Main Discussion Area > English Warbow
How many strands in a string.
adb:
--- Quote from: bow-toxo on July 06, 2011, 03:37:05 am ---When Knights were bold, or bald, the strings were of linen, hemp, or silk {the strongest}for anyone that could get it. I got a big hank of raw silk in Thailand and have made strings of it, you can also get thin Chinese hemp 20# cord. Three strands {medieval strings were 3 strands] of three or four cords each. You do the math. For linen you used to be able to get Belfast linen thread but I don't know if that is still available.
--- End quote ---
Medieval strings were 3 strands? I wasn't aware there were any medieval era strings in existace? None were recovered from the Mary Rose, and I'm unaware of any other sources. Please enlighten us.
bow-toxo:
Sure, adb. I guess you were on vacation when, in response to a challenge, I posted a full page of my sources on the topic of mediaeval and Tudor bowstrings. In response to a threat, I posted the whole page again. The source is Lartdarcherie translated by Colonel Walrond. Mediaeval bow strings were mostly of the single loop type, now known as the 'Flemish' string. LARTDARCHERIE refers to the single loop string tightly twisted of three strands of fiber or thread, You can look it up in the Archery library online. That should cover it unless you are addicted to string boards and refuse to believe original mediaeval and Renaissance sources.
adb:
So, there is a medieval bow string in existance? Where?
Ian.:
On the archery library the two oldest books are The art of Archery 1515 and Toxophilus 1545 to memory I cant remember reading anything on actual string making only that the author didn't feel qualified enough to talk about the subject. Could you point us to the chapter in either book that the reference is in.
Ian.:
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.
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