Beorn
02-02-2009, 10:34 PM
THE ENGLISH WARBOW (http://englishwarbow.com/)
http://i718.photobucket.com/albums/ww185/BeornWulfWer/th.jpg?t=1233616356
"...In my time my poor father was diligent to teach me to shoot as to learn any other thing and so I think other men did teach their children. He taught me how to draw, how to lay my body in the bow and not to draw with the strength of my arms as other nations do, but with the strength of my body. I had bows brought to me according to my age and strength and as I increased in them so my bows were made bigger, for men will never shoot well except they be brought up in it."
Weapon of War
The English War Bow was the weapon used to great effect by the armies of the English Plantagenet and Tudor kings. In the hands of English and Welsh archers it came to dominate the European battlefield for most of the late medieval age and defined some of the greatest achievements in England’s military history. It was in 1181 that Henry II ordered in his assize of arms that every freeman should equip himself with arms - which meant the bow for those of limited income - and so the warbow would remain a prominent feature of the English armoury for the next 400 years. The war bow was a weapon of the common man and not one of Lords, Earls, Barons and would prove its worth unseating many a good French noble and destroy his armies at the battles of Crecy, Poiters, Agincourt and Vernuil.
The Bow
The English Warbow itself was a simple affair. A stave of yew wood, ideally imported from the Italian Alps or Spain (but not English Yew; it being too full of moisture) would be tapered from its middle to its ends in a slight oval, D, or galleon section. It would then be ‘tillered’, gradually bent one inch at a time, teaching the wood to bend. When fully drawn the bow looks like the segment of a circle - it is said to ‘come compass’. The finished bow would stand over six feet high, sometimes as much as seven, and would have its tips protected by a sheath of horn, known as a nock.
Yew has natural properties which favour it amongst all others as a bow wood. The wood of any tree is composed of the dead inner heart wood and the thin layer of over laying living sap wood which lies beneath the bark. In seasoned yew the heart wood resists compression whilst the sap wood resists being held under tension and a war bow is constructed to take full advantage of these properties. The inner side of the bow, the belly, is comprised of heart wood, while the back, away from the archer, is sap wood. When a war bow is drawn, the belly of the bow is being compressed by the enormous force required to pull the bow whilst the back of the bow, the sap wood, is put under tension as it is stretched out of shape. Both the sap wood and heartwood are storing tremendous amounts of energy and when the archer releases the string the bow springs forward releasing that stored energy in a fraction of a second, pushing the arrow with tremendous force towards the target.
The power of these medieval War bows was breathtaking. Detailed analysis of the War bows recovered from the Tudor warship Mary Rose, which sank in battle in 1545 with an almost complete inventory including hundreds of bows and thousands of arrows, show the draw weights ranging from 80lbs to 180lbs with the most prolific being in the 140lb range. The draw weight is defined as the amount of force, expressed as a weight, which needs to be applied to the string in order to bend the strung bow to its full extent. When speaking of war bows the full draw length is usually taken to be 32”, which does not mean that the archer will draw it to that length; it may vary by a few inches. As a comparison a modern target longbow of the type promoted by the British Longbow Society will have a draw weight in the region of 35lbs to 60lbs measured at 28” draw. These Victorian style bows are also different in their profile, cross-section and tillering. It is important to distinguish between the two - an English War bow is a Longbow, but a longbow is rarely a war bow!
Performance.
The English War bow was used in conjunction with the English war arrow. Weighing something in the region of a quarter of a pound and tipped with hardened steel, armour piercing heads, these arrows could be shot over long distances. In recent years archers with bows like those on the Mary Rose have shot such arrows at distances in excess of 270 yards. It is a sobering thought that the longest marks set out in the Finsbury fields in the 1500’s were approaching 400 yards!
Armour Piercing?
