Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => English Warbow => Topic started by: sagitarius boemoru on May 06, 2007, 01:41:36 pm
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For the purpose of this forum, warbow should be a single stave english style full bend bow of at least 90# or/and 220 yrds with Standart arrow.
Backed yew is acceptable as there are 16. and 17. examples of backing yew for bows, but not exotics and multilam bows.
Call me snobbish, but either its the thing or it is not.
J.
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are you just defineing the english warbow of the medieval ages? with a 32" draw / with linen/hemp string?
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It's relative to what you want to define. Hehe ::)
One could define Mary Rose-bows quite narrowly, but the English warbow is as far more than that. The sad thing is that we don't know how much more it is.
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Its obvious that there is heritage of heavy bows for war in the area far before actuall english assimilation of longbow as main artilery armament.
Hehe.
Also from iconographic source we can tell the bows were bloody heavy already by the half of the 14. century, because the archer postures and drawing style is typical for heavy bows. Also the nocks have been probably present at that time as some sources show it quite clearly.
Of course it should be medieval warbow, nothing else. Calling anything else by that name, is degradation of the real thing.
The military use didnt actually lasted so long. Its safe to frame it by big battle events.
Hallidon Hill and reconquist of Scottland by english was time of forming the tactics, logistic and the technical advancement of the weapon. (First leap.)
This is first third of 14. century. But at Crecy this all was already functional. Its clear the advancement due to arms race was quite rapid.
The other leap occured around the time of Azincourt, or better yet around half of 15. century when plate armour was readily availble even for non-nobile combatants.
Last major battle event is Flodden Field. Mary Rose bows are last of the line. After Mary Rose, the bows have been still of some use in skirmishing even as late as english civil war, but we can safely tell it was a swan´s song only.
English bow does not need 32´´ draw, its obvious not everybody can reach it and even at MR was alotl of arrows shorter than this.
It is defined more by performance than anything else. Also the draw is not defined by obscure "english warbow should have 32´´ draw" but more by limitations of frame of said archer. A sporting style of draw is not acceptable, where a "stand in the bow" style is.
We can probably discard the requirement of linen and hemp string due to fact that neither material is availble in necessary quality anymore, but we should stay purist as much as possible.
I m very much responsible for recent popularisation of shooting heavy bows, but we should not degrade medieval archery by calling everything "warbow".
Jaro
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Jaro, lets try and keep this board here all inclusive. Any weight bow as long as it bends throughout, limbs no wider than handle, stands at least man height tall and draws to ear or chest. The bows knocks can be horn or self nocks since we have no idea what they made throughout the mideival ages.
Sounds good to me!
David T
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I like some of the basic parts of the definition as in draw weight.
I know there's some evidence of the use of Ash and Elm not just Yew use to make English Self-Longbow's used in war but of both Woods I've not seen any very heavy bows made of them, but did have a 65 pound at 28” English Longbow made up white ash (a New World wood) the bow shots very well until I broke it’s limb.
Any one made a Hvy Warbow out of Ash or Elm yet?
Miles
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Thimo has and they shoot great from the videos I've seen!
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I would think that a warbow is just a heavy weight longbow, right? But then the warbow could be called a longbow and also a warbow. I would expect that a bow that has a lower draw weight (around 50-60 lb.) would just be labled as a 'longbow'(?). As for making it from a different wood, you can make a Cherokee style bow from a different wood and it would still be called a Cherokee style bow, just a different wood.
Agree? Disagree?
Sean
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A little different in this case Sean. Since the warbow is actually different than the English Longbow. The Victorian Longbow does not bend in the handle but the Warbow does in what is called compass rose fashion. It historicaly has been made of three different woods Yew, Elm and Ash. So to be historicaly correct you nead to make them out of those three woods. Yew was the cadillac of the three.
Now if you just want a warbow you can make it out of any wood you like. People have made great warbows out of different woods and also made from different laminate of wood glued together. Pip Bickerstaff, among others, has made bows this way. I expect with the rarity and price of Yew today and in the future bows will be made more often from second woods or laminates. Personaly, if it bends compass rose and has a belly thats curved in the english fashion, standing man heght or taller its a warbow.
Primitive Archer has always been very inclusive as a website and magazine so lets keep this board that way too. We are just focussing down on a particular style in this area of the PA bulletin board.
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English bow does not need 32´´ draw, its obvious not everybody can reach it and even at MR was alotl of arrows shorter than this.
Jaro
i have an opinion on the shorter arrows :) i belive the shorter arrows on the MR would have had longer bodkins on them,and the longer shafts shorter heads bringing them all upto around 32" for optimum draw and power ;)
(http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/medieval/shrewsbury/images/IMG01176164347A.jpg)
so i belive the longer the draw the better if its back to your ear or past your doing fine by me ;D
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This board can be totally inclusive for all I care. BUT, Jaro has a legitimate point that we're dealing with historical data here and we should be responsible to represent 'the English Warbow' in a historically-accurate manner. This provides lots of latitude for speculation and opinion, but for historical purposes, we need to use a stricter definition. "Any weight, any tiller, any material, any draw length, any limb taper, any length, whatever I want to call a warbow" doesn't describe anything and doesn't advance our understanding of the historical subject at hand. Does that make sense to you guys?
Take care,
J. D. Duff
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Ratty's theory on arrow length and arrow heards makes a lot of sense to me. I'm sure I read somewhere that it was the long 'english arrow' that was the major difference between english and continental archery equipment. If this is the case, the desire for a long draw length would surely have driven the development of a long arrow.
I guess there might be other advantages for a long arrow ...increased accuracy? ... increased weight yet still streamlined?
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i sort of agree about the definition of the warbow, but i feel we have more to learn about how it was shot.
the medieval style (in the bow)
its no good owning one if you cant shoot it properly,or should i say historically correct.
as a few of you know when you first got your warbow you suddenly realised you had to change shooting style.
which is why i feel that the laminate warbow should not exclude people from the warbow threads the laminate warbow is just a warbow replica, which needs the same style and effort to shoot. :)
BUT for definition purposes a medieval English warbow was known to be made of imported yew.
a laminate if it is made to medieval style and weighs 100#+ and draw 32" is a (laminate replica medieval English warbow) ;)
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Aye, theres the rub JD! There are many different variations on the Warbow theme historicaly speaking. We only have the Marry Rose bows to go by and they were at the tail end of the warbows development and millitary use. They also had a lot of variation between them in there designs. We can only speculate on what early bows looked like or performed like. We have to keep in perspective that we just dont know except from whats found in a few painting and some written documentation. So we nead to keep it a bit vague.
Personally, I believe limiting bow materials to the three we know were used historically would defeat the inclusive nature of the PA bulleting board. Sure, there are limmiting factor but I think the nead to be a bit vague because of this. Some people wish to make historicaly accurat represintation of what was used durring the mideivil ages and that is a good goal and will allow us to figure out how things were back then. Others just want to build a warbow and shoot them and it does not matter what the material are or how heavy a wieght they pull.
Here are what I think we should limit our bassis for discusion on the English Warbow forum:
1) Bows must be round of belly.
2) Bows must taper from grip to nocks.
3) Bows should be man height or taller.
4) Bows must bend through out there length in Compass Rose fashion.
5) Should draw to the ear for the length of draw.
6) String nocks should be self or horn nocks. (Dont know what they were durring the early mideivil ages so keep it open a bit)
7) No recurves on bows except the small tiny ones that were used historicaly on yew bows. (Yep! They did put small recurve on some at the very ends of the bows. These were included, sometimes, on bows after the crusades)
This should limit things enough but still leave the board broad enough to include the majority of people who enjoy shooting a warbow style of bow.
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I like your definition, David. Now what about all of the bows they have labled as 'longbows' now days? I mean, anything that isn't a recurve they call a longbow.
Sean
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Yep! Seen that too. But those tend to be flat on the belly. Maybe they should be called flat belly bows FBB for short. English style round bellies, or English Belly Bows, EBB's for short? ;D
Seriously though, there is an american flat bow that is based on the English Longbow design but the belly is flat instead of rounded. The round belly and overall length seem to determin an English Warbow.
I really feal that we should not discriminate against people who are unable to buy Yew staves or simmilar ash or elm staves to build a warbow or unable to pull those high weights. If we are aiming for replicating a historical bow and what it was about thats great and the more power to you. But many of us here are here to enjoy shooting a bow of simmilar design but not high draw weights. We can still learn from these bows too since they teach us the skill necessary to build these bows and shoot them. I bet ya that not all bows built for the common man back in the medeival ages were more than 80#'s draw weight since these would have been made for the common man who stayed on the farm. Childrens bows would have to be made also which pulled less in weight and increased in weight untill they were older in age and could pull a 100#'s or more, or not. Also, hunting bows would have been made on the same basic design but lower in weight. I dont think a cook would like to accept a rabbit or other critter after its been shot with a blunt from a 130# bow. Seems a bit like overkill to me. Overly tenderized rabbit! Or rabbit chunks! MMMM! Its whats for dinner!!! ;D
David T
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Ratty - are you that person who tried to impress me on english warbow forum with "english bows meeting their match against composite bows on crusades blabble"? (And eventuelly pissed me off enough to leave?)
Anyway - its nice you have posted that picture of arrowehads, but an arrow is only drawn to where the shaft ends (meets the socket of arrowhead). You dont pull it over the socket because it ultimatelly damages the bow much. Also I cannot see how an english arrow head could have 4´´ long paralel socket, which would lenghten 28´´ arrowshaft to drawable 32´´.
Think before you post anything.
There is no need to look for complicated definition of english warbow , the style is quite distinctive of itself.
This is preciselly where I didnt wanted to moderate this thread - wars of mices and frogs.
We know how the bow shall look like, it does not require special definitions. My intention was to prevent deteroriation of the topics ultimatelly to the point where a bow with handle appears and its maker will call it "warbow".
(As on known internet site which sells redoak flatbows with linen backings as "beautifull english warbows from 25#-40#".
Jaro
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If we are aiming for replicating a historical bow and what it was about thats great and the more power to you. But many of us here are here to enjoy shooting a bow of simmilar design but not high draw weights. We can still learn from these bows too since they teach us the skill necessary to build these bows and shoot them.
1. In which case rename it on longbows forum or whatever
2. Then its not a warbow, technically it does not belong to here
3. How so? How can you learn to make warbows by not making them
Its not discrimination. Warbow is a specialist item. By admiting that, you are not discriminating others. There is a whole other forum dedicated to all sorts of "non warbows" bows.
I really hate, when somebody who does not even occupate himself with the thing enters the discussion and starts to post things he read in first Osprey book he could put hands on or worse on some of popular internet sites.
Things like "Longbow was machinegun of its age" - which they just take without thinking whatever the paralel really fits or why a british actor writing a book on longbow uses such a paraphrase. Or for change thinking about usage of machine gun (which is quite capable of aimed fire at individual targets.)
We should be criticall. We should admit that once dealing with a special field like e.g. science, everybodys voice just dont have the same weight.
This is not elitism in bad sense of the word.
Its normal.
A person which never shot a warbow, which didnt ever smithed bodkin or fired it upon hard target is ultimatelly less qualified than say Simon Stanley.
To "hear everybodys voice" is internet (e.g.wikipedia) dissease.
It hurts reall work or the research.
(But again nothing againts person which comes to educate himself- that is alright) .
Jaro
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One of the good things about the old warbow forum was all the discussion of historical information. You don't have to be a warbow shooter to contribute in that way.
Second point - where should the aspiring warbow shooters go to learn bowmaking and shooting skills? Do we just practice on our own until we achieve the magic 90 lb mark and then join the forum?
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If you read carefully what I wrote you find out I didnt wrote no such thing.
There is nothing wrong with asking how to do that or discuss historical fact, but not the way we see it too often and which already started here. Its interesting that people who actually do something do not have the habit to slip into this form.
Discussing historical facts is not sloganeering of popular bonmots.
Jaro
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I am no autrority on war bows but I have read many books on the subject.One thing that I find is rarely mentioned is how short the people were in the days of the long bow, around 5' 4" was considered a large man. A bow tillered for a 32" draw, which seems to be the norm, would have been impossible for the average man of the day to reach if he were to draw the bow . I am 6'-1 1/2" tall and I can barely reach 32" draw pulling to my ear. I have come to the conclusion that bows of the day were tillered to 32" for safety ,while in reality the bows were only drawn to around 26" to 28" max. If we were to make a bow to fit us and use ratio to proportion as a pattern. The bow would have to be tillered to 38" to 40" to be correct. There are other factors that come into play as well, things like reaching the point of diminishing returns and the bows averaging 72" in length.After doing the math it appears that the bows of the day were only pulled to about 65# draw on an average if that and not 90 to 100# as we have seen in print...... This is only an opinion!
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I am no autrority on war bows but I have read many books on the subject.One thing that I find is rarely mentioned is how short the people were in the days of the long bow, around 5' 4" was considered a large man. A bow tillered for a 32" draw, which seems to be the norm, would have been impossible for the average man of the day to reach if he were to draw the bow . I am 6'-1 1/2" tall and I can barely reach 32" draw pulling to my ear. I have come to the conclusion that bows of the day were tillered to 32" for safety ,while in reality the bows were only drawn to around 26" to 28" max. If we were to make a bow to fit us and use ratio to proportion as a pattern. The bow would have to be tillered to 38" to 40" to be correct. There are other factors that come into play as well, things like reaching the point of diminishing returns and the bows averaging 72" in length.After doing the math it appears that the bows of the day were only pulled to about 65# draw on an average if that and not 90 to 100# as we have seen in print...... This is only an opinion!
One thing that I find is rarely mentioned is how short the people were in the days of the long bow, around 5' 4" was considered a large man.
- Not true. "People were shorter than us, back in medieval ages" its known and debunked misinformation. Average height oscilated alot over periods of good and bad nutritions e.g. even over a so short time as two or three generations. A free farmer with his heavy work, but good nutrition on both sacharide and protein was actually very well build and of todays "normal" height with off course some people being shorter and some higher. People had slightly different frame - e.g. the palms of hands were more than narrow, but generally "they were smaller than us" is hersay.
I am 6'-1 1/2" tall and I can barely reach 32" draw pulling to my ear
- I m only 5´3´´ and I can draw 31´´ unless I get too much of body compression with bow over 115# or so. You do something wrong.
I have come to the conclusion that bows of the day were tillered to 32" for safety ,while in reality the bows were only drawn to around 26" to 28" max
- Such bows would be extremelly sluggish. While there are some shorter arrows, these still allow for at least 28´´, but fully tilered english bow works indeed best at some 32´´. It starts to shoot reasonably at 30´´. 26´´ draw is just too short to store energy for these arrows. At 28´´ these bows just dont perform any satisfactory or in unity with a common performance they were required to reach.
