European Archers

We've all argued about the importance of the English Longbow, the example of Agincourt in 1415 being the pinnacle and eventual downfall in the use of a strong ranged weapon. But while we all know about the Yeoman Longbowmen of King Henry the Vth, what do we know about other types of archers in the medieval period?

Eastern Europeans used the bow quite extensively and their proficiency in the use of the weapon is well known but I am referring here to the Western European archery.

Did the Spanish kingdoms have extensive archery contingents? The French duchies? German lords? (I recall seeing Thuringian Archers depicted in an Osprey plate)
Perhaps the Italian cities can be included here too but their penchant for crossbows and arbalests is well known.

talking statistically from all "historically accurate" mods of medieval periods arround here:

the only "good" archery faction in western europe is English, if more details is involved, English and Welsh factions, and that was usually because of longbowmen.

generally, Western European archers, outside English areas, are the worst in game, completely outclassed by near eastern and east european (steppe!) archers

Historically accurate mods aside, there had to be at least specialised units of Western European archers that could wreak havoc. I'm not to convinced with the Scots Guard of the French in M2TW, but I'm talking about the idea of trained European archers like the English Yeomen.

If i recall corectly Scandinavians used atleast during viking age also a "long bow" basically a self bow which was large. Dont know though if it was made from yew.

If you see Magyars as european that's one :P
But even before them, the whole area had a lot of contacts with the steppe and developed high quality archery, same story for the baltic region...
Rest of Europe (except England) either employed Arabs or used crossbows afaik...

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Originally Posted by Kagemusha

If i recall corectly Scandinavians used atleast during viking age also a "long bow" basically a self bow which was large. Dont know though if it was made from yew.

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What I recall about the Scandinavians was rather a short bow and not too efficient (perhaps because of the cold?), hence their focus on infantrymen supported by only a few bowmen and few cavalry.

Here is some information that seems to support my recollections about the issue:~;)

http://www.archery-interchange.net/f...-longbow-6509/

Medieval Swedish laws required militiamen to have, besides the usual spear, shield and whatnot, a bow and a bunch of arrows. And Viking sagas speak highly of skilled archers. (IIRC one wintertime 16th-century Russian invasion attempt along the Karelian ishtmus also got shot to pieces by bow-toting local irregulars on skis. Must've been Steppe Russians to get pwnd so hard in snowy woods, as Forest Russians live in the same climate and terrain.) The ability to draw a bow was actually used as an official measure of maturity at least until the 16th century... So yeah. AFAIK Scandinavian and other "northern" archers tended to use a design known as flatbow for the rather sound reason that an effective one can be made from rather more numerous types of timber than is the case with the D-profiled "longbow" design - yew for which flat out isn't found in the north. (We may recall that the English had to import a lot of the stuff from the south, too.)

Making a powerful bow isn't particularly difficult for any bowyer worth the name. The main stumbling block was that in much of Europe the peasantry wasn't allowed to hunt and hence had no opportunity to develop their archery skills (the English got around this by *obliging* the yeomanry to practice regularly, but actually enforcing this proved problematic since peasants frankly had better things to do); hence strong "woodsman" traditions and the associated light-infantry skills were primarily to be found in the relatively sparsely populated parts where there plain was too much wilderness for the farmers to convert into farmland and the aristocracy to monopolise the rest as their hunting preserves, such as Scandinavia and East-Central Europe.

Military-wise, however, at least as important as *having* a pool of capable archers to begin with is *how* they are employed. There's a very real tactical difference between a cloud of open-order skirmishers or "double skilled" troops who can set aside their spear and grab a bow if the situation warrants, and a dedicated archer regiment in (relatively) close order firing massed volleys in coordinated fashion. The fact that the latter form seems to have been almost unheard-of in the "forest belt" zone (despite the commoners there being routinely proficient archers) is rather interesting, and would seem to suggest the technique is only suited to regions where comparatively open battlefields are readily available. It's worth noting here that in heavily forested Scandinavia and at least northern Germany knights and other mounted elite warriors, too, tended to operate differently than in the more open lands of Western and Southern Europe, operating more often as elite mounted infantry than "classic" shock cavalry. (AFAIK during the Crusades German knights were observed to be better fighters on foot than mounted, for example.)