Much debate has been made in the past about the penetrative abilities of the war bow when shot at armour worn by the unfortunate men-at-arms of France. Recent tests have shown that the English War bow is indeed capable of penetrating amour of the type commonly worn by soldiers on the battlefields of the late medieval period. Most munitions grade armour available to the common men at arms would have been of limited worth when subject to the kind of arrow storm experienced at Agincourt. There were those on the late medieval field who would have been confident in amour’s abilities, however. By the end of the late 1400’s the finest armourers of Europe, most notably in Milan and Germany, where producing armour of such high quality that the wearer would be invulnerable to a hail of arrows whether shot by bow or windlass crossbow. Few, however, could have afforded such protection. In modern prices, a full ‘white harness’ would cost approximately £100,000 and the very finest Milanese armour could cost almost £900,000! Therefore, the common soldier would have to make do with armour more suited to his pocket - a problem still in evidence today!
In Battle
The importance placed upon the bow by the English Kings is easily seen from the ratio of men at arms (heavy infantry) and archers. Typical ratios were in the region of 3:1 in favour of archers, but could be as high as 5:1 (as at Agincourt). The bow favours defensive actions and English tactics throughout the hundred year’s war reflected this. Under Edward III a simple but effective battle formation was developed, one which depended on a strong static defensive line instead of a strategy dependent on the old Norman concept of the mounted cavalry charge. Archers would typically be placed on the wings of the army. Their flanks would be protected by natural features such as woods and their front line by man-made pits designed to break horses’ legs, and later defensive stakes. The men-at-arms would be placed in between the flank archers and would halt the enemy onslaught from the front, whilst the archers poured in thousands of arrows from the flanks. This tactic could have horrific consequences, as evidenced at Agincourt. On that day in 1415 a small dysentery-riddled English army defeated an army at least 5 times its size. The French lost 10,000 ‘men of note’ that day. History does recall the total French losses but they may have been much higher, the English losses that day where counted as a few hundred. That is a stark testament to, amongst other things, the power of the English War Bow.
http://www.englishwarbow.com/luttrell_archers.jpg
Shooting at the Butts.
Go to just about any English town and you'll find streets with names like 'Butts Road', 'Butts Lane and 'Butts Way'. It's easy not to read anything into these names, after all there hardly evocative of the images of warfare or the Battles of Edward III and Henry V. It may surprise many to find out that these places have strong links with the past and the archers of old.
In medieval England, the study and practice of archery wasn't just a pastime or a skill developed for hunting, it was a national obsession. If a man was skilled in the use of the bow not only could he feed his family, but he would gain the respect of his peers and even earn a good living in the armies of England. It became a sense of national pride and identity that the Englishman could "shoot strongly in the bow". This strong shooting demanded constant practice and all towns and villages maintained archery Butts for the local men to train in their art. These places would have become common reference points for the locals and in time became place names in themselves, names which are still in use today.
An archery butt was nothing special in itself; it consisted usually of an earth bank, about the height of a man and probably as wide and as deep again. These would be allowed to grass over and upon which a target of cloth or paint could be put. Sometimes a wooden post, covered in leather would be inserted into the ground just in front of the Butt to serve as the target or indeed a thinner piece of wood, known as a wand would be shot at, the object being the first to split it. The butts themselves would be either a single or pair of opposite earthworks and sometimes a whole series would be laid out, enabling large numbers of archers to shoot at different ranges. These ranges would vary from as little as ten to as much as two hundred yards and as the military significance of the bow became apparent, Edward III made it law that every man had to practice at the Butts.
Butt shooting is still in evidence today at archery clubs all over the world. The earth Butts have been replaced by straw target bosses and many of the archers favour modern high tech bows, complete with sights and release aids, pulley's and stabilisers. But look closely and you may see the longbowmen, shooting as his forebears did, without the use of modern aids and somewhat shunned by those who like the technology. He'll be out there in all weathers, shooting at the Butts and in all the various disciplines that the modern target archer has forgotten and, if you’re lucky, he may just have a Warbow.
vQ_dX3sFrFM
z_rPxV5Jivg
4d8THYdtvRU
VKxMq-THdO0
Is it not the dream of every English boy to one day own his own official bow and emulate the great hero of England, Robin Hood?
I must admit watching these videos and re-reading the history of the English use of the Longbow has awakened lovely memories of my Dad making me bows and arrows to shoot with.
