boy and am confused by these weird Engrish "competitions".

1. It was just someone playing a joke, (vandalising the article).

1. I'm pretty sure that school children in Kansas also participate in academic competitions.

Umm.... long bow arrows were made out of ash... right?--Shark Fin 101 18:22, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The length of the arrows from the Mary Rose have been repeated stated as being 30 inches long.--82.28.46.207 20:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Draw weight

Longbows found on the Mary Rose (Slip of Henry VIIIs Navy, sunk at Portsmouth) had a draw weight of up to 170 lbs (80 kg)

81.152.194.3 21:18, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Slight problem: I have read (it would be a real pain to relocate the source) an article on the bows recovered from the Mary Rose and it indicated two separate tests (one by math, one by duplication) that the average draw of the longbows on the Mary Rose was 105 lbs. Anyone out there interested enough to confirm/deny this? I'm not - just passing through.24.10.102.46 06:56, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Its in Hardy & Strickland's Italic textThe Great WarbowItalic text, 2005. The original calculation was given in a 1981 edition of Italic textthe Journal of the Society of Archer AntiquariesItalic text as between 70 & 80 lb. The revised, corrected calculations cited by Hardy is given as 153lb for the same bow (A812). The modulus of elasticity of the timber in the original calculations was incorrect. This new figure matches the spine of the Mary Rose arrows and dimensionally similar modern reproductions.

Scandinavian

Please produce sources showing that the Longbow originated in Scandanavia. I have never heard that before, indeed just the opposite, that Scandanavians were fond of the short bow. Keep in mind there is a diffrence, the long bow was about 6 feet long and was drawn to the ear and required special training to master (somthing I suspect did not exist in the mesolithic period as the current article suggests), the short bow was about 3 feet long and drawn to the chest. Stbalbach 03:46, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

(Details of Neolithic finds in Somerset and Scotland are now in the article)

Tactics

Traditional Archers and Crossbowmen in the center back, in rank formation.

Is anyone sure that this bit is correct? In most armies the crossbowmen and archers were in the front rank, and retreated through the rest of the infantry when the enemy got too close. Bit hard to shoot people with a crossbow when your own soldiers are in the way! --kudz75 05:11, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've read accounts of both ways, but obviously your correct, more so in the front. This bit of text is too specific, tactics varied based on many factors; plus, crossbowmen and longbowmen were seen in entirely diffrent status (the former were hated by both sides and usually mercenary and often killed w/out mercy on capture). It should rather give historic examples of battles and the tactics used at those battles to illustrate a point, rather than try to use words like "traditionally" which really has no meaning.Stbalbach 06:40, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Artifacts

Why are there so few surviving longbows? http://www.student.utwente.nl/~sagi/artikel/longbow/longbow2.html suggests it's because they were common objects, but the fact that they took several years to make seems to go againts this hypothesis. Were they outlawed at some point? Did they rot? (But they were preserved in tallow) Were there just very few of them produced to begin with?

Not outlawed, and obviously not few because there were thousands of Welsh and English longbowman so it's probably because they were just old or something. Oh well, guess we'll never know,eh?-Flyingcheese 23:52, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think you are getting your bows mixed up: Because longbows are simply carved from a solid piece of wood (a stave) they can be made in an afternoon by a very experienced bowyer, assuming the wood is seasoned beforehand (20-40 hours work for beginners if the wood is straight grained with few knots, which yew never is, hehe). You may be thinking of very high quality composite bows, such as turkish flightbows. Glue on those was allowed to dry for months before the next bowyering step was undertaken. I think there aren't many remaining longbow examples because wood rots and because these were not usually prestigious weapons. Longbows were the weapon of commoners and from what I know of making and shooting wooden bows, a longbow wouldn't survive use for more than a generation and wouldn't be worth preserving reverently if not in use.

Mev532 23:19, 11 Aug 2005

Yeah, what he said. :)

"Middle Ages"

According to an expert in the field, there are no surviving longbows from the Middle Ages. There is no standard date on when the Middle Ages ended, it can range from the beginning of the Ren. in Italy, to the Gutenburg Press, etc.. we can debate that here, but, that would be original research. The expert said none from the Middle Ages, we should stick to it, and provide a citation if needed. Stbalbach 17:45, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Although it is debatable when the middle ages finished in foreign lands, in England it is simple: 1485 Battle of Bosworth, and for the swats at the front "August 22, 1485". All school children in England know about "1066 and all that", any which remain awake through most of the next 10+ years, know about 1485 and 1966. (For any German readers of this paragraph IT WAS A GOAL!) Philip Baird Shearer 22:21, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

measurement

The lengths of the bows at the start of the article are from the Mary Rose http://www.maryrose.org/ship/bows1.htm and are quoted in metric measurements. For consistency it should be metric first through out the article. Many English speaking people only learn the metric system at school as there are no imperial measurements their country. Do people in the US not learn the metric system at school? There is no point putting in Newtons on ever measurement as anyone who is interested in that can calculate them providing the first one is left in place all it does is add clutter to the article. Philip Baird Shearer 08:58, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

The "consistency" should be original measurement first, something which provides us with additional information related to the likely precision of the measurements. Sometimes, of course, what was original is hard to determine. Other times, a measurement has been redone independently in different units at different times, but we don't have that for most of these measurements.

In this particular case, while the measurements in metres may have been original to you, as the ones contained on the web site, it looks like at least some of them were converted from originals in inches. However, I don't the sources they cite, and cannot check that out, so for the measurements which came from there, it would be okay with me for you to put metric first unless someone finds that they were indeed likely to be ocnversions.

The whole purpose of expressing measurements such as this in dual units is so that people who ignore either set of units can get the same information. That's why those newtons (not capitalized in English) should appear in every instance, and be done to approximately the same precision in every case—something that is never exactly achieved. People who want use SI units should not be required to do their own conversions to get them. This article is not a lesson in conversion of units, it should provide readily available information.

Speaking of consistency, don't people wherever you are learn the International System of Units? Don't you use them? We do here in the United States. And sometimes we have an advantage, too—less unlearning to do when it comes to getting rid of obsolete, non-SI metric units. Gene Nygaard 13:36, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Archaeologists will have measured and published the lengths of the the bow staves recovered using the metric system. No scientific paper worth the name published in the UK in the last 30 years would use imperial measurements. The Mary Rose Trust (as they paid for the research!) will have used those measurements. I do not know what Robert Hardy has published this draw weights in, but as the term implies I suspect that they will be in kgs or lbs rather than Newtons. Using simple weights is the most likely way in which the general public would be able to relate to the power of the bows, and bowyer traditionally tests a bow by hanging weights from the string so it is not unreasonable for him to publish his books, which are aimed at the general public, using those measurements. As it looks very cluttered to translate each pull weight into three measurements, I think it best to drop the one which is least familiar to the most people. I live in a country where people are weighed in stones, but weigh cheese in grams, and buy litres of milk but pints of beer. Many people come from other countries which tend to use one system or the other, so I suggest that although it is clumsy, it is best to leave the imperial measurements in for the American audience and older members of the British population. Philip Baird Shearer 17:54, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

This may seem like an odd question, but I recently saw a comment in print about the general wieght of these bows - the number tossed about made absolutely no sense (it was massive) - any idea of the weight range of these weapons? Dxco 07:29, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Why is this article separate from Longbow?

And, with Neolithic finds of longbows in Somerset and Scotland, why is this particular longbow article titled "English Longbow"? Neolithic Englishmen and Jolly Old Crecy and all that? --Wetman 06:21, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Skeletons of longbow archers are recognizably deformed, with enlarged left arms,

" Skeletons of longbow archers are recognizably deformed, with enlarged left arms, "

How can you see if the left arm was bigger on a skeleton ? Old of 1000 years, and in what condition ? !

I was told the indication of assymetry on the skeleton of a professional archer was the erosion of the cartiledge on the "bow" arm shoulder blade. As an amateur archer (about 30 lb) I can testify that is where I feel it.24.10.102.46 06:56, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Since I have been shooting a 70lb longbow, my posture has changed quite dramatically. In a space of about 6 months my left shoulder is no longer level with my right. It is now about 1.5 inches higher than the right even though I'm right handed. Also my left forearm is considerably more developed than my right.Swchurchill 13:19, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Myth

I'm not convinced about the cutting off of the index and ring finger. What would be the point?

In shooting in a longbow, the archer uses, above all, the index and middle fingers. These two fingers keep the arrow on the bowstring. The ring finger is also used, but one does not put as much pressure on that finger as one does on the first two.

Try it yourself, if you attempt to draw with your ring and index fingers, you wind up with an awkward and out of place middle finger which will do nothing whatsoever for your shot.

I have half a mind to take it out, but it's a pretty big chunk off the page Vince In Milan 10:11, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

The medieval English style of shooting often appears to use only the index and middle finger, not the ring finger at all. This makes much more sense of the French threat to cut off these two fingers Swahilli 19:07, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I'll rewrite that bit to get rid of the ring finger stuff. IMHO, it's plain, flat-out wrong :) Vince In Milan 14:30, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Jean Froissart wrote about it (the removal of the finger), so we do have documentary evidence, and the passage is pretty clear that it is considered myth, there is not reason to remove it, someone will just re-add it. Better the way it is, as myth, then someone presenting it as factual in the future (which has been the problem in the past).-- Stbalbach 15:20, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if you do much traditional archery, but it is *impossible* to shoot using your first and *ring* fingers. You really ought to try it sometime :) Vince In Milan 07:57, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

It says they cut off the index and ring fingers, perhaps because if they only cut off the index finger, someone could learn to shoot using the middle and ring finger. You'd think they just cut off the whole hand or all 4 fingers. but we don't really know much about this, other than what little has been handed down. We can speculate about it. -- Stbalbach 13:34, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Given the documentation by Froissart, Why would this be considered a "myth"? Sure, it can't be proven, but is there any evidence that it did not happen? Titling the section "Myth" seems to imply that it was thought to be true but has been shown otherwise. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Varlet16 (talk • contribs) 13:52, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Most of this section already exists in V sign, so I'm removing the part after the myth debunking. The rest is not related to English longbows. -- nae'blis 15:01, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Sundays

I've always heard that archery was the only "sport" allowed on Sundays in England, at least during the medieval period. Certainly in my village, The Buttway (now alas used as a carpark) is next to the church. Anybody know/have sources on this? JackyR 20:00, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Depends what you mean by "medieval" - it is one of the most abused terms in the English language. My own view is that the medieval period of English history starts on 14 October 1066 and ends with the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII around 1538, but each to his own.

From 1066 to the mid-13th century, both the bow and the archer are treated as almost non-existent in legal documents (Henry II's Assize of Arms of 1181 makes no mention of bows, nor of the archers who certainly existed at that time (these were of both the peasant and serjantz classes, as well as large numbers of foreign mercenaries). Archery practice was certainly taking place, however -in the early 12th century Henry I had proclaimed that an archer would be absolved of murder, if he killed a man during archery practice.