TL;DR - geographic context strongly influences tactics and fighting techniques. Big duh.

Very comprehensive post Watchman, thank you. :bow:

Your post brings up a point - if there were regular archer units, how did they practice their craft? I don't quite envisage Yeoman English longbowmen practicing 12 hours a day how to shoot a longbow when after an hour or two your arms grow tired and weary.

In England in the middle ages, Sundays were the practice days for everyone and all men were expected to show up and shoot. It was actually a popular event. Even in the cities the popularity of the sport brought people who otherwise had no need of hunting skills.

Aiming the longbow, the way that it is drawn, is a skill that takes a lot of time to master. Also developing the strength do draw those bows was no small task.

Earlier on (13th Century) the English did rely on crossbows and mercenary archers but the Welsh showed them that their longbows could also pierce armor and that the massed effect at long range was good against cavalry.

Crossbows were as deadly or more so than the longbows and took less time to master. The drawback was the slow rate of fire.

Countries other than England continued to rely on the crossbow mercenaries and the actual Hay Day of the Longbow lasted only a little over 100 years. Better techniques of armor manufacture put an end to its effectiveness.

Also supplies of suitable yew was used up.

Oddly enough, when archery fell out of favor with the lower social tiers it became very popular with the upper classes, but with the weaker bows that we see today. (about 30 to 50 lbs pull weights)

It remained popular with them through the Victorian Age.

Compound and recurved bows were known of course. (compound bows at that time were bows made of more than one material, horn or bone with wood backed by sinew and glued together)

They were easier to aim but could require like strength. The trouble was that they were very unsuitable in the damp climates of England and most of northern and western Europe.

From what I know of it - based on what my brother told of the archery hobby he picked up for a while - learning to shoot a bow reasonably accurately isn't very difficult or time-consuming. The clincher for military archery was the amount of regular practice needed to develop the physique and stamina necessary to draw a war-strenght bow time and again, which IIRC what I've read of the Mary Rose wreck was in fact enough to cause skeletal deformations in the longbowmen. (This is also another advantage of crossbows, at least when drawn with mechanical assists, and firearms.)

It's worth emphasizing that "yeomen", the class required by the royal proclamations to regularly practice archery, were specifically landowning peasantry - which would make them relatively prosperous in their socioeconomic context. I'm not too familiar with Medieval English rural economics, but at least where I live the equivalent freeholder peasantry quite routinely had varying numbers of paid labourers in their household and depending on the extent of their holdings might well rent out parts of it to assorted landless small farmers.
All of which would suggest the ability to spare comparatively large amounts of time from agrarian pursuits to weapons training - which is why comparable "rural middle class" has pretty universally been the backbone of decent peasant militias. As AFAIK the Crown also saw to the supply of the actual war-bows (in no small part due to the need to import the yew for them and the rather specialised nature of the craftsmanship involved, given the lack of hunting opportunities for commoners in the realm, and for quality-control reasons) when these men were mustered for service this would have lifted a fair bit of the economic hurdles too...

As for composite bows, ehhhh. Do recall that horn-composite staves became pretty mcuh the "industry standard" for fighting crossbows early into the Crusades (AFAIK nobody really knows if seeing the "eastern" reflex bow up close had anything to do with this) - it was the proliferation of this type that prompted the Pope to try (predictably quite unsuccesfully) banning their use against fellow Christians - and seem to have worked well enough everywhere south of Scandinavia, where the rather nastier winters AFAIK play havoc on the glues. (The later steel-stave crossbow worked just fine, though, and after its introduction remained an ubiquitous peasant hunting arm into the 1800s.) Waterproofing bowstaves isn't AFAIK terribly difficult and was done quite routinely - and it's not like the Eurasian steppes, the very home of the composite bow, are either dry or particularly warm year round...