I think I'm going to to have to go one step beyond my Dad's love and actually enrol me and my children in a local bow club.
http://i718.photobucket.com/albums/ww185/BeornWulfWer/th.jpg?t=1233616356
"...In my time my poor father was diligent to teach me to shoot as to learn any other thing and so I think other men did teach their children. He taught me how to draw, how to lay my body in the bow and not to draw with the strength of my arms as other nations do, but with the strength of my body. I had bows brought to me according to my age and strength and as I increased in them so my bows were made bigger, for men will never shoot well except they be brought up in it."
Weapon of War
The English War Bow was the weapon used to great effect by the armies of the English Plantagenet and Tudor kings. In the hands of English and Welsh archers it came to dominate the European battlefield for most of the late medieval age and defined some of the greatest achievements in England’s military history. It was in 1181 that Henry II ordered in his assize of arms that every freeman should equip himself with arms - which meant the bow for those of limited income - and so the warbow would remain a prominent feature of the English armoury for the next 400 years. The war bow was a weapon of the common man and not one of Lords, Earls, Barons and would prove its worth unseating many a good French noble and destroy his armies at the battles of Crecy, Poiters, Agincourt and Vernuil.
The Bow
The English Warbow itself was a simple affair. A stave of yew wood, ideally imported from the Italian Alps or Spain (but not English Yew; it being too full of moisture) would be tapered from its middle to its ends in a slight oval, D, or galleon section. It would then be ‘tillered’, gradually bent one inch at a time, teaching the wood to bend. When fully drawn the bow looks like the segment of a circle - it is said to ‘come compass’. The finished bow would stand over six feet high, sometimes as much as seven, and would have its tips protected by a sheath of horn, known as a nock.
Yew has natural properties which favour it amongst all others as a bow wood. The wood of any tree is composed of the dead inner heart wood and the thin layer of over laying living sap wood which lies beneath the bark. In seasoned yew the heart wood resists compression whilst the sap wood resists being held under tension and a war bow is constructed to take full advantage of these properties. The inner side of the bow, the belly, is comprised of heart wood, while the back, away from the archer, is sap wood. When a war bow is drawn, the belly of the bow is being compressed by the enormous force required to pull the bow whilst the back of the bow, the sap wood, is put under tension as it is stretched out of shape. Both the sap wood and heartwood are storing tremendous amounts of energy and when the archer releases the string the bow springs forward releasing that stored energy in a fraction of a second, pushing the arrow with tremendous force towards the target.
The power of these medieval War bows was breathtaking. Detailed analysis of the War bows recovered from the Tudor warship Mary Rose, which sank in battle in 1545 with an almost complete inventory including hundreds of bows and thousands of arrows, show the draw weights ranging from 80lbs to 180lbs with the most prolific being in the 140lb range. The draw weight is defined as the amount of force, expressed as a weight, which needs to be applied to the string in order to bend the strung bow to its full extent. When speaking of war bows the full draw length is usually taken to be 32”, which does not mean that the archer will draw it to that length; it may vary by a few inches. As a comparison a modern target longbow of the type promoted by the British Longbow Society will have a draw weight in the region of 35lbs to 60lbs measured at 28” draw. These Victorian style bows are also different in their profile, cross-section and tillering. It is important to distinguish between the two - an English War bow is a Longbow, but a longbow is rarely a war bow!
Performance.
The English War bow was used in conjunction with the English war arrow. Weighing something in the region of a quarter of a pound and tipped with hardened steel, armour piercing heads, these arrows could be shot over long distances. In recent years archers with bows like those on the Mary Rose have shot such arrows at distances in excess of 270 yards. It is a sobering thought that the longest marks set out in the Finsbury fields in the 1500’s were approaching 400 yards!
Armour Piercing?
