Longbow tactics are one of those wonderful subjects that keep on giving for the medieval military historian, professional or amateur. Always an audience. Never any certainty. So, while I contemplate Roy Boss' urgings to write a Slingshot article about it, here is a little thing exercising me at the moment.
Leaving aside the question of how they were deployed, there are two main schools on the use of longbows by English armies. The conventional one is usually called an arrowstorm (I have yet to discover the origin of this term). It focuses a great deal on range, rate of shooting and the deadly effect of the armour-piercing war arrow at all ranges. Arrows are shot "wholly together" in great volleys, falling like hail or snow on bodies of men, punching through weak points in armour and striking unarmoured bits, relying on chance more than accuracy. The language of the artillery barrage is used a lot - "barrage", "beaten zone", "time on target effect".
The newer theory, which was first published by Mike Loades but seems to have come from his interactions with the warbow community, revolves around flat trajectory shooting. The arrow storm has been misunderstood, arrows didn't really fall like hail, they flew flat. Battlefield, as opposed to siege or naval warfare, never saw arrows rise much above horizontal flight. For example, here is a comment from Dr Toby Capwell, one of the advocates of the new model
At Agincourt, the continuous barrage of arrows – forming a straight, level, head-on sheet of steel (in reality English archers did not shoot at high elevation or in volleys) – was so thick that it caused the French, as battle participants Jean Waurin and Jean Le Fèvre describe, 'to bow their heads so that the arrows would not penetrate the visors of their helmets'
Engagement ranges were 100yds or less and most shooting was done at 50 yds and under. Extremely rapid shooting was used at these short ranges but it was aimed at individuals. Again, here is a blogger interviewing Toby Capwell
One of the interesting points you have raised relates to the English archers at the Battle of Agincourt, and how precisely they and their famous longbows were used on the battlefield. In several video presentations you have shown they used their weapons as a point offensive weapon-similar to a rifle, (rather) than, say, an area denial weapon- where a massive arrow storm just saturated large areas of the field.
The reason for the short range, according to advocates, is that longbows were very poor against armour except at very short ranges. The best armour was basically arrow proof. The archers' only chance against such men was a rapid number of strikes to cause non-lethal injury and shake morale and accurate targeting of weak points, especially the face/visor.
I don't intend in this post to really look at the evidence for either theory, though I would note they rely quite heavily on evidence beyond the contemporary sources. Arrowstorm is very 20th century warfare – barrages, rapid fire, beaten zones, enfilades. Loades theory is very "experimental recreation" led. There are some interesting questions to ask about tactical evolution – in battles of of the 14th century, for example, the battlefield was not dominated by plate armoured dismounted knights but cavalry and less well armed infantry, so would anti-armour tactics be the priority then or would other tactics be used?
Another interesting point, at least from an SOA point of view, is reflecting the difference between the two tactical ideas in rules and on the table. Should we massively reduce our archery ranges? Reduce the vulnerability of armoured targets? Emphasise reduction in morale or offensive capability of armoured targets under short-range longbow attack, rather than allow damage? Rely less on attritional effect and more on acute impact? Some of this will depend on abstraction and how rules handle any type of combat (e.g. are they morale driven?) but other things like engagement ranges and "safe" distances from the enemy might apply across a spectrum of rule types.
Anyway, I think that demonstrates one of the uncertainties of longbows and how we reflect them in wargames. As always, comments and ideas welcome.
Just thought then. If you have massed longbow do they wait until the last minute before firing at heavily armoured targets en masses or start firing at longer distances and hope to cause some confusion as the clankies get closer...?
Without really knowing anything about it, I suspect that, boringly enough for advocates of one school of thought or the other, it varied, and it depends.
As a rule, effective or ideal battlefield ranges of weapons (firearms we are most familiar with) tend to be way shorter than maximum ranges. I imagine there would be good arguments for reserving shooting to point blank (which for a longbow is what - 60 metres or so?) or below. On the other hand, there must also have been cases, depending on the target and the tactical situation, where more speculative long range shooting was appropriate.
I've seen people quoting stats that armour penetration does not fall off greatly wth range; and anyway as a general rule I'm sceptical of technical explanations for battlefield behaviours.
