Main Discussion Area > English Warbow
data on the Mary Rose bows/arrows
bow-toxo:
Ratty; The quote tells me that the book is addressed to gentlemen and yeomen. Gentlemen were the nobles, not gentle by the modern definition. They owed their position to their immediate readiness to fight for their king with the weapons and armour appropriate to their position. Yeomen, the higher class of peasants who owned their own land, were renowned as the finest warbow archers in existence. But you knew that, cidn't you ? If very few ot the population could have used warbows, maybe you can tell me how the crown found ten archers for every man-at-arms at the end of the Hundred Years War ?
Triton; Since you don't consider the book worth anything because it is ignored, you might as well ignore it. Great reasoning ! Good luck making up history while ignoring it. That is a challenge. Perhaps you will come up with something so much better than your historical heritage.
Cheers,
Erik
outcaste:
--- Quote from: bow-toxo on January 03, 2009, 04:15:57 pm ---If very few ot the population could have used warbows, maybe you can tell me how the crown found ten archers for every man-at-arms at the end of the Hundred Years war ?
--- End quote ---
I guess that the gene pool at that time would have been around the 3 million to which to draw the appropriate standard of archery from.
I am thinking of the numbers of modern archers shooting today with warbow weights and to an historical standard as a percentage of the population as a whole. I guess if more people practised archery (warbow) then we would see a potential tapped and accuracy and distances over 240 yards with heavy arrows common place.
Alistair
Yeomanbowman:
I've just finished reading a couple of chapters of Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England
by David Cressy, and he mentions Ascham as an example of an advocate of literacy for the general populace as a means of social control. It seems that what passes as being literate in Tudor times is ambiguous but being illiterate was not seen as a disadvantage or had any stigma attached to it. However I was surprised that literacy may have been higher than 30% in the Stuart period. As Mike says printing and Protestantism certainly promoted literacy.
Perhaps the great man did have ideas of his works being for a wide readership but whether this was achieved with Toxophilus I doubt (well not until much later). Some of the rudimentary shooting information suggest to me that he in mind, as the primary target for his information, novice shooters and not hardend expert military archers. I think he may well have tried to encourage greater participation in archery, which would have pleased Henry VIII. It sadly didn't halt the decline of the warbow though.
triton:
--- Quote from: bow-toxo on January 03, 2009, 04:15:57 pm ---
Triton; Since you don't consider the book worth anything because it is ignored, you might as well ignore it. Great reasoning ! Good luck making up history while ignoring it. That is a challenge. Perhaps you will come up with something so much better than your historical heritage.
Cheers,
Erik
--- End quote ---
calm down Erik, I was being sarcastic. some readers of those books have cherry picked the parts they agree with and discount the rest as it doesn't fit their personal agenda. If you read what I'd said previously, you should understand I have high regard for Aschams teachings.
ratty:
--- Quote from: Yeomanbowman on January 03, 2009, 05:30:25 pm ---I've just finished reading a couple of chapters of Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England
by David Cressy, and he mentions Ascham as an example of an advocate of literacy for the general populace as a means of social control. It seems that what passes as being literate in Tudor times is ambiguous but being illiterate was not seen as a disadvantage or had any stigma attached to it. However I was surprised that literacy may have been higher than 30% in the Stuart period. As Mike says printing and Protestantism certainly promoted literacy.
Perhaps the great man did have ideas of his works being for a wide readership but whether this was achieved with Toxophilus I doubt (well not until much later). Some of the rudimentary shooting information suggest to me that he in mind, as the primary target for his information, novice shooters and not hardend expert military archers. I think he may well have tried to encourage greater participation in archery, which would have pleased Henry VIII. It sadly didn't halt the decline of the warbow though.
--- End quote ---
excellent post :)
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