Main Discussion Area > English Warbow
What is "Warbow"
duffontap:
--- Quote from: justin snyder on May 25, 2007, 12:55:10 pm --- Oh well, not the first time I have read something in a book that was flawed. :-\ Justin
--- End quote ---
Well, at least this is the internet. You know anything you read here is true. ;)
J. D. Duff
Justin Snyder:
--- Quote from: J. D. Duff on May 25, 2007, 01:56:47 pm ---
--- Quote from: justin snyder on May 25, 2007, 12:55:10 pm --- Oh well, not the first time I have read something in a book that was flawed. :-\ Justin
--- End quote ---
Well, at least this is the internet. You know anything you read here is true. ;)
J. D. Duff
--- End quote ---
;) ;D ;D ;D;) :'(
ChrisD:
Well Jaro
I, of course, know about the acts you refer to - all I'm pointing out is that they stipulated that practice should take place, that it should be regular, everybody who could should do it and prescribed some ranges. It doesn't mean that they practiced with war arrows though and the only illustration which I've seen of practice at the butts (I'm sure you're aware of the one to which I refer) shows arrows which look very unwarlike to me. It cannot have been beyond the wit of man to work out that if archer bloggins can shoot 240yds with such and such an arrow, then 200yd will be achieveable with whatever the lightest war arrow was.
While we are on the topic of art as a reference point - I'm always curious about the frequency with which historians quote medieval art when it illustrates what they want and criticise it when its used as an example of what they don't want to hear. My view is that it can be a guide but should be used with a big dose of scepticism. I'm well aware that big fletchings can be whats needed to make an arrow go far - but I think we're both agreed that big and aerodynamic need not be mutually exclusive.
I'm also grateful for your analysis of the lengths of the Mary Rose bows whcih according to your figures do indeed 'tend towards the 80 inch mark' as I suggested. I'm also pleased to hear that according to your lights, my bow is 'shot in' given its current status in draw weight. I don't think that thats what Ascham meant when he described his process of finding and treating a good bow. I don't have any plans for example to pike my bow any further, nor dress it up or anything else- to do so would probably be the end of it. Similar with the MR bows. They hadn't been used when the ship went down so you'd have to accept the argument that they were essentially unfinished to support your views of 'shot in and shot out'. My own view is that the MR bows are well made mass produced bows made for battle which would have been ready for use pretty promptly after appropriate exercise warming up and after some hundreds of shots, most would either be of reduced weight but still useable or they'd be firewood.
On that point - theres no reason to think that Tudor bowyers were idiots or unable to make great bows - but neither is there any reason to imagine that they lavished the kind of care and attention that modern bowyers such as yourself and others do. The ordinances limiting the number of bows worked on at one time were there to maintain quality for sure, but they would have been tempered by the pragmatic requirement to keep the supplies of bows at useable levels. Some compromise in standard is always going to take place in any attempt at mass production and I don't see why livery bows would have been any exception. This is England we are talking about and they have always been pragmatic people.
Chris
PS if you don't like the absence of evidence point, then try Donald Rumsfelds 'known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns'. Its the last category I'm talking about and I for one am happier to admit that in some circumstances, there just is no convincing evidence and no amount of research is going to turn it up.
sagitarius boemoru:
Point by point
"I'm sure you're aware of the one to which I refer."
Dont be cryptic its stupid. If you mean Lutrell Psalter, we talk 1340´ or so, not a tudor time with its 250 years of extablished law, logistic and social base out of which archers could be sellected through suitable recruiting tools of archery contest.
" an example of what they don't want to hear"
Please point me to one exact.
"I'm also grateful for your analysis of the lengths of the Mary Rose bows whcih according to your figures do indeed 'tend towards the 80 inch mark' as I suggested"
No - they are obviously shorter mostly. 4´´ of difference is some difference here. Be exact.
"I don't think that thats what Ascham meant when he described his process of finding and treating a good bow. I don't have any plans for example to pike my bow any further, nor dress it up or anything else- to do so would probably be the end of it"
Because today bows arent shot in and customised the same way. Any bowyer selling bows is selling it to largelly ignorant public , which means he does all the work prior giving the bow to generally amateur archer. This is done mostly through rigorous tiler excersise, but e.g. out of my workshop hardly goes yn bow which was not piked and adjusted to perform satosfactory. Most archers also does not have a clue about what to do with bow else than to shoot.
"Similar with the MR bows. They hadn't been used when the ship went down so you'd have to accept the argument that they were essentially unfinished to support your views of 'shot in and shot out'. My own view is that the MR bows are well made mass produced bows made for battle which would have been ready for use pretty promptly after appropriate exercise warming up and after some hundreds of shots, most would either be of reduced weight but still useable or they'd be firewood."