Do we know at what ranges practising at the butts was usually carried out? Presumably that would reflect battlefield needs.
In wargames terms, also boringly, I wouldn't make any changes, partly because we don't know the answers, partly because I think such details can't be usefully modelled.
QuoteDo we know at what ranges practising at the butts was usually carried out? Presumably that would reflect battlefield needs.
Good question. If only it had a simple answer :) We seem to lack much actual information on how far pairs of butts were apart (they often came in pairs, so you could shoot at one then back to the other). Roth in
With a bended bow reckons 160-220 yds, but gives an example of 13 score tailors yards. Also how far forward from the butt did you stand - 5 yds, 10? 160-220 fits well with 16th century figures on battlefield ranges (see the Longbow fantasy topic). But things could have been different by then. However, Christine de Pizan seems our earliest source to specify a distance to the butts for English archers c. 1410 at 600ft, which aligns quite well. The 15th century L'Arte d'Archerie gives an example of butts 100 paces apart. These are probably single paces, as the author moves on to say a good target shooting distance is 300 paces but really good archers manage 400 (I'm guessing he is talking prick/clout shooting here).
Quotewhich for a longbow is what - 60 metres or so?
I've read in posts online a figure around 75yds but it would depend on the bow and the archer. The 100 paces range quoted above is in the context of flat trajectory archery but not true point blank as it allows some elevation.
Add : I was suspicious of Roth's 13 score yds apart butts, as I thought I knew the figure. It is in fact for a competition shot between "pricks" in 1478. These were just posts set in the ground, not a permanent butt arrangment, and were used for prick shooting (funny that) not target (or, as it would have been called in 1478, mark) shooting.
I'd be minded to think that the archers effort was intended to produce shock stopping their opponents tactical move. How well this worked depended on the archers and the circumstances. Not helpful at all I know.
I suppose I am interested to know what the thoughts and theories are about how longbow fire effected the troops shot at. Did they slow down but continue to move forward (or did they stop)? Did it lead to disorder in the ranks and reduce cohesion (but on its own that is perhaps not going to be decisive)? Did it cause troops to move to the side (so no longer straight forward)...and thus more bunching and movement towards the troops not shooting?
Is there any battlefield evidence...e.g. that English men-at-arms fought hand-to-hand against French/Scots but the archers much less rarely engaged hand to hand as the French/Scots failed to reach them (and/or only fought hand to hand once the French/Scots were wavering)?
Quote from: gavindbm on June 14, 2022, 09:11:38 PM
I suppose I am interested to know what the thoughts and theories are about how longbow fire effected the troops shot at. Did they slow down but continue to move forward (or did they stop)? Did it lead to disorder in the ranks and reduce cohesion (but on its own that is perhaps not going to be decisive)? Did it cause troops to move to the side (so no longer straight forward)...and thus more bunching and movement towards the troops not shooting?
Big topic. As usual the evidence isn't as specific as we would like. Overall, my take would be that archers could disperse other archers but rarely cracked close order infantry. Possibly never if the latter were advancing. Homildon Hill does show the Scots shiltron disintegrating under shot because it wants to keep its defensive position rather than advancing. Extending this, it could be said that holding a position unless you had the weight of shot to keep the enemy at bay was risky. But so too was advancing, as it could lead to disorder, especially if being shot at.
Cavalry was another interesting question - the disruptive effect of archery on cavalry even at longer ranges was noted. On the other hand, archers stopping charging cavalry was rare, unless they took advantage of terrain which robbed the cavalry of momentum.
QuoteIs there any battlefield evidence...e.g. that English men-at-arms fought hand-to-hand against French/Scots but the archers much less rarely engaged hand to hand as the French/Scots failed to reach them (and/or only fought hand to hand once the French/Scots were wavering)?
I don't think there is much evidence of archers doing well against close order troops in a frontal attack and they were probably avoided. That was the job of the men-at-arms, the bills, later the pikes. Famously, the archers attacked the disordered French men-at-arms at Agincourt but it's not a common occurence from the sources I've read.