The Assize of Arms of 1252 ordered that every man between the age of 15 and 60 must equip themselves with a bow and arrows. Edward III went further and introduced an Archery Law in 1363 which commanded the obligatory practice of archery on Sundays and Holy days (both being non-working days - there were by that time at least 100 such days per year). This 14th century enactment forbade, on pain of death, all sport that took up time better spent on war training such as archery practice. This law, really a Royal decree, has never been repealed and therefore still applies in England today.

Since archery practice had to be held on those days when church attendance was also required, the archery butts were often sited near to the parish churches.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ranulfus (talk • contribs) .

Sources, sources please! I've just spent some time looking through the statutes of 1363 and cannot find anything that commands the obligatory practice of archery. Are you sure this is not an urban myth. The archery must be practised idea comes up again and again. Henry VIII passed two statues concerning gaming (as you say) but they were little obeyed and had no means of enforcement. They were repealed in the C19. Francis Davey 19:17, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

No "urban myth" here. The Calendar of Letter-books of the City of London (G: 1352 - 1374), published in detail by the Centre for Metropolitan History is the source, in particular:

Folio cxi. Writ to the Mayor and Sheriffs to cause certain ordinances for preserving the peace, &c., to be proclaimed in the City. Witness the King at Westminster, 12 June, 37 Edward III. [A.D. 1363]. Folio cxi b. Writ to the Sheriffs to make proclamation encouraging the practice of archery by way of a pastime in place of football, cock-fighting, &c. Witness the King at Westminster, 1 June, 37 Edward III. [A.D. 1363]. (fn. 2) Custod' Joh' is fil' Thom' Aleyn calcar'.

(From: 'Folios cxi - cxx: June 1363 -', Calendar of letter-books of the city of London: G: 1352-1374 (1905), pp. 154-65. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=33502.)

Far from being repealed in the 19th century as in the case of the Henry VIII statutes, this royal writ of Edward III can only legally be revoked by a monarch and this has never been done. Ranulfus 14:09, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Which are good sources, however I think the point of the previous poster is that these are statutes to encourage archery, they do not make it compulsory. If that is correct, then other sports weren't banned, they were just frowned upon.

--Merlinme 14:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Quite. What I was objecting to was a statement that there was an "archery law" commaning the obligatory practice of archery, which is clearly not substantiated by the above. The writ given above is directed to the sheriffs of the City of London (so its not a law but a local proclamation) and all it does is require the sheriffs to *say* something. Obviously you can't "repeal" it, since it isn't a law of any kind. Once they (the sheriffs) had made the proclamation, the write had done its job. "Custod' Joh' is fil' Thom' Aleyn calcar'." is the heading of the following writ and has to do with guardianship and not archery. I would be interested to see sources for any of the assertions made in the passage to which I objected. Francis Davey 16:06, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Tactics

From the article under tactics: "the psychological effect on the enemy of the famous 'cloud of arrows' produced by such a volley is not to be underestimated." This sounds like a lesson in how to wage war. I'm not disputing that it would be scary, but this sounds like the writer has personal experience.

Welsh Longbow

Regarding the paragraph:

"In the British Isles the weapon was first recorded as being used by the Welsh, in AD 633. Offrid, the son of Edwin, king of Northumbria, was killed by an arrow shot from a Welsh longbow, during a battle between the Welsh and the Mercians — nearly six centuries before any record of its military use in England. Despite this, the weapon is often referred to as the "English longbow" rather than the "Welsh longbow"."

Could you please state precisely where this information is recorded, since this will be of outstanding and immense importance to comparative linguists and researchers such as myself, as well as to universities, historians and anyone interested in the development of archery (possibly even the national press). No term for longbow has previously been identified in Old or Middle Welsh, Old English or medieval Latin, the languages used at the time of the incident mentioned, so I am more than eager to understand how such a specific reference could have been made.

I note that the AS Chronicle entry for 633 simply states that Offrid died in battle, with no detail of how this occurred. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable!

Ranulfus 06:58, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Since there is now reason to think this is inaccurate, it has been removed, until someone can provide a verifiable source. -- Stbalbach 15:16, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Mongol prompt

I've heard that the success of the huge Mongol bows were a prompt to the widespread adoption of the English longbow. I'm not sure if this is true though. Jztinfinity 18:04, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The mongol bow was a typical Asian recurve bow. Very powerful, and with a comparable draw length, but physically rather small. Also, use of the longbow in Wales predates contact with the mongols by quite some time.--Stephan Schulz 11:56, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Why is Agincourt highlighted but not Crecy?

Is there any particular reason that Agincourt is mentioned in the preamble to the page but not Crecy? I recognise that there were more longbowmen at Agincourt than Crecy, but it was surely at least as decisive a victory brought about because of the longbow.

--145.221.52.70 12:37, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I think it's because Agincourt is part of the British national myth: a badass army of plebian longbowmen beat up on the arrogant French knights. It's almost certainly the most well-known battle in which the longbow was decisive. Stilgar135 21:03, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, well if that's the point, I've changed the wording to Agincourt being the 'most famous' battle in which the English longbow was involved. To say 'particularly' implies to me that it wasn't particularly significant in other battles, which is just not true.

--Merlinme 09:21, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Longbow in the Peasants Revolt

Is it actually true that 'The longbow was the weapon of choice for rebels during the Peasants' Revolt'? I've had a quick look at some sources, and I can find references to bows, sure, but nothing about longbows. And the weapons are described like this:

"some carried only sticks, some swords covered with rust, some merely axes and others bows more reddened with age and smoke than old ivory, many of their arrows had only one plume.” Surely these would have been bows used for hunting? You only really need a bow with the enormous draw of a longbow if a) you're shooting at armoured men or b) you're hunting something like an elephant. Which is why they were sometimes called 'war bows' at the time, and I find it difficult to imagine peasants commonly possessing them. I would have thought that most of the bows would have been what we would call shortbows, although I'm open to correction if someone can point me in the direction of a good source. In the meantime, I've added a 'citation needed'.

--Merlinme 09:54, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm still not sure about this, but it is true that the Assize of Arms of 1252 said that "all citizens, burgesses, free tenants, villeins and others from 15 to 60 years of age" should be armed. Those with property under 40 shillings were expected to have a bow. So maybe they really were war bows in the Peasants Revolt, as the point of the Assize of Arms was that it would be easier for the King to raise an army. I'll modify the entry to emphasise this. It would still be nice to have a citation.

--Merlinme 13:09, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this some more, and considering that the 'typical' English longbow is supposed to be 6' tall, with a draw weight of 80lbf, I find it really hard to imagine that the average villein or farm labourer was well fed enough and well enough practiced at archery to be able to use such a powerful bow. A yeoman, possibly, but by definition a yeoman (greater than 40s land) would have been richer and presumably better fed. I'm therefore going to change the reference to "longbows" in the Peasants' Revolt to "bows" (although it then becomes debatable whether it should be in this article at all). As always, I'm open to someone giving a proper source correcting me.

--Merlinme 09:15, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Chrisopher Dyer in his book "Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages: Social Change in England C. 1200-1520" argues that the diet of all classes rapidly improves after the Black Death. This being due to a shortage of workers which pushed up the wages of the labouring classes. He shows evidence of a large increase in meat and fish consumption. This was probably due to the lack of labourers to work the fields and meant that much of the unused arable land was turned over to livestock production. This meant the land would still provide an income with relatively little labour required. This diet including a higher protein diet and regular physical labour actually make the labourer was better able to use the bow than a well fed but less physical middle class merchant for instance.

Using a high powered longbow is more than just physical strength. Technique and regular practice are essential. It has taken me years of practice to be able to draw and shoot a 90lb bow effectively and consistently with gradual increments in bow strength.

Both Bradbury and Strickland argue that there was no such thing as a "shortbow" in England and that the bows used by Vikings and Saxons were basically the same as those used by the 15th Century English archers. Therefore there was no need to distinguish bows as all bows were "longbows". A war bow would be a longbow of high power.

The first recorded use of the word longbow is in the Paston Letters. I am not sure the exact date but around the middle of the 15th Century. In the letter from Margaret Paston to her husband John, she requests that he buy some crossbows, to defend one of their manors, as the ceilings are too low to shoot a longbow. It appears that the use in this example is to emphasise that crossbows are required. I will up date this when I have found the letter and will use a direct quote.

Schurchill 11:15, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Why is this article separate from Longbow?

As Wetman says, above, I can see no reason for it to be separate. The English longbow is a typical longbow, as found all over northern Europe, most of the Americas, Africa, and so on. OK, the English kept a living tradition of shooting, and (as with other cultures) the longbow is in some sense an icon of culture. But the bow itself is pretty standard. Indeed, the two articles have a lot of overlap already. Disagreements, anybody?

---

This article is several times larger than the Longbow article. As I remember, about 18 months ago the two articles were combined. I assume it was separated out to make both articles more manageable and focused, although I'm only guessing.

I don't have a problem with a separate article though. Surely this is no different from having a separate article on the Brown Bess musket, as opposed to muskets in general? The problem with combining the articles, I would have thought, would be that the main longbow article would become long and unwieldy, and spend too much time concentrating on the English longbow.

There were also some specifically Welsh/English features about it, e.g. the preference for making it out of one piece of yew, use of bodkin arrows to pierce mail, etc.

--Merlinme 14:57, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

This article is specific to the English longbow - history, significance, extant examples, etc.. the longbow is generic to many cultures, but each has its own history and specifics. The Longbow article can act as a general high-level that leads into more specific detailed articles. I'd love to see an article on Native Americans, their longbows were supposed to be even more powerful than the English. -- Stbalbach 15:58, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Origins

At least two Neolithic long bows have been found in Britain. One, made of yew and wrapped in leather, was found at Meare Heath, Somerset, in 1961. Although broken, it had an original length of 6 ft 3ins. It was identified as Neolithic by a combination of peat stratigraphy, pollen analysis and radiocarbon dating ca 2690 (±120) BC (Somerset Historic Environment Record), much to the consternation of some archaeologists at the time. The Meare Heath bow is long, but also wide, narrowing at the handle; it would probably fit the modern definition of a flatbow. A second was found in southern Scotland at Rotten Bottom. It was made of yew and dates to between 4040 and 3640 BC. A reconstructed bow had a draw force of about 23 kgf (230 N, 50 lbf) and a range of 50 to 55 metres. The famous Ötzi the Iceman, of the Chalcolithic period (Copper Age), found in the Ötztaler Alps, bore an unfinished bow very similar to the Rotten Bottom example, with a bowstring possibly of nettle or flax fibre.

Weapons resembling a longbow have been discovered by archaeologists in Scandinavia, dating from the Mesolithic period, made of elm wood and found in the Holmegaard-bog in Denmark (although, during the medieval period, Scandinavians were characterized by the effective use of the shortbow). From the Neolithic onwards, yew was the preferred material. It was ideal as the inner heartwood would compress, while the outer sapwood would stretch, making a powerful natural spring.