There are other factors that come into play as well, things like reaching the point of diminishing returns and the bows averaging 72" in length
- Point of dimnishing return is reached at some 33´´ of drawlenght with english bows from yew. Past that you wont get much increase in distance reached.
MR bows averaged on 75-77´´. There is few (les then 10) which are actually shorter , but even these were in 74´´ range. 72´´ was probably standart in pre azincourt era, though we have no means to say for sure and again even 72´´ is easy to tiler at 32´´. For very heavy bows longer is better because the elastic limits of material is reached.
After doing the math it appears that the bows of the day were only pulled to about 65# draw on an average if that and not 90 to 100# as we have seen in print
-What math? Bad one apparently. I follow right away with side note on required performance of said bows.
J.
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Side note on required performance..Read this before posting nonsense.
There is very much cited law by Henry VIII. which is by some longbowmen interpreted wrongly as one which does indeed prohibits shooting the targets closer than 240 yards or sets this distance as common practice distance.
In fact the law says something like this :
"Item that no man during a required practice shoot any flighting or prickling arrow at marks shorter than 240 yards."
(Cited from memory, original printed accurate in Hugh Soars "Of Bowmen and Battles")
As we can see the law only prohibits shooting TOO LIGHT arrows at closer targets and its intended to preserve shooting of heavy military standart arrows and bows of necessary weight and performance. It does not mean that shorter marks than 240 yrds werent shot, but an arrow between 3-4 oz was required for them, where longer could be shot with lighter 2 oz "flight" arrow.
The law is to prevent sporterisation of equipment.
Now to adress previous posts. A bow tilered for safety to 32´´/100# and then drawn at 65#/26´´ not even is sluggish and incapable of shooting 3 oz arrow at the edge of 240 yrds, but its not capable of shooting even light 2 oz arrow at that distance.
A dedicated military professional would fare even better!
The treshold is exactly where it is -
90#/32´´ with good cast will do 240+ with standart (2 oz) arrow or 200 with 3 oz
110#/32´´ with normal cast will do around the same
I would by this discard the idea of shortdrawing and what we could read in previous post as nonsense.
In post azincourt era even better performance is required as plate armour is in play, some arrowheads are quite huge and bows around 125# seem to be the standart.
80#/28´´ bow is not capable of performance required by law even amongst commonfolk, much less military men and its only a warbow to todays people who arent able to do better and want romatic.
(Side note on snipers - a accuracy specialist such as "Black Will long" leader of dean forresters would indeed shoot a bow on low edge of the weight spectrum, but even he would be smirked upon if he wasnt able to reach a commonners standart of distance and I would expect such person to baby his bow rather lot.
J.
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Jaro, you have managed to discredit every bit of what I think may be correct. I realize you and some other, as well as myself, enjoy the history of bows but we all have to step back and take a long hard look at what the romance is and what is factual.It is documented fact that people were shorter in the fourteenth century and even up to the seventeenth century, contrary to what you stated.One only has to visit any museum and look at the armor worn in those days.I have seen actual clothes of the period and if didn't know better I would have thought it was made for a adolescent. People were mostly short.I like to keep things in context. What we would like things to be and what they actually are sometimes conflict. The heaviest bow at my draw that I could ever shoot decent was 80# and only for very few shots.I don't believe in supermen. There are none now and there wern't any during the days of the long bow. Very few men today can pull the weight bows that you would have us believe all archers shot in the days of the longbow. The romance and the facts just arn't the same. I also don't think the knights of the day faught fire breathing dragons! :)
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, but an arrow is only drawn to where the shaft ends (meets the socket of arrowhead). You dont pull it over the socket because it ultimatelly damages the bow much.
I like to keep my arrows the same length so i cut the shaft accordingly to fit the head,When i'm using a type 7 needle bodkin i still draw it back to the same place as when i'm using a type 1 head.My draw is 31" and my arrows are 32",i dont wear any type of glove on my bowhand and i havent found drawing over the socket to cause any damage to my bow,which has no arrow plate.
What type of damage does doing this with type 7's do to the Bow?
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Loki
Scratch and abrasion where forged metal runs over yew. There is quite a bow in england with silver penny glued over the scratched channel of the arrowpass.
Nevertheless, the post above implied that you can magically lenghten the drawlenght through drawing over the socket from some 28´´ to 32´´, which off course its not the case.
I didnt saw your bow and arrow, unless you post a picture how does the section looks like at full draw, we wont get anywhere.
On other hand I dont understand why somebody would cut the shafts too short (26´´-28) and then tried to lenghten them by means of arrowhead socket when oposite approach is better - having actually the shafts slightly overlenght gives better launch in case of unspinned military arrows.
MattE
"It is documented fact that people were shorter in the fourteenth century and even up to the seventeenth century, contrary to what you stated."
- no its a well known widespread misinformation. There is alot of oscilation in average height which corelates with some population dimnishing events, like black death or famines, but generally they were only slightly shorter than we and that even comparing with relativelly recent increase of average height. Depends on demographic chose of the sample. Yeomanry class was actually one of better grown people.
I can ask a friend of mine (shes genetic scientist) about the height of men in demographic area of longbowmen recruitment, if there is any record, but do expect average at least 177-8 cm. Average in 15. century over here does appear to be only slightly less than now. What we can read from complains of Ascham (or bischop Latimere) is actually that through famine and change of agriculture the overall physical fitness along with average height decreased in 16. century exactly corelating with decline of military use of heavy bow and its considered one of crucial factors.
"The heaviest bow at my draw that I could ever shoot decent was 80# and only for very few shots.I don't believe in supermen. There are none now and there wern't any during the days of the long bow. Very few men today can pull the weight bows that you would have us believe all archers shot in the days of the longbow."
- Well the fact that you cannot do that doesnt mean others cannot. You either are just weak as modern men are, or you dont have any grasp of proper technique for this kind of bows. They werent supermen, but they were required and were used to much higher physical strain daily than anybody today is used to. Every simple thing which makes your life simple and easy they did not have. If you wanted water, you have to get a wooden bucket go to the well, crank other bucket, carry yours back to the house etc... today you can acomplish all this by one simple move of hand.
They were tough as nails and they were required to get a bow and two arrows at age of 6 and start to practice by law.
J.
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Loki
Scratch and abrasion where forged metal runs over yew.
Ahhh,my bows not made from Yew (one day...) and now you mention it the arrow strike area of my bow is covered in dents ;D,but will this cause significant damage?
I like my dents,show's it's a well used Bow ;D.
Just measured this arrow and it sneaks in at 32.7" with a type 1 head,i need to get my draw back that extra inch!
(http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/5284/dfggdfgrl9.th.jpg) (http://img264.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dfggdfgrl9.jpg)
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I really hate, when somebody who does not even occupate himself with the thing enters the discussion and starts to post things he read in first Osprey book he could put hands on or worse on some of popular internet sites.
Things like "Longbow was machinegun of its age" - which they just take without thinking whatever the paralel really fits or why a british actor writing a book on longbow uses such a paraphrase. Or for change thinking about usage of machine gun (which is quite capable of aimed fire at individual targets.)
We should be criticall. We should admit that once dealing with a special field like e.g. science, everybodys voice just dont have the same weight.
This is not elitism in bad sense of the word.
Its normal.
A person which never shot a warbow, which didnt ever smithed bodkin or fired it upon hard target is ultimatelly less qualified than say Simon Stanley.
To "hear everybodys voice" is internet (e.g.wikipedia) dissease.
It hurts reall work or the research.
(But again nothing againts person which comes to educate himself- that is alright) .
Jaro
First of all Jaro you have no idea who the people are here on this board or what their background is. Many of the people here have been building bows and studying them for many years and have a load of background doing so. Second you have no idea what our backgrounds are and what type of reading we have done. So please keep your opinions of others to yourself! All of us here have come to talk and discuss this fascinating subject and learn how to make these bows with out being insulted or belittled. Some have no experience and would like to find out more about warbows and bows in general in a pollite, civilized and friendly environment. In the end you may have done some research and building of these bows but that does not make you an expert or the most knowledgable person on them. You may actually learn something from the others who participate on this site. I know I have!
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Ratty - are you that person who tried to impress me on english warbow forum with "english bows meeting their match against composite bows on crusades blabble"? (And eventuelly pissed me off enough to leave?)
Anyway - its nice you have posted that picture of arrowehads, but an arrow is only drawn to where the shaft ends (meets the socket of arrowhead). You dont pull it over the socket because it ultimatelly damages the bow much. Also I cannot see how an english arrow head could have 4´´ long paralel socket, which would lenghten 28´´ arrowshaft to drawable 32´´.
Think before you post anything.
Jaro
wow jaro WHY are you so rude? .and insist you are always right in the face of your own uncertain evidence?
all is speculation by you, and me,
and please stop insulting people.
ps. i do not believe you are the leading authority on the English warbow.
until this is proven i shall keep an open mind to what is correct and what isnt.
I know many bowyers with different opinions as to equipment found on the MR , but the main difference between you and them, is they can talk and discuss without insulting and forcing there opinions on eachother.
pps. im not posting this to start a fight. its my opinion and i think quite a few other people here.
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Yikes, a war is brewing here? I do hope not. PA is an awesome forum of kindred spirits, and I hope that spirit continues everywhere on the boards.
It seems to me there is a religion of sorts of true believers within the warbow subculture.
It also seems to me that to appreciate any kind of historic artifact, you have to understand as much as you can about the culture it came out of. In the case of medieval England, the driving force for most if not all of society's classes was Christianity in a time when Paganism was not far gone. The manorial system, the church, the free classes and those bound in service to the manorial system were one small facet of that world, and it is a world we can't possibly really put ourselves into, as much as we might try. We can only gaze through many centuries for glimmers.
And last, a war bow is a military weapon, and having been a soldier would help one understand the role of the common foot soldier a bit, no matter what period or culture he lived in. Not necessary to have fun with any style of bow, but a bit more to add to the appreciation of it all (and glimpse the horror of warfare, too).
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They werent supermen, but they were required and were used to much higher physical strain daily than anybody today is used to.
This is something I agree with. A life of hardship and poverty really toughens people. You can see this today if you travel to the developing world. The example that sticks in my mind are the people of Nepal who carry increadible weights on their backs, e.g. another person who is ill and needs to get to hospital. They carry these weights for days up and down those mountains.
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Hello All,
Here’s my input, please feel free to agree/disagree or ignore, as this is only what I believe.
1. Recurves. I like the point about recurves. Any one who has tillered a bow with one natural recurve knows that it would be much easier to artificially bend another in. The effectiveness of the design is well documented and works on two levels. It improves the f/d curve and allows the tips to be thinned thus reducing limb mass. Both improve cast. Burgundian archers used this type of bow and the English must have been aware of them. This may be what Ascham refers to ‘whipping’ the ends. Contemporary images of recurved bows are problematic as many are French in origin, but I think it’s safe to assume their existence in an Anglo-Welsh context. Here’s me drawing just such a bow with one natural recurve. Due to BL-BS regulations I left the stave unaltered but left to my own devises I would of added a recurve to the bottom limb. (I’m the follicly challenged one at the back!)
http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q280/yeomanbowman/Badminton1.jpg
2. Wood choice. That laminations add performance to a bow and make effective weapons is not in doubt. However, they were not used in a military context in medieval England, and for me it’s as simple as that. I know of ash backed yew bows in the Stuart period, but hand bows had been dropped from the arms of assize by many trained bands by then and the military use of hand bows in steep decline. As to the use of period wood it as deliberate anachronistic. I have made a 100Lb bow from ash purchased at a timber merchant that was very inexpensive. Premium yew is not readily accessible or cheap but so what? It’s not the only period choice. In 1360 William de Rothewell, the keeper of the Privy Wardrobe ordered: -
4062 pained bow (perhaps yew)
11303 white bows (lots of this stuff around)
However, in 1542 (due to the scarcity of good yew) a statute required that bowyers produce "for one bow of yew shall make four of elm, wych, hazel, ash or other wood apt for the same." The ratio had switched. To this list of period woods I would add laburnum, box and brasil (sic).
To paraphrase Josh, who summed it up well for me, laminated bows are nothing to be ashamed of but are not true recreations of warbows.
3. Draw weight. This is very important and here form follows function. A 15Lb bow could not be called a viable hunting weapon and a 60Lb bow could not be called an English warbow. Projecting a heavy missile over a long range cannot be done at a lower draw weight. 80Lb draw weight would be my minimum as anything below this would be ineffective for the intended use.
4. Bow section/profile. Many MR bow profiles are stacked, to a lesser or greater extent. However, the two heaviest are a radiused rectangle in section. Therefore, to me this section must be perfectly acceptable in any EWB definition.
5. Arrow length. Ascham talks of arrows that are too short being better than arrows that are too long, so he obviously did not like the idea of undrawn shafts sticking out past the back of a bow. This must reflect the received wisdom for the Tudor period. As the MR arrows fall in this time scale it would seem odd to assume 26” draw length as normal as most MR arrows are well over this length. The MR archers ranged from 5’7” to over 6’ and whilst I will accept that the King’s flagship had the crème it also indicates persons who were well capable of drawing the supplied arrows to the head.
This only my opinion and I have been called anally retentive 8) before on another forum, which was maybe their way of saying purist ;). To be honest I don’t really care as I can live with either. However, I am passionate about English warbows and their proud history. I believe in inclusively, but not at the expense of political correctness or ‘dumming down’ the original artefact so much as to be a meaningless shadow of what they should represent. English warbows do not have to be expensive but if you are drawing a 60Lb laminated bow to 26” then you are not shooting in the English warbow. I can’t run a marathon by don’t shorten it to 4 miles just so I can join in.
Jeremy
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Hello All,
Here’s my input, please feel free to agree/disagree or ignore, as this is only what I believe.
1. Recurves. I like the point about recurves. Any one who has tillered a bow with one natural recurve knows that it would be much easier to artificially bend another in. The effectiveness of the design is well documented and works on two levels. It improves the f/d curve and allows the tips to be thinned thus reducing limb mass. Both improve cast. Burgundian archers used this type of bow and the English must have been aware of them. This may be what Ascham refers to ‘whipping’ the ends. Contemporary images of recurved bows are problematic as many are French in origin, but I think it’s safe to assume their existence in an Anglo-Welsh context. Here’s me drawing just such a bow with one natural recurve. Due to BL-BS regulations I left the stave unaltered but left to my own devises I would of added a recurve to the bottom limb. (I’m the follicly challenged one at the back!)
http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q280/yeomanbowman/Badminton1.jpg
2. Wood choice. That laminations add performance to a bow and make effective weapons is not in doubt. However, they were not used in a military context in medieval England, and for me it’s as simple as that. I know of ash backed yew bows in the Stuart period, but hand bows had been dropped from the arms of assize by many trained bands by then and the military use of hand bows in steep decline. As to the use of period wood it as deliberate anachronistic. I have made a 100Lb bow from ash purchased at a timber merchant that was very inexpensive. Premium yew is not readily accessible or cheap but so what? It’s not the only period choice. In 1360 William de Rothewell, the keeper of the Privy Wardrobe ordered: -
4062 pained bow (perhaps yew)
11303 white bows (lots of this stuff around)
However, in 1542 (due to the scarcity of good yew) a statute required that bowyers produce "for one bow of yew shall make four of elm, wych, hazel, ash or other wood apt for the same." The ratio had switched. To this list of period woods I would add laburnum, box and brasil (sic).