Much of this ground was already covered in my Slingshot article 'Behind the Curve'. So, I shall make this brief.
Mike Loades makes persuasive arguments for a flat trajectory based upon both examination of pictures (high angle archery is not depicted outside of a siege setting) and practical experimentation (it tends to be a lot easier to hit a target using a flat trajectory).
If one assumes that archery is conducted by mass volley with the target being the unit as a whole rather than individuals, then the proportion of missiles hitting men at different ranges should have a similar profile to mass musketry.
There is a suggestion by some that using a high angle trajectory is more accurate than flat one, but an examination of the ballistics does not support this. The scatter resulting from, say, ½ degree differences in individual discharge angle tend to produce similar results at the target irrespective of high or flat trajectory. Furthermore, the travel time of the missile is significantly greater with a high angle shot, which introduces additional inaccuracy at all ranges (because the target can move further whilst the arrow is travelling towards them).
Missile velocity (and by extension, momentum, kinetic energy and penetrative power) at different ranges was examined in the article and by others elsewhere. Protecton provided by plate armour, brigantines (small plates sewn into a fabric garment) and other types of armour has been examined by several parties. Mark Stretton's work detailed in Secrets of the English Warbow gives a reasonable comparison.
The same author has also conducted experiments to simulate the practicalities of engaging charging foot and mounted targets.
From a wargaming aspect, many rules give archery in general and longbows in particular an effect comparable to going over the top at the Somme, or at least a Napoleonic musketry duel. If one believes this is reasonable, then the wargame tends to resemble such later period battles. If one takes the contrary view, then there is an argument for abolishing all distance missile fire and incorporating it within the close combat/melee results. You pays your money and takes your choice.
Quotehigh angle archery is not depicted outside of a siege setting
True enough, though if we are going to take medieval art literally, archery duels were fought at ranges of about six feet and armies consisted of a couple of dozen men. While the source evidence is not as clear as we would like (when is it ever?), a pervasive image is of high volumes of arrows falling like rain/hail/snow and clouds of arrows shading the sun. Cliches no doubt but likely to persist in the face of reality?
I think he is on stronger ground with his arguments from effectiveness - armour penetration, accuracy, ammunition economy. Even then, he is perhaps unduly focussed on men-at-arms in full armour on foot as the target, rather than considering a range of tactical circumstances and opponents.
Overall, I think he is right to challenge the prevailing orthodoxy and draw attention away from an obsession with range (Hardy was a devil for this) and to highlight the probable truth that most archery was at shorter ranges. However, there is plenty of evidence for high angle shooting in certain circumstances and that archers trained to shoot accurately at longer ranges. By the 16th century, this type of longbow shooting probably predominates in a field battle, at least in part because the hard-hitting shorter range stuff was being performed by firearms.
as an aside, we did some experiments with reenactors way back when.....getting a fully armoured man at arms to walk towards a longbowman firing on a flat trajectory with rubber tipped flu flu arrows. I can say that although we couldnt tell if the armour would be pierced by the arrows if actually sharps but they did manage to 'slow' the MAA down somewhat and at 25 yards made to stagger under impact ;D
One significant implication, it would seem to me, is frontage and depth of the archers.
If archers are conducting high angle fire at some distance, then one can perhaps envisage a certain depth of formation allowing more than one or two ranks to fire with some effect (though probably not TOO many additional ranks, as the archers presumably need to have some sight of the enemy to estimate range in a semi meaningful manner).
However, and happy to be told re-enactors, etc, have proved this concern false, it seems to me that with low trajectory direct fire, one would be pushed to have more than one or at a pinch two ranks firing accurately and safely. Even muskets were typically limited to two or three ranks, and achieving three sometimes required the front rank to kneel or stoop, which would not be an option with bows, leaving aside that the act of firing a bow requires more significant arm movements than firing (as opposed to loading) a musket. And muskets usually fired in controlled volleys, which would not seem to be a sensible or necessary option for archers, any more than for magazine armed riflemen in most circumstances.
