Archery in Medieval England (eBook)

I

Popular Archery after the Norman Conquest

Between the Norman Conquest in 1066 and the ravages of the Black Death in 1348–50 the practice of archery among the ordinary people of England and Wales produced archers and bows of such power and capability that they became a significant factor in European history, to the amazement of contemporary chroniclers. This has been much discussed by historians, but no clear picture of popular archery in medieval England and Wales has emerged to explain how this came about. Archery is an activity that developed in nearly all cultures and peoples for millennia. The Australian Aborigines are the most significant exception to this. Examples of the traditional use of self bows of different lengths are widespread, and can be found throughout history in four continents until the last quarter of the previous millennium.

Archery had been practised in the British Isles for something like four millennia before 1066. Perhaps the earliest evidence of the significant use of archery in war was found during the excavations at the Neolithic fort at Carn Brea near Redruth in Cornwall. About 700 flint arrowheads were found, many of them Neolithic leaf-shaped heads, and the largest concentration was around the probable site of one of the gateways into the fort. While the excavator observed that it is impossible to guess the nature of the warfare evidenced by the arrowheads, he felt that it was almost certainly fighting among the various Neolithic communities of the area and that the assault on the fort took place at some point in the mid third millennium BC.1

Despite this long history of popular archery in the British Isles, its use in warfare ebbed and flowed as various cultures arrived or developed. In general, although archery was used in hunting throughout the long period starting with the Neolithic period, it remained peripheral to the development of military practice. But some combination of circumstances after the irruption of the Normans into British history led to the development of both the skills and the equipment necessary for longbow archery to become a revolutionary change in Western European military practice. The three most commonly quoted reasons for this development are: the importance of archery in the Norman victory at Hastings, albeit using bows less than man height in length; the unpleasant experiences of Welsh archery suffered by both English armies in the decades before the Conquest and the Norman armies after it; and the Norse tradition of longbow archery in those parts of England and Scotland heavily influenced by the Vikings. But these factors alone aren’t enough of an explanation. All three applied in Ireland: Norse settlements; experience of the effectiveness of the Welsh archers; and military leaders who understood the usefulness of military archery. Yet the Irish themselves did not develop a military practice exploiting powerful hand bows despite their experiences on the receiving end of it. The Anglo Norman community in Ireland continued to develop military archery to the extent that there are records of companies of archers from Ireland being included in English royal armies in the fourteenth century. It most certainly was not for want of good bow wood in Ireland since yew bowstaves were imported from Ireland to England between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. One reason for the lack of development of archery in medieval Ireland was because the population of England at large seem to have practised archery for sport and hunting more commonly than was the case in Ireland in the Middle Ages.

But the evidence of what was going on in Ireland is very important, because Ireland has provided that rarest of archery-related archaeological finds, a medieval yew bow from before the Tudor period. One complete bow has been found that dates to the period of the Anglo Norman invasions of that island in the twelfth century.

An understanding of the development of popular archery in England of the twelfth, thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries can be built up by looking at the eclectic collection of records mentioning archery that have survived. These include court records of criminal activities; wills and inventories that show men owning bows; records of sports and pastimes; accounts of hunting, most of it illegal, and military archery. Archaeological finds are important because they show actual practice unfiltered by legal scribes, chroniclers or any other observer. But these are a bit ‘one sided’ consisting almost entirely of arrowheads; finds of bows, arrowshafts and bone or leather archery accessories are very rare, as are finds of artefacts made of organic material in general. As yet there have been no finds of anything that might be archery butts confirmed for the period 1066–c.1350. Then there are all the statutes and orders that both encourage the ownership of bows and arrows and restrict their use. Artistic representations showing archers with their bows and arrows include manuscript illustrations, church wall paintings and a few carvings, but these come from a time before rigid representational art. Finally there are any records or events that give an insight into the value that was put upon archery skills. Taken together the activities described in these records and a study of the various artefacts make up a patchwork picture of popular archery before the successes of Edward III’s reign made the practice of archery part of the nation’s self image.

Bows and Arrows in Medieval England

It is not easy to find evidence of widespread popular archery in England before the thirteenth century. More evidence becomes available in that century and in the first half of the fourteenth century leading up to the great victories of Edward III’s reign. But there still isn’t any consistent surviving evidence of the widespread use of heavy bows, that is bows with a draw weight of at least 110lbs (50kg), the estimated minimum draw weight of the Mary Rose bows.2 In fact, the evidence from before Edward III’s reign does not even suggest that all archers habitually used ‘longbows’, that is bows about 6ft (1.83m) long. For much of the period when the military reputation of the English and Welsh archer was becoming established in Europe, the term longbow was anachronistic, since it is first recorded in the mid-fifteenth century.3 Before then, written records, whether official accounts, inventories or chronicles record just two sorts of bow, crossbows and bows. The Latin word arcus is used for a bow, which really just describes its shape. It is used for a hand bow of whatever length, and at some points in this book the term hand bow is used to make a clear distinction from crossbows in use at the same time. In line with this, the term archer will only be used to mean men using hand bows, those using crossbows are crossbowmen. Some of the evidence suggests that ordinary men commonly used shorter bows, maybe 4½–5ft (1.37–1.52m) in length in this period, although at the same time there are a very few records that make clear mention of men using bows 6ft or more (1.83m) in length. The widespread use of lighter shorter bows also becomes apparent from the discussion of medieval arrowheads. Many of the surviving arrowheads have a socket size of about 0.35in (9mm) or less, realistically allowing them to be used only on fairly light shafts, which in turn means that they were used with fairly light bows. Arrows of this size would not work well with bows with draw weights similar to those found on the Mary Rose because they would not have been stiff enough to cope with forces generated by these bows. The diameters of the arrow shafts from the Mary Rose range between 0.43in and 0.5in (11mm and 13mm) at the head end.4 Arrowheads found at Camber Castle, Rye, which are more or less contemporary with the sinking of the Mary Rose, also have an average socket diameter of about 0.5in (12.6mm).5 Taken together these figures confirm that the medieval fletchers knew what modern heavy bow archers have worked out, that it easy to make arrows for heavy bows using shafts of between 0.47in and 0.5in (12mm and 13mm) because you know that all the arrowshafts will tolerate the forces involved in being shot from such a bow without time-consuming work weighing and selecting arrowshafts. Given the large quantities of arrows made for military use in medieval England in response to royal orders often at fairly short notice, economy in the use of the fletchers’ time was vital.

There is no evidence to contradict the long-held view that the indigenous bow type in Western Europe is the self bow. Traces of laminated bows in ancient and medieval Western Europe arise in three ways: bows used by men hired from, or invading from, further east; equipment brought back by the Crusaders or by travellers; bows used by the Saracen population in medieval Sicily and Italy. Evidence of different lengths of self bow being used in Europe does not mean that long bows and short bows developed as different types of bow. In large part it arose from the availability of bow wood, the skill of the bowyer and that of the archer. It is quite possible that many of the bows used in the activities described in the following chapters were not made by craftsmen bowyers, but by general woodworkers or even the archer himself. This would have been most likely when the archer belonged to the broad class of peasants.

The most substantial pieces of evidence for the widespread use of short bows are the Bayeux Tapestry and the finds from excavations at Waterford and Limerick. Both of these are widely regarded as reflecting the same tradition, that of Norman or Northern French military archery. An...