This section has nothing to do with the English longbow and is by no means connected to its origin. Wandalstouring 15:36, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

of course not vikings never were in Britain —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.85.218.218 (talk) 23:49, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

New information on the longbow

The Great Warbow - Robert Hardy and Matthew Strickland

This book seems to advocate the theory that the longbow in warfare has a much older history in England than usually presumed. If someone can take a look, we can possibly update this article. Please note, that it is noted for the Neolithic longbows that they were quite week and had a different construction, so the only similarity is the length, despite several other claims on various websites. Wandalstouring 01:08, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

The article is basically about the medieval longbow, discussions of origins seem to be more detailed in Longbow. Not saying it can't be changed, but that has been the trend. -- Stbalbach 15:48, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

The label "English" longbow is perhaps wrong as this book points out, so I think it essentially belongs here, while longbow concerns any long bow. Wandalstouring 18:06, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I didn't understand this point. Are you suggesting that we rename the article English Warbow?

--Merlinme 16:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

English or Welsh longbow?

An anon added the below "disclaimer", moved to here:

[Disclaimer: The original Norman-English invasions of Wales, under the first Plantagenets, found the Welsh using a short bow, most fully described in Geraldus Cambrensis' "Itinerare Triugh Wales" (roughly, "Travels Through Wales"; Cambrensis, immediately following the passage quoted below by the primary author of this article, describes the bow as "short" and "rudely made" and "of elm", utterly distinguishing it from the English longbow). The longbow did not appear to have been known to the indigenous Welsh bowmen and, in fact, it was the English use of the longbow, during Edward I's incursions (c. 1250 AD/CE), which did much to bring Wales under English control, since the Welsh had no effective answer to the weapon. Thereafter, and under both English suzerainty and tutelage, the Welsh were quick to adopt the longbow and began, increasingly, to appear as longbow archers within any combined Anglo-Welsh army, whence came the mythology of the "Welsh longbow". In fact, bows recovered from the Nydam Bog boat burials (in the vicinity of the ancestral Angle homeland, c. 200 AD/CE) are almost indistinguishable in size and configuration from longbows recovered from, e.g., the Tudor ship "Mary Rose" (c. 1520 AD/CE), providing compelling evidence for the English origin of the longbow, popular mythology notwithstanding. Third Century AD/CE Gothic bows, from the areas around the Black Sea, though shorter and somewhat distinguished morphologically, also mimic/herald the form of the later longbow, again indicating a Germanic origin for the weapon. The misattribution of the longbow to the Welsh remains a common error, requiring no greater rebuttal than the "Legend of Robin Hood", a Saxon folk hero who was, famously, using the longbow before the proponents of the Welsh origin of the longbow would even allow for its introduction into England.]

The origins of the longbow needs to be discussed, but this is un-sourced and reads like original research making the claim that the longbow was an English invention and that the Welsh longbow is a "myth". This may be standard and un-contested, or it may be controversial, I do not know. These seem like fairly strong claims, sources are needed as well as a balance of other views. -- Stbalbach 14:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

It is interesting, but I would also go with original research. From what I know of Robin Hood, he wasn't even a particularly good archer until quite late versions of the legend, and in any case, the word 'longbow' wasn't generally used in medieval times; so I don't know how the legend of Robin Hood can be used to justify the claim that the longbow was English.

--Merlinme 15:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

From the Wikipedia "Robin Hood" entry: 'The earliest surviving Robin Hood text is "Robin Hood and the Monk".[2] This is preserved in Cambridge University manuscript Ff.5.48, which was written shortly after 1450' (i.e. well after the high point of the use of the longbow). Also: 'The idea of Robin Hood as a high-minded Saxon fighting Norman Lords also originates in the 19th century.'

--Merlinme 15:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the above is indeed original research. That the Welsh originally used bows unlike the classic English longbow is well established (it's in Giraldus Cambrensis), but the point about Robin Hood seems spurious as, according to Dr Gill Spraggs, who knows English outlaw legends very well indeed, "There were ‘rymes’ – probably metrical narratives, but possibly songs – about Robin Hood in the fourteenth century, and it seems fairly certain that the roots of the legend lie somewhere in the thirteenth century, but the earliest surviving Robin Hood stories were not written down till the fifteenth century." My guess is that the author of the passage above has been overly influenced by the modern fiction convention of placing Robin Hood in the reign of Richard I, which idea was first established by Scott in 'Ivanhoe'.80.229.9.98 (talk) 17:43, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Presumably the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears is proof that porridge was invented by the English :) 86.133.175.12 (talk) 07:20, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that anyone suggested that the English invented the longbow. It's just that, as a title for this article, "The self longbow of Africa, Europe, the Americas, Southern Asia, and quite a few other places, in the context of its massed use in Europe as a decisive weapon of war, mostly by English-led armies in the Middle Ages" is really too long. But it would be more accurate. I have rewritten the first sentence of the lead to give, I hope, a more accurate account less offensive to national feelings. Comments?Richard Keatinge (talk) 11:31, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Seems to me that the "anon" added disclaimer above has totally missed the fact that on the main page the oldest longbow found in the UK has been dated to 2665 BC so to say that Britain had no knowledge of the longbow prior to the Angle invasion is clearly an error. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.53.204.196 (talk) 16:32, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Unneeded bias

Lines such as "This rate of fire was much higher than that of crossbows or any other projectile weapon of the period, including firearms." are somewhat missleading as this article has to do with the English Longbow, not bows in general. There was nothing special about the Enlgish Longbow in regards to rate of fire, one could just a easily argue that the eastern composite recurve was just as fast or faster when you consider the thumb draw (sometimes called the Mongol draw). There seem to be a few arbitary statements making the Longbow seem like the best bow of the period. I don't want to start an argument of longbow vs. composite bow, however I think that we need some clarifying statements in this regard. Master z0b 00:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough- I've modified it.

--Merlinme 14:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Units

I stumbled upon this page and noticed the units where incoherent, some in the form “metric (imperial)” some “imperial (metric)” some pure metric and some pure imperial. This makes for uneasy reading. So I put every thing in the “Standard International (imperial)” form, as I believe it makes it more legible for the majority of the world. CyrilleDunant 15:19, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but we're writing about the English (Welsh) longbow. A large majority of the literature (everything written before decimalisation and quite a lot after it) will refer to feet, inches, pounds force etc. In some cases your edits are just wrong. E.g. The Antiquaries Society did not say the bow was 1.5m or 1.83m in length; they said it was 5 or 6 feet. Richard Bartelot did not say the bow was 1.83m long with a 914mm arrow; he said it was 6 feet long with a 3 foot arrow. Please do not change quotes to make the article more 'coherent'. I have no particular objection to giving standard units in addition to the Imperial units, but I would have thought in this particular case, given the subject matter and the quotes, it makes more sense to give Imperial units first. --Merlinme 16:29, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not a particularly easy matter to resolve, but I would suggest something along the following lines: don't change quotes, whichever form they use; stick to feet and inches when describing the length of the bows and arrows, because they were essentially 6ft long with a 3ft arrow, they weren't 1.83m long with 914mm arrows. I'd suggest we standardise on Newtons rather than kgf as well. I don't mind if Newtons comes before lbf. I don't have a particularly strong view on distance and weight. In practice these should be taken from some sort of source anyway, so use whichever form the source uses. --Merlinme 16:48, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I appologize about changing the quotes, this is of course wrong...CyrilleDunant 08:27, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

"Royal Antiquaries Society of Great Britain "

This does not exist. Which Society of Antiquaries is being credited with the statement? --Wetman 01:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Arrow Length

Interesting, when I corrct the misinformation in the main article and state why in here, giving references, then both the correction and the comment are suddenly deleted. Is this a bias? --82.28.46.207 11:40, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

OR

The earliest known bows, from Stellmoor in northern Germany, are dated to approximately 10,000 years ago. Arrow heads have been found in the Sahara and other places where dry sand is an excellent preservative. Recognizable longbows dating as far back as the Mesolithic period have been found in many parts of Northern Europe

please point out how these long bows are connected with the English longbow! As far as I know there is no source but wiki constructing a direct connection although these things are thousands of years apart. If you want a predecessor go to the Viking longbows, not Mesolithic stuff. Wandalstouring (talk) 10:39, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can see recognizable longbows have been a European tradition since the Mesolithic. I have put in Strickland as a reputable secondary source, specifically pages 39 to 40. He points out that the only really distinctive thing about the English longbow was the power, and only then for warbows; other than that, it was an absolutely normal part of a European continuum. He dismisses the "shortbow" idea as a construct from rock drawings which had no sense of scale, by late Victorian historians.

The North African bows are another matter. Can anyone provide a good reference, preferably with radiocarbon dating, to the Saharan rock paintings showing long bows?Richard Keatinge (talk) 17:54, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

What is the connection between the mesolithic bows and the English longbow? Where is the positive proof that over several thousands of years people used longbows? Even if you compare the production and material you will realize that they are totally different. Wandalstouring (talk) 09:37, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

You mispresent one researchers opinion as common opinion on a subject. Please point out that only he has this mesolithic tradition idea or produce more sources that do so otherwise you give that theses undue weight.Wandalstouring (talk) 09:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

The Traditional Bowyer's Bibles also refer the same idea to the same original sources; this is definitely not original research. As far as I can tell, the consensus is that basically all European bows have been made in approximately the same style for millennia. True, the bog finds are few and scattered, the historical references are only slightly better, and not all of the bows are made of yew nor are all of them completely within the various modern definitions of a "longbow", but all those I've seen or heard of are quite recognizable as longbows, and (correct me if I'm wrong) since Mesolithic times there is no hint of any other indigenous bowmaking tradition in northern Europe. (I am aware that the Romans used composite bows even in the damp squalor of the British Isles.) The viking bows would be an obvious part of that tradition.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prehistoric/past/past46.html has a brief account of another bow, I think it's the one that I saw in the national museum of Ireland last spring. A powerful-looking item. I append their reference list: Clarke, W. 1963. Neolithic bows from Somerset, England, and the prehistory of archery in north-western Europe. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 29, 50-98. Glover, W. 1979. A prehistoric bow fragment from Drumwhinny Bog, Kesk, Co. Fermanagh. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 45, 323-7. Hedges, R.E.M., Housley, R.A., Ramsey, C.B. & Van Klinken, G.J. 1991. Radiocarbon dates from the Oxford AMS system: Archaeometry datelist. Archaeometry 33, 121-34. McDermott, C., Murray, C., Plunkett, G. & Stanley, M. 2002. Of bogs, boats and bows. Archaeology Ireland 16(1), 28-31. Sheridan, A. 1993. The Rotten Bottom longbow. PAST 14, 6.