So, if they are correct about low trajectory fire, that seems to imply a very shallow formation, or perhaps a shallow archery crust at the front of a deeper melee formation, into which the archers can swiftly fall back after a mad minute vs the approaching French, though I am not aware of the latter being reflected in contemporary accounts, so may be a typical wargamer over extrapolation!
Here's a couple more quotes, this time from the Royal Armouries (probably both written by Thom Richardson)
The effectiveness of plate armour
Ballistic testing of longbow arrows against plate armour remains controversial. Recent research has confirmed the experiments of the 1970s, that 2mm of medieval plate armour could resist any medieval arrow or crossbow. Our experimental work at Ridsdale in 1996 (Royal Armouries Yearbook 3, 1998, 44-9) supports Peter Jones's earlier work, and Matheus Bane's more recent research. To the contrary, much of the work suggesting the longbow arrow could pierce plate is theoretical rather than practical (P. Bourke and D. Wetham's article in Arms & Armour 4, 2007, 53-81 has been roundly criticised and generally condemned) but work by the highly respected archer and broadcaster Mike Loades, Longbow, Oxford 2013, continues to support the armour piercing longbow theory as do Mark Stretton and his circle (H.D. Soar, M. Stretton and J. Gibbs, Secrets of the English war bow).
From <https://royalarmouries.org/stories/our-collection/agincourt-600-the-defeat-of-armour/>
This predates the well known tests against a replica breastplate by Tod Todeleschi and Toby Capwell, who argue even more for good quality plate being arrow-proof.
Rethinking the longbow
While the bows have 'become' more powerful than we used to think, the 'arrowstorm' beloved of English archery enthusiasts has diminished. We used to talk about resupply of arrows as if it was a natural and simple process, but the Privy Wardrobe accounts show otherwise.
Each archer had two sheaves of arrows to last a campaign, and would probably go into battle with just one of them. So all the statistics of how many arrows an archer can shoot in a minute are very much put into perspective by realising that such an arrowstorm could last just three minutes, then the arrows were gone. Once we are aware of that, we can see it happening in the sources: at Poitiers in 1356 the English archers ran out, and tried to recover spent arrows. At
in 1461 the Lancastrian archers ran out of arrows, and suffered the indignity of having the Yorkists shoot their own arrows back at them. So the vision moves away from darkening the sky with arrows like the Persians' at Thermopylae towards a smaller number of accurately aimed arrows shot from very powerful bows by highly skilled and practised professional archers.
From <https://royalarmouries.org/stories/our-collection/longbows-of-agincourt/>
Personally, I'd say the implication is of controlled shooting rather blanket "spray and pray" tactics. Towton is an odd example to choose - this seems to be a major piece of evidence of long range, ill controlled shooting.
hence saving your ammunition and only firing when you can see the whites of their eyes......
Quote from: Erpingham on June 15, 2022, 02:05:31 PM
Personally, I'd say the implication is of controlled shooting rather blanket "spray and pray" tactics. Towton is an odd example to choose - this seems to be a major piece of evidence of long range, ill controlled shooting.
Would agree. To be clear, when I was sceptical above of controlled volley shooting, I meant more in the idea that archers would be firing specific volleys on command, as opposed to some sort of, Wait for it, wait for it, let them get closer.... now! Fire at will, pick your targets, make every shot count, etc...." In other words, control start (and possibly cessation) of fire, but not necessarily have "Draw, loose!" But of course I could be utterly wrong.
The other limiting factor I suspect, even for the most conditioned and Hardy archer (SWIDT?) must have been muscle strain. You run out of arrows in three minutes, but are also knackered.
As an archer (lapsed) and a pedant (active), can I insist on archers 'shooting' not 'firing'?
Quote
So the vision moves away from darkening the sky with arrows like the Persians at Thermopylae
But it's worth pointing out that our (or at least, my) understanding of ancient archery is even worse than that of Medieval archery. There isn't really good evidence for Persians darkening the sky, except as an in-advance threat, and it's not clear whether Persians engaged in mass high trajectory volley shooting or low level aimed shots either. Whichever it was, they seem to have been totally ineffective, at least in the battles described by Greeks.