AFAIK the main reason the composite bow never saw much use in Europe beyond the Mediterranean and the Central European steppe interface zone was actually the availability of suitable horn - or rather lack thereof - combined with the relative unimportance of long-rance archery in the context of the "typical" European battlefield (which tended to be rather cramped; this is also why European cavalry tactics evolved into such extremely linear frontal-assault forms, compared to the more fluid and maneuverable Eurasian norm). Plus, since the main point of composite bows is to add draw weight without the kind of unwieldy added stave lenght you get with stronger self-bows, which is mostly of concern for horse-archers (and before them chariot warriors) who as we know were an irrelevant concern in most European warfare (again to no small degree due to geographical reasons), it's hard to see what incentive European bowyers would have had to adopt such a complex, intricate and duly price-hiking construction patterns.
Doubly so as for the most part there was no shortage of suitable woods, unlike in the comparatively treeless steppe and arid Mediterranean/Middle Eastern latitudes.

Most of the attention on this thread seems to be going to specialist archer types (longbows, crossbows, etc.) so I may as well say a word about ordinary plain simple bows.

AFAIK the ordinary garden variety archer was around throughout the middle ages and throughout Western Europe except perhaps where displaced by the better weapons (crossbows, longbows, and eventually firearms). They were often very useful, for example at breaking up heavy infantry formations so the cavalry could attack (at Hastings, for example) and in seiges,and of course were cheap and readily available. In Carolingian times even knights often carried bows as a back up weapon, but I don't know under what circumstances they used them. (Seiges would seem logical.) With that exception, they were really a peasant weapon of limited power and lowly status that could not keep up with the armor improvement that came later in the period.

Since the first post raised the question of Spanish/French/German archer units, I'll say the very little I know. The Spanish had a reputation for using slingers IIRC, but they may have used bows too for all I know. The French did try raising archer units to counter the English bowmen, and the kings (starting in the 15th century?) had Scots archers in their bodyguard. However, the French don't seem to have had much sucess with bowmen. As for the Germans and Italians, AFAIK they hired English mercinary longbowmen if they felt the need for effective bowmen, or used crossbowmen.

That's the best I can do off the top of my head.

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Originally Posted by Brandy Blue

The Spanish had a reputation for using slingers IIRC, but they may have used bows too for all I know.

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I can't think of any famous Spanish archers either, but in addition to slingers the Iberians also used javelins quite effectively. So at the very least skirmishing was important to the kingdom of Spain, but as far as archery goes I can't recall anything to suggest they had effective archers as well. (Perhaps Andalusian mercenaries?)

Sicily hired Greek and Muslim soldiers, weren't some of those soldiers good bowmen? I'm certain Sicily had good bowmen drawn from their auxiliaries.

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Originally Posted by Tsar Alexsandr

Sicily hired Greek and Muslim soldiers, weren't some of those soldiers good bowmen? I'm certain Sicily had good bowmen drawn from their auxiliaries.

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Siculo-Muslim archers, as outlined in M2TW as well, were quite capable bowmen. Sort of an anvil and hammer if I'm not mistaken in Sicilian tactics, the use of effective bowmen and the impact of their armoured knights, both mounted and on foot.

Which is quite surprising considering the Kingdom of Sicily was not such a rich and prosperous state compared to the other military powerhouses of the era.

Throughout the 12^th century, the Norman kingdom of Sicily was, in fact, the most prosperous state of the Mediterranean basin.
After the Hohenstaufen interlude, it established itself as the main power in the Mediterranean in the 13^th century, under Charles of Anjou.
The only reason it did not press on with a very carefully planned expedition aiming to conquer Constantinople was the last minute ferocious Sicilian revolt largely funded by the Byzantine and Aragonese rulers, a last desperate move to stave off the expedition - successful move, as aside from conquering the island in around a month, it destroyed at anchor the huge Sicilian fleet meant to transport the troops.


Steven Runciman's The Sicilian Vespres is the most erudite work focusing on the Sicilian state between the 11^th and 13^th centuries.