HTH Richard Keatinge (talk) 11:17, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Is this article about English Longbows or about Longbows in general?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that all of this extra information about longbows in the Sahara and from the Mesolithic have essentially nothing to do with the particularly powerful longbows used in England. Yes, it seems that longbows have been in use there for a while, but that again seems to be a different topic from "English Longbow". The description section talks broadly about longbows found in England, and the general use of the bows throughout Europe, but very little about the specific type of bow generally considered English (i.e. the kind used against the French in the Hundred Years' War). Most of that information seems to fit more appropriately into the longbow article. This article should stick specifically to information about the longbow referenced in the article's first paragraph.

Alucardtepes (talk) 08:16, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Formation image

I think this article needs a image of a archer's formation, insted of \___/. Although it does work, I think with an image it could clear it up more, and there could be other parts of the army listed. Maybe I'll create an SVG in inkscape of a formation, highlighting (hiliting looks too much like 'Hitlering') the archers position. 142.23.10.137 (talk) 19:14, 17 December 2007 (UTC) (trav1085, using a school computer, foar tilde pawaa, et cetera (you get the picture))

Sounds like a good plan to me, please go ahead and see what you can come up with. --Merlinme (talk) 08:23, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Mary Rose?

This article references a "Mary Rose" longbow, however the links are to Mary Rose, the warship. Is this an error in linking? I can't imagine a warship, equipped with cannons, using longbows; however I'm happy to be corrected.

--Pjf (talk) 03:10, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the warship was equiped with early cannons. The usual small arms on deck would have been crossbows and melée weapons with very few guns, but for this ship was English they tried longbows instead of crossbows(they had some battle records in that their archers defeated the famed Genuese crossbowmen). Wandalstouring (talk) 09:13, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Both cannons and longbows, see [1]. HTH Richard Keatinge (talk) 09:22, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Longbow vs Crossbow

This is one of the things that I didn't see in the article: Which has a greater range:The English longbow or (using Crecy as an example)the Genoese crossbow? I have always thought it to be the longbow, but I could be wrong. Please tell me so I can sleep at night.60.241.153.207 (talk) 07:06, 15 January 2008 (UTC)Nelsondog

I'm not 100% sure. I think it depends to some extent which crossbow you're talking about. In the earlier medieval period (from memory) the crossbow had a shorter range. Later, when they were using dirty great windlasses to crank the crossbow, which created enormous kinetic force (hundreds of pounds) I believe they were comparable or even longer ranged than the longbow, i.e. very approximately 300 yards for extreme range. There was very little chance of hitting anything at that range though, let alone penetrating armour. More interesting would be the effective range, which would be under 100 yards. At that range you could hit a unit of men and hope to penetrate their armour. The primary difference between the crossbow and English longbow though was not the extreme range, it was the rate of fire vs. the relative power. Crossbows send much heavier bolts than arrows, even arrows fired from a very heavy longbow, so they arrive with far greater force at the same range than an arrow. In particular this meant the crossbow was better at penetrating armour. Longbows seem to have had trouble penetrating heavy armour at much more than thirty or forty yards. On the other hand, the longbow could be fired several times in the time it took to fire a crossbow once. This meant that in an exchange between crossbows and longbows, crossbowmen often came off worse. Armour penetration wasn't much of an issue as neither wore heavy armour. To try and overcome this weakness, crossbowmen from about the 14th century relied on a very large shield (a pavise) to shelter behind while they were reloading. If you read the account of the Battle of Crecy, the Genoese should have had pavises (it was an Italian innovation used by their mercenary crossbowmen), however the pavises had not been unloaded by the time the battle started, with the result that they took heavy losses from the longbows and retreated. --Merlinme (talk) 08:43, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

To put some figures on the rate of fire, the longbowmen were supposed to be able to fire an aimed shot every six seconds (i.e. ten a minute). The medieval crossbow is usually said to have a rate of fire of about one a minute, which is obviously a serious problem if they were engaged in a straight exchange with longbowmen without protection from a pavise or similar. --Merlinme (talk) 08:35, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

This rates of fire are too low. 10-16 shots/minute for a soldier with a longbow and 3-4 shots per minute for a crossbow with the same kinetic energy for the projectiles. Still a good thing to have a pavese, what can be added is that ammunition for the crossbow is easier to produce and aiming is improved. You can't compare a heavy arbalest(1-2 shots/minute) with a longbow, it's like comparing cannons and rifles. Wandalstouring (talk) 12:33, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

They both seem a bit high to me. I've not seen a figure for longbow higher than 12/ minute, not aimed shots, anyway. Nor more than about 2/ minute for a crossbow, although it does obviously depend exactly which crossbow we're talking about. Anyway the fact remains that we're talking 4-6 times faster rate of fire for the longbow. "Aiming is improved" is slightly misleading. The crossbow is easier to aim without practice, because it fires in more or less a straight line, whereas a longbow doesn't. However I'm not sure if a trained crossbowman was significantly more accurate than a trained longbowman, certainly when aiming at a unit of men from 100 yards. But it is part of the reason that longbowmen took such a large amount of training, whereas crossbowmen could be mustered quickly. --Merlinme (talk) 13:13, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to correct you, but the crossbow does never shoot in a straight line(basic ballistics). The bolts of a crossbow are usually a bit heavier than the arrows of a bow and for this reason travel at a slower speed(and thus not as far as an arrow)-> E=(mv²)/2 and nothing else. You reach fast reloading times with two footdrawn(80-150kg) crossbows that are exchanged between the archer and his servant of up to 8 shots per minute, however, this number I divided by 2 for you need at least two people. Wandalstouring (talk) 15:42, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not talking about ballistics, I'm talking about the archer's paradox, which as far as I'm aware doesn't apply to crossbows. I simply don't know enough about medieval crossbows to know if the rate of fire you're talking about is correct. I did however find a fascinating modern comparison of crossbow and bow here: [2] Ignoring the issue of sights, which as far as I'm aware didn't exist in medieval times, he still thinks crossbows would be more accurate for a beginner, because of the archer's paradox, and also because of consistency in release and draw length. However: "a modern bow in the hands of an expert will shoot more accurately than a crossbow in those of a beginner; and it's not obvious to me that an expert crossbow shooter will out-shoot an expert archer, particularly at fixed-distance target shooting." He also says that he fires three or four times as fast with a longbow as a crossbow (although it sounds like the crossbow has a particularly good cocking mechanism, as he can fire a shot in ten seconds; I don't believe medieval crossbows were so efficient). --Merlinme (talk) 16:40, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Another site here: [3] which goes into much less detail, but still interesting because it's talking directly about the medieval longbow vs. medieval crossbow. It confirms the other site about one thing; I was talking a certain amount of rubbish above, about the weight of crossbow bolts. Apparently bolts tend to be lighter than arrows. The increased penetration (kinetic energy) of crossbows does exist, but is due to increased velocity, not increased mass. The figures given in the website seem quite extraordinary; I knew crossbows were inefficient, but it seems amazing that a 740lb crossbow can only send a bolt weighing 1/2 as much 4% faster. I would tend to think they were using a particularly inefficient crossbow. He acknowledges himself that the crossbow is generally thought to be part of the reason for the invention of heavier armour, which even allowing for kinetic energy being mass * square of velocity, the bolt would have to be 40% faster to achieve the same impact. Although there may be other factors at work to do with the way the average bolt hits the average piece of armour compared to an arrow. Yet another site here: [4] which gives precise figures for rate of crossbow fire. I still think two a minute is a reasonable figure, bearing in mind we would be talking about crossbows with a draw of 300lb+. --Merlinme (talk) 18:46, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Some basic facts about bows. The bigger the mass, the slower the speed of the projectile. The efficiency problem of bows and crossbows is that the sinew slows down while the projectile accelerates, leading to worse a efficiency if the projectile is lighter, faster. I know this nonsense comparison between a very light crossbow bolt and a heavy arrow, just forget it. That is operating one weapon under worst and the other under optimum conditions. The Mongols for example had heavy(short range) and light(long range) arrows, just to point out that different projectiles have different purposes. Wandalstouring (talk) 19:38, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

If you read the sites I found, the main reason for the relative inefficiency (for the same draw weight) of a crossbow is that the arrow/bolt is accelerated for less distance (because a crossbow string is drawn back less far). This is simply a function of the size of the bow; a (horizontally held) crossbow is not 6 foot across, unlike a (vertically held) longbow. Also, you seem to be confusing range with initial velocity; the figures for the medieval comparison site are quoted in feet per second, so the flight characteristics of a heavier or lighter arrow/ bolt shouldn't come into it.

I didn't say that this isn't the case. You seem rather confused. I compared a crossbow with 150kg to a bow with 80kg, that is fair since the crossbow has half the draw length.

You never actually said this. 80kg (186lb) is an enormous longbow. 150lb(68kg) is more realistic. Efficiency is perhaps the wrong word; all I was trying to say was that double the draw weight for a crossbow does not necessarily mean double the power. With a power stroke two to three times longer for a longbow, you need a crossbow with two to three times more draw weight to produce the same velocity on a similarly sized arrow/ bolt. --Merlinme (talk) 16:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely right. But while comparing them you should also take the handshock in consideration and thus an expert on the crossbow(they were professional mercenaries with a group of servants each) is far better at sniping than an expert on the longbow, however, the longbow has more shots per minute and is thus likely to hit something, especially if the target is not heavily armoured. In a battleline the space for archery is limited and it is there that the better sniper excels. On the flanks where there is cavalry and space the longbow archers are better. This was also reflected in the battle order of the English army. Wandalstouring (talk) 19:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

If you read the first site I found: "despite the increased draw weight, the crossbow actually stores much less energy, because its prod is much shorter than a bow, and the draw length consequently shorter. Energy is proportional to force multiplied by distance -- and the force required to draw a crossbow only reaches its peak at the last inch or so of draw. It turns out, if you do the maths, that a 150lb crossbow at full draw is only storing about one third to one half the energy of a 40lb bow." If you read the BBC site I found: "Longbows do manage to stay in the game because, even though the draw weight is so much lower, the arrows and the bolts both leave their respective weapons at about the same velocity. This is because the ends of the longbow are further apart (six feet or so) and have longer to build up the speed of the arrow. The crossbow on the other hand typically has a span of two to three feet, so the ends of the bow do not move as far, thereby not having time to speed the bolt up as much." I'm not a physicist, but as I understand it, a longbowman pulls the arrow back to his ear; say, 2.5 feet. A crossbow string on the other hand will be drawn back more like 1.5 feet. So in other words the acceleration force is being applied for 3/5 distance.

Show me the exact calculation, this is very likely nonsense. The crossbow has a shorter draw length and compensates with larger draw weigth(half the length, double the weigth). This peak is reached by longbows as well as crossbows, except they are compound bows or Chinese multiple-bow arcuballistae. A longbow can be compared to a footdrawn crossbow in energy of the projectile, but is worse in hitting because of the much harder(faster) handshock(actio equals reactio) and the worse position to compensate this(training can improve the aim but that is the same reason why a rifle tends to hit at a greater distance than a pistol).