QuoteIf archers are conducting high angle fire at some distance, then one can perhaps envisage a certain depth of formation allowing more than one or two ranks to fire with some effect (though probably not TOO many additional ranks, as the archers presumably need to have some sight of the enemy to estimate range in a semi meaningful manner).
To return to the 16th century for the moment, it was usual to place archers behind firearms in mixed formations precisely because they could shoot overhead. In this case, we are talking of forming the back two ranks of four or five.
John Smythe (who else) states his favoured archer formation is a hearse (i.e. oblong) of 25-35 wide and up to seven deep.
I'm not aware of anything clear on longbow formations depth wise from earlier centuries though.
Add : We might consider the Burgundian pike/archer formations, with a rank of pikes and behind them three archers per pikeman, so perhaps three rows shooting over the kneeling archers.
Quote from: Erpingham on June 15, 2022, 02:05:31 PM
Personally, I'd say the implication is of controlled shooting rather blanket "spray and pray" tactics. Towton is an odd example to choose - this seems to be a major piece of evidence of long range, ill controlled shooting.
Another example of "spray and pray" I came across recently. In 1512 the earls of Ormond and Kildare met in St. Patrick's cathedral in Dublin. A quarrel broke out between Ormond's retinue and the citizens of Dublin, Kildare's partisans, and the latter "discharged a volley of arrows at them, and shooting at random, some of their arrows stuck in the images of the rood loft". The sacrilege resulted in an investigation by a papal legate who decreed as punishment that the mayor of Dublin must make a barefoot procession through the city every Corpus Christi thereafter.
The archers here were of course urban militia reacting to a sudden brawl rather than professional archers following orders so it probably doesn't advance the discussion much. But I like the story.
Cheers
Mick
Shoot out in the cathedral :) I'm also a fan of this story. It goes on to the tale of cutting a hole in a door and offering a hand through it as a sign of good faith, said to be the origin of the phrase "chancing one's arm". This may, however, just be a legend.
Quote from: RichT on June 15, 2022, 02:25:18 PM
As an archer (lapsed) and a pedant (active), can I insist on archers 'shooting' not 'firing'?
'Tis a fair cop, my lord.
As for archery in churches, there was also the case of the new Norman abbot at one monastery (poss Glastonbury but I may be very wrong) who after the Conquest decided to enforce discipline on his reactionary and sinning monks by getting his crossbowmen to shoot down some of them in the church. Even the most ardent clerical reformers imported by William and Lanfranc thought that was rather lacking in what passed for oecumenical spirit...
Quote from: Mick Hession on June 15, 2022, 03:00:33 PM
The sacrilege resulted in an investigation by a papal legate who decreed as punishment that the mayor of Dublin must make a barefoot procession through the city every Corpus Christi thereafter.
So, is this part of the modern job description?
???
Quote from: NickHarbud on June 16, 2022, 12:34:05 PM
Quote from: Mick Hession on June 15, 2022, 03:00:33 PM
The sacrilege resulted in an investigation by a papal legate who decreed as punishment that the mayor of Dublin must make a barefoot procession through the city every Corpus Christi thereafter.
So, is this part of the modern job description?
???
No, the source goes on to say that the practice ceased with the Reformation.
Continuing my investigations, I came across this article (https://bjmh.gold.ac.uk/article/view/632/754) from the Agincourt publishing avalanche of 2015. I'm not always a fan of DeVries' style but this is actually pretty good I think. There bits in here on whether everybody was wearing top class armour and the disruptive effect of the mud but the second half concentrates on what the sources say about armour effectiveness and longbows. For whatever reason, the English sources are more likely to attribute armour-piercing effects to archers than the French, who tend to think the armour was effective protection. We may note in passing references to clouds of arrows raining down. Note also the effect of archery on horses. This is one of the most consistent longbow effect descriptions, being found from the 1340s to the 1590s.
Quote from: Erpingham on June 16, 2022, 02:50:46 PM
We may note in passing references to clouds of arrows raining down.
Can this be taken as indicative of any particular physical reality? Weather metaphors are common to describe the effects of missile weapons (a hail of bullets, a storm of shot etc) in periods where we know for sure it's just a colourful metaphor (cf. pushing metaphors... shhhhh...).