Some of these bows go up to 180# - you dont make such a bow in way you describe it. It has to be well made. These bows are of excellent wood and also very well made and tilered as proven by bending some of them. What you say has no leg to stand on. How much of reduction in weight you talk about? I want to hear reasonably exact number again.
5# which a good bow might loose after hard excersise is not a big deal with bow of 130#. Neither is your claim suported by experience of heavy bow archers. Mark Strettonś italian yew bow has still sole 150#, even if it has many thousand arrows through it and it is correct MR replica. A ship with bow armament has to be still capable of fighting after some depoyment on sea. Since there was not found many times more bows than archers idea that would make it need to resuply bows after each battle is nonsense. There are also at least two bows in MR armament which are not issue and that means somebody brought their favorite weapons. That is not what you do with disposable item, or one which last in reasonable condition only for short span of time. I m reffering to "Black bow" and to "Azincourt"
"but neither is there any reason to imagine that they lavished the kind of care and attention that modern bowyers such as yourself and others do"
- Not really. We have after close examination of these bows reasons to believe they were actually BETTER than most of todays bowyers. Today´s best wood barelly matches the worst they had. The experience they had and also the craftsmanship specialisation is novadays matched only few english masters and I can probably name them and count on fingers of one hand. There is no sign of bad tiler, rough craftsmanship, incompetent treatment of knots or wood variation on these bows. They are perfect. If you believe these bows are badly made, or roughly made I call you to state clearly why you think so.
"if you don't like the absence of evidence point, then try Donald Rumsfelds 'known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns'. "
Donald Rumsfeld is malicious, evil and incompetent man who helped to ruin great nation. Anybody quoting him as support of his position loses credibility at the spot.
In science only positives need to be proven. I have stated clearly why I think things, I think and they are based on research, pictorial and factual evidence and contact with archers and bowyers who can walk the walk.
If you want to post any credible points to debate here are hints:
1. Educate yourself about Occams razor
2. Only evidence is to be taken in consideration
3. A theory formulated after observation is to be verified through experiment
E.G. You claim that MR bows only lasted 600 arrows or so then they dropped in weight significantly or were reduced to firewood. But Mark and rest of lads has copies of MR bows made out of the same yew, fromf the same locality where it was harvested in medieval times, by a bowyer with mid level of experience (and to say truth the wood is somehow slightly worse in quality than on MR bows). But these bows did not dropped in weight significantly or are broken or following string excessivelly or unshootable even after several thousand arrows has been discharged through them (guess in Mark and Gwyns case probably tens of thousands).
So evidence is contrary to your claim. You have to provide solid evidence to actually suport your claim or abandon it. That is how it works.
So take alpine yew bow, shoot some thousand arrows out of it and report results for us. Plain bulshiting, without actually even naming any (original) source for claims is of no use. It only takes bandwidth.
"Its the last category I'm talking about and I for one am happier to admit that in some circumstances, there just is no convincing evidence and no amount of research is going to turn it up."
Exactly point by point please. This, as I said plain talk and golden fallacism, which does not get us anywhere.
You obviously float on this nice "We dont know everything, so we might as well dont care" fallacy - I m asking you exactly to write in points which could be debated what do you think we dont know. Name the circumstances you are talking about.
J.
duffontap:
Chris,
If I were to buy a Yew longbow from a bowyer today, I would prefer to go through the process that Ascham describes. After I shot it a bit I could work with the bowyer to adjust tiller, lighten the tips, polish nocks, etc. An archer as knowledgable as Ascham could easily work in tandem with a bowyer to produce a superior bow through that process. Stratton told me once that Simon Stanley was (or is, I can't remember) hired by a bowyer to break in bows for other customers. Simon being the expert on how a bow should shoot--the bowyer being the expert on how to make the adjustments. Even your bow may well have benefited from the process. But, as Jaro says, most of a bowyer's clientle are ignorant when it comes to bowyery so the bowyer is left alone to work out the best possible bow as he sees it.
The weight issue is a fairly simple one to me. You take your position as firmly as I do so I see that I wont be changing your mind. But, I would just like to hear your replies to two brief queries:
1. How do you explain the fact that the best blue-print replications, out of the most authentic materials come out around 120-160+? These are very big bows! Is there any hope of building 200 blue-print replications out of high-altitude Yew and ending up with mostly 80-90# or even 100# bows?
2. If the bows were around 70-100#s, is this the stuff of legends? I'd bet you could randomly pick a dozen manual laborers and have them shooting 100#s in days or weeks--a couple months for the worst of them. What kind of special training from youth do you need to pull a bow that many men with no experience with archery could pull without training or conditioning? The average man can train into bows of 130#s easily, so why stop at 90 or 100#?
J. D. Duff
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