If this guy has it straight, then there were some French nobles who were archers late in the period and he gives more information about those Scottish archers:

"Eventually the French began to require that some of the nobles summoned by the ban and arrière-ban
serve as archers. I have not yet discovered when this requirement was first imposed, nor is it clear what
motivated the French to try this specific change. It was probably after 1415. To bolster the depleted French
army after Agincourt, Charles VII hired an army from his Scottish allies. The Scots Guards, as they came to be
called, arrived in France in 1419, and in one form or another remained part of the French army throughout
our period of interest. The Scots Guards incorporated companies of Scots archers, and this might have been
a model (see page 45). The kings of France might have felt the need for better-disciplined archers, and for
archers who were mounted and thus able to travel more rapidly (Strickland 330). Both of these factors would
have led them to look to their nobility. A set of regulations from Brittany in 1450 is the earliest found so far
mentioning a requirement for archers from the nobility"

http://www.telusplanet.net/public/pr...blearchers.pdf

edit: Could be a translation issue here. He also says: "The remainder [nobility below the rank of knight] were the lesser nobility, sometimes called the gentry. " So it looks like his "noble archers" might be something closer to the rank gentleman than what we would normally call "noble." (He admits that Medieval French is not his strong point and mistranslations are to be expected.) I'll post more if I find anything else of interest he wrote, when I can find time to finish reading.

And here it is:
"Not surprisingly, there is no indication that any of the greater nobility went to war as archers. All the examples that I’ve seen so far are from the lesser nobility, plus a very small number of knights."

I should have been more patient and read the whole thing before I posted. The guy wrote a whole article to prove that there were "noble archers" and what it boils down to is that a few knights used bows. His "lesser nobility" (below knights) would not normally be considered nobles at all, as we use the term in English.

They should have utlized it and made full use of the archers,like the chinese did.

A little thread necromancy - did anyone else apart from the English, and to an extent, the French, use the longbow?

the japanese yumi - very long, very effective

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Originally Posted by edyzmedieval

A little thread necromancy - did anyone else apart from the English, and to an extent, the French, use the longbow?

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Go back to post #8 on this thread for use of longbows (not of the English type) in Scandinavia. Also, the Welsh used longbows. No one else that I know of.

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Originally Posted by edyzmedieval

A little thread necromancy - did anyone else apart from the English, and to an extent, the French, use the longbow?

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Yes. A longbow is just a man-tall selfbow, while it's one of the best bow designs, there's nothing special or unique about it. Pre-historic Europeans, Eastern Woodland Indians, East Indians, Amazonian Indians, Papua New Guineans, all used or use longbows.

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Originally Posted by Tuuvi

Yes. A longbow is just a man-tall selfbow, while it's one of the best bow designs, there's nothing special or unique about it. Pre-historic Europeans, Eastern Woodland Indians, East Indians, Amazonian Indians, Papua New Guineans, all used or use longbows.

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There is quite a difference that must be noted. Here is the wiki article that best describes the point;

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Originally Posted by wiki

Traditional English longbows are self bows made from yew wood. The bowstave is cut from the radius of the tree so that the sapwood (on the outside of the tree) becomes the back two thirds and the belly, the remaining one third, is heartwood. Yew sapwood is good only in tension, while the heartwood is good in compression. However, compromises must be made when making a yew longbow, as it is difficult to find perfect unblemished yew. The demand for yew bowstaves was such that by the late 16th century mature yew trees were almost extinct in northern Europe.

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Longbows, because of their narrow limbs and rounded cross-section (which does not spread out stress within the wood as evenly as a flatbow’s rectangular cross section), need to be less powerful, longer or of more elastic wood than an equivalent flatbow. In Europe the last approach was used, with yew being the wood of choice, because of its high compressive strength, light weight and elasticity. Yew is the only widespread European timber that will make good self longbows, and has been the main wood used in European bows since Neolithic times. More common and cheaper hard woods, including elm, oak, ash, hazel and maple, are good for flatbows. A narrow longbow with high draw-weight can be made from these woods, but it is likely to take a permanent bend (known as "set" or "following the string") and would probably be outshot by an equivalent made of yew.

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In other words; not all longbows were good.

I'm also going to disagree with longbows being some super-weapon that saved the english - though I understand no one really said that, but it seems the consensus is that longbows were a great weapon that decided many battles. On the contrary, look at when longbows were actually relevant, or at least pointed out to have been a deciding factor;

Halidon Hill (1333), Crecy (1346), Poitiers (1356), and Agincourt (1415).

I doubt those were the only battles in a 80 year period that longbows took part in, but they're the few that are mentioned. This is only 4 battles in a 200 year span of when longbows were supposedly the dominant ranged weapon. I mean, no one is talking about swords or axes or maces being the dominant melee weapon for more than a thousand years, and I would bet that even if there were, there are more than 4 battles to look back on and say "yup, it was decided because their swords were sharper" or whatever.