To paraphrase Josh, who summed it up well for me, laminated bows are nothing to be ashamed of but are not true recreations of warbows.
3. Draw weight. This is very important and here form follows function. A 15Lb bow could not be called a viable hunting weapon and a 60Lb bow could not be called an English warbow. Projecting a heavy missile over a long range cannot be done at a lower draw weight. 80Lb draw weight would be my minimum as anything below this would be ineffective for the intended use.
4. Bow section/profile. Many MR bow profiles are stacked, to a lesser or greater extent. However, the two heaviest are a radiused rectangle in section. Therefore, to me this section must be perfectly acceptable in any EWB definition.
5. Arrow length. Ascham talks of arrows that are too short being better than arrows that are too long, so he obviously did not like the idea of undrawn shafts sticking out past the back of a bow. This must reflect the received wisdom for the Tudor period. As the MR arrows fall in this time scale it would seem odd to assume 26” draw length as normal as most MR arrows are well over this length. The MR archers ranged from 5’7” to over 6’ and whilst I will accept that the King’s flagship had the crème it also indicates persons who were well capable of drawing the supplied arrows to the head.
This only my opinion and I have been called anally retentive 8) before on another forum, which was maybe their way of saying purist ;). To be honest I don’t really care as I can live with either. However, I am passionate about English warbows and their proud history. I believe in inclusively, but not at the expense of political correctness or ‘dumming down’ the original artefact so much as to be a meaningless shadow of what they should represent. English warbows do not have to be expensive but if you are drawing a 60Lb laminated bow to 26” then you are not shooting in the English warbow. I can’t run a marathon by don’t shorten it to 4 miles just so I can join in.
Jeremy
i think i would agree with that. :)
nice post. ;)
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but if you are drawing a 60Lb laminated bow to 26” then you are not shooting in the English warbow.
What if your drawing a 75lb to 31" in a medieval style,ie,shooting in the Bow ;D.
You are right of course,a 75lb Bow is not a WarBow,i used to think it was untill i tried loosing a Livery arrow out of mine,Pffffttt,flat as a fart,i'll stick to my 11/32's :D.
I agree with you Jeremy but we have to start somewhere,man,i'd love a Italian Yew stave with all its beautiful character lumps and bumps, but £600 for a Bow i wont use next year is out of the question for me.I'm going to wait till i can pull 90lb all day before i invest in one of those killers,i'm on track with my progress up to now (no aches and pains anymore after a day of shooting) so hopefully i can start doing some worthwhile tests next year when i'm using a Real warBow,even if it is a light one,they need testing too :D.
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Jaro, this is a discusion, not a fight. You can let others know when they are wrong, but you don't have to wave your triumph in thier face.
That being said, and having seen at least one of your bows, along with the knowledge that you reveal in your posts, I still do hold your opinion in high regard. But calm down.
Sean
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A warbow is a warbow.
All we can do is try to make as good replications as possible. A 100 @ 32 yew isn't necessarily a better replication than a 70 @ 27 elm. I don't think it does any good to point out why your neighbour should not call her bow a warbow, unless she asks for it. After all the bow's just an interpretation of some level of the originals. So there are accurate and not so accurate replications, and it's a bit relative if you ask me.
Perhaps the best way is to say that the bow has been inspired by the original warbows, and then have a separate discussion on how the original warbows looked and felt like.
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Hi People, i thought you may all like to see some pictures of some of the real warbows of the MR.
In this pici i am holding one of the bigger bows.
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m163/stevesjem/e14dd783.jpg)
This one shows the same bow as before and my Italian replica.
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m163/stevesjem/50ffee77.jpg)
Here are some of the bowyers marks
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m163/stevesjem/Bowyersmark2.jpg)
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m163/stevesjem/BowyersMark.jpg)
And lastly a rack of history
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m163/stevesjem/f8f011e6.jpg)
Oh and some arrows
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m163/stevesjem/ArrowsandstevesReplica.jpg)
Cheers
Steve
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Jaraslov, buddy, please tone down the comments and try to resist making insults :)
I have a tremendous amount of respect for your knowledge about the english bow and have learned a great deal from you. Your knowledge is anchored in the reality of having actually built and used EWB's and so your opinion carries a lot of weight with me and others but you need to temper your passion for the craft with respect and tolerance of others who don't have your knowledge and experience.
Teach and educate. Allow room for debate and opinion and patiently educate people about the misinformation and myth that has been spread in various books and on the internet. I understand your frustration with inaccurate and unfounded statements but making insulting comments does not help to overturn those things and stop there perpetuation. It only turns people off from listening to you and learning.
All of your previous posts would have been just as valid and true without the insults and harshness and people would have been far more receptive to learning from you and thus breaking the cycle of misinformation.
Note to others here,
Cut Jaraslov some slack. English is not his native language and so some of his post/comments come across as rude when in fact he is not.
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Thanks for sharing!! That's so cool 8)
Are there any toolmarks that could tell of what kind of tools have been used?
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Hey Steve! Welcome to the site. Nice to see you found us here. That one bow your holding is massive. Do you happen to know an estimate of what the draw weight of that bow was? Cant believe how straight the grain is on that bow and the tight growth rings. Do you think it was Yew from a tree farm in the Itallian Alps cerca that time period? I can imagine some Italian out in the Alps going out and cutting sucker growth off the trunk of yew trees and lovingly caring for them untill harvest then selling them to a wine merchant who shipped them back to england with the wine he purchased. If only that bow could talk! ;D
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Are'nt all the Bows from the wreck made from Italian Yew?
The Mary Rose had 350 Archers on board when she went down,as the Bows found on the wreck were all locked up in chest's, can we take it then,that the surviving examples are spares?Surely the soldiers on deck would of been armed with there own gear,maybe even superior.
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I'm offline for a few hours and I miss all the action. A lot of great posts going on here.
Let me just say: if you have a personal message/grievance/vendetta--please use the personal message feature! There are more than a couple people crossing the line on this thread and I don't want to use all my time to clean up the language and tell people to cool it. If the rules are abused this forum will be closed by Primitive Archer. I would hate to see that happen!
On What a Warbow is:
As I have said before, the murkiness of history allows for some speculation and personal opinion but neither of those are worth getting militant about. It is true that English Warbows had very high degrees of standardization. Stacked sections, fairly consistant length, favored materials and tiller, specific mass placement/width and thickness tapers, high weights, long draws, universal nocks, etc. All I'm saying is, it's more specific than some posts let on. If you have another style of English Warbow that you know to be authentic--post with some solid iconic or textual evidence to show you've done your homework. That should keep unnecessary fights to a minimum.
I hope everyone has been enjoying this English Warbow forum as much as I have. There has been some fabulous information shared in this thread so far. This is quality debate--just keep the tone friendly.
Welcome Steve!
J. D. Duff
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JD, but isn't that a Mary Rose bow you describe rather than a english warbow? I'm sure you agree that the MR-bows are only the 1545 version of the english warbow. There has obviously been some development, so I think one can stretch the MR-specifications a bit when making a "english warbow", without being historically bankrupt.
Though I do agree that it is a bit sad to see the term stretched to linnen-backed red oak board bows :)
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Hey Steve! Welcome to the site. Nice to see you found us here. That one bow your holding is massive. Do you happen to know an estimate of what the draw weight of that bow was? Cant believe how straight the grain is on that bow and the tight growth rings. Do you think it was Yew from a tree farm in the Itallian Alps cerca that time period? I can imagine some Italian out in the Alps going out and cutting sucker growth off the trunk of yew trees and lovingly caring for them untill harvest then selling them to a wine merchant who shipped them back to england with the wine he purchased. If only that bow could talk! ;D
We can only estimate these draw weights, but in saying that a lot depends on the wood density, i personally beleive all the bows were of a similar weight and the fact that they are all different in dimensions suggests different density pieces of wood, after haveing a large number of replicas made from Italian yew, i can hazard a guess at between 130-150lb draw weight. Yes i do beleive it was a piece of farmed wood, either from Italy, Spain, Portugal or possibly carpathian.
For Kviljo... I have some other pictures of the belly of some of the bows which do show tooling marks, i would think from a "Float"., A Mary Rose bow is a warbow, there are no others that survive that we can examine, these are all we have to go on, so as far as i'm concerned the MR bows are warbows.
For Loki... No not all the wood was from Italy, some would have come from, Spain, Portugal or possibly carpathian. The bows in the chest were probably on board the ship in storage for overseas land battles, i would imagine only very few would have used on the deck on the ship, some were as when they were brought up from the bottom of the solent they were still in there brace shape.
Cheers
Steve
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Ahh,of course!
DOH! 350 armed Bowmen on the deck of a tudor WarShip,that will make a mess of the rigging ;D.
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Kviljo,
What I was saying was, if you believe you have a legitimate English Warbow that is different than the Mary Rose bows, prove that it is legitimate with textual evidence or historical artwork. We know that bows made to the Mary Rose specs are true English Warbows because the Mary Rose bows prove it. I am not interested in letting the definition of 'English Warbow' get totally watered-down by assuming that the English 'must have' used various styles of warbows. Speculation is worth nothing in historical research. We have more than the Mary Rose bows to show that the MR style warbow was standard in England. Iconic and textual evidence support it as well. People make the mistake of thinking the MR bows are the only evidence we have--that's not true.
I'm not saying the bows have to be Yew--we have lots of textual evidence that white woods were used.
J. D. Duff
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Steve:
Absolutely, MR bow are warbows, but warbows were probably more than MR bows. :) So I wouldn't use the warbow-term too strictly.
For MR-bows, I would suggest that we cant make the artefacts, so we would have to call them replicas. And that implies millimeter-accuracy. All others would just be inspired by the artefacts at some level.
What kind of tool is a float? If you got the time, I guess it's not just me who would love to see even more :)
JD:
I agree. All I'm suggesting is that the EWB has gone through some evolution, and that the MR-bows does not reflect all warbows that has been used by the english :)
So lenghtwise and powerwise and other minor variations should not be sneered upon as totally incorrect. That is if you call your bow a warbow, not a MR-bow.
I think we have seen some examples of white-wood bows beeing made with a similar width as the MR-bows, with quite substantial draw-weights, so I would definitely not suggest that for example flatbows have been used.
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I have to agree with Kviljo. We just dont know for certain what was used earlier in time. I believe weights had to progressivly increase with time. This would be the old armor vs projectile race. Better armor over time means heavier bows. So I dont think we should limit ourselves to draw weights as a determining factor in what constitutes a warbow. Things which probably varied over time, to culmination in the Mary Rose Warbows, were likly to be weight of draw, overall length of bow, length of draw, and handle placement being offset from center line or not. But I think the rounded belly and basic width of the bow and overall outline of the warbow would likly remain the same.
Overall the warbow is really a pretty simple design for a bow compared to others found arround the world. The same basic shape has been found throughout Europe, Africa and the Americas throughout time. Its quick to make when the wood is of high quality and straight of grain. Casts an arrow efficiently with long draw lengths. Because of its ease in manufacture it would be a bow easly mass produced to put in the hands of numerous archers about to head to war. Its simple, robust, uncomplicated and just plain fits the neads of the people who used them. I LIKE IT!!! ;D
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Well said J.D.
So based on actual evidence the basic design characteristics of an English War Bow would be the following?
1) Typically over 90# draw weight with many well over 100# being drawn 30" to 32"?
2) The bow bends throughout it's entire length?
3) It is typically a single stave but there are examples of backing being used?
4) Yew was the wood of choice but there were examples of other woods like elm being used?
5) The cross section was oval/rounded. Not a high stacked belly or a flat back right?
Help me nail this down. Bring facts and evidence to the table.
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Hi Marvin,
There is evidence of squarish section bows, these being arguably the heavier draw weights.
Due to character of staves some bows might not draw full compass being a little stiff in the handle
Not sure if any backed bows were found on the MR though they were certainly backed later due to lack of good wood
Cheers, Outcaste
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I think we may need to differentiate warbows into two classes. It seems that we know for certain what warbows looked like in later days from the finds on the Mary Rose. These I would designate Mary Rose Warbows. There are also those bows we speculate may have been built earlier. These I would call Possable Pre-Mary Rose Warbows. I still think limitting the weight of the bow to 90# and over is a bit pre-mature for the reason I stated in an earlier post. Increased draw weights were likly a result of increases in strength of armor. If we can match this against strength of armor over time back to the beginning of the use of warbows I bet we could draw a correlation to possible draw weights. Probably shaft size of arrows also increased over time. Its speculation but a good possibility.
David T
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D Tiller The major advantage of the bow is being able to kill the enemy before he can kill you. Archers stood very little chance against mounted knights at close range. If you have 3000 men comming after you, you DO NOT wait until they are close then try to kill them all before they close the distance. I would suggest that the weight was much more than armor penetration. If I can start killing at a greater distance, there is a better chance of me getting the enemy stopped before they get me. Furthermore, most of the guys they were shooting were on foot, and the armor was too dang heavy to wear while walking.
I would like to see other types of wood used. I plan to build an osage in the warbow style. It will be titled English warbow STYLE bow. I also think in the interest of not letting the art die lighter bows for guys who cannot draw 100 pounds should be posted. But it should be labeled 60# English Warbow Style LIGHT WEIGHT bow. You would not bring a pellet gun to a gun fight, so do not call it a warbow if it isn't. Justin
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Are we not getting a bit anal about this guys? I have two bows built to the M/R style, they are 100lb @ 32" and 105lb @ 32" they are laminates but they are to all intent and purpose warbow replicas, I cannot be arsed to keep calling them replicas, warbow style or any other politicaly correct name. I can't afford to chuck 650 notes on a real yew bow. So therefore these are as close as I get to a warbow. if that upsets anyone I'll gladly clear off. Btw to the person who made reference to firing arrows.... We don't, we shoot or loose 'em... if were being really anal :-* ;)
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JB.68 I agree totally. I'm with you on the money thing. I would love to fork out for yew but just cant do it right now. Have some lowdown on some Osage so may go and pick some of that up to turn into a warbow in the 80# range.
