Longbow fantasy

[Anton]

The Irish word for bow (boga) is a borrowing from Norse so the Gaelic bow is probably of ultimate Norse descent. Given the mixed Norse/Gaelic population of the Isles I suspect the Highland bow originated there- the McDonalds' lands stretched from Ulster to the Great Glen after all.

That is a good place to start Mick. The loan word is Norse rather than the Welsh "bw" itself a loan word.  All the same we don't have that much evidence of the Irish adopting the military use of the bow in, or immediately post,  the Viking Wars.  Post Strongbow's incursion some Irish soldiers have done so though not on any grand scale.

For the Isles and Highlands the bow seems to be integral war kit.  Something different has happened there.  A MacDonald transmission seems a good bet.  Presumably from a Norse starting point.

There's always the possibility that the distinct Gaelic bow was an indigenous development in response to exposure to the military archery of others.

I don't think I can add much to our understanding of Pict archery.  I know (or don't know) the same as everyone else.

[Nick Harbud]

A completely anachronistic and possibly irrelevant comment...

I have recently been reading Paddy Griffiths analysis of ACW Battle Tactics that in many cases compares the performance of the armies with those of the Napoleonic era.  One chapter deals with infantryman's prime weapon - the rifle. 

Griffiths notes that in the earlier conflict, troops almost exclusively used the smoothbore musket and this resulted in exchanges of fire taking place at around 100 yards.  50 years later and most troops had a rifled weapon that was much more accurate up to 400 yards.  Yet analysis of various battles indicates musketry exchanges still took place at around 100 yards.  Griffiths attributes this to the training regime of the raw soldiers employed by both sides where practically no ammuition was issued for practise and the drills emphasised fire volume over long range accuracy.

Now, applying this to examples of longbows and other types of archery, we all know the English spent every Sunday afternoon at the butts.  We also know that whenever the franc-archers reached something like proficiency they tended to raise a rebellion, leading to the situation where practise was often discouraged.  One might consider that practice by the user may have been more important than the technical capabilities of the technology.

[Erpingham]

The joys of absolute range versus effective range versus battlefield range

One of the many joys of reading Sir John Smythe's "brusque" commentaries is his dismissal of people who talk about absolute ranges as if they meant anything on a battlefield.  Smythe tends to talk about maximum effective ranges and then some cases of ranges in certain tactical circumstances.  For interest, his maximum battlefield ranges are:
Longbow 160-220 yds
Arquebus 60-80 yds
Musket 160-240 yds

He also reckons that, for best effect, firearms should retain their fire till cavalry are at 10-12 yards! It would take a hell of a lot of nerve to do that.  The reasons are essentially the short accurate range of the weapon and its slow reload speed meant you are only get one shot in, so make it count.  Barwicke, Smythe's great adversary and firearm fan, ridicules this and recommends opening fire with muskets in such circumstances at 480 yds! 

On the matter of training, it is worth remembering that practising at the butts was a pastime and some took it more seriously than others.  By the sixteenth century, musters distinguished men who had a bow from men who were "able" with it.  So, yes, men who were practised and in physically good enough shape to bend a livery bow (as opposed to a recreational one) and get livery arrows the required effective ranges were at a premium.

[Erpingham]

Talking as we were about ranges, these items from a literary dialogue by Barnaby Riche are interesting.  At the time of writing, quite early in the bow v gun debate, Rich is pro-gun but not fanatically so

Mercury : Suppose one thousande Archers shoulde be leuyed within two Shiers in Englande let them use no further reagard in the choice then of ordinary they ar accustomted: In the seruice of the Prince, let these Archers be apoynted with such liuery Bowes as the Country generally useth to alow, let these Archers continnewe in the feelde but the space of one weeke, abidynge such fortune of weather, with their Bowes and Arrowes, as in the mene time might happen. I would but demaunde how many of those thowsand men were able at the weeks end to shoote aboue x. score. I dare undertake that if one hundred of those thousande doo shoote aboue ten score, that .ii. hundred of the rest, wyll shoote shorte of .ix. score, and is not this a peece of aduantage thinkest thou? when euery Calyuer that is brought into the feelde wyl carry a shot xviii. score and .xx. score, and euery Musquet .xxiiii, and xxx. score.
<  >
Souldier : But let it be that one thowsand Archers and one thowsande shot should meete in the playne feelde where no vantage were to be taken by the ground, & admit they were ioyned in skirmish, within .viii or .ix score where the Archer is able to shutte twice to the others once, wherby the Arrowes comming so thick amonst them, wil so astone them that the contrarye part shall not well know where at to shoote.

a-right-exelent-and-pleasaunt-dialouge-1574

In summary, 80% of archers will achieve above 180 yards in the field, whereas calivers (a arquebus type weapon) will reach 360-400 yds and muskets 480-600 yds.  I believe Riche is quoting extreme ranges here for the firearms, not battlefield ranges, though Barwick would later suggest shooting at cavalry at 480 yds with the musket as we have seen.  Note the soldier implicitly concedes the range argument but instead talks of shooting combat taking place at 160-180 yds.  The rate of fire comparison is also interesting.  Although modern sources often stress the huge numbers of arrows archers can shoot in a minute, the pro-archer soldier thinks they can only outshoot firearms 2 shots to 1.  Mercury later comes back with it being nearer eight shots to five. 

[DBS]

Of course, Jim Bradbury makes a compelling case that the whole concept of the "longbow" is a later, artificial concept, given that there are quite a few bows from late antiquity and the early medieval period (eg Nydam and various Irish finds respectively) that are in the 5'7" to 6' size range, and that of course any bow will need to be sized to its owner for maximum efficiency.  He suggests that there might perhaps have been a trend towards bows getting a bit longer as the medieval period progressed, but argues that the idea that there was such a thing as a "longbow" which could be differentiated from a "shortbow" is unfounded, let alone differentiating between a Norman bow, a Welsh bow, a Gaelic bow or an English bow.  The real significance is probably the changing emphasis placed on the weapon in contemporary usage - does your knightly class see it as a peasant's weapon to be used by low class scum hiding in trees, or an important part of a combined arms retinue for giving the Frogs a bloody nose?

[Erpingham]

Strickland and Hardy also see things rather more of a continuum (or rather, I think Matthew Strickland does - I think Hardy was more on the distinctive weapon track).  Clifford Rogers, however, has argued the distinction existed .  The archaeology supports the existence of longbows similar to later ones going back to the Iron Age (the mesolithic bows many longbow histories start with are of a different type) but most finds of bows and arrowheads aren't longbow-related.

I am, currently at least, quite convinced by Richard Wadge's idea that occassional longbows existed throughout the early Middle Ages, perhaps wielded by particular specialists (he suggests forestry professionals like parkers would have reason to own them, for example) but most common bows for occassional use would have been lighter.  Once the military starts taking a serious interest in developing massed archery, the number of people having the required ability to pull a heavy bow increases, while also stimulating the production of things needed in an archery supply chain, like more heavy bows and heavy arrows.  So, no discovery of a wonder weapon but a revolution of thinking and rapid technological and organisational evolution to bring the thinking into practice.