My argument is not so much that longbows weren't great weapons, it's more or less that a lot of people put a lot of stock in them being the weapon that dominated the field of battle for 200 years, which is not necessarily so - only the english were known for fielding large amounts of longbowman, and again; only 4 battles are actually pointed out in history as them having been the deciding factor. Truth is, they were capable of firing at a long range, but were only accurate and effective at shorter ranges, and even then, they still had a difficult time piercing plate armor which started being used more frequently after 1350.

On another note; Agincourt is easy to look at and say "yeah, english longbows won the battle", and not so easy to look at and say "the french lost because of ineffectual commanders and a unled charge through a muddy forest that slipped up and slowed their men and left them prey to volley after volley of arrows". Agincourt had more to do with the placement of armies and the people in command then it did with longbows, but no one really looks at it that way - Henry was dug in and ready for the charge. To see what happens when they don't have the nice advantage of fortifying their position, look at the battle of Verneuil (1424) and Patay (1429). I suppose the the other side of the argument (in favor of longbows) would be; it took people that long to figure out how to fight a group of longbowman. I'd say it had more to do with pride, though, that really only got beat into their thick skulls after so many losses.

In short, the longbow is given too much credit. It's just a weapon that when used effectively (like any other weapon) could produce great results.

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Originally Posted by Madae

There is quite a difference that must be noted. Here is the wiki article that best describes the point;



In other words; not all longbows were good.

I'm also going to disagree with longbows being some super-weapon that saved the english - though I understand no one really said that, but it seems the consensus is that longbows were a great weapon that decided many battles. On the contrary, look at when longbows were actually relevant, or at least pointed out to have been a deciding factor;

Halidon Hill (1333), Crecy (1346), Poitiers (1356), and Agincourt (1415).

I doubt those were the only battles in a 80 year period that longbows took part in, but they're the few that are mentioned. This is only 4 battles in a 200 year span of when longbows were supposedly the dominant ranged weapon. I mean, no one is talking about swords or axes or maces being the dominant melee weapon for more than a thousand years, and I would bet that even if there were, there are more than 4 battles to look back on and say "yup, it was decided because their swords were sharper" or whatever.

My argument is not so much that longbows weren't great weapons, it's more or less that a lot of people put a lot of stock in them being the weapon that dominated the field of battle for 200 years, which is not necessarily so - only the english were known for fielding large amounts of longbowman, and again; only 4 battles are actually pointed out in history as them having been the deciding factor. Truth is, they were capable of firing at a long range, but were only accurate and effective at shorter ranges, and even then, they still had a difficult time piercing plate armor which started being used more frequently after 1350.

On another note; Agincourt is easy to look at and say "yeah, english longbows won the battle", and not so easy to look at and say "the french lost because of ineffectual commanders and a unled charge through a muddy forest that slipped up and slowed their men and left them prey to volley after volley of arrows". Agincourt had more to do with the placement of armies and the people in command then it did with longbows, but no one really looks at it that way - Henry was dug in and ready for the charge. To see what happens when they don't have the nice advantage of fortifying their position, look at the battle of Verneuil (1424) and Patay (1429). I suppose the the other side of the argument (in favor of longbows) would be; it took people that long to figure out how to fight a group of longbowman. I'd say it had more to do with pride, though, that really only got beat into their thick skulls after so many losses.

In short, the longbow is given too much credit. It's just a weapon that when used effectively (like any other weapon) could produce great results.

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Is it not cheaper though than a crowd of costly men at arms?? thats prob the real advantage.

I remember my brother once made the point that Rome must have had an enourmous advantage economically having standard weapons. One could make the case that the English just hit on plan with more bang for it's buck quite literally, cheaper yeomen who can concentrate fire on an enemy a fair bit away.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

Is it not cheaper though than a crowd of costly men at arms?? thats prob the real advantage.

I remember my brother once made the point that Rome must have had an enourmous advantage economically having standard weapons. One could make the case that the English just hit on plan with more bang for it's buck quite literally, cheaper yeomen who can concentrate fire on an enemy a fair bit away.