I too think any wood should be a go too. Lets not get too technical either. We are suposed to be having fun with this stuff not argueing over technicalities. Personally I'm out to really just enjoy the design and have fun. If you want to replicate the design to the T for scientific purposes go ahead and go for it. If not go for it too. I'm comming to the conclusion semantics will just force us appart and not together as this site is supposed to do. Maybe we should just mention if we are working to do a study or not. Seems good for me.
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I think it depends what you want;
If your aim is to experience shooting a warbow then laminate bows are ideal (being cheap)
If your aim is to have a acurate replica of a medieval warbow then you need a self bow etc.
btw - It seems a good way of knowing if your bow is a warbow is when archery clubs wont let you use it ;-)
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Well said J.D.
So based on actual evidence the basic design characteristics of an English War Bow would be the following?
1) Typically over 90# draw weight with many well over 100# being drawn 30" to 32"?
2) The bow bends throughout it's entire length?
3) It is typically a single stave but there are examples of backing being used?
4) Yew was the wood of choice but there were examples of other woods like elm being used?
5) The cross section was oval/rounded. Not a high stacked belly or a flat back right?
Help me nail this down. Bring facts and evidence to the table.
1) Yes. We can extrapolate weight from common traits of design and performance requirements. By the half of 14. century plate armour was availble to wealthier noble and plate parts to most of the nobility. By the end it was standart. Around 1450 it was common even for infantryman and lots of older italian and german armour sees infanterization. Expect 2 big leaps in technology. One is with the integration of bows into english military system, that would be first rapid increase of weight over short period of time, together with standartised usage of hornnocks. Since heavy hunting bow at the time was around 75#, think that around 100# has become normal for war. Mind you, there are older bows from the area more heavy than this. Second big leap probably occured by the time of Azincourt, where necessity of shooting against plate armour dictated further increase of arrow weight and also strenght of the bow. Reasonable quality armour of the time does resist anything under 125# and 3 oz arrow. (There was a troup of men at arms at azincourt marching through arrowstorm, but since that was probably 500 best armour sets on battlefield together with shields it cannot be looked upon as "standart".)
Its obvious that the bow can only develop to certain point as the limitations of human body and also requirements of training become unfeasable on larger scale. See paralel in Selbys stunning book "Chinese archery". I dont expect much improvement or increase of weight past wars of roses, by the time of MR the whole field was stagnating for some time. Arrow in naval warfare sees some development in 16. century. (Well if the bow is on its limits, you can only improve amunition)
2) There is many shapes recorded in contemporary pictography, though the extreme can be discarded as bad quality items. We shall not forget that they too were capable of making badly tilered bows. Full tilered bows do seem to be slightly shorter than the rest in Froissart chronicles. On MR bows the bend in middle portion happens only in last 3´´ of pull or some.
3) No backings since late 16. century. They probably laminated yew on yew when decent staves werent at hand at the end of 15. and there is written continental account of this. But we have no bows until 17. century. Two bows of yew backed with single ash and elm rings are in Archery hall in Edinburg.
4) Listed yes, but we dont have any of the bows. Me and my buddy make some respectable ash longbows in 100#+ range and they do not come to the same shape as MR bows and the wood has to be specially sellected. Elm for cheapo bows and Laburnum for expensive and flashy bow was wood of choice. I think that "Hazel" listed as wood for bows is etymological bogus. (Generated from "Wytch" - which is not wytch hazel, but wytch elm)
5) Yes. Mostly. I m sure we could find exception, but the staves were from small diameter logs, means they have been crowned and the edges were rounded. There is some variation of profile on MR bows from which the profile with small flat surfaces on sides of staves is most distinctive. The genesis of such profile during making of the bow is well known and described by Roy King in Hardy´s book.
J.
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Thanks Jaraslov!
Regarding #2
So the middle "handle" area of the bow would only show/feel movement as it approached full draw but appear stiff from brace and early draw stages?
#4 You mention that the ash EWB's you've made don't come to the same shape as the MR bows. Could you explain further. Are you refering to the tiller shape or the crosss setion?
#5 How wide are these flat areas on the sides? Do these flats exist mostly in the center section of the bow or do they exist the full length of the bows side?
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Thanks Jaraslov!
Regarding #2
So the middle "handle" area of the bow would only show/feel movement as it approached full draw but appear stiff from brace and early draw stages?
#4 You mention that the ash EWB's you've made don't come to the same shape as the MR bows. Could you explain further. Are you refering to the tiller shape or the crosss setion?
#5 How wide are these flat areas on the sides? Do these flats exist mostly in the center section of the bow or do they exist the full length of the bows side?
Marvin
#2 Exactly so
4# Ash good for such bow must be very dense, same as elm. Whatever we do, they come out too narrow and the tips have to be really narrow too. The tapers in width such as on MR bows dont work. Also theyare slightly flatbacked because good wood is in larger trees. You need ash with SG 0.85 and more. The same with elm.
#5 Not much. Around 4-6 mm and they only go through mid third of the bow as the profile gets more round to ends. Take a look at set of profiles scanned from Hardys book, they are around in this forum. One of them is the profile I m speaking about.
Jaro
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im lucky where i shoot im aloud to shoot any weight and style of bow ;D the only restriction i have is i cant shoot bodkins at targets for obvious reasons ;D
Hi there Ratty :-)
I am ok in my target club so far but I am not sure how my 120lb bow will go as its looking like its going to be a lot more powerful ?
My field club wont entertain the idea of a heavy bow
Apart from the occasional rove, I don't have anywhere else to shoot so if my target club stop me I am pretty much stuffed :-(
I really need to find someone with a big field who will let me use it ?
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On the subject of what is a warbow - It was mentioned on another forum a while back that current thinking on the Mary Rose bows was they were all made to be the same weight (i.e. 140lbs) but I have not seen any mention of this theory anywhere else, usually they are quoted as being between 80 and 180lbs
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4# Ash good for such bow must be very dense, same as elm. Whatever we do, they come out too narrow and the tips have to be really narrow too. The tapers in width such as on MR bows dont work. Also theyare slightly flatbacked because good wood is in larger trees. You need ash with SG 0.85 and more. The same with elm.
That's interesting :) I've sort of had the same experience. The problem, as I see it, is that the bow will be way too wide and thin at the grip to be comfortable, if you apply MR-width on ash. There are a couple of solutions I think, you could add leather, leave the center thicker and not bending as much as it's yew counterparts, or narrow the whole bow till it has a better width/thickness ratio. Adding some extra inches in lenght would allow for a thicker and narrower grip also.
But I'm not sure that mixing high draw-weight and too narrow, is a good thing with ash. After all stringfollow is an issue with these bows too.
This one is 37x32mm at the grip, 80" long, and 80-90 @ 32". As you see I left the grip as thick as possible without disturbing the tiller too much. After some 500 shots it has just under 2" stringfollow measured from the back. It has a front profile quite similar to MR-spec.
http://kviljo.no/bue/img_2804.jpg
Drawn:
http://kviljo.no/bue/92.jpg
It would be interesting to hear of other white-wood "warbows", and their dimensions. If we could find the best way to make a "warbow" from white-woods, I bet we wont be far from the ones used 500 years ago.
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Well said J.D.
So based on actual evidence the basic design characteristics of an English War Bow would be the following?
1) Typically over 90# draw weight with many well over 100# being drawn 30" to 32"?
2The bow bends throughout it's entire length?
3) It is typically a single stave but there are examples of backing being used?
4) Yew was the wood of choice but there were examples of other woods like elm being used?
5) The cross section was oval/rounded. Not a high stacked belly or a flat back right?
Help me nail this down. Bring facts and evidence to the table.
)
I think Jaro is right on the money with his observations/point. To this I would add...
1. Dave has an interesting point about whether earlier EWB’s were lower weight. The simple answer is we cannot be sure. However, to me it seems very unlikely that many sub 100Lb bows were at Crecy some 200 years before the Mary Rose sank. Bishop Lattimer, writing in 1549, lamented the decline in English archery.
"The art of shooting hath been in times past much esteemed in this realm. It is a gift of God that He hath given to us to excel all other nations." From his use of the past tense I infer that well shot heavy military longbows were less commonplace in Tudor times and certainly does not represent a zenith in strong shooting, in fact the contrary. I am convinced that it the MR archers we are looking at the crème yet still of a diminished gene pool.
3. If one asks 'What is "Warbow" then the simple historically based answer is laminates are ruled out. The English warbow should be a self-bow made from period woods. Staves do not need to be expensive and can be purchased in board form to make into a very serviceable bow, maybe not as fast as a laminate, but remember we are deliberately (and proudly) shooting an anachronism. There is evidence of backed warbows during their dying days, so I think these must be accepted, too. JB’s (Alan's?) point about laminates giving the experience of shooting in the heavy English bow is very valid and they are great for roving. However, I feel that what can be learnt in regards to how warbows performed in the past is limited. It's a bit like making historical amour out of titanium as it's corrosion-free, stronger and lighter. Yes, laminates gives the general feel but just keep in mind they should theoretically perform better than most Self-bows as the stresses of each facet of a bows section can be catered for.
5. A white wood bow will really benefit from a flatter belly. If we can work that out I'm sure as hell sure that medieval bowyers did too. Conjecture? Yes, but so is all theory as to white bow sections in the medieval period as we have no examples.
Again I would stress that these are my personal views and welcome the contributions of heavy laminate shooters and these points are to help define an EWB, not to exclude anyone. There are place to post any sort of primitive bow here anyway.
Cheers,
Jeremy
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This density is unlike any ash you have seen. Once it starts to sink in water its the wood. It has to be made narrow, due to mass, with different front taper than yew. They dont follow the string, we get around 1 - 1 1/2´´ of follow after some use.
Its all on bowyer.
Jaro
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Got any width/thickness measures? I've tried some high-stacked ash elbs, but none survived past the first 20 full draws ::)
I don't know the density of the ash in the bow I mentioned, but it has close to 1cm thick growthrings at least. And I really cant see how it would survive being much thicker without gaining too much stringfollow.
A close to flat belly is definitely a must though.
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Growthrings do not tell. You have to really measure density.
32 mmX28mm give easy 100# + . They do not seem to break. I adviced my friend to start with 35 mm width and bow was 140# + and he had to reduce width because we did not have anybody able to draw it.
I made one 74´´ / 75# last week it was only 30 mm wide and not even close to that dense material we use for heavy bows.
Jaro
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Jaro how about yew backed with hickery does that count as a warbow.I know that pip builds them that way? marlon
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All right, referring to a point brought up earlier, I would say that if there are any variations (wood, size, draw length, or draw weight) the bow should be considered just a English style bow, not an actual English war bow. Would you agree?
And I really want to know exactly what a longbow is, would it be simply a d-cross sectioned, bending in the handle bow or what?
Sean
*edit other than ash and elm, which have been proven to have been used.
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I'll say this about the ash that Jaro is using. I got some ash arrow shafts from Jaro last year that are heavier, tighter grained and spine way higher than the best ash I have ever found in the States. I really think that Eastern European ash may be better than anything we have here, at least better than anything I've ever seen.
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Growthrings do not tell. You have to really measure density.
32 mmX28mm give easy 100# +
Jaro
Alright :) Must be a bit denser than the wood I've tried. Pretty hefty! I'll have to measure some pieces.
I've got a 76" 30x25mm which is only 45 pounds. It has a way too round belly though. 3" stringfollow ::)
Then the question arises: what density ash and elm was in England 500 years ago?
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Since eastern england is basically covered with this stuff, they could go through many pieces of wood to sellect a good one.
Jaro
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Since eastern england is basically covered with this stuff, they could go through many pieces of wood to sellect a good one.
Jaro
This was one of the points I make on the old warbow forum - ash is so common in the UK, I'd be surprised if they didn't have enough to make flatbows. Although I appreciate we have no evidence of them.
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The problem with flatbows is that they are much more time-consuming to make than narrow longbows.
Which is the youngest flatbow in Europe anyway?
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The problem with flatbows is that they are much more time-consuming to make than narrow longbows.
Which is the youngest flatbow in Europe anyway?
Good point kviljo ... probably very old. I think Bagskytt was saying that the Hedeby or Nydham bows included one of a white wood and it was narrow.
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Only one of Hedeby bows is of elm and its flatter than the rest.
J.
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Yep, the one of elm from Hedeby has the same design as the rest from yew.
It is thinner, but has the same width as the ones from yew. Well, actually the thickness isn't that different - it is thicker than one of the six yew bows.
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I wonder if there could be a cultural element? i.e. that the 'European bow' of the time was the narrow stacked longbow. Just like the different tribes in America had different styles.
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HHB will make a good war bow as well
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Marc,
I was thinking the same about crabapple and a couple other woods. Oregon crabapple sinks like a rock in water and it doesn't follow the string. My OC bow is 69" ntn and 1 1/2" wide and it draws 95-100# at 30" and I've drawn it many times at that length or longer. It still has zero string follow. The tiller is too stiff in the tips for a warbow but I was only tillering it for my 27" draw. In hindsite it's way overbuilt for how strong OC is. I just didn't know it at the time. I'm going to try a narrower/longer design soon.
(This is not a warbow. I am posting this as a suggestion for another whitewood capable of being made into the warbow design).
J. D. Duff
(http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q35/duffontap/th_P1010012-1.jpg) (http://s132.photobucket.com/albums/q35/duffontap/?action=view¤t=P1010012-1.flv)
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Actually I think the woods are irrelevant - If the materials were available to medieval bowyers , they would have used em and that means that any wood that can make a 'warbow' should be fair game. There are other reasons for adopting this approach e.g good bow woods can be hard to find and confining archers to 'hard to get' materials simply excludes many people. Another problem with sticking to the 'self yew' only argument is the liklihood that the genuine yew medival warbow was designed as a short life item which was only expected to provide top performance for perhaps 1 battle - perhaps less. That would make it veeeery expensive to run a 'I only use yew' philosophy. So, crab apple, osage, backed yew, multi laminates - why not?
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Interesting points Chris,
Welcome to the forum :)
Do you think that the expendable nature of the warbow was due to archers hastily discarding ranged weapons (IE the bow) when they closed with the enemy in hand-to-hand combat? Or an apparent lack of longevity inherently in yew wood? If the latter it's not a conclusion my personal experience has led me to believe, if well looked after. Throwing a yew bow on the floor it the heart of a medieval would, however, considerably shorten its life. What is the evidence that leads you to think that yew warbows would last less than a single battle? Contemporary legislation was very tough on sub-standard workmanship and materials. Bowyers were prohibited from working after dark on pain of high fines and stringers had to suffer the the punishment of hemp strings burnt under their nose for shoddiness.
The historical validity of white woods is well documented and covered thoroughly in this thread already, so I will not reiterate (and backed yew for that matter).
The "They would have used it if available" argument really boils down to a point of view in the end. I suppose it can be used to justify just about anything but what we do have a good idea of is what the English warbow really was in history.