I'm not actually disagreeing. It seems to be generally agreed that the power should be pull weight * power stroke. A modern crossbow seems to have about 1/3 the length of power stroke as a bow, implying a three times more powerful crossbow releases the arrow/ bolt with about the same force. I'm not sure where the link I gave got his figures for 150lb crossbow vs. 40lb bow; I would have expected the force to be about equal, or somewhat more for the crossbow. --Merlinme (talk) 16:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Whether my layman's explanation is 100% correct or not I'm not entirely sure, but what I am sure about is the essential point that a crossbow produces a lower exit velocity for the same draw weight. The figures in the "medieval" site above seem too extreme, for the reason discussed (that crossbows were known for their armour penetrating abilities). It should be said that on that site the writer does make the point that "it should be stated that the bolt loosed by the crossbow could have been heavier without experiencing much of a decrease in exit velocity. A heavier arrow loosed by the longbow would have had a significantly reduced exit velocity." So it could well be that the bolt used was far too light; and a heavier bolt at a similar velocity would have had increased penetration. However the point remains that a crossbow is not as efficient at transferring force as a bow (although the very high initial draw force you can achieve with a crossbow means that it can still deliver bolts with more power). --Merlinme (talk) 12:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

You are right that the crossbow bolts had a lower velocity because they were heavier and they were not shot in showers(100-150m) like arrows but aimed directly by snipers at short distance(30-50m or even 2m in the Hussite system). The efficiency is a point one can argue about because in Europe the crossbows were often recurve and of composite material after the crusades, making them a bit more efficient than a simple bow or longbow.Wandalstouring (talk) 14:47, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure how much we're actually disagreeing. After doing some more reading, I can't say I'm a great deal more enlightened (it's controversial, especially because it depends on the exact crossbow and bolt used). Bolts do generally seem to have been the same weight, or perhaps slightly heavier than arrows, but again it depends on what sort of crossbow you're talking about. However I think it's interesting that a 300lb crossbow would deliver about the same force as a 100-150lb longbow (although this does ignore any subtleties in the flight of arrows vs. bolts, and the way they strike armour). I also don't think my estimates of rate of fire were that far out. As crossbows became better designed however, the rate of fire and the power went up. This would probably have been later than Crecy though. --Merlinme (talk) 16:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

At Crecy the paveses were not unloaded and for this reason the crossbowmen and their not very well armoured servants were without cover and had to take already casualties before being within their effective range and then had a slower rate of fire -> they retreated. Comparing draw weights to derive at conclusion about the efficiecy is a bit ill structured. You need to compare the energy stored that is force per length and thus there isn't any difference (also not a force is produced, but they have the same kinetic energy released with their projectile). A slight difference there is because the material of the crossbow is thicker and thus a bit slower at releasing energy. For this reason slower, heavier, bolts have a better performance. What you are absolutely wrong about is that the rate of fire went up for crossbows. The system of using one archer with servants had been established already during the reign of Richard III. and with increasing draw weights the crossbow became deeadlier, but with a slower rate of fire per crossbow per minute. This could be compensated in rate of fire per metre frontline by a rotation system(Hussite warfare).Wandalstouring (talk) 19:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Re the rate of shot, the so-called number per minute is oft quoted yet never referenced, what are the sources for that assertion? Likewise the arrowheads stuck on with wax so they come off in the wound? I know the subject is replete with interesting things, but a lot of old chestnuts are still here. As for height, your bow has to match your ability to string it, if you are 5' 5" then your right arm stretched up to depress the top limb, whilst stringing will not reach as far as someone 6', so the usable size stops at the point where you cannot string it, ie they may vary in height quite substantially. Stluke23 (talk) 19:50, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I can confirm some first hand observations of the rate of fire for a crossbow and a long bow. As a re-enactor myself I have as part of a display done what is called a speed shoot. It's name is fairly explanitory shoot as many shots as you can in one minuet. A 90 pound bow versus a 90 pound crossbow is as fair a fight as you are going to get. Our current group records are 21 (possibly 26 but there was some debate about the acuracy of that number) shots a minuet with the long bow. With the crossbow there are two records, my own personal 7 shots a minuet although with a flawless execution 8 shots is very possible this is with a foot operated crossbow with no winding mechanism. The second record is 12 shots with the crossbow however this is by the same member of my group who can draw the 90 pound bow. This record was achieved by sitting down with the crossbow being drawn back with one hand. As far as a battle is concerned however this exerstion is very tiring so the rate of fire was probably slowed down to a much more sustainable 10 to 15 shots a minuet and 1 shot a minuet for the crossbow are not unrealistic rates of fire. Cunnah (talk) 13:56, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I would say a 90lb bow against a 90lb crossbow is very unrealistic. Trying comparing a 90lb longbow with a 500-600lb crossbow with a windlass. They are closer to historic military values. A 90 lb crossbow would be of no use militarily. Low poundage crossbows were generally for hunting on horseback. All the crossbows in the inventory on Caister castle, mentioned in the Paston Letters, appeared to require windlasses to cock them. --StSeb (talk) 13:04, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

For comparing crossbows and longbows you must calculate the energy stored. If both store the same amount of energy they are compareable. I don't believe a 500lb crossbow is compareable to a 90lb bow. This would mean the crossbow has an extremely short drawlength. If a bow has 75cm draw length, the crossbow would have less than 15cm (you can check that easily when measuring an ancient drawn out crossbow) The simplest construction for drawing a crossbow is a belthook. How many centimeters can you lift how many pounds how often with your legs(one or both)? Compare this with your ability pulling with one hand. Afterwards consider that both bowmen and crossbowmen where professional mercenaries, so all had probabaly time to acquire quite some skill and power that untrained personal lacked. Next step is ballistics. I hope we can all agree that bolts are shorter than arrows, thus have less surface and less friction. This means they are a better vehicle for transporting kinetic energy over a distance. However, over a short distance this ability doesn't matter. This also leads to the next issue, the less contact the bolt had with wood of the crossbow, the less friction. The simplest solution is taking away most of the wood the bolt would have contact with, save for two points that support the bolt. So the bolt has slightly more friction when being shot, but less when flying. Now comes the big question. What for is a crossbow? If you want to shoot hares you don't need a 1000lb windlass device, except if you want to do it over really great distances. If you want to shoot a knight with the latest brand of plate armour by the best manufacturer, you might want to use as much firepower as possible, also because you don't want to get close to him. The required kinetic energy can be in excess of what is possible with an English longbow, making heavy windlass devices a good option. And naturally you can take a look at history, the English for example started using bows against enemies with crossbows and often won, but was it the fault of the crossbowmen or of the military commanders who used them under conditions they couldn't operate at optimum to say the least. Wet bowstrings and missing paveses are certainly a hindrace even for the best professional. Take for example a look at Muslim Spain, they switched from the bow to the crossbow in mounted and unmounted combat, however, like the English, in the end, they didn't win the war. Next are the Italian wars, where every kind of mercenary fought. The English longbowmen became an utter disappointence there and crossbows and early guns were prefered. This doesn't mean the English didn't make astonishing use of that weapon, but as a native speaker of English you are slightly inclined to overestimate a technology that had little success on other theatres of war. Try to see the whole picture, include the Skandinavians, who also had a great tradition of longbows and include their experience into the discussion. Wandalstouring (talk) 16:11, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Prince Hal paragarph

The paragraph that starts "Prince Hal (later Henry V) was wounded in the face by an arrow at the Battle of Shrewsbury (1403). ..." was originally added by me at 00:56, on 9 September 2004. I am not sure if it was a quotation or a summary of something I was reading at the time. I can not find anything on the net with this wording but if anyone knows that it is a quotation then please mark it as such and add the source. For the time being I have added as a citation an article written in 2006 that is from a reliable source that goes into more detail than the paragraph and backs up what is said in the paragraph. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 23:44, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The only reason I wonder if it is a quote because I added to Wikipedia indented in italics but in those days I might have done that for simile style reasons. But thinking about it and reading the new source I am fairly sure it was a summary I wrote because I think I deliberately used the word "dowels" rather than whatever was used in the original source I was reading so that the text would clearly be unique. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 23:59, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

English longbowman

A think that is possible to have specific article for soldiers english longbowmen.--Vojvodaeist 11:13, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

TV gibberish

I once saw some TV programme (ten most influential weapons of all time?) that claimed the English longbow was unsurpassed, whether in terms of range, power, or rate of fire, until the American civil war - what a load of rubbish. Oriental longbows, e.g. Mongol bows had a far greater range, and an at least comparable rate of fire, as well as pretty much equal power.

Well strictly speaking, the mongol bow wasn't a longbow, it was a recurved bow. It sounds like dramatization on their part, but not as far off as you might think. The reason being while firearms soon passed longbows in power and range, in accuracy they weren't much better over great distances. Ergo, the concept of massing your ranged troops and have them lay down a wall of fire on a specified area still was the norm. And it stayed that way until the civil war when advances in the guns and rounds themseves made those tactics suicide. But the Napoleonic tactics that are so well noted trace their roots back to Crecy and Azincourt, so i wouldn't say the comment was as farfetched as it seems at first glance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.45.113.96 (talk) 09:46, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Firearms in the 16th century were far more powerful than longbows, and had a greater range as well, though the rate of fire was much lower. Who made that TV programme anyway? Five? BBC? ITV? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.61.148.59 (talk) 16:00, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Draw force

The quoted draw forces for Tudor-era bows, in particular the Mary Rose examples, are all over the place in this article. This isn't surprising: it reflects the widely differing estimates in the sources. The first sentence of "Use" alludes to these variations but having contradictory, although seemingly definitive, statements at various points around the page doesn't look good. Perhaps someone with expert knowledge could fix this?--Old Moonraker (talk) 11:25, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm no expert at all but I did have "The Great Warbow" by Strickland open in front of me as I made the last edit. I think that's as good as it gets. Richard Keatinge (talk) 17:25, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for taking this up. The task that initially drew my attention here was rounding some of the Newton/pound force and length conversions; a few of these have a round figure, appropriate for an estimate, in one unit but an exact conversion to an arbitrary figure in the other. The smoothly assimilated level of accuracy as found in the lead image caption seemed about right. I'm still happy to give this a try, but it might need knowledge of which figures were measured and which estimated. --Old Moonraker (talk) 18:21, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I put in the original figures and at first there were lbs, kgs and newtons. The problem is that different sources used different base units for measurements, the numbers used in one measurement look odd if converted exactly into another base unit -- when someone give a draw weight of say 80 lbs, if that is converted exactly it makes it look as if the original measurement was to the same precision, which it is unlikely to be the case if the number is to the nearest pound. The other problem is that some sources give the weights in in lbs and others in kgs and others in newtons and lengths are given either in imperial or the metric system where precision has a similar problem. We can always use the figures given in the original sources with the conversions in brackets or we can go for rounded numbers both sides and designate all measurements in a consistent way. You pays your money and makes a choice. -- PBS (talk) 22:51, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Here's the list of units available to us in the conversion template. Precision is optional, and presumably we would be selecting low precision for these historical estimates. The reason I didn't use it before is that the various starting units in the article aren't the same, but if these are coming from sourced material I suppose that's inevitable. An alternative would be to do the conversion, then insert the derived figure back into the template for the final version; any multiplication of rounding errors wouldn't be significant because of the low precision. --Old Moonraker (talk) 06:02, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

This diff from 10:10, 9 September 2004 shows the first time I tried to standardise the measurements. No templates like the one you are suggesting using in those days. All I can suggest is that if you are concerned about the spread and/or inaccuracies that you go back to the original sources and check them and place them into your magical conversion template and see how inaccurate they are. But I do suggest that we keep the measurements in what would be used in the latest scientific papers on the subject rather than those from former times, and that we standardise across the article, which suggests that imperial measurements should be in brackets. -- PBS (talk) 04:07, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Cop-out: my original plea for someone with "specialist knowledge to fix this" still stands. It was a request that such unrealistically precise conversions as "estimated at 667–712 N" for surviving Mary Rose specimens ("150—160lb" in the source work) could be fixed, followed by a suggestion of using the convert template, with precision reduced, as a way of doing this. I was prepared to have a go, but it's not a magic formula that allows someone without specialist knowledge to do the job properly. --Old Moonraker (talk) 08:21, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Perspectives of a modern English Longbow archer

Some of my comments may belong with discussion points above; feel free to relocate them there.

