Main Discussion Area > English Warbow
How many strands in a string.
bow-toxo:
--- Quote from: adb on July 07, 2011, 03:27:04 am ---So, there is a medieval bow string in existance? Where?
--- End quote ---
Who told you that one had survived ? You are getting incoherent.
bow-toxo:
--- Quote from: Ian. on July 07, 2011, 11:28:59 am ---
Art of Archery (1515)
"And if you wish to know if a string is good, untwist the middle of it, and if the three strands are separate and distinct, it is a good one, provided always that when the string is twisted up again, it is hard and firm, for the harder it is, the better it will be."
Toxophilus 1545
"Now what a string ought to be made on, whether of good hemp, as they do now-a-days, or of flax, or of silk, I leave that to the judgement of stringers, of whom we must buy them. Eustathius, upon this verse of Homer,"
It goes on to say
"Eustathius, upon this verse of Homer, doth tell, that in old time, they made their bow-strings of bullocks' thermes, which they twined together as they do ropes" this is talking about the ancient Greeks not the middle ages.
Thats is the only reference to construction, its not concrete.
--- End quote ---
Good. You did find the chapter on bowstrings! The quote "if the three strands are separate and distinct" constitutes evidence.
Ian.:
It would seem so, there isn't much writing dedicated to strings and the period images don't tell us much, but I wouldn't think that they would have changed how they made strings through the few hundred years that they were used.
adb:
My point, Erik, is that no one (not even you) knows FOR SURE the make up of a medieval bow string, because one does not exist.
CraigMBeckett:
--- Quote from: Ian. on July 08, 2011, 07:56:52 am ---It would seem so, there isn't much writing dedicated to strings and the period images don't tell us much, but I wouldn't think that they would have changed how they made strings through the few hundred years that they were used.
--- End quote ---
Why a few hundred? the oldest bow remnant is 10,000 years old, where there is a bow there must be a string. Otzi the iceman had a length of cordage in his quiver, bow string or not is apparently the subject of argument, but he certainly had a bow so must have had a bow string and his remains are 5,300 or so years old. So strings have been made for a bit more than a few hundred years.
As for did they change the way they made them, do you not believe people can get better at making things over time? Maybe the way they were made became static during the historical period but during pre-history there must have been changes.
Craig
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version