Much debate has been made in the past about the penetrative abilities of the war bow when shot at armour worn by the unfortunate men-at-arms of France. Recent tests have shown that the English War bow is indeed capable of penetrating amour of the type commonly worn by soldiers on the battlefields of the late medieval period. Most munitions grade armour available to the common men at arms would have been of limited worth when subject to the kind of arrow storm experienced at Agincourt. There were those on the late medieval field who would have been confident in amour’s abilities, however. By the end of the late 1400’s the finest armourers of Europe, most notably in Milan and Germany, where producing armour of such high quality that the wearer would be invulnerable to a hail of arrows whether shot by bow or windlass crossbow. Few, however, could have afforded such protection. In modern prices, a full ‘white harness’ would cost approximately £100,000 and the very finest Milanese armour could cost almost £900,000! Therefore, the common soldier would have to make do with armour more suited to his pocket - a problem still in evidence today!
In Battle
The importance placed upon the bow by the English Kings is easily seen from the ratio of men at arms (heavy infantry) and archers. Typical ratios were in the region of 3:1 in favour of archers, but could be as high as 5:1 (as at Agincourt). The bow favours defensive actions and English tactics throughout the hundred year’s war reflected this. Under Edward III a simple but effective battle formation was developed, one which depended on a strong static defensive line instead of a strategy dependent on the old Norman concept of the mounted cavalry charge. Archers would typically be placed on the wings of the army. Their flanks would be protected by natural features such as woods and their front line by man-made pits designed to break horses’ legs, and later defensive stakes. The men-at-arms would be placed in between the flank archers and would halt the enemy onslaught from the front, whilst the archers poured in thousands of arrows from the flanks. This tactic could have horrific consequences, as evidenced at Agincourt. On that day in 1415 a small dysentery-riddled English army defeated an army at least 5 times its size. The French lost 10,000 ‘men of note’ that day. History does recall the total French losses but they may have been much higher, the English losses that day where counted as a few hundred. That is a stark testament to, amongst other things, the power of the English War Bow.
http://www.englishwarbow.com/luttrell_archers.jpg
Shooting at the Butts.
Go to just about any English town and you'll find streets with names like 'Butts Road', 'Butts Lane and 'Butts Way'. It's easy not to read anything into these names, after all there hardly evocative of the images of warfare or the Battles of Edward III and Henry V. It may surprise many to find out that these places have strong links with the past and the archers of old.
In medieval England, the study and practice of archery wasn't just a pastime or a skill developed for hunting, it was a national obsession. If a man was skilled in the use of the bow not only could he feed his family, but he would gain the respect of his peers and even earn a good living in the armies of England. It became a sense of national pride and identity that the Englishman could "shoot strongly in the bow". This strong shooting demanded constant practice and all towns and villages maintained archery Butts for the local men to train in their art. These places would have become common reference points for the locals and in time became place names in themselves, names which are still in use today.
An archery butt was nothing special in itself; it consisted usually of an earth bank, about the height of a man and probably as wide and as deep again. These would be allowed to grass over and upon which a target of cloth or paint could be put. Sometimes a wooden post, covered in leather would be inserted into the ground just in front of the Butt to serve as the target or indeed a thinner piece of wood, known as a wand would be shot at, the object being the first to split it. The butts themselves would be either a single or pair of opposite earthworks and sometimes a whole series would be laid out, enabling large numbers of archers to shoot at different ranges. These ranges would vary from as little as ten to as much as two hundred yards and as the military significance of the bow became apparent, Edward III made it law that every man had to practice at the Butts.
Butt shooting is still in evidence today at archery clubs all over the world. The earth Butts have been replaced by straw target bosses and many of the archers favour modern high tech bows, complete with sights and release aids, pulley's and stabilisers. But look closely and you may see the longbowmen, shooting as his forebears did, without the use of modern aids and somewhat shunned by those who like the technology. He'll be out there in all weathers, shooting at the Butts and in all the various disciplines that the modern target archer has forgotten and, if you’re lucky, he may just have a Warbow.
vQ_dX3sFrFM
z_rPxV5Jivg
4d8THYdtvRU
VKxMq-THdO0
Is it not the dream of every English boy to one day own his own official bow and emulate the great hero of England, Robin Hood?
I must admit watching these videos and re-reading the history of the English use of the Longbow has awakened lovely memories of my Dad making me bows and arrows to shoot with.
I think I'm going to to have to go one step beyond my Dad's love and actually enrol me and my children in a local bow club.