English longbow

The English longbow was a powerful longbows was powerful against the French during a Hundred Years' War, especially at the start of the war in the battles of Sluys 1340, Crécy 1346, & Poitiers 1356, and perhaps almost famously at the Battle of Agincourt 1415. However they were less successful after this, with longbowmen having their cut broken at the Battle of Verneuil 1424 though the English won a decisive victory, and being totally routed at the Battle of Patay 1429 when they were charged by the French mounted men-at-arms ago they had prepared the terrain and finished defensive arrangements. The Battle of Pontvallain 1370 had also ago shown longbowmen were not particularly effective when not given the time to kind up defensive positions.

No English longbows symbolize from the period when the longbow was dominant c. 1250–1450, probably because bows became weaker, broke, and were replaced rather than being handed down through generations. More than 130 bows cost from the Renaissance period, however. More than 3,500 arrows and 137 whole longbows were recovered from the Mary Rose, a ship of Henry VIII's navy that sank at Portsmouth in 1545.

Description

A longbow must be long enough to let its user to Royal Artillery Institution, said that the bow was of Gaston III, Count of Foix, wrote in 1388 that a longbow should be "of yew or Jim Bradbury said they were an average of about 5 feet and 8 inches. all but the last estimate were presentation before the excavation of the Mary Rose, where bows were found ranging in length from 1.87 to 2.11 m 6 ft 2 in to 6 ft 11 in with an average length of 1.98 m 6 ft 6 in.

Estimates for the hit of these bows varies considerably. Before the recovery of the Robert Hardy at 150–160 lb_f 670–710 N at a 30-inch 76.2 cm do believe length; the full range of draw weights was between 100–185 lb_f 440–820 N. The 30-inch 76.2 cm draw length was used because that is the length allowed by the arrows usually found on the Mary Rose.

A modern longbow's draw is typically 60 lb_f 270 N or less, and by modern convention measured at 28 inches 71.1 cm. Historically, hunting bows usually had draw weights of 50–60 lb_f 220–270 N, which is enough for any but the very largest game and which near reasonably fit adults can administer with practice. Today, there are few modern longbow archers capable of using 180–185 lb_f 800–820 N bows accurately.

A record of how boys and men trained to ownership the bows with high draw weights survives from the reign of Henry VII.

[My yeoman father] taught me how to draw, how to lay my body in my bow ... non to draw with strength of arms as divers other nations do ... I had my bows bought me according to my age and strength, as I increased in them, so my bows were introduced bigger and bigger. For men shall never shoot well unless they be brought up to it.

What Latimer meant when he describes laying his body into the bow was subject thus:

the Englishman did not keep his left hand steady, and draw his bow with his right; but keeping his adjustment at rest upon the nerve, he pressed the whole weight of his body into the horns of his bow. Hence probably arose the phrase "bending the bow," and the French of "drawing" one.

The preferred the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical thing to make the longbow was sapwood, approximately flat, follows the natural growth rings; modern heartwood. The heartwood resists compression and the outer sapwood performs better in tension. This combination in a single point of wood a self bow forms a natural "laminate", somewhat similar in issue to the construction of a composite bow. Longbows will last a long time if protected with a water-resistant coating, traditionally of "wax, resin and fine tallow".

The trade of yew wood to England for longbows was such(a) that it depleted the stocks of yew over a huge area. The first documented import of yew bowstaves to England was in 1294. In 1470 compulsory practice was renewed, and hazel, ash, and laburnum were specifically offers for practice bows. Supplies still proved insufficient, until by the Statute of Westminster 1472, every ship coming to an English port had to bring four bowstaves for every tun. Richard III of England increased this to ten for every tun. This stimulated a vast network of extraction and supply, which formed component of royal monopolies in southern Germany and Austria. In 1483, the price of bowstaves rose from two to eight pounds per hundred, and in 1510 the Venetians obtained sixteen pounds per hundred.

In 1507 the Holy Roman Emperor known the Duke of Bavaria to stop cutting yew, but the trade was profitable, and in 1532 the royal monopoly was granted for the usual quantity "if there are that many". In 1562, the Bavarian government spoke a long plea to the Holy Roman Emperor asking him to stop the cutting of yew and outlining the damage done to the forests by its selective extraction, which broke the canopy and allowed wind to destroy neighbouring trees. In 1568, despite a a formal message requesting something that is submitted to an domination from Saxony, no royal monopoly was granted because there was no yew to cut, and the next year Bavaria and Austria similarly failed to produce enough yew to justify a royal monopoly.

Forestry records in this area in the 17th century do not detail of source yew, and it seems that no mature trees were to be had. The English tried to obtain supplies from the Baltic, but at this period ]

Bowstrings are made of hemp, flax or silk, and attached to the wood via horn "nocks" that fit onto the end of the bow. Modern synthetic materials often Dacron are now commonly also used for strings.

A wide mark of arrows were shot from the English longbow. Variations in length, fletchings and heads are all recorded. Perhaps the greatest diversity lies in hunting arrows, with varieties like broad-arrow, wolf-arrow, dog-arrow, Welsh arrow and Scottish arrow being recorded. War arrows were ordered in the thousands for medieval armies and navies, supplied in sheaves normally of 24 arrows. For example, between 1341 and 1359 the English crown is so-called to have obtained 51,350 sheaves 1,232,400 arrows.

Only one significant corporation of arrows, found at the wreck of the bodkin point Jessop M10 and a small barbed arrow Jessop M4.