Also, are clouds of arrows on a par with Persian sun-blocking arrows - a boastful threat, rather than a battlefield reality? Do descriptions emphasising the effect and terror of arrows tend to come from the arrow-using side, while their targets tend to downplay them?
Quote from: RichT on June 16, 2022, 06:57:28 PM
Quote from: Erpingham on June 16, 2022, 02:50:46 PM
We may note in passing references to clouds of arrows raining down.
Can this be taken as indicative of any particular physical reality? Weather metaphors are common to describe the effects of missile weapons (a hail of bullets, a storm of shot etc) in periods where we know for sure it's just a colourful metaphor (cf. pushing metaphors... shhhhh...).
Metaphors, of course, are not intended to literally represent physical reality but to sum up the essential nature of something. A hail of bullets or a storm of shot express intensity and volume. I'd suggest hail/rain/snow/obscuring the sun do the same. Yes, its a literary cliche but I think contemporary people who had seen a longbow battle would recognise it. This does not , however, mean I would accept the conventional barrage/machine gun metaphors as the correct interpretation. Things were doubtless more complicated in reality.
QuoteAlso, are clouds of arrows on a par with Persian sun-blocking arrows - a boastful threat, rather than a battlefield reality? Do descriptions emphasising the effect and terror of arrows tend to come from the arrow-using side, while their targets tend to downplay them?
Was it a boastful threat or a literary flourish contrasting stereotypical Persian arrogance with manly Spartan wit, demonstrating the superiority of civilised folk who fought face-to-face to cowardly barbarians who fought at a distance? :)
I think the difference is the longbow ones aren't predictive or threatening, just a literary way of describing what is said to have happened.
Time for another quote, this one from a participant on the receiving end of longbow shooting
They held the higher ground and the Castillians the lower; and the arrows were so many
and came so thick that the crossbowmen did not dare to stoop to bend their bows. Many were already
hit by these arrows, and there were so many, that those who wore leather jerkins or surcoats seemed all
stuck with arrows. The standard and he who bore it were likewise riddled with arrows, and the standard
bearer had as many round his body as a bull in the ring, but he was well shielded by his good armour,
although this was already bent in several places. No weather metaphors (Gutierez de Gamez has already used them earlier :) ) Note the effectiveness of the armour and the disruptive effect on the crossbowmen. For those unfamiliar with the quote, De Gamez is the standard bearer. The only indication of range is "they were so near them that they could easily tell the fair men from the dark." So not at extreme range.
Quote
Metaphors, of course, are not intended to literally represent physical reality but to sum up the essential nature of something. A hail of bullets or a storm of shot express intensity and volume. I'd suggest hail/rain/snow/obscuring the sun do the same. Yes, its a literary cliche but I think contemporary people who had seen a longbow battle would recognise it. This does not , however, mean I would accept the conventional barrage/machine gun metaphors as the correct interpretation. Things were doubtless more complicated in reality.
Yes - what I was driving at is that sometimes we see the suggestion that 'clouds of arrows raining down' means the arrows were descending like rain ie shot on a high trajectory, and were en masse ie were the result of volley shooting. But I think it's invalid to try to extract precise physical details from a metaphor - intermittent shots on a low trajectory could still be a cloud, rain or storm, if that's how it felt on the receiving end. I think we agree, then.
Military metaphor and the 'rhetoric of combat' are interesting subjects in themselves. I'm just reading
The Washing of the Spears (which somehow I've not read before) and it is striking how Zulu masses boil, rage, black clouds swarming across the landscape (natural phenomena or, often, ants or locusts seem to be called to mind). European units march, deploy and fight. (The author admits in the preface that some of his language hasn't aged well.)
But presumably there doesn't seem to be such cultural bias in Medieval descriptions of arrow storms.
QuoteBut presumably there doesn't seem to be such cultural bias in Medieval descriptions of arrow storms.
I've not really noticed. Both the English and Burgundians certainly use the weather metaphors, but then these were longbow using nations. Froissart, a Hainaulter, uses cloud and rain metaphors in his later editions. In truth, it would be a bit of a research project to track the usage. Probably a look through one of the collations of accounts (e.g. Agincourt) might be easier. Be interesting what the purely French sources say. Watch this space.