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Not that it proves a point effectively (cause it's a movie), but one of my favorite lines from Braveheart was when the captain told Longshanks the archers were ready to fire, and he says "Not the archers. My scouts tell me their archers are miles away and no threat to us. Arrows cost money. Use up the Irish - the dead cost nothing".

And I suppose it depends on how much they're getting paid, and whether it was before or after the battle. Trained archers were expensive to hire, because it took years of practice to be good at it, and develop the muscle tone necessary to excel. That's actually part of the reason longbows started to fall out of favor - the french started removing the fingers (the middle and index finger, likely) of archers they captured. They started falling out of disuse because there were very few people skilled enough to use a Longbow at some point in history (but also due to firearms making an appearance and being overall cheaper to train someone to use a gun).

I would also argue that Rome did so well because they were one of the first (if not the first) to have a standard, and disciplined, army that freely, and frequently, adapted better technology from the people they fought (like the Gladius)... I wouldn't rule out the better equipment argument, though. It's probably true that they were better equipped than most, especially at the later periods.

I still would feel even though an Archer was not free they were cheaper than a man at arms.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

Is it not cheaper though than a crowd of costly men at arms?? thats prob the real advantage.

I remember my brother once made the point that Rome must have had an enourmous advantage economically having standard weapons. One could make the case that the English just hit on plan with more bang for it's buck quite literally, cheaper yeomen who can concentrate fire on an enemy a fair bit away.

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The Roman army did not use standard weapons and armor nor did they have the machines to make it standardized in a modern sense.

English kings hired foreign knights for domestic campaigns and even tried, unsuccessfully, to increase the numbers of men-at-arms from the local lords. They also tried to build up a force of heavy infantry with little success. If we look at late 13th to early 14th century we see several campaigns using enormous amounts of infantry, something that was never repeated later on as it seems the poor quality and low mobility was not worth the hassle. It is after that we see a stronger focus on archers as the main infantry, and even a lot of mounted archers even though they cost more.

English kings does not seem to have had many options left but to focus on archers to increase the strength of their armies. That does not mean they were bad, only that cost is just one of several reasons as to what troops were used.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

I still would feel even though an Archer was not free they were cheaper than a man at arms.

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You may be right. I found some info;

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Originally Posted by wiki

The social stratification of men who served as men-at-arms is illustrated by their rates of pay on campaign, in the mid 1340s a knight was paid 2 shillings a day, an ordinary man-at-arms was paid half this amount; for comparison a foot archer received 2 or 3 pence (12 pennies to the shilling). A man-at-arms was also recompensed differentially according to the quality of his principal war-horse, if the horse was to die or was killed in battle. An ordinary esquire might own a war-horse worth only 5 pounds whilst a great nobleman might own a horse worth up to 100 pounds.

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Such men could serve for pay or through a feudal obligation.

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Yahoo question about longbowmen;

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question...8105442AASvndN

I guess it would be fair to say that it really depended on the man doing the hiring, and then also on the success of the campaign. I also don't know the difference between pence, pennies, or shillings. There is some conflicting information between the two articles (2-3 pence vs. 6?).

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Originally Posted by Madae

I guess it would be fair to say that it really depended on the man doing the hiring, and then also on the success of the campaign. I also don't know the difference between pence, pennies, or shillings. There is some conflicting information between the two articles (2-3 pence vs. 6?).

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here is all the info you will ever need on pre decimal currency these would also count for Ireland even after indepence.

Another site this time with a bit more structure to it and proper pronuciation too

Imagine also if you have five separate one penny coins then you say you have 5 pence or you can say I have 5 penny coins it's just another way to say the smaller divisible units. You would never generally say I have two thrupenny bits instead you would say I have six pence but neither is wrong, it's just that people used it merely cos it's easier in daily life.

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Originally Posted by Madae

There is quite a difference that must be noted. Here is the wiki article that best describes the point;

In other words; not all longbows were good.

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Hm The Traditional Bowyer's Bible says otherwise. Yew is one of the best bow woods to be sure, but you can make a good selfbow out of many different species of wood. AFAIK Yew bows can take a set as well, and in other wood species set can be mitigated with the right design and if the bow is well-made. Differences in wood performance aside, my original point still stands. Making a man-tall bow is not a novel concept, in fact it's pretty common.