Cheers,
Jeremy
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I would think a good Yew bow would last through a rather long campain--even a couple of years. I'm not sure by any means. Has anyone read anything on the longevity of warbows?
A Yew hunting bow of 90#s could last 20-30 years (or more) of hunting if it was properly cared for. I don't know why warbows would be discarded so quickly as every battle.
J. D. Duff
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I'm still of the opinnion that you should build and use what you like. If you are trying to exactly duplicate a warbow of the erra then you need to use one of the woods used back then. If you just want a bow to shoot then make it of any material you like and have fun. In my book if it follows that same design of a warbow from the erra its a warbow but not an exact replica of the originals.
Have fun with it and enjoy the sport!
David T
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Well, with regards to the short lifespan of a yew bow - there are several skeins of 'evidence' to draw on.
The first is simply to look at the sheer numbers of yew staves imported to England during the period.There are details of quite literally millions of staves imported by a single Hanse merchant family over a twenty year period. When you consider that the bow using population wasn't exactly that big and that there were incredible numbers of staves being imported, it tends to lead to the conclusion that they didn't last all that long.
Secondly, bows having a short life makes perfect sense in the context of fixing the price of bows at very affordable levels. If they lasted ages, it woyldn't have been deemed so necessary. If people needed to replace them often - especially being poorer folk, you'd have to fix the price.
Finally, I own a couple of these things. One of them starts the day at 86lb at 30 inches and very quickly loses weight after a few shots. Given the nature of softwoods, that can be expected to be the pattern with any self yew bow of high draw weight after a fairly short time. I know it offends the egos of those who use very high weight bows, but the fact is that most will have lost a good percentage of weight at the end of a days shooting and that tendency will worsen as weight goes up and the wood is stressed more and also as the age of the bow goes up.
Yes I do think that archers discarded bows in the hand to hand phase, and maybe tied a dagger to them to improvise a pig sticker. But thats only guessing.
J.D. - yes indeed - what was a warbow? For example, I've never heard of anyone using a hemp or linen string of 1/8in diameter in a 110lb plus bow - but then I'm one of those sceptics who reckons that they were a lot lighter than some think.
ChrisD
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Chris,
Some very good points. One thing you have to deal with on the 'lower weight' position is that bows like mine are made from inferior Yew and are smaller than the Mary Rose bows and yet have draw weights of 110#s or more. I haven't yet seen a war bow made similar to the Mary Rose specs out of quality Yew that hasn't come out well over 100#s.
As for the 'natural strings are too weak' theory that Pip proposes, there are people right now using linen strings on 120# bows without problems. A 1/8" string is larger than it needs to be for adequate strength from what I've been hearing. Pip put out a book saying natural strings weren't strong enough for bows much over 100#s and all of a sudden people start testing his theory and finding linen plenty strong enough for heavy bows.
As for a bow droping weight, I weigh my bows after they've been warmed up. All wood bows will draw a little heavier cold so we expect that. If your bow lost a pound of draw weight every time you shot it--that would be a problem but I haven't experienced that with any of my yew bows.
J. D. Duff
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Secondly, bows having a short life makes perfect sense in the context of fixing the price of bows at very affordable levels. If they lasted ages, it woyldn't have been deemed so necessary. If people needed to replace them often - especially being poorer folk, you'd have to fix the price.
Yew bows were expendable, yes. Back then, so were bowmen.
I don't think they were as widely spread and easy to come by as all that. The crown stockpiled huge numbers for military use. However, as you know, there were also edicts issued to preserve a precious resource. At times bowyers were commanded to make more whitewood bows than those of yew and youths (unless noble born) were also prohibited from having yew bows.
J
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JD- Those bow strings of linnen and hemp where they made from reverse twist all the way like a rope or like a modern flemish string with one loop on one end and then the strands twisted tight?
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We use linen strings on bows 100# all the time. My buddy just made heavy bow 105#, it casts standart arrow 245 yrds or slightly more (glued bow) and he has linen string on it. He is also shooting rather alot, but linen string on his 100# "nuclear ash" single staev bow, which shoots around 220 yrds with standart holds since christmas and there is not significant wear apart of whipping, which can be repaired regulary.
If a bow loses weight significantly over period of shooting its badly done and not worth a dime.
The theory of "lighter than most people think" does colide head on with historical shot record, especially with recorded distances in Tudor archery and with weight of arrows which is known.
Again - well known law of Henry VIII. says something like this: "Item that no man shoots flighting or prickling arrow at any mark shorter than 240 yrds" (Reworded, exactly in Hugh Soar "Of bowmen and battles") which does not mean that they did not shot any shorter ranges, but heavy military arrow was required for them and that means 3-4 oz. Shooting light 2 oz arrow which is more appropriate for a bow of say 80# was only permited at marks longer than 240 yrds (which on the other hand is not doable with 2 oz arrow and 75-80#.
Later 1542 act says that a man over 24 years of age shall not shoot any marks shorter than 220 yrds. (Hardy+Strickland)
This is all clearly intended to preserve older tradition of shooting heavy bows and its not well doeable with 75# or similar weight.
Also the price of bows, particulary in comparition to archer day pay or even more stricking - to a craftsman day pay, is rather high and that shows it was not thow away item. I dont know what do you mean by "bows being short lived", but surelly a good bow has decent longevity and it can have 100 000 arows through it and still shoot reasonably. Military campaign was hard, but if your life depended on the weapon, sure you would pamper it?
There is zero evidence of archers using longbow with tied on dagger, I think its pure nonsense, they were relativelly well armed after all and no list of secondary archer weapons mentions such a provisorium.
Bows were eventually laid aside in "hand on phassis", but that does not mean they were not collected after that and also the english battle logistic was efficient in every point. Long marching campaigns in France did not often allowed for resupply even if arranged for.
You stress well "if it was availble to them" point. But even further - exotic woods became little more widelly imported perhaps at the end of 16. century when military archery was declined.
So self yew, self elm, self ash, perhaps yew backed yew is alright (as laminating yew on yew) does seem to start exactly the mment when good staves became scarce in 16. century. But there is no single such bow. (There is one from 17. and one from 18 century in archery hall in edinburg. (And these are lighter weapons of scotish origins made of yew backed with ash.)
Howewer there is zero evidence aside of ascham lamentation on pieced bows, by which he does thinks a repair of bad stave (such as scarf joint repair on one of MR bows.) There is written account of laminating bows from early 16. century, but that is continental, not english.
I cannot think of reason why a multilaminate out of exotic hardwoods or osage shall be called warbow, since its not one. Actually if made to originall shape, taper, tiler and measuremenst it does not work. These must be made different way.
J.
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So self yew, self elm, self ash, perhaps yew backed yew is alright (as laminating yew on yew) does seem to start exactly the mment when good staves became scarce in 16. century.
J.
Jaro, I appreciate your pure English Warbow philosophy. But like you said it began at the moment when good staves became scarce. For most of us they are not only scarce, but non existant. Should we deny the existence of them and not read about them or try to make them because we cannot get the wood?
I don't want to get nit picky, but I think it is ironic that you want to keep the English Warbow pure. You get upset when others call them warbows and they don't comply to English Warbow standards, but you keep referring to it as Warbow. There are other bows are Warbows that are not English Warbows. If you feel the need to keep it to pure English Warbow production, you should take the time to call them English Warbows, or lighten up on others not using exact terminology or dimensions or wood. Justin
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Build what you like call it what you like. Are we not here first and foremost to enjoy the building and shooting of bows designed like those of old? Have fun and enjoy it!
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Ok, anybody here actually intending to go into battle with their bow? If not, it aint a warbow, it's a replica warbow, whether it's yew or laminated.
I have to agree with Mr Tiller just make 'em and enjoy 'em. ;)
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In all fairness, we all enjoy the subject of English Warbows, but there is a big difference in the degree of personal investment from member to member. Some of us want to 'build 'em and enjoy 'em,' and others will invest years of their lives researching and recording data. If Jaro, or Stratton, or Stretton don't want to take a carefree 'whatever' attitude toward this subject like Dave or others want to, perhaps that's because their personal involvement goes far beyond 'hobby.'
J. D. Duff
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Yep! JD obsession is also a form of enjoyment. Research is enjoyment. Finding the little things that make em tick. Its still enjoyment of our shared hobby. No matter what we build its still a replica anyways and for fun. If you and I did not enjoy what we are doing we would not be doing it.
Warbow is still just a bent stick when you get down to it. ;D
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Well, well. You can build these and get tudor prescribed distances with ash single stave you know...(or elm), I did.
Rod once said " call it Ginger or Mabel but that wont make it the thing".
If we call it "warbow" it shall be tha thing. Its the same for "english longbow" - it should not have flat limbs and handle with arrow rest you know. But we see them here and there on forums, and their maker are adamant as "they like it so".
Since no prescription of drawweight was left behind a 75# can be called warbow by some, but they should take 3oz arrow and shoot it in field and re evalute their position. This is not about drawweight wanking, but there is certain level of performance required. These bows were made to kill armored men over long distance after all.
If this is to be a worthwhile activity, it should not be watered down.
J.
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As a poiint of information, I believe it was Richard Galway who led the way in the rekindling of interest in shooting the heavy bow.
But when in Prague or on the internet... :-)
Restricting follks to a well got up yew stave is both foolish and un-necessary. Admittedly yew is the pre-eminent wood for this type of bow but back in the day they would not have shrunk from using a substitute if necessary and of these wych elm was probably prefered but ash far easier to obtain in a straight stave of suitable dimensions.
My great uncle was fond of laburnum and rowan, but then he was shooting the Scottish "drovers bow".
But if you do not put a date to your ideal of the English longbow, then you will be looking at anything from a high end hunting weight upwards, depending upon your chosen period.
Rod
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I asked my friend for a picture of his ash 105# single stave bow. Wait a while I post it, so youll see what can be done with it.
Jaro
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Some of us are playing and some of us are researching,but none of us are killing people (i hope!).I appreciate the time and effort some people put into these weapons,the research they do is telling us of the ability's of the Yew Fence of England,which is very important and a worthwhile thing to do.Whats been wrote about the Bows in the past is not necessarily (sp?) correct today,the work Jaro,Steve,JD,Yeoman,Glennan and co do is helping us all understand the capability's of the Bows and what the Archers achieved,i can underestand why they get angry with us but sometimes they'll come to different conclusions than each other ???.
Its important to use historically accurate materials and dimensions for research purposes but some of us just enjoying shooting Bows in a way our ancestors did,the style's important to me not the poundage,i shoot a laminate because its all whats available to me,its 75lb because i'm a skinny little dog ;D but hell!i like it and I know its not a real WarBow,livery arrows are far too heavy for it and me ;).
I'm not a bowyer so knocking a Bow up out of the 'lesser' woods isnt a option for me and i'm not rich i'm afraid so getting a Italian Self Yew from Steve will have to wait till i'm sure it wont be a waist of cash (i'd hate for it to end up a wall hanger!).
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Here is the bow in question.
(http://sweb.cz/hawkwind/ashbow105.JPG)
Its 100#/31´´ (or it was). When we shot it, Rob eventuelly got something like 230 yrds with it, while I got only around 5 more with old Marc bow made of hornbeam.
As you can see the shape is nowhere to the yew bow. Its quite narrow, thin, the tips and the last 1/3 of limbs are made to be light as possible. It also works well if made relatively short, I think this bow is just about 73´´ long.
My shooting buddy does not care about character, only about the density of material, so most of his bows look like this.
I have couple of staves of the same ash, some of them prefectly straight.
The two big waves past and down handle make me think of MR "black bow" with its banana shaped mid section. (Must have been somebodys favorite bow, brought from home.)
Jaro
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In all fairness, we all enjoy the subject of English Warbows, but there is a big difference in the degree of personal investment from member to member. Some of us want to 'build 'em and enjoy 'em,' and others will invest years of their lives researching and recording data. If Jaro, or Stratton, or Stretton don't want to take a carefree 'whatever' attitude toward this subject like Dave or others want to, perhaps that's because their personal involvement goes far beyond 'hobby.'
J. D. Duff
Hmm I guess that was back at me.. ;) JD I'm with you there, that is what I'm saying, but when someone comes on and says that "this is and that isn't" I find that it is more likely to put off the people who are here to find out stuff, due to the fact that they feel excluded. I'm aware that there must be a definition of what a warbow was and that there are people who shoot replicas of these and that there are others like myself who shoot laminated replicas.
Please don't for a minute think that this is just a hobby to me, I have been shooting for about 7 years now, longbow for the last three and now warbow (sorry laminated replica warbow :P ) for about 6 weeks. I shoot at least twice a week, sometimes three (work permitting) I have under Steve's guidance made a bow and intend to make more.
I got into shooting from a historical point of view and have read a lot of stuff but there are still people here who know much much more than I do or probably ever will know I respect them alot for that, so if my post seemed to imply that I didn't then I'm sorry but all I'm saying is are we not (for the purposes of this forum) getting too hung up on a name?
Anyway I'm off shooting now, while it's still sunny. ;D
All the best
jb
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jb.68,
Not just at you. I was trying to address the fact that we have different degrees of interest and differences in purpose. Jaro is an example of someone who wants to help beginners understand precisely what an English Warbow was--be it Yew, Ash, or Elm. Jaro also makes some fine laminated bows but he is careful not to call them authentic replicas. He is not telling people they can't have fun or shoot laminated bows--he is trying to promote good understanding and an accurate definition of the warbow.
I think every one of us would be building and shooting 150# Italian Yew replicas if we had the time, money and ability. We all know what the ultimate would be. Most of us are using inferior Yew, white woods or laminates and that's fine. But there is a difference between a sport that has descended from Medieval warbows and historical research and replication.
Three proposed categories:
1. Historical Replica Warbows: Yew, Ash and Elm bows with MR type sections, horn nocked (side-nocks being the most accurate) and capable of reaching perscribed minimum distances with replica arrows.
2. Historically-Styled Warbows: Warbows of any wood or combination of laminates that meets the above criteria.
3. Recreational/Sporting Warbow: Bearing some strong similarities to authentic replicas (section, tiller, length, etc.) but made of any materials and to any weight with no performance requirements.
J. D. Duff
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Hmmm. Don't discussions move along fast when you go away for a few hours - like to bed and then to work? Must be the different timezones.
Now where was I.
Oh yes - turning a bow into a pike. Well I know I've never seen any evidence of that either - but I'm mindful that absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. I only threw it in as an idle thought.