You find those metaphors elsewhere - at the battle of Corcomroe between two Irish factions in 1317 (full account in http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=229.0) both sides "let fly with stones and javelins, darts and arrows, reciprocally. By these first contributions was established a darkling dropping mist, a showering cloud of pebbles and of splintering shafts, that assailed their heads and arms and legs; yea, so thickly that the spears flying would split each other and, in the malice of that pelting rain, stones turn the slender arrows' points."
QuoteYou find those metaphors elsewhere
Indeed. There are, IIRC, Italian accounts of crossbow bolts falling like hail in one of the 13th century battles (Campaldino?).
Back, briefly, to my Agincourt search. I found three French accounts using weather metaphors for English archery; the Religeux of Saint Denis (pre1422), The Chronique de Normandie (1460) and Thomas Basin (1471-2).
From these examples, I think that the use of these metaphors doesn't seem culturally specific.
Interesting, thanks.
Quote
From these examples, I think that the use of these metaphors doesn't seem culturally specific.
Or that French and English had the same culture (more so than Greeks and Persians, or British and Zulus).
certainly up until the 14th C
I don't have any citations ready, but Old Norse literature has descriptions of arrows darkening the sky. It's certainly plausible that the
topos is nicked from Classical literature, but it evidently wasn't felt absurd in the context of Viking Age or High Medieval Scandinavian battle.
And while bows probably were more prominent in Scandinavian warfare than wargamers commonly assume, I don't think it's likely the volume of shooting was equal to that of HYW English armies either, so perhaps the lesson is that it doesn't take that much for participants to
feel like the sky was darkened or the missiles fell like hail.
Quote from: RichT on June 17, 2022, 11:43:45 AM
Or that French and English had the same culture
I've always held that the British islands are a northern extension of Gaul/France, except during the Viking Age when they're a western of Denmark :P
Quote from: RichT on June 17, 2022, 11:43:45 AM
Interesting, thanks.
Quote
From these examples, I think that the use of these metaphors doesn't seem culturally specific.
Or that French and English had the same culture (more so than Greeks and Persians, or British and Zulus).
At an elite level, that's pretty fair comment. But then, there was a pan-European (or west European) culture. Though the English and the French had increasingly nationalistic perspectives, so perhaps they are not nationally specific is better?
More of a digression really but my pursuit of the origin of "arrowstorm" is back to 1888. It is used by William Morris in Chapter VI of A Dream of John Ball (https://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1886/johnball/chapters/chapter6.htm), about the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.
The men-at-arms drew near steadily, some fell under the arrow-storm, but not a many; for though the target was big, it was hard, since not even the cloth-yard shaft could pierce well-wrought armour of plate, and there was much armour among them.
This predates its use in in Conan Doyle's White Company.
It is possible that Morris was the first to use it, but it may be in an earlier history book.
Just a quick update to say the first draft of the arrowstorm article for Slingshot is done. I'll polish it (i.e. fiddle about with it) and then off to Nigel for Slingshot.
nice work Anthony!
There is an interesting article on Academia, « Heads, shoulders, knees and toes: Injury and death in Anglo-Scottish combat, c.1296-c.1403 » by Iain MacInnes which has some interesting points on arrow injuries.
He's actually written two articles on the same subject
https://www.academia.edu/13696699/Heads_shoulders_knees_and_toes_Injury_and_death_in_Anglo_Scottish_combat_c_1296_c_1403
https://www.academia.edu/31093966/_One_man_slashes_one_slays_one_warns_one_wounds_Injury_and_Death_in_Anglo_Scottish_Combat_c_1296_c_1403
I do think MacInnes is pretty good on Scottish warfare of the period and has placed a lot of stuff on Academia - browsing recommended.
The section on archery is good, though I'm not sure how much it influences an assessment of the rival arrowstorm models. The prevalence of facial injuries is a feature but this could be caused by blanket archery hitting weak spots as per the traditional model or some more aimed shots into the face at short range in line with the Loades version.