Units: No archers in England quote draw weights in anything other than pounds (lb). The unit lbf is unknown, unused and potentially confusing, and as gravity holds no place in drawing a longbow is not even appropriate.

Materials: Most modern longbows are made of laminates, and include a variety of woods including Lemonwood, Hickory, Osage, and others. (Check any modern bowyer's website for a range of options, e.g. http://bickerstaffebows.co.uk)

Length: Modern bows tend to be longer than the lengths quoted, which may reflect the increased height of modern man. Bows over 6 foot are far from uncommon.

Range: The comments are inconsistant, with estimates lower than the actual ranges reached with the Mary Rose replica. Even modern hunting bows (55-60lb) can reach 200y (I shoot with approx. 100 longbow archers several times a year at those ranges) and the modern warbows (including selfbows) are getting significantly over those distances. I've seen 240-260y and that isn't with 'flight' arrows or a tailwind.

It may also be worth noting that there are several organisations and clubs devoted to the shooting of the English Longbow, including the ILAA and the BLBS and their attendant clubs. Other organisations such as the NFAS have specific competitive classes for the longbow (and their national championship scores demonstrate that modern crossbows significantly outscore longbows at hunting distances, but don't outscore sight-encumbered compound bows) and there are several organisations in the UK offering ancient and traditional shoots such as shooting at the Marks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.214.17.78 (talk) 19:06, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Need to verify quotation

This edit added some text which begins with a quotation mark and cites a source, but does not close the quotation, or put it in a block, which would be appropriate for its length. I've put it in a block (with which the quotation marks are redundant), but since it is not closed properly it might not be a quotation at all; it needs verifying. I'm not sure whether it's better to leave it as a quotation, risking it being wrong; or leave it as a non-quotation, risking it being a copyvio. I've asked the contributor, User:Emil.mckellar, to verify, but the account doesn't look active. Hairy Dude (talk) 04:31, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Reference entry for short citations

The good faith edits Revision as of 11:53, 7 September 2008 and Revision as of 12:04, 22 October 2008 were wrong. The article consists of short notes section and a reference section that is meant to contain the full details of the citation used in the short notes section (See WP:CITESHORT). I am reverting the change that edit made and cleaning up the references section. If in future someone makes a similar mistake please revert it. -- PBS (talk) 22:32, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Long term vandalism

There has been long term vandalism of this page by ip addresses so I am going to protect the page for 3 months to give the editors who monitor it a break. -- PBS (talk) 22:32, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Draw weight of over 450 N

While checking the Paterson citation in the article on the net I came across a paper On the Mechanics of the Arrow: Archer's Paradox by B.W. Kooi and J.A. Sparenberg, the department of Theoretical Biology, the department of Theoretical Biology, VU University of Amsterdam. It included the following quote:

Calculations suggested that the heavy 60 gram war arrows as used at Agincourt in 1415 during the Hundred Years War, could have been shot from bows with a draw weight of over 450 N. This, however, seemed an unreasonably large value: nowadays only a few archers can master bows of such a great weight. Based on present-day experience a figure closer to 350 N was thought more likely. The high value of over 450 N was, however, confirmed by the study of 139 longbows and over 3000 arrows recovered from the Mary Rose, Hardy [2] and Paterson [9]. The Mary Rose was a warship of Henry VIII, which sank in 1545 and was recovered in 1982. In [2] it is stated that: "young, fit men in constant practice chosen for well-paid military service from a nation to whom the shooting of longbows had been second nature", could use the heavy Mary Rose bows.

2.R. Hardy. Longbow. Patrick Stephens, Sparkford, Nr Yeovil, Somerset, 1992.

9.W. F. Paterson. A "Mary Rose" archery symposium. Journal of the Society of Archer-Antiquaries, 26:49–51, 1983.

This may at some time be useful for the article. -- PBS (talk) 10:21, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Francs-Archers

I suppose here is as good as any other place to ask the following question. In fr-wikipedia, we have an article about a corps, the "Franc-Archers", made out of peasants that where exempted from taxes (hence the "Franc", that means "Free [of taxes]") in exchange of buying some military equipment (most notably a bow) and regular training. The corps was used only once in the Battle of Guinegate (1479), where it quickly disbanded. Curently, the article on fr-wiki presents a template asking for internationalization. hence the question : are you aware of a similar corps somewhere else, or is this only a French half-baked idea (and no internationalization of the article is needed) ? Thanks. Bokken | 木刀 21:23, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure there's really an English equivalent. The English yeoman was supposed to be proficient with a bow, hence all the ordinances from the king banning sports other than archery. The medieval town militia (such as it was) would have been formed of such men. English armies invading Wales/ Scotland/ France certainly had longbowmen, but these would have been professionals (although the large number of men proficient with the bow made recruiting such professionals easier). I'm not sure the idea of giving peasants privileges for being proficient with a bow has a direct equivalent. Men of a certain level of wealth would been expected to be able to fight (or provide someone who could), but that's not really the same thing. --Merlinme (talk) 09:27, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Specifically (from the yeoman page): "The Assize of Arms of 1252 gave instructions for the small landholder to be armed and trained with a bow and those of more wealth (wealthy yeomen) would be required to possess and be trained with sword, dagger and the longbow (the war bow)." A yeoman was not gentry, but he was not a peasant; he was a landowner of some wealth. --Merlinme (talk) 09:58, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I think I get the point. The British system was that wealthy enough non-nobles faced some military requirement, while the French idea was that tax exemption could be a counterpart from military training from peasans. A French contributor pointed to something of this kind in Britanny, but I suspect this was mainly an extension to English-ruled Britanny of the yeoman use. Thanks for the information. Bokken | 木刀 10:03, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Who made the arrows?

In the section English longbow#Shooting rate it states that the archers were issued with a certain number of arrows. Out of interest, would they not have been expected to make them themselves? Similarly, it is not stated where the young boys obtained their fresh supplies of arrows from, in the course of a battle. Would it have been by scavenging round the battlefield? TheAMmollusc (talk) 07:43, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

'Longbow' in the Paston Letters

The reference to the 'longbow' in the Paston Letters of the 15th century, actually reads long bow. the word 'long' being used as an adjective. The weapon/bow is not referred to as a longbow. Son of Herodotus (talk) 13:12, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

== Origin of the term 'longbow'.

The term 'longbow' is, arguably, a misnomer. If one has an Ash bow, of 100lb draw weight and a Yew bow of 100lb draw weight, the Yew bow would, by necessity, to avoid breakage, have to be longer in lenght because of the brittle qualities of Yew. If we follow this particular arguement, When Sir John Smythe (1534? -1607) makes reference to the long-bows in his work 'Certain Discourses' he is making reference to the more superior yew bows as opposed to the other inferior bows crafted from other wood, such as Ash, Elm, etc. In my opinion, the expression long bow, became one, and today the word, having entered our psyche as some special weapon, has been siezed and perpetuated by consumerism, in that many bowyers will sell any self bow as a longbow in the hope of capturing our imagination and making a sale. Son of Herodotus (talk) 13:37, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The 'English' longbow

In response to 'longbow' being English, as I have written above, the term longbow, in my opinion, is a misnomer that essentially came about because of its usage in the development of the English Language. The only reason that the longbow can be attributed to being English is because of the military success in the hands of the English who realised its military potential, when used en-masse, prior to, and during the Hundred Years War. The English Medieval War-Bow being, I think, a far more accurate defination. I would concur with Wandalstouring on this issue.84.252.215.84 (talk) 14:07, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

You have a point, but the fact is that everyone knows (or thinks they know) what the English longbow is; the English warbow is less well-known. Generally on Wikipedia, unless there is a very good reason not to, the most well-known name for something will be used, especially as the name for an article (so people can find it). The article itself can then discuss whether the popular name is accurate and give alternative names, such as names that were used at the time, or technically preferred names. You may wish to add something about this in the longbow article, especially if you can support it with references. --Merlinme (talk) 15:21, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I totally agree with you. The term 'longbow' is now in the common vernacular of the English Language and it would be difficult to change, and from that perspective should stay. I was taking a purist stance and being historically accurate. For instance before the 19thC there is no reference to chain-mail, just 'mail' or some other euphimism or poetic description as you would find in Beowulf. From the contemporary documents I have read, the weapon was simply referred to as a bow. The big problem, and which I have personally come acrosss is where the contemporary work refers to the bow as a bow or long bow, but a modern translation would re-write that as longbow, so the original meaning is lost and the modern misunderstanding is reinforced. However I would love to put a referenced article together, but would be grateful if I could run it past you first. Son of Herodotus (talk) 19:42, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea to me. The Great Warbow by Robert Hardy and Matthew Strickland would be a good place to start, but my copy's in storage at present. If I remember correctly, at the time the things were just "bows", occasionally "lug" bows to distinguish them from crossbows. I'd suggest a section in, and possible rename of, this article. Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:37, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Accuracy at max. range = nonesense!

" ...An archer could hit a person at 165 m (180 yards) "part of the time"... "

Sorry, but this is complete nonesense, nobody can hit a single human target percisely at that range, especially not with a heavy traditional warbow (not even with a modern high-tech compound bow). Traditional bows are extremely difficult to be shot precisely at over 50m, even for an expert, and at 165m you can not even shoot directly, but in a high arc. The only possible thing in this case is indirect shooting at certain area, but not at a target. -Agroman-

You may well be correct; if you can find a decent source which backs you up, you are more than welcome to update the article with your version. If I were to play devil's advocate, I would point out that the article only says "part of the time", which could be defined as a percentage between 0 and 100%, including (for example) 0.1%...

