Longbowmen?

The English (and Welsh) Longbowmen were fairly renowned for their skill with the weapon. It required intensive training, and that made it difficult for other countries to adopt the longbow. But was there anything specific about England or the English that made them suited to this style of fighting, or were they just the only ones (aside, again, from the Welsh) who put the effort in?
 

PhilippeO

Banned
perhaps yeomanry class ? someone who dont have enough money for horse and armour, but own enough farm, money and independence to regularly have free time to train with weapon ?

note: some english longbowmen were recruited from french land during hundred years war.

note2: in England, some county provide more longbowmen than others, perhaps looking which county provide more longbowmen could provide some data ?
 
If you can, look up Richard Wadge's book 'Arrowstorm' which goes into a lot of detail about the life and motivation of the HYW archer.

There's two parts to your question - why did so many people become archers and why did only England and Wales field so many successfully, given they outshot the Scots, the French never won a battle in their own, etc etc.

Essentially, Wadge's posits that the rewards of successful campaigns and the use of relatively well paid indentures to recruit armies led to people picking up the bow and training on the chance they get the opportunity to go to war - more archers were of a high quality under Henry V than Edward III for example.

Why only England and Wales? It is suggested that only these countries have the combined traditions of the Welsh, English March and Norse use of heavy bows to lay the foundations for the medieval development of massed warble use.
 
As a childhood Knights and Castles fanatic, I seem to remember reading that many longbowmen were archers because they couldn't afford to buy armour and horses. Also, as the reputation of the archers grew, more and more peasants would become longbowmen, instead of simple foot soldiers, because it had more kudos and was more useful (e.g. hunting etc.). As for why it started and why only England and Wales I would guess that it was because of prior experience with Norse bows as larpsidekick says.
 

Driftless

Donor
I haven't read the book myself, so take this for what it's worth...

Longbow: A Social and Military History by Robert Hardy. You can get a decent quality used edition via Abebooks. The author is Robert Hardy the actor, but the book was well received for both content and style. Apparently, he's considered to be a genuine expert on the subject
 
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I haven't read the book myself, so take this for what it's worth...

Longbow: A Social and Military History by Robert Hardy. You can get a decent quality used edition via Abebooks. The author is Robert Hardy the actor, but the book was well received for both content and style. Apparently, he's considered to be a genuine expert on the subject

He presented a TV documentary on the weapons back in the '70s that doesn't seem to exist anywhere on thew internet, unfortunately - it was excellent.

I know a couple of experienced archers who told me interesting things about the heads used for different targets.

For a horse (or a deer, or other game animal) you need a broadhead, which will slash in and sever nerves, muscles, and blood vessels. Chain mail could be penetrated by a bodkin - there's some disagreement as to whether modified versions had a blunter head in order to defeat plate armour, in much the same way as a kinetic AP round will be blunt in order to punch through armour without the risk of glancing off, or the thin point breaking on impact.
 
To be completely honest, there are plenty of myths and popular misconceptions about longbows and longbow-using archers, i.e. longbowmen. The whole "longbows are from Wales" thing is somewhat dubious. IIRC, the form of the longbow that became popular on the British Isles since at least the High Middle Ages might have been based on some longer Scandinavian bows used by the Scandinavian raiders and settlers back in the day. Another thing is not differentiating between different variations on the longbow (which is, after all, a bow like any other in its basic mechanics) and treating them all like warbows (the ones with military builds and poundage) from either the height of the Hundred Years War or the Tudor period. Longbows had variety, and post-16th century wooden longbows or modern day wooden longbows are not necessarily the same kind of weapon, but more of a sports version. Period types of hunting and military longbows were a bit different from each other, especially in terms of performance, and longbows evolved within each century, just like any period weapon.

Some good articles on longbows:
- Archery articles in general
- The Medieval English Longbow
- The Decline of the Longbow
- Some Speculation on the Nature of Longbowstrings
- Further Speculation on the Nature of Longbowstrings

Some good videos on longbows:
The Longbow - Mike Loades on the usage of the longbow in the Hundred Years War (including for mounted infantry hit-and-run attacks/raids)
English longbows vs. medieval plate armour (Battlefield Detectives documentary review) - Matt Easton criticquing a docu about the usage of longbows in the HYW (the docu seems to go for parroting a lot of the established myths/clichés)
Comparing the shots per minute of a longbow and hand-spanned light crossbow - a live test of roughly how long it took to reload and shoot a longbow and a purely hand-spanned crossbow during the same time limit, side by side
Sword and bow use TV stereotyping and strength - Matt Easton on stereotyping and inaccurate portrayals of an archer's strenghth on TV
Unusual late-medieval arming sword in the Wallace collection - a video on what longbowmen probably used among their melee weapons later in the HYW, in order to deal with the increasing usage of plate armour
Reasons for having the arrow on different sides of the bow - details are important
Military archery and speed shooting - Easton on why Rule of Cool isn't everything, especially not in military archery


Anyway, there's plenty of other medieval military resources listed here, if you're interested.

For a horse (or a deer, or other game animal) you need a broadhead, which will slash in and sever nerves, muscles, and blood vessels. Chain mail could be penetrated by a bodkin - there's some disagreement as to whether modified versions had a blunter head in order to defeat plate armour, in much the same way as a kinetic AP round will be blunt in order to punch through armour without the risk of glancing off, or the thin point breaking on impact.

In terms of arrowhead types, both the bodkin and especially the broadhead are barely effective against plate armour. Bodkins have a better chance at getting through mail, but yes, there isn't a 100 % consensus on how they'd behave in every iteration of such a situation. It would be quite context-based. Broadheads, being the hunting arrowheads and general purpose arrowheads, would not be very effective against any metal armour.
 
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