Re the linen strings - reading between the lines, it doesn't look like you've seen one either J.D. Of course we all hear about things such as Glennans 120lb bow with a broken string which might well have been linen and is the kind of happening I'm thinking of. I certainly won't be using a linen string on any replica bow of mine in a hurry and I shall be surprised if I see any anytime soon. Having said that, my compliments to anybody who can make a linen string work for a long time with a big bow for any amount of time and I look forward to seeing it for myself. I won't speak for Pip - he's a good correspondent and his e-mail is on line anyway - but his approach is very much that of a materials scientist and is worthy of serious consideration
As for the longevity of bows - I've spoken to people who reckon a yew self bow is can be 'shot out' after about 600 shots. Even Hardy quoted about 4000 shots in his original book and my lighter yew bow was shot out after less than a 1000. Thats not to say it doesn't work - its great and its reached a stable level of performance and I love shooting in it. I got 190yd with a 1000grain arrow today for example - but its only about 75lb at 30 inches these days after warming up and it started life at 90 (the arrow is 33inches long btw). I'm afraid just don't buy the idea of 100000 shots out of any wooden self bow without deterioration in performance.
On stockpiling of bows and prices I have a couple of comments. Huge numbers of staves were imported to a country with a pretty small population by todays standards and likely demographics favouring high numbers of children who never made it to adulthood and of course lots of people who never became archers as well those who did having to be encouraged to practice. Archer armies were always hard to raise and maintain. That means that the actual numbers of bows in use at any one time would have been a fraction of what was being imported ergo they didn't last long. If you argue the stockpiling route - it means they needed to be stockpiled because they didn't last long in battle. Either way, it looks more like they got 'shot out' pretty smartly unless you go for a more modest drawweight with a little less stress. Then they'd last longer. For sure J.D your shorter bows are a good draweight - but then they would be being shorter and the Mary Rose bows tend towards the 80inch mark. On cost a bows price was held at between 1/2 a week and a weeks pay for an archer depending on the type of bow. Not too pricey given you could get docked that for minor offences.
Final point. We love to say that these things were designed to kill armoured men at long distance. I suppose that must explain why sooo many survived to be pummelled to death in the hand to hand phase at Agincourt or captured and then slaughtered in a massacre. The bottom line is that there were lighter arrows and heavier arrows with the lighter ones used at longer distance for causing chaos, killing lighter armed combatants and causing havoc with horses. The heavier ones would have been used at shorter distances. Now given that a Mary Rose replica arrow with a short type 10 on it weighs in at maybe 2 1/2 oz, its safe to say that you could get that to 200yd with a reasonably light bow (by the standards of some opinions - it'd still be about 100lb at 32 ins). We don't even know what kind of fletchings were used but you can bet they would have been aerodynamically efficient. I also know about discouragement of shooting at less than 220yds etc etc King Henry VIII blah blah blah. Well who said anybody practiced with war arrows? I don't - I shoot 230-240yds too - mostly to addle the brains of my club colleagues - but with lighter arrows.
All that brings me to the point I'm trying to make - which is that the idea of the 'chainmail penetration test' employing minimums is a really good one and is the way to go.
ChrisD
PS I know I'm being a heretic here - it just happens to be what I think.
PPS JB is right, it should be about enjoyment chiefly
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Just to change the topic very slightly - does anyone know if there are warbows in Native American culture? If so, what were the draw weights?
Or are they one and the same as hunting bows?
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Point by point
"but I'm mindful that absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence"
- absence of evidence is evidence of absence in any sort of serious research.
"but his approach is very much that of a materials scientist and is worthy of serious consideration"
- well well, he also writes about tests he conducted with Steve Stratton in his new book. Ask Steve about it.
"On cost a bows price was held at between 1/2 a week and a weeks pay for an archer depending on the type of bow."
3s 4d = 40 s is indeed about weeks pay of an archer, but a 30 - 40 day pay for a craftsman. As obvious that the person must have been also living of something sparring money for new bow wont be a matter of week (Thinking about perhaps average archer being able to spare like 1s a week, if carefull. A craftsman living in england would probably have cheap bow for law enforced practice, but again definitelly not throw away item.
"We don't even know what kind of fletchings were used but you can bet they would have been aerodynamically efficient"
-WE have several depictions of tudor arrows on e.g. coat of arms of Arthur Tudor (Henry VII older brother), or on older painting by Rogier van der Weyden "man with an arrow (man in black turban) from 1480´which is best depiction of war arrow in heavy style ever drawn and known contemporary portrait of Henry tudor hodling big tudor arrrow."
Anyway there is specific way to cut a goose feather along greaseline which produces very distinctive, nearly, but only nearly triangular shape, which is the shape on all these sources. Where they differ is rear part as some are forktailed and some are not. On the other hand there is equilibrium between weight of an arrow and surface of fletching needed for reasonable flight. Heavy arrow with too little of fletch wont be going nearly as far as the "proper" one.
" I've spoken to people who reckon a yew self bow is can be 'shot out' after about 600 shots"
-Well that is incredibly sh---y bow then. I wouldnt care about bow like that. I m making them and I have seen good ones in alpine yew. They dont loose any much vigor after several thousand arrows. Its plain nonsense to anyone familiar with these. Original Hardy´s book is 30 years old. Research did progressed since then. We should understand what is with bow when its "shot in", which happens after few hundred arrows and when its "shot out" - means unusable. Just take a look at Aschams comentary about shooting in and customising bows in "Toxophilus".
"Mary Rose bows tend towards the 80inch mark"
- common misconception. I charted all the bows in MR trust electronic archive. Only few is 80´´ and more (like 12 percent) and few others (Only 9 bows from 139) is under 74´´. Majority is between 75-78´´. Such a bow fitted with 2´´ hornnocks on each end (lets say the groove will be 1´´ from edge of horn) and braced is how long? Go figure.
" I also know about discouragement of shooting at less than 220yds etc etc King Henry VIII blah blah blah. Well who said anybody practiced with war arrows? I don't - I shoot 230-240yds too - mostly to addle the brains of my club colleagues - but with lighter arrows."
If you happen to actually read my post youll notice there was ACT passed which prohibited shooting "flighting or prickling" arows at any distance shorter than..etc etc. As much as other ACT which enforced men over 24 years of age to shoot at marks over 220 yrds. This is not encouragement. Its LAW passed by tyrant who was known for choleric atacks of violence and execution orders right and left. A substantial penalty was to be paid in cash if you werent able to uphold these rules on regular enforced practice sessions.
Its not about heretism. The research of many people who make these bows and shoot them is head on contrary of what you say. Hence backing by some better arguments is needed.
Jaro
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A craftsman living in england would probably have cheap bow for law enforced practice, but again definitelly not throw away item.
I wonder if some very poor people made the practice bows themselves out of a common wood such as ash? Or at least got a local carpenter to make one?
How to we know that the official price of a bow in the records isn't referring to a high quality bow for the army's use?
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Re the linen strings - reading between the lines, it doesn't look like you've seen one either J.D. Of course we all hear about things such as Glennans 120lb bow with a broken string which might well have been linen and is the kind of happening I'm thinking of. I certainly won't be using a linen string on any replica bow of mine in a hurry and I shall be surprised if I see any anytime soon.
I really appreciate a lot of what Pip has to say, but you have to remember that his test of the 'string theory' consisted of shooting a 65# bow with a linen string for a few weeks and then guessing how long such a string would last on a 100# bow. That is not a rigorous, scientific methodology. Pip has been very helpful to me and I enjoy corresponding with him, too, but I don't think he did enough research before he published his string theory because people like Glennan and Jaro are shooting 100#+ bows with linen strings and finding them quite suitable. I have no reason to doubt that what either of them are saying is true--but I have not seen these bows and strings in person.
J. D. Duff
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Just to change the topic very slightly - does anyone know if there are warbows in Native American culture? If so, what were the draw weights?
Or are they one and the same as hunting bows?
Yes there were warbows in Native American Culture. The hunting bows were usually fairly light, while the warbows were usually a lot heavier. English warbows are considered to be the heaviest of all warbows. Many of the Native American Warbows were longbows. I'm not going to pass along the particulars about weight until I go back and read what they were again. ;) Justin
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Hmmm............thats interessting Justin. I would be interested to know what tribes and where your information comes from, anthropologists, direct source material, etc. ;D........bob
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Bob,The Caloosa's at the time of DeSota were recorded as shooting bows in the 90 to 120# weight.The Caloosa's average height was 6' tall.
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Simon, there is alot of research about price of the bows and price of excellent quality foreign yew bow, english yew (about half or one third of the said) and also elm or other wood bows is known. There are still records and paychecks which along the money describe preciselly nature of product bought.
Jaro
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Ishi's hunting bows were three fingers and his war bows were four fingers. Add 1/3 to 45# and you get 60#. Not method that's exactly guaranteed to be accurate though.
Al Herin says Cherokee war bows were about 70#.
J. D. Duff
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For sure J.D your shorter bows are a good draweight - but then they would be being shorter and the Mary Rose bows tend towards the 80inch mark.
My bow is about 1/2" under average length. I purposely made it as close to average as I could.
J. D. Duff
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Most of my info comes from encyclopedias. I read that the Cherokee war bows were longbows and could be as much as 80-90 pounds. After reflection, I know that the statement in the encyclopedia about Native American warbows being heavier than their hunting bows must be somewhat flawed. We know that they used sinew backed high weight short bows for hunting from horseback. Some of these bows were reportedly 90# or more. That would make the 70# warbow lighter than the 90# hunting bow. ??? Oh well, not the first time I have read something in a book that was flawed. :-\ Justin
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Oh well, not the first time I have read something in a book that was flawed. :-\ Justin
Well, at least this is the internet. You know anything you read here is true. ;)
J. D. Duff
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Oh well, not the first time I have read something in a book that was flawed. :-\ Justin
Well, at least this is the internet. You know anything you read here is true. ;)
J. D. Duff
;) ;D ;D ;D;) :'(
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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.
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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.
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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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J.D
Wellk, as you say, ther are very trenchent views on this topic. I'm well prepared to change mine - but only if someone comes up with a hypothesis that fits all the facts - and not just the ones people like to concentrate on. Let me explain what I mean by answering your questions.
I agree that the replications made out of high altitude yew come out at 120-160lb. The problem is that we don't actually know that all of the Mary Rose bows were made of high altitude yew (which I know would have been the favoured material). All we really know is that some are big, some are slim and a few are monstrously huge. The sizes lead to the original guesstimate of 80-180lb which is widely quoted. Now I think that range is just plain silliness - its too big for a set of tools designed to do a standardised thing. Balanced against that, you have to look at the bows we do have made of similar and different yews. I have two high altitude alpine bows for example. One is slim, 1m95 between the nocks and c12cm girth in the centre and used to be 90lb at 30 inches. Another looks very big, swiss yew and 100lb at 30 ins. (about 2m5 between the nocks and c14.5cm at the girth). Significantly different looking bows, not too different starting weights and both bigger than either of the MR bows I've seen and one of them bigger than an oregon yew replica I've seen. Then we come to Glennans bow made by Don Adams (Ireland) photographed and described on the old warbow site. That thing is massive by all accounts and I'd be interested to hear how it shapes up measurement wise against the biggest MR bow. It still 'only' came out at 120lb though and just a 10% drop over a few shots would bring it into the range which I expect the majority of warbows would have occupied.
So you see wher I'm coming from here. The range in sizes of the MR bows can't be explained by saying the smaller ones were made of lower quality wood and the bigger ones of better - which is what the modern replications you've talked about have actually gone and done - and nor can it be explained by saying that they are all of the same quality wood. My view is that they all had about the same draw weight and somewhere between 100 and 120 is where you are likely to find it. If I had to bet on a figure , it'd be closer to the low hundreds - that does perfectly well at 200yds with the lightest feasible war arrow you're likely to see. If you look at the 'experiments' in the second hardy book with 150lb bows (admittedly made of materials ALL not available to medieval bowyers), the performance so far exceed what is accepted from accounts that it more or less proves that 150lb bows weren't used.
You are absolutely right that its easy to find modern labourers - or white collar workers for that matter who could use 100lb bows after some training. Give them the sort of treatment that obtained on the Agincourt chevauchee though - 20 some days of hard marching and almost no rations - and then see what they can do. I know that some sources bemoan the weakening of the modern man with respect to our forefathers of old - but that happens in every generation. The truth about the decline of the bow in favour of the gun is that you don't have to feed a rifleman a fraction of what you have to feed an archer to keep him lethal. The medieval rachers, I believe, shot 'within themselves'. Sure, they could have handled heavier bows but success in artillery archery depends on having lots and lots of archers so you have to make sure that ALL archers can use ALL bows allowing for some sickness, starvation and the range of strengths which men have. That means lightening the draw weights a bit but keeping them high enough to keep a range of 200yds.
One small point. Many on these forums disrespect the ability of the modern man. I cannot think of one field of activity, physical or otherwise where modern men have failed to exceed the abilities of our ancient ancestors. Why would archery with replica warbows be any different?
Chris
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"Then we come to Glennans bow made by Don Adams (Ireland) photographed and described on the old warbow site."
I have in my collection broken Don Adams bow. It ahs so much sapwood I can think of very elastic piece of wood, which does need extreme dimensions to build up the weight. If the bowyer wasnt lazy and chased ring down to sapwood thicnkess that on MR bows there wont be any need of such extreme dimensions. My piece os that of dimensions of baseball bat and I call it badly made.
"If you look at the 'experiments' in the second hardy book with 150lb bows (admittedly made of materials ALL not available to medieval bowyers), the performance so far exceed what is accepted from accounts that it more or less proves that 150lb bows weren't used."
Admitedly which ones materia is not availble to medieval bowyers? The fiberglass flatbow in tests is included to actually have comparition to modern bow. New records by Stanley and by Mark are shot with italian yew selfbows and these only further strenghten what we know.
"I know that some sources bemoan the weakening of the modern man with respect to our forefathers of old - but that happens in every generation."
Care to include some verifable proof?
"One small point. Many on these forums disrespect the ability of the modern man. I cannot think of one field of activity, physical or otherwise where modern men have failed to exceed the abilities of our ancient ancestors. Why would archery with replica warbows be any different?"
I can think of couple archery and athletics being one of them. We cannot actually yet match pre WW2 wooden bow flight records, altough some of best bowyers and archers labouring hard to do that. Anyway. Your assumption is that - they did not even shoot as far as we do, the bare minimum they were requred to shoot was actually standart, not a minimum. That is not acceptable in the light of recorded tudor and post tudor distances at various marks, which are long even for light arrows.
I call you again to produce some numbers or sources to back your claims. I adressed your points in my previous discussion. If you dont care to answer so be it, but I m sure everybody reading it will get the picture.
J.
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No problem with answering Jaro - I was talking to J.D that time because he asked a couple of excellent questions which merited a prompt reply. I don't actually have that much time to spend on this forum so my posts will likely appear at the same time of an evening.
Now what have we heard from you so far eh?
1) The warbow buying public are generally ignorant
2) You can get 100000 shots from a replica warbow without significant deterioration - yeah right.