Also, earlier in that section a reference is given which says that Henry VIII banned practice ranges under 220 yards, which surely suggests that he expected at least some archers to hit targets at 180 yards at least some of the time. Without a source I'm wary of comparing the accuracy of modern amateurs to medieval professionals; the latter trained with traditional, heavy bows for years (to the extent that bone spurs can be seen on their skeletons), and both their jobs and their lives depended on being able to shoot quickly and accurately with their traditional, heavy bows. --Merlinme (talk) 18:12, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for not having answered for so long, I forgot about this :D! However, to give my opinion on that once more: ...Practising at a distance 220 doesn't actually mean that they are actually shooting at "normal" targets, more likely at an area or at some oversize target. I shoot heavy bows myself and I have informed myself about it throughout quite some time by reading competent literature on the matter, etc. By the way, there are archers today that train just as much and shoot just as amazing as in the old times (Mark Stretton for example), who are really good at what they're doing. And even these guys wouldn't be able to be THAT precise. I myself am only 18 years old and training with 90lbs (maybe getting a 115lbs bow this year), so I'm not nearly yet ready to compete with these guys, and they are really good at it(I'm sure you know what I mean). But if you insist, I can start to search for some sources and post them here. -Agroman-

Yes, we need a source. Remember, there's WP:No Original Research on Wikipedia, which leads on to the other important rules, that all claims most be WP:Verifiable in a WP:Reliable Source. --Merlinme (talk) 11:23, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Incidentally, while I respect Mark Stretton's strength and ability with a heavy bow, he's a blacksmith who took up heavy bow shooting relatively late in life. Even the "levy" longbowmen would have been strong men who spent their whole lives doing physical work, as well as being competent archers who would have been shooting their heavy bows since they were boys. The standards for fast and accurate shooting to be accepted as a longbowmen are documented. True professionals (such as those who formed mercenary companies) would probably have been more accurate again.

To return to the original subject, I found this as a description of the sort of accuracy expected of modern heavy bow archers: "roving requires archers to group there arrows on the ground and distances out to 250yds+, without knowing the distance to those marks, to be regarded as accurate you have to be able to group two to three bow lengths from that mark". Clearly, two to three bow lengths is quite a large margin of error, but you should hit a group of men which is 4 metres deep, and shots would become more accurate if the enemy stayed still (because of sighting) or advanced (because there's less distance for the arrow to deviate, and also because a flatter trajectory could be used). Whether the archer would have picked out a particular man at 180 yards (who he would occasionally hit) or whether he would have been aiming at the group I don't know. I suspect the latter, but I don't know how you could be sure without reading a training manual for medieval archers (if such a thing even exists). --Merlinme (talk) 12:21, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

There's still one thing you're missing out: Archers were training from young age, but were not using the heavy warbows from young age. It would be physically impossible, nobody has got that strenght and skill from the beginning. They were training with lighter bows, getting their hands on stronger ones as they grew older. There is a very precise description of this formulated by Bishop Latimer in the 16. century, who had formerly been a commoner and warbow archer himself. And this is the connection to nowadays: Most people shooting the englisg warbow today did not start with this weapon, but went through a general archery training like most people do, training thenselves, getting new bows, and so on. So I definitely would never say that warbow archers of our days are less trained/able in their art than their medieval "ancestors" were. And I agree, it is very well possible that an archer can properly and repeatedly hit an area of only some couple of meters diameter at extreme range, I have seen this by the example of myself :D! But hitting a target the size of a man accurately at 180 yards... sorry, but I just don't believe that it is regularly possible, only without any influence of wind and a good amount of luck. If it were possible regularly, why would the English have started to abandon the warbow in the late 16. century? -Agroman-

Well, sure, but it would have been much more common to be handling heavy bows at an earlier age than it is now. It would have been normal for boys to be doing heavy labour from the age of about 14 (if not earlier), so they would have had the strength at a relatively young age.

I'm not saying that modern archers can't become as good, I'm just saying that what we consider exceptional now (when shooting heavy bows is an unusual hobby) would probably have been considered pretty standard at a time when all yeomen were expected to be able to shoot a bow, and being able to shoot a heavy bow well was quite a highly regarded and well paid skill.

Anyway, you still haven't convinced me that the current wording (which suggests that the archer would occasionally hit the target he was aiming for at 180 yards) is wrong, although it could perhaps be made clearer that this would be an exceptional event.

Why the English abandoned the longbow is a red herring for this; it's discussed in the article, but it's probably because guns became more effective, particularly against heavy armour, and also because it was quite hard even for England to maintain a large longbowmen force, because of the amount of training and practice required; whereas pretty much any idiot can point and shoot a musket which would blow a hole in most contemporary armour. The range, rate of fire and accuracy of the longbow was actually rather better than a smooth bored musket, which is generally only considered accurate to about 50 metres. --Merlinme (talk) 14:52, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Of course people were used to harder conditions and could shoot with stronger bows earlier in their life than today (though it would be possible to train a boy from extremely young age in the same manner today, which would however be quite irresponsible towards the child's health). And I agree, it is possible they might have hit an exact target at that range sometimes, but it would be with a large amount of luck, just as it is today. And I still don't believe they would train shooting at actual targets the way we know them today (over that range). Hey, btw. (gettin' a little off-topic now, sorry), I haven't found out how to use my real signature here. I have a wikipedia account which I first registered in the German section, but once I change to the English section, I get logged out automatically. However, once I try to relog here, it tells me that I'm already logged in, which is only the case for German sites. Can you (or someone else) help me, please, so I can give my correct signature here? -Agroman-

Draw weights : metric conversion

As penance for my last, embarrassing edit I propose deploying the {{convert}} tag for this section. Example here. For consistency all the conversions would go in the same direction—perhaps always metric to lb_f—but this might change the original units from those in the sources. This was why I didn't do it before, but now there's been one vandal, followed by a clumsy edit that reinstated the original vandal, too many. Views? --Old Moonraker (talk) 14:03, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure it was vandalism, it may have been confusing the weakest bows (i.e. from about 105lbf) with the average (from 150lbf to 160lbf). Anyway, I've no objection to using automatic conversion. I would personally suggest that we use imperial first, simply because all of the older sources (and even some of the newer sources) use imperial. If we are directly quoting from a source I'd suggest we give first whichever units are used in the source, although I recognise that will be inconsistent and might look messy. --Merlinme (talk) 09:18, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

OK: imperial => metric. --Old Moonraker (talk) 09:50, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Done. Perhaps scope for some similar tidying further down. --Old Moonraker (talk) 17:13, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Tactics

I was passing to add a wikilink when I noticed the tactics section. It is entirely unreferenced and, IMO, does not do justice to the subject (it doesn't even mention the current academic disputes about the placing of archers). Because of the failure to reference points of disputeable accuracy, I have untagged B1 on the B class checklist. This is a shame because this is a very useful and generally well referenced article. Given the length of the article, I am not sure whether there needs to be a major revised section here or a brief introduction linking out to a main article. I'm not myself able to put this together at the moment but am happy to help any editor who wants to give it a go.Monstrelet (talk) 12:43, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

It's always been something of a mystery why this article was B and the Battle of Agincourt was Start, as the latter is better referenced, in my view. We've now agreed this article is not well enough referenced to be a B; given improvements over the last year, is Agincourt good enough now for a B?

Anyway, if or when I have a bit of time I might have a go at improving the Tactics section; I've been meaning to spend an evening or two improving a couple of articles following recent book purchases. I haven't had time for much more than maintenance recently, but I might have a bit more time over the next couple of months. I definitely don't have time to create a whole article, I may however have time to write a couple of paragraphs. I've got copies of "The Great Warbow" and "Secrets of the English Warbow", any additional/ better sources you could point me towards would be appreciated. --Merlinme (talk) 13:09, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Warbow is a good start. Matthew Bennett's chapter in Curry's Agincourt 1415 from 2000 (he gives a good Tudor perspective). Other stuff by Bennett or Rogers. I think Warbow has sufficient on tactics in battles other than against the French where the archers were in front, such as Shrewsbury and some WotR battles, like Towton or Bosworth (the EH battlefield article on Shrewsbury is good - linked from the wikipedia page). Maybe something on mounted archer tactics as in Charles the Bolds ordnance companies (quoted in Warbow I think)? As I said above, if you really got going on this, it would be worth hiving off into a separate piece. On the Agincourt comment, I'll post on the talkpage there.Monstrelet (talk) 14:00, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Video

I cannot remember, is there a prohibition on video examples? The reason I ask is that the Fraternity Of St George have produced some excellent video's Twobells (talk) 14:19, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Picture

I think Froissarts 'Battle Of Crecy' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_crecy_froissart.jpg or this one, or perhaps this one are far more suitable picture of the longbow than the Martyrdom Of St Sebastien painting, that has too many negative connotations, the pictures are all in the public domain. Twobells (talk)

I agree there is probably a better image to use. Of the options given I prefer the Froissart. What's the source for the second? It looks quite late to me. It was also absolutely massive when I clicked on the link. The third link didn't work for me. --Merlinme (talk) 14:33, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I too would suggest the Froissart, the other two both look modern. Richard Keatinge (talk) 16:25, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Yea, it doesn't really make sense to include St. Sebastian in article on English Longbows. I like the Crecy painting. Hot Stop (talk) 16:37, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

The Crecy picture is already in the article further down the page. Swapping it with the St. Sebastian might be the best course, giving the more evocative image at the top of the page. The other two are of unknown copyright status and should be avoided. The third one is by Gerry Embleton, so would certainly be a copyvio. Monstrelet (talk) 17:13, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Restructure

I've been thinking of improvements for this article for a while and have finally gone for a bold edit of the structure. I haven't deleted any text, just reordered it. I think it is now easier for general reader to find what they want.

However, in carrying this out I have found there is quite a bit of duplication and some contradiction (I think the subject of draw weight and penetration is in three places) so could do with a copy edit. I have left the inadequate tactics section alone for the time being - if I get time I may rewrite/replace it (if this was on your to do list, go for it - this section is the weak point of the article IMO)Monstrelet (talk) 17:16, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Looks good to me. I agree it would benefit from a copy-edit. There are many edits I would like to make to Wikipedia if I had the time! --Merlinme (talk) 08:07, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Decline in use in war BECAUSE the supplies of Yew were failing

In a discussion with a friend on the topic recently he proposed that the English stopped using the long bow because they couldn't get hold of the yew that they needed NOT because gunpowder made it obsolete - it didn't. This is hinted at in the present article and its reference to the English Civil War, but not discussed. I can't offer a reference for this claim - can anyone? Ender's Shadow Snr (talk) 01:04, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

It might have been a factor I suppose in that supplies of the materials to make muskets might have been more plentiful. However I've not come across that theory before, and would consider it Original Research (and, to be honest, unsupported hypothesizing) without a decent source. The normal factors cited are musketballs being more effective against armour, and it being far easier to train and maintain an army of musketeers compared to an army of longbowmen using very heavy draw bows. The latter requires years of training and regular practice, the former doesn't really require any great strength or enormous amounts of training. Advances in tactics also helped swing the balance even more in favour of guns, i.e. slow reload times were a problem for guns compared to longbows, but pikemen were used to protect musketeers from cavalry and generally while they were reloading.