3) You believe that a tudor bowyer working in a mass production environment [which had to be regulated in order to maintain standards (Hardy and Strickland p23) was more assiduous than the few modern bowyers making these bespoke articles for a living and providing a guarantee.
4)You have disparaged the work of Don Adams - who at least is a bowyer who has actually published work albeit a while ago
5) You took the bait on my Donald Rumsfeld comment which was an invitation for you to go for the man rather than the ball. I was just curious to see whether you'd bite thats all. For your information, I'm no fan of the neocons but I can see when even someone I don't like talks sense.
With regard to Occams Razor - my explanation to J.D of the sizes of the MR bows and why I think the poundages were what I believe they were is actually a model of Occams Razor in that it is consistent with all that is known about the MR bows as well as what is known about modern replicas and in particular, it requires no superlatives abilities of anybody or anything in the system - archers, wood, bows or bowyers. Above average yes, superlative no.
Why do I not quote my sources? Two reasons. Firstly, I'm not sure if you've noticed but I may as well point it out. You are unique in the extent and degree to which you quote sources on the site. Its your right, I have no problem with it, however it may also have escaped your notice that its an open forum for hobbyists, the merely curious, young people - basically everybody. It isn't a scientific forum and I for one have no desire or appetite to shove the extent of my learning or interest in this topic down everybodies throat. What I've said so far is verifiable with little effort apart from where its only my opinion (and that will be obvious to any discerning raeder) and I've left my e-mail address available to anybody who wants to get in touch. Having said all that, I'm prepared to make a couple of exceptions just for you and just this once.
Second reason is this. Warbow archery is a niche interest of a small field where I come from. There are people here who make a living out of it and others trying to make a living. I try to be sensitive to that fact and not antagonise or jeopardise those people by quoting them while they are still active - they can speak for themselves if they want to. At the same time, a forum like this is an interesting and useful exercise for exchange of information amongst people who are prepared to accept differences of opinion - but thats all they are, opinions.
To answer some of your points. Yes it was the Luttrell Psalter and so what if it was the 1340s? In 1365 Edward 111 issued the same sort of proclamations as you describe (Connections, pub James Burke, 1981 p 66). That just goes to show that nothing changed between tudor times and earlier medieval times. Nothing stupid there.
What materials were used in the Hardy experiment I refer to. Well, as you say, a fibreglass flatbow and longbow of oregon yew. Its a poor piece of scientific writing as the string isn't mentioned but you can bet it was man made fibre. I suppose the horn nocks were available to a tudor bowyer - so I'll give you that much. Oh yes the reference is Hardy and Strickland page 408. I should also say that the MR bow made by Roy King all those years ago only came out at 105lb and 1m87cm between the nocks. It was actually shorter (I'm told) than the bow upon which it was based - as a bowyer you'll know where this is going so I won't bore you with the details.
You seem to object to my suggestion that it is common for people to extol the virtues of the past at the expense of the modern age. Well, its hard to start with something so common and well known. I doubt you are a fan of cricket, but if you were, yesterday you would have heard Geoffrey Boycott suggesting that his mum armed with a stick of rhubarb could have defeated an English medium pace bowler. Thats the sort of hyperbole I'm talking about - maybe its not so common where you are from, buts its standard here. If you want references, check out the British Medical Press where you'll find people talking about how modern surgeons are trained on 9000 hours of surgery while my generation had to do 36000. All rubbish of course but its what people like to believe.
On your bit of Don Adams bow - well who broke it. This is my whole point after all.
What do you mean 'there was not often found more bows than archers'. The MR bows are the only find of note - there is no index with which to compare so you can't make any comment. And were the black bow and Agincourt really used - or were they just in a different condition? Either way, if they still did what they were meant to do, then why not bring them? The presence of only two used bows amongst 137 unused ones would indicate a short life - not a long one I remember reading of a fancy that Agincourt looked like an old timer but please tell me that nobody believes the thing was 130 years old when the ship went down.
My statement that the bows tended towards 80 inches should be taken thus. Your figures show that if you make a bar chart with bow length on the x axis and number of bows on the y axis, then you get a normal distribution with a skew to the right. If you accept that they were of similar weights, then the obvious inference is that the properties of the wood was very heterogenous - which supports my view that there was nothing uniformly superlative about the quality of the wood. Thats all I meant. Your insistence on precise analysis of individual bows stops you seeing whats right under your nose.
I'd love to experiment - but I'm a surgeon, not a bowyer - I'll leave it to the likes of Pip Bickerstaffe and others who as I have said is a good scientific thinker and has the access and ability to do that kind of work
Dunno where you get your ideas on Simon Stanley. Ask him what he thinks of Italian yew whenever you see him. Last time I saw him(and I've met him only twice) he was using a laminate Osage/yew and I think hickory backed bow.
What athletics? What records on flight shooting where the break wasn't due to advances in materials?
C
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There's nothing like a good fight in the warbow section....
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On the subject of what draw weight the bows would have been, just thought I would pass on my experiences so far of taking up the warbow:
I am reasonably large built but I work in I.T. and have never done any job or hobby which involves a lot of heavy work lifting etc.
I took up archery around 1 year ago but up until January I was shooting a 65lb bow (28" draw)
I do not do any training other than shooting my bows once or twice a week
Around 1 month ago I bought a new bow which is 130lbs at 32", it was VERY heavy for me and I didn't know if I would ever manage to fully draw it but now after only a few weeks I can shoot this bow surprisingly comfortably and it gets easier every time I use it (I have checked the draw weight and it has not dropped yet - I wondered if this was why myself ;-)
The point I wanted to make is that if I can pull 130lbs after a few months of not very intensive use of warbows I find it difficult to imagine that professional archers who had been shooting these bows since boyhood would be shooting bows much lighter than mine ??
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Around 1 month ago I bought a new bow which is 130lbs at 32", it was VERY heavy for me and I didn't know if I would ever manage to fully draw it but now after only a few weeks I can shoot this bow surprisingly comfortably and it gets easier every time I use it
Good for you! I need to build a heavier bow and give that a shot. I think I'm ready for another jump in weight.
J. D. Duff
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Chris,
Thanks for the reply.
Chris and Jaro,
Thanks for the time and effort you are putting into this debate.
J. D. Duff
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Good for you! I need to build a heavier bow and give that a shot. I think I'm ready for another jump in weight.
My plan was that rather than spend a lot of money on lots of bows working up the weights, I would have this one as a long term project but I have been very surprised at how quickly it happens
Only a few weeks ago it seemed like a solid bar and I wasn't convinced it bent at all ;-)
BTW - I had a 100lb bow before this (I didn't go straight from the 65lb one)
I just kept shooting the odd arrow at whatever I could draw it to, mainly just to start shooting the bow in, but before long I was starting to get it to 32"
I wonder if having a bow which is too heavy for me to pull has forced me to fully learn to use the correct muscles (as my strength can't have increased that much in such a short time) ?
So maybe having a bow seemingly to heavy is the way to go ???
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Well Simon, I think enough heat has probably been generated to run a small galaxy, and my views are reasonably clear - so I don't plan to drag things out any longer ;)
Jaro is clearly extraordinarily well informed on thi subject. I've had an interest since the early eighties - but I don't have as physically big a 'knowledge hoard' as he does and I'm sure you of all people will understand why. Where we disagree is on how the facts fit together, and heat generated notwithstanding, its the observers who get to do the judging.
Alanesq - well done indeed- I'm jealous. Do you think you could still do it though while diseased/half starved/seasick/knackered? I have a qestion for you wich I'll post in the 'traing up' thread later - my hands are full with 5 month old baby at the mo and I type this one fingered!
All the best all.
Chris
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Do you think you could still do it though while diseased/half starved/seasick/knackered?
My 100lb bow I have shot at my target club for 6 hours without a break and this bow now seems to me to be a very light bow,
When I first got it (around 4 months ago) it seemed very heavy
My 130lb bow is still pretty heavy to me and I would be struggling after a couple of ends but I fully intend to use this bow as my main bow eventually and so I may be able to answer this better in a few months ?
If I had been shooting heavy bows for 20 years and my life depended on it I would imagine I would have no problem pulling this bow even when knackered and ill
To modern archers a 130lb bow can sound like an idea of a mad man !
but when you start using these bows you soon start to think of them as normal and what seemed impossible soon becomes easy
I am pretty big built and so others may take longer to build up to 130lbs but medieval archers would have been people selected as being the best and would have been training since very young, it must have been truly amazing what they could do !
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ok Alan, I've had a butchers at your website. You're using laminates and Jaro and I were discussing self yew bows only. Laminates will last a good long time and I'll be getting one from Pip this year as well as building my own. BTW my experience with Pip is that he's been very generous with time and advice with me also. A real gem of a man.
I see you know what I mean though - exploding self yew bows are exactly the point.
I have few comments on the draw weight points and will post this pm on the other thread. I'm interested that you are vegan and have some questions regarding your experiences during training.
Still one fingered C.
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The Mary Rose bows were probably around 60 pounds (G. Rausing, 1967: 161).
;D
- even if you got the reference, it doesn't always mean you're right ;)
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Hah!! :D
Thats funny - and also true!
C
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here's my opinion about the true draw weight with english warbows: as Jaro said the bows truly were drawn untill 32 or so and the draw weight in my opinion truly was usually over 100#. Men in those days were stronger even if smaller. I'm definitely no superman, am only 16 and can pull 92#. I dont do any bodybuilding, or train my muscles othewise than in archery. So I truly belive that if one trains systematically from the age of 6 with bows. Then he can also pull 120# easily when 18 for example.
Oh and by the way I drew the 92# just with a plain "normal" style with only my arms, so with a little train on the style to pull heavy bows I belive I could reach 100+# quite quicly.
and about that strenght thing heres an example: http://www.riemurasia.net/jylppy/displayimage.php?album=search&cat=0&pos=0
PS: sorry for not staying in the subject
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I was using a 90lb at 32# bow for a good while and this bow became to me that I could just pull it using my arms (using no technique)
I then moved upto pulling a 130lb bow within a few weeks (I suspect mainly by this forcing me to learn to use the correct muscles)?
so I would imagine you would be able to do similar although its probably not a good idea as your bones are probably still growing etc. ?
"getting in the bow" makes a big difference to how much weight you can pull
My bow should come down to around 120lb when its been fully shot in and by this time I suspect I will be using this bow happily all the time.
a 120lb bow to a medieval archer I am sure would be seen as a light bow
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What athletics? What records on flight shooting where the break wasn't due to advances in materials?
C
Composite bows:Tozkoparan Iskender, Turkey, 846 meters - mid-1500's vs. Don Brown, USA, 566 meters - 1996.
Backed bows: Curtis Hill, USA, 472 meters - 1939 vs Marlon Torres, USA, 323 meters - 2006.
Selfbows: Harry Drake, USA, 494 meters - 1945 vs. Simon Stanley, UK, 346 meters - 2006.
Tuukka
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I think that sort of makes my point really.
I personally wouldn't regard people active in the 1930's and 40s as 'ancient' - thats when my parents were around and probably some people reading this site!! ;)
As for Iskander Tozkoparan and kis Kyut (Ithink is the correct term?), I give you....
'A Drake bow designed in 1964 shot a record of 1,077 yard and on October 24, 1971 at Ivanpah Dry Lake in the high desert of California during the Official N.A.A. Flight Championships, from an unlimited footbow, he conceived, designed and built, Harry Drake shot an arrow 268 yards over a mile, (2,028 yards). The Guineas Book of World Records recognizes this feat as the greatest distance any man has cast a missile by means of muscle power alone.' - thats from a website BTW - not me typing typos.
and
'The furthest with a hand-held - and pulled - bow is 1,336 yds 1' 3" (1,222.01m) , shot by Don Brown with an unlimited conventional Flight bow in 1987.'
The point I was making is that theres nothing feeble about modern people by comparison with the ancients, in fact given our inherent advantages with regards to reaching growth potential, nutrition, training regimes, medical advances etc etc, modern humans have huge advantages over our ancestors, not the reverse.
On that small point, we often also hear the refrain 'but we're using inferior bow woods'. Now where does that idea come from and why should they be so inferior today, eh?
Chris
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The Drake records (and ones shot by Brown using Drake's gear) you quote were made with synthetics through and through, including carbon arrows truly the size of knitting needles, whereas the modern records made with materials available to the ancients - the only records we have data for comparison from earlier times - are all well below what was reached by earlier generations. Apples and oranges. When the best bowyers of modern times make the best wood bows and arrows they possibly can and give them to the hands of the best modern archers, the pre-modern records remain untouched. This is really hard for many steeped in modernism to swallow (I am not referring to Chris D.).
It might seem we modern folk have infinitely better resources for achieving what has never been achieved before. And if we're talking about the 100 meters dash or Pro golfing, where huge amounts of money involved make it possible for thousands of people to dedicate their entire waking hours to the task, this surely stands true. But natural-material archery discussed here is nothing but a small fringe niche among dozens of obscure hobbies today.
Almost no-one today can or even want to spend his life crafting wooden bows and arrows and learning how to best use them. Compare this to the times when the bow was the most important long range weapon armies had and people had a very real incentive to get as good with them as possible? How many people today start shooting in the bow at age four, and continue to do this uninterrupted, day in, day out, through their adulthood? How many of us do this under professional peer-pressure? This difference in attitude, seriousness, focus is something we as casual hobbyists lack compared to the bow-wielding soldiers of the past. Just as we are fumbling fools in the woods, bow in hand, compared to any 18th century Native American hunter crafty enough to have survived into adulthood (scores of ethnographic data on this, unlike on English warbows and their users). Pictures of scrawny, 60kg Lliangulu hunters with 100# elephant bows at full draw come to mind...Think wolves and German shepards - same size, same outward appearance, but the former can shred the latter into pieces without breaking a sweat, despite (or because of!) the shep's more benign childhood, lesser disease and better nutrition.
About bow woods and their modern inferiority: The ring counts and earlywood-latewood ratios of studied MR specimens are decidedly superior to almost all the yew available today, plain and simple. Just as the very best American bow yew was cut down by the ancients ;D of the 1930's and is nowhere to be found today, I hear. When a bow stave includes 150 years of growth, and maybe one tree in 100 is genetically gifted enough to qualify, things like this happen.
Tuukka
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Tuukka
Sorry for not replying to your post - things have been a little hectic.
I think you're certainly right that the archers of old would have gotten more out of their bows than many (or even any - except one? ) replica warbow archers today. The thing is though, given the requirements of the day, that would have allowed for a lower draweight - not higher. Simon Stanley is often used as an example of an archer who uses heavy bows with ease - which he does. What is less talked about is that he can also turn up with a 90lb bow from time to time, and shoot further than people with much heavier equipment.