In this context Wellington's request is quite interesting- by the Napoleonic Wars armour (ineffective against bullets) had largely been abandoned, which could have made the high rate of fire of the longbow devastating. However it was simply impractical to muster, equip and train a longbow corps in a short period of time. By comparison, the European countries had become skilled at raising a new conscript infantry unit in a few months. Having lost essentially his entire trained army in Russia in 1812, Napoleon raised a new army of 350,000 in approximately six months. I wouldn't want to overstretch the comparison because the circumstances were so different, but England had a lot of difficulty replacing a few thousand longbowmen after the Battle of Patay; as far as I'm aware the limiting factor was trained men, not wood to make bows. --Merlinme (talk) 17:02, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

By the mid sixteenth century, bowyers were producing the majority of bows in woods other than yew because of the difficulty of getting imports. There is a suggestion that the King was trying to conserve stocks of yew for military use. However, non-yew bows were used by the military so presumably could have continued to be so in larger numbers if the military demand was outstripping supply of yew staves. So, while shortages of yew may have had some impact, the shortage was not enough to a major causal factor, IMO Monstrelet (talk) 17:23, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Synesis

Reluctantly, I see that synesis, as demonstrated in this edit, is acceptable in British English. "Diversity" is definitely an improvement over mine. --Old Moonraker (talk) 14:59, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Didn't want to be picky, as both are taught at school but the version I used is certainly the more common nowadays. I didn't realise it had a Greek name though. Always happy to edit with a man who takes his grammar seriously :)

Tactics

After recent edit began the work of removing erroneous material from this section, I've done a little more towards structuring a framework to allow a summary of tactics to be made. There is still a strong need for citations and examples, however. A number of quite significant statements are in the text without any supporting evidence e.g. that archery was inaccurate and used for barrage shooting, that archery and cavalry attacks were alternated (definitely used in 13th century but how common later?), that archers couldn't stand up to cavalry without field defences. There is also a fundamental decision to be made whether this section should show historical evolution or whether it should broadly summarise. I hope other will now feel emboldened to further improve this section Monstrelet (talk) 15:57, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Imperial vs Metric

Is there a specific reason for using imperial lb over kg? Pounds are not really used by many people these days, metric would increase article accessibly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjoyce (talk • contribs) 13:09, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

This has been looked at, and adjusted, before; see Talk:English_longbow/Archive_1#measurement, but there are quite a few other suggestions on that page. The upshot seemed to be, AFAICR, “needs more work”. --Old Moonraker (talk) 15:16, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Reviewing history

I've just been looking at the history section and noticed it doesn't really discuss the English longbows origins. The current orthodoxy is that of Strickland and Hardy in Great Warbow. There was no shortbow - early Medieval bows were longbow length. What really changes around 1300 is mode of use. However, Clifford Rogers has recently restated the old case that the English longbow is a new weapon, replacing the older shortbow around 1300. See Clifford J. Rogers : The development of the longbow in late medieval England and ‘technological determinism’ in Journal of Medieval History, Volume 37, Issue 3, September 2011, Pages 321–341 . Sadly, I don't have access but I guess given Rogers' reputation this will be a significant contribution. It would be useful to compare these origin theories in the article.

Also, does it make sense to have the sections on use before the section on history? Or does description/history/use work better as a sequence. Monstrelet (talk) 19:01, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

On order, I'm quite indifferent. Thanks for the reference to Rogers' work. I'll try to get a copy. Richard Keatinge (talk) 08:32, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I've been bold and completely rewritten the origins subsection of the history and attempted to briefly reflect the ongoing debate about the origins of the weapon, rather than the history of archery in England and Wales. Ironically, after proving the catalyst, Rogers new paper is boiled down to a line. As an argument it deserves far more (as does Strickland's argument) but it would unbalance this article. --Monstrelet (talk) 10:42, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Admirable! It might be worth adding a little more - this is a notable debate - but you have done a fine job. Richard Keatinge (talk) 11:38, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I've learnt quite a bit, and I won't be the only one—thanks. The Rogers article is GBP23, just for the download, so I'll have to rely on what's here! --Old Moonraker (talk) 13:00, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I got mine via the local library, though it cost GBP5.20 and a six week wait.--Monstrelet (talk) 14:36, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Longbows between 16th and 20th centuries

With the removal of the poorly referenced Wellington comment, we have rather a gap. Obviously sporting archery continued during this period, which we may wish to reflect. In military terms, Heath and Featherstone both quote schemes to recreate military archery in the late 18th/ early 19th century. Heath records Ben Franklin was a proponent in the 1770s, that the Honourable Artillery Company had an archer company between 1784 and 1794 and a man named Richard Mason wrote a book proposing the arming of militia with pike and longbow in 1798. Featherstone records one Lt. Col. Richard Lee of 44th Foot advocated the military use of the longbow in 1792. Now, I have the bare references to these which could be dropped into the text but does anyone have more detail which would make a better job? Monstrelet (talk) 13:42, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

That sounds like a lot more material than I would be able to contribute! I'd be surprised if there were a great number of sources which have substantial material on the period after the last significant use of the English longbow in battle. --Merlinme (talk) 08:37, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

400-lb welsh longbows

on a visit to the national library of Wales I came across a book, the title of which eludes me which refered to a welsh bow that could easily penetrate steel armour as it was so strong that the only way to use it with great effect was to lay down on one's back, place both feet on the wood of the bow then draw back the string by using both hands. If I remember correctly the poundage was in excess of 400lb — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.75.76 (talk) 21:08, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

That sounds more like a crossbow to me, where later medieval examples had enormous draw weights. I believe the method you describe could be used to cock a heavy crossbow, although some sort of crank (i.e. windlass) was more common. I find it hard to believe you could ever use that method to draw a longbow; if you need your legs to draw it, how are you going to actually fire it? The method works with a crossbow because once you cock it the force is taken by the crossbow itself. With a longbow, unless you are proposing to fire it from between your legs, then you somehow have to take the strain using your arms and chest and then hold it long enough to at least vaguely aim at something. If such a weapon existed I find it hard to believe it would have been very effective. In any case, we need a proper reference before we could consider adding something to the article. --Merlinme (talk) 10:37, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

In Conan Doyle's book The White Company a plucky longbowman beats a dastardly foreign crossbowman in a shooting competition using this technique (it is a distance shooting contest). Even Conan Doyle thought this was a trick shot. I have not seen a suggestion that the battlefields of the Middle Ages were full of Welshmen shooting from a prone position, however.Monstrelet (talk) 17:09, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Reordering sections prior to adding new content

I intend to add a few comments from Mike Loades new book "Longbow", mainly around modern experiments. However, when I came to consider how best to do this, I concluded that the current structure of the text was somewhat confused. I've therefore done a bit of preparatory work in advance and will try to add a few pieces of information down the week.Monstrelet (talk) 17:41, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

I have completed the bits of editing I intended although, having worked on the armour penetration section, I have some concerns (below)Monstrelet (talk) 18:49, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Revising armour penetration section

I have given the experimental sub-section a bit of a make over but both contemporary evidence and summary sections lack a developed argument. Both are weak on cited sources and the summary section comes across as a bit OR to me. If anyone thinks they could make these sections better, it would greatly improve the article. Monstrelet (talk) 18:56, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I think I wrote most of that section some years ago (although I didn't give it the heading "Summary", which makes it sound more definitive than I perhaps meant). I'd write it differently now, with more references for a start. I've just rewritten the Summary to be less OR, although it still needs the references.

The rest is not incredibly straightforward as a lot of the most recent research is not in widely available reliable sources. I think Bane's stuff is fine as far as it goes, especially his summary of other people's research, but it's not a published book. Strickland and Hardy is probably the most authoritative, but it is a little out of date. Having said that, they came to fairly similar conclusions to later writers, if you ignore the outlying Primitive Archer test. Rogers' stuff looking at armour thickness on the limbs is also interesting, but again, it's in an appendix of another work. I might have a go at seeing if I can pull it all together when I have time. --Merlinme (talk) 10:32, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Edwin of Northumbria

We seem to have some difficulty with the incident of Edwin's death. It currently occurs in the lead section, which may give it undue prominence, especially as we have no evidence of longbow usage. It could usefully be mentioned in the section on history,however, if we expand commentary on pre-Norman archery. Monstrelet (talk) 08:30, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

As an addendum, it appears it was Offrid, son of Edwin, who was killed by the arrow. Edwin died in the same battle, exact cause of death unspecified. No effect on use of the story but we should get it right. We could use a good source to cite for this - it is quoted across the web but it is difficult to pin down a reliable source to reference. Monstrelet (talk) 12:56, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the source could be. I looked up the two primary sources for the battle—Bede and the Welsh annals—and they don't mention an arrow at all, let alone that it certainly came from the Welsh and not their allies the Mercians. Where did you see that it was his son Offrid? Something reliable or just another Wiki page? — LlywelynII 15:19, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

We need a source and consensus, and while I'd personally accept reference to Dark Age arrows as coming from longbows (on the assumption that the European longbow tradition was the only one around) others might be more fussy. I'll remove Edwin from the lede for the time being. Richard Keatinge (talk) 16:24, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

I've been unable to track down the original arrow story - I have checked Bede, the Anglo-Saxon chronicle and Geoffrey of Monmouth (just in case) but, although Offrid (or Osfrith, which he is sometimes called) clearly died, there was no detail. The best secondary source I have is Robert Hardy's Longbow (p.30)where he states clearly we don't know whether the arrow is Welsh or English or whether it came from a longbow. I think we have enough to place it as a "first example" in a sentence/para on pre-Norman archery but I wouldn't put it in the lead paragraph.Monstrelet (talk) 17:46, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. Indeed the arrow detail isn't in either the Chronicle or in Bede. A quick Google search for the words "Offrid" and "arrow" brings up statements going back at least as far as Tobias Smollett, but no further. Did Smollett simply add a touch of color? Anyway, in this case I think we should await a really reliable source, a scholarly comment specifically supported by primary sources, before we add anything here. Richard Keatinge (talk) 11:01, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Interestingly, Smollett references the AngloSaxon Chronicle as source, which it certainly isn't in. For completeness I've done a few more histories - Henry of Huntingdon, Florence of Worcester, William of malmesbury - looking for an embellishment of Bede or AS chronicle but nothing has turned up. So, looks a bit unreliable at this stage. But a good referenced comment in a reliable secondary work could change that in the future. Monstrelet (talk) 12:37, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

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The bot link was alas faulty but I tracked the real link to its new location on the University of York website and put that link in Monstrelet (talk) 18:31, 27 August 2015 (UTC)