I'm not really proposing to re-state why it is that I think what I do, it'd take too long and its already posted anyhow. One thing I would say though is that I don't think my views could be described as arguments for a particularly low weight. 100lb is still a pretty big weight after all and there are some still arguing for 75lb or so!!
As I write this, I'm mindful that proper dendrochronological analysis of the MR bows is still at the 'pending' stage, so we don't really know how good they were. The piccy of the broken bow in Hardys first book though has 40 growth rings in it, which is pretty good I suppose - but on the same page, the bow referred to as 'Agincourt' is described as 'not very fine grained'.
I guess my plea is exactly described by William of Occam, referred to early. Shave off all unnecessary ideas so that the simplest approach without need of any extreme requirements can be adopted.
I guess we're never really going to have the answer. Years ago, when I was much younger, I also believed the hypotheses about huge draweights. In the interveneing 20 years or so, I've learned a lot about what the human animal can do in certain situations though, and I've done a lot of science in unrelated (and some related) topics, and I've learned that in life, where general populations are concerned, the truth is almost always less spectacular than what was expected. When I look at everything I've read about warbows during that time, I see a hypothesis that fits everything that is currently in the domain of what is known, and the expected requirements of the equipment.
Anyway, I see from a neighbouring thread that Jd is planning experiments with linen strings - and I'm going to try too!
C
PS Wolves are anatomically very different to German Shepherds - difference which mean they can generate 1200lb per squ inch at the back teeth when they bite compared with 450 - which is why the shep becomes sushi in such a contest.
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I've been off this thread for a while but I was going to say that the flight records might be evidence for a lower draw weight. Chris picked it up too (obviously). It's a good point.
Chris,
On the growth ring counts--the pictures are deceptive in some cases because small-diameter trees were used and the growth rings are wrapping around and feathering out on the side of the bow. I have heard some of the bows have actual ring counts closer to 150 rpi but I think that's pushing it. You mentioned earlier the Don Adams bow that Glennan has. While it is almost as big as the largest bow on the Mary Rose, it is made from the lowest-quality Yew likely to be found. It doesn't in any way resemble high-quality Yew like the Mary Rose bows or even the mid-altitude yew I sometimes cut. Glennan's bow did tiller out to 120#s, too. (I love that bow by the way--it's just crazy).
I'm not sure what dendrochronology would have to do with anything? Tree-ring dating wouldn't tell you much about the MR bows. I suppose you could date Againcourt if that's of interest. An analysis of the wood quality would actually be useful. Dendroclimatalogical studies might suggest likely places of origin or altitude, but would hardly be exact. I guess, I'm just not sure what you meant by that.
I liked your last post. It was well-reasoned and I can see you've thought this through carefully. Where I get stuck is looking at the bows on the MR and the replicas made these days of European Yew that have to be made to the dimensions of the smallest MR bows just to be shootable in the low-mid 100's. You are a surgeon (right?) and you know the human body. You believe it's unlikely that the archers at Againcourt would have been too sick and tired to have pulled very heavy bows. You are extrapolating from what you know about how the human body can operate under sever stress/malnourishment/etc. Pip looks at the arrow nocks and guesses that the weight had to be 100#s or less. Other's say the benefit of shooting a 150# bow over a 100# bow doesn't justify the extra training to pull. Arguments go on and on but they're not based on the bows--they're based on theory. But, we have surviving examples of actual war bows and they look too big to be 100# bows or less.
I could totally be wrong about this. If I am, I hope a bunch of people will post about their MR-sized bows that came out around 100. Glennan's is MR-sized, made out of some of the worst Yew I've seen (8-10 rpi, gray sapwood, 3 inches of set) and it's 120#s. I don't know how heavy the MR bows were but I'd wager they were around 130-150#s just based on what I know about the dimensions and replicas.
Thanks for continuing to post on this thread. It's the best thread I've ever seen on PA.
J. D. Duff
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To be picky, Occam said: "dont introduce unnesesary inputs into the equation", which is what we call today principle of logicall parsimony.
The part of Adams bow I have in my collection has general dimensions of basebal bat and contains 60 percent of sapwood. It cannot be in any seriousnes compared to MR bows. Sapwood is far more elastic than heartwood, and that makes beam which is not enough stiff and more profile is needed to build up the weight. The thing is bloody two inches wide.
Anyway I m not quite catching up why is everybody talking so much about rpi, because that is SECONDARY pointer to yew wood density. 30 rpi grown in park and in mountains is whole different quality of wood. Aside of SG another factors like wood consistency are to be looked upon, I was said by best english bowmaker today that it needs to be "fat" and curl under scraper. And as sidenote a wood from male plant is reddish in collor, harder than comparable from female plant and it does make more lively bow.
Neverthelles bows made from high altitude alpine yew made to MR dimensions come out in 110# +, modern replicas by Celestino are made mostly in longest range of MR spread (because they are again sold to generally amateur public) (means 80-82´´) and they come as heavy. If you cut such a bow 4´´ to get proper lenght you get 20# or more of drawweight and these are in median or lower MR girth dimensions. Go figure.
The longevity factor is what I call pure bull---t, these bows are not flight shooting specials, they are made to be reliable, nobody goes to war with weapon which lasts only for 600 shots as armament of main battle array . People who have them do not notice drastic reduction in cast or breakage or much of string follow after severall thousand shots, so its contrary to what we are being so vehemently told.
Why we have worse wood today than them should be quite obvious - yew has become basically unaccessible to generall public, numbers of high altitude grown yew bowstaves availble go in tens, while by 1500´ it still was in ten´s thousand´s, even if we take in consideration the bemoaning of wood buyers about selling bad wood bundled with good in sheaves alike. This itself would allow for much better sellection of wood we can even dream of.
J.
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On the subject of what draw weight the bows would have been, just thought I would pass on my experiences so far of taking up the warbow:
I am reasonably large built but I work in I.T. and have never done any job or hobby which involves a lot of heavy work lifting etc.
I took up archery around 1 year ago but up until January I was shooting a 65lb bow (28" draw)
I do not do any training other than shooting my bows once or twice a week
Around 1 month ago I bought a new bow which is 130lbs at 32", it was VERY heavy for me and I didn't know if I would ever manage to fully draw it but now after only a few weeks I can shoot this bow surprisingly comfortably and it gets easier every time I use it (I have checked the draw weight and it has not dropped yet - I wondered if this was why myself ;-)
The point I wanted to make is that if I can pull 130lbs after a few months of not very intensive use of warbows I find it difficult to imagine that professional archers who had been shooting these bows since boyhood would be shooting bows much lighter than mine ??
Just thought I should confess;
Yesterday I managed to find someone with a set of calibrated weights to let me use them to calibrate my bow scales
I can now measure the weight of my bows with confidence that my scales are spot on and it turns out my bow was 120lbs (not 130)
so I am not as butch as I thought ;-)
so let this be a lesson to you, never get your scales calibrated ;-)
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120 lbs is still quite butch Alan.
Can I ask a slightly unrelated question... When measuring draw length, should it be from the back of the bow or the belly? I usually measure mine from the belly.
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Hello,
Thanks, its good to know I have not lost too much respected in the warbow community because of it ;-)
As I understand it, it should be measured from the back of the bow (i.e. far side)
BTW - I attach my rope to the bow string via a large carabina so really its like drawing the bow with one finger, so I don't know if this is correct or if you should have something wider to simulate the 3 finger draw ?
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I don't think that would make much of a difference Alan... maybe 1/2 cm or so. There is probably more variability than that when you draw the bow by hand a few times.
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120 lbs is still quite butch Alan.
Can I ask a slightly unrelated question... When measuring draw length, should it be from the back of the bow or the belly? I usually measure mine from the belly.
You measure draw length from the back of the bow because that is generally accepted as the limit of your draw, the arrow ferrule or barb coming at most to the back of the bow.
But you can measure it from anywhere you like, if you want to.... :-)
I generally measure tiller from the belly to the string of the braced bow, likewise brace height.
But not draw length.
Rod.
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Just thought someone out there may be interested in this:
I have been pondering a lot on why there were 28" arrow shafts (and all manner of different length shafts for that matter) on the Mary Rose
I was interested in the idea that all the arrows were drawn to the same length and the points varied in length so decided the best plan is to give it a try for myself.
i.e. all arrows were the same total length and the arrows were all drawn tot he same distance from the pointy bit ;-)
so I have made myself a set of arrows which are based on what I know about the Mary Rose arrows and I am now using these as my main roving arrows
(http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alan.blackham/warbow/arras.jpg)
these shafts range from 28" to 31" but all arrows are drawn to 32"
all the cones are very similar in size
The longest point is a needle bodkin with total length 5.5" (kindly donated by John Marshall)
I cant claim to have used the arrows enough to really report back on how well the perform but I can confirm they shoot ok and drawing the bodkins well onto my hand doesnt damage my hand or the bow
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For the purpose of this forum, warbow should be a single stave english style full bend bow of at least 90# or/and 220 yrds with Standart arrow.
Backed yew is acceptable as there are 16. and 17. examples of backing yew for bows, but not exotics and multilam bows.
Call me snobbish, but either its the thing or it is not.
J.
OK, then you're snobbish. :-)
In the early period of military use it is likely that against the lightly protected and maille, a heavy hunting bow might have been quite effective. Draw weights will have increased in line with the necessity to project a heavy shaft further in the face of opposition as well as to keep pace with developments in protection.
If you want to put a very specific date "ante quem" on the English warbow then perhaps you can be so exclusive about draw weights.
Rod.
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Hahaha,that is your words actually. :D
Anyway - Hugh Soar mentions early 14. century archery militia in his book and in the account there is considerable variation when it comes to bows the lads brought with them.
Howewer, should any type of army be deployed as sucessively as english did, logistic structure must be established and part of that is supply of bows and arrows.
By 1340´ this already all seem to have been place, so "standartisation" of bows and arrows in terms of what crown buys and what not must have again be in the place.
Otherwise the development in terms of power progressed as the arms race went with at least two leaps. One at the point when this structure was established and I would suspect that is also time when hornnocks were universaly adopted and the other by 1400´when plate armour was more acessible to some.
I would also think that the bow itself wont seen much development past 1450´, though the arrow seem to have gotten more engeneering when anatomy prohibited further increase of drawweight. Also by 1450´italian armour got infanterised - which means the best protective garment became availble to professionall footsoldier and these are arrowproof to large extent.
There are tresholds at which the rig is or is not effective against certain types of armour. I would assume, in order to actually be winning, the english at least attempted to keep overall quality of both bows and arrows better than said treshold.
One does seem to be somewhere around 90# the other is around 125-130.
Jaro
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I thought that would get handed back... :-)
By the timer that the warbow becomes developed, Selby's figures for the Chinese bow are pretty much spot on, and the response that this is not relevant because they are composite bows is bushwah.
A serious warbow in any culture where defensive and offensive gear is well developed, the task is pretty much the same and so are the draw weights. The task ALWAYS defines the draw weight parameters.
What is interesting with the chinese gear is that although Selby gives a fair amount of information on draw weights, the information on arrow weights is rather thin, and one example translates to only abot 400 grains, which is more in target shaft country than that of a shaft meant to give a "great stripe".
I must get hold of Mr.Selby and see if he has more on Chinese war shaft weights.
Nonetheless, anyone interested in accuracy shoulod consider well the Chnises criteria for qualifying as a first class military archer, be it infantry or cavalry bows.
It bears repeating that the median for cavalry bows is in the 90lb to 120lb range, that for infantry bows in the 120lb to 150lb range.
That these figures refer to composite bows has no bearing as an objection since draw weight is draw weight regardless and the task remains the same, near enough not to matter.
Seven layers of cuir bouillee is doubtless not so easy to penetrate when compared to plate of the lower qualities and however you look at it, there will always have been enough folks on the field without the most expensive gear even in the late 15thC.
BTW Jaro, have you noticed that one at least of the Viking bows in the Proceedings appears to be side nocked?
I agree with you about yew density. Mick James has a Boyton made of English yew, one that Chris made as a "crude" warbow with artfully raised wood around many pins, high enough to take your eye out, something of a masterclass in making an artform out of raised pins.
This bow is admirable "posing tackle", just the thing for Mick since it looks very "big" and draws only 65lb. I handled it recently and did not believe that it was 65lb until I weighed it.
It's of quite close ringed English yew, but if I hasd opicked it up blindfold I would have thought it overbuilt osage.
It was uncomfortablly heavy in the hand and I would have taken an oath that it only drew 45lb or so.
I did not have the opportunity to put it through the chronograph, but it put me in mind of a Bickerstaffe in osage that a chap has brought to Sherwood on a couple of occasions.
Both these bows pull with deceptive ease, being very elastic, both weight far more in the hand than any yew bow of mine, and my 56lb pieced yew clout bow is far more crisp to pull and probaby outshoots either by a considerable margin.
This just shows that density is not everything... I would get tired just holding either of these bows at arms length for any period of time.
It was amusing to see the owener of the osage bow shoot either of my yew bows, he was surpised both by the lightness of the bow and also by the crispness of the draw and the resulting cast.
When time allows I intend to get profiles of Mick's bows and add then to those already in my Photobucket collection.
You will find my 20lb Aldred Lancewood bow on there now, which is a good example of the narrow "peaked" belly style of sporting bow in a tropical heartwood, sooften mistaken in the past by those who know no better as the "proper2 longbow sectioin
This bow was in good original condition except that the horn nocks were missing and FRF was good enough to fit authentic replacement nocks.
The only draw back is that I will not risk shooting it, out of respect for it's age and almost perfect condition.
True it only has a monetary value of around £40, but it is virtually ireplaceable as an example of it's type and I would be gutted if it broke.
Nice ash bow BTW. And I thought you had said that ash would not make a warbow? :-)
Certainly you would not bother if you had some yew to play with, but it is a perfectly acceptable substitute if you have nothing else and know how to make it.
Rod.
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Just thought someone out there may be interested in this:
I have been pondering a lot on why there were 28" arrow shafts (and all manner of different length shafts for that matter) on the Mary Rose
This is something that comes up from time to time. Part of the problem is that in later literature much is made of the "clothyard" arrow, but without considering that the typical clothyard was not as long as the current imperial yard...
Also average heights for adult males were somewhat less than in tyhe present day, though not as low as the minimum reached in the Victorian era.
In the 13th & 14thC the average male height in England was about 5' 7 1/2" which naturally would have produced a shorter draw length.
Being 6' 4" with arms, according to my tailor, like an orang outang, my easy corner of the mouth draw is almost 30", and I can long draw over 36" before I reach the limit of my extension and have to rotate my elbow down below the line through the arrow.
In short (no slur intended), Jaro's long draw is about the same as my corner of the mouth draw.
So it is not surprising to find shafts in the 28" ballpark.
Rod.