A quick history of the English longbow

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England’s not-at-all-secret weapon against the French during the Hundred Years War was the longbow, and if you believe whatever gunk artificial intelligence scrapes off the internet floor, it’s a symbol of English pride. Which makes this a good place to mention that it came to England by way of Wales.

A very rare, nearly relevant graphic: An archer and some dead guy., both in the style of the Bayeux Tapestry, which depicts the Battle of Hastings, which in turn is mentioned below. Courtesy of a free app that lets you design your own Bayeux-style Tapestry. No skills in needlework required. Are you worried that you might use your time too usefully? I heartily recommend this app. You can get lost in it for hours while accomplishing next to nothing.

A bit of background

Longbows have been around since neolithic times. Or paleolithic. Or–well, choose your source. A long time. That’s close enough for our purposes. So if England can’t claim to have originated it, neither can Wales. But it was the Welsh who brought it to the attention of the English by shooting them with it when they invaded, starting in the eleventh century and continuing into the thirteenth.  

Once it had Wales under its control, England conscripted Welsh archers into its armies to help invade Scotland, and it adopted the weapon itself, encouraging the English to train with it.

Did I say “encouraged”? I lied. Starting in 1252, all English men between 15 and 60 were required to train with the longbow once a week. Since the average lifespan of a man in the Middle Ages was 49, that meant he was required to train for 11 years after he died. Life wasn’t easy back then, and it doesn’t look like death was either. 

Why all that training? You can’t just pick up a longbow and expect to be any good with it. You train. And you train some more. And you keep in shape by doing some more training. The effect on the muscles and bones is powerful enough that archeologists can spot archers by looking at their skeletons, assuming they’re well preserved. 

Archers were so important to England’s armies that when Edward I (1272 – 1307; you’re welcome) banned all sport on Sundays, he made an exception for archery. All that emphasis on training explains why so many places in England are incorporate the word butts into their names: butts were the fields where men practiced archery. 

The longbow vs the crossbow

A longbow stood around six feet tall, making it taller than most men of the period, and a skilled archer could shoot a dozen or more arrows a minute. A crossbow might get off two or three shots in that time. (Those numbers will change depending on what source you consult; I’m going with conservative estimates.) 

At distances, the longbow wouldn’t have been as accurate as the crossbow, but if a mass of longbowmen were shooting at a mass of advancing horsemen or foot soldiers, they wouldn’t need whites-of-their-eyes accuracy. They’d shoot off a mass of arrows that fell close together on a tightly packed enemy.  

The longbow was cheaper to make than the crossbow, and its arrows flew almost as fast, which translates to hitting almost as hard. They could penetrate medieval armor. And they didn’t need the support team that helped a crossbowman cock the weapon and maintain it.

Crossbowmen were paid well, which if you happened to be counting up your pennies to see if you could fund an invasion of France would weigh heavily in favor of the longbow. 

Weighing against the longbow was the muscle power involved in drawing it. Factor in the archer’s exhaustion after marching and fighting and “only 10% of medieval archers would be effective at a range of 200 yards after just a week of campaigning,” according to an article from the John Moore Museum.  

Although the crossbow looks high-tech compared to the longbow, it dates back to 650 BC China. It spread from there to Europe, although it seems to have dropped out of use between the 5th and 10th centuries, when the French began using it again in sieges and at the Battle of Hastings, where the Normans conquered England, although if there’s a picture of one in the Bayeux Tapestry I haven’t spotted it. It continued to be the preferred military weapon in Europe for a good 500 years. Only England committed itself to the longbow. 

The Hundred Years War

With all that out of the way, what happened when the longbow went up against the crossbow? The Hundred Years War is our test site.

The Hundred Years War,  you should understand, lasted from 1337 to 1453, which is not a hundred years. The extra years came from one of those supermarket sales–116 for the price of 100. Who could resist, even if the extra 16 did go moldy in the refrigerator? The conflict was about land–how much of France France got to control and how much England could claim–and whether the English king could claim the French throne.

Yeah, I should do a post about it one of these days.

At the Battle of Crecy (1346), the English (longbow) defeated a much larger French force (crossbow, wielded by Genoese mercenaries). Popular belief holds that the crossbow shots fell short because the archers’ bowstrings were wet. 

Wasn’t it raining on the English too? Well, yes. Weather doesn’t play favorites and wet bowstrings lose some of their elasticity regardless of the bow they’re strung on. I’ve met people who say the English kept their bowstrings dry under their hats. I’m doubtful, since as soon as they came out they’d start picking up moisture, but feel free to choose the story you like and stand by it. It was a long time ago and no one’s likely to prove you wrong. Before you choose, though, I should toss in an alternative theory: the crossbowmen misjudged their distance because they were facing the sun. 

The sun does play favorites.

We do have an established fact, though: the French cavalry charged through their own bowmen, which didn’t improve their effectiveness or their health. According to one account, French knights hacked down the crossbowmen when they got in the way. Because bowmen were commoners and knights were aristocrats, or at the very least gentry, so what the hell, no one was going to hold them to account. 

The English held off 16 cavalry charges, spilled a lot of blood, and won a blue ribbon and history’s congratulations to the victor.

But let’s not slog through all 116 years battle by battle. I’m easily bored. We’ll jump to the Battle of Agincourt, in 1415. Again, smaller English army, larger French (and German, but never mind that) one. Longbow vs. crossbow. Rain, although nobody seems to talk about its effect on the bowstrings here. French knights getting killed mid-charge by a hail of arrows. English victory. 

More to the point of this post, longbow victory.

And after that?

The role of the crossbows shifted primarily to defensive warfare. If you wanted to defend a castle (or anything vaguely castle-like–a city wall might work) against a siege, the crossbow’s longer range would be useful.

But both gave way to the musket and the gun. The longbow was last used in warfare in 1644 during the English Civil War–in Scotland.

What was the English Civil War doing in Scotland? It’s complicated. And it’s a whole ‘nother story. Let’s settle for saying that it was a war that broke a lot of rules. 

Before it lost out to gunpowder, though, the longbow played a role not just in warfare but in fucking with feudalism. Nobles and all their friends and relations had been the bedrock of the military, with their horses, their armor, and their swords. They were the knights–the essence of power. Then along came these commoners with their relatively cheap-ass bows and guess who was more powerful.

That wasn’t enough to put an end to feudalism, but then a social and economic system doesn’t end from one lone change. It was a teaspoonful of sand poured onto the scales, where it joined an assortment of others. And I’m sure it put many a knightly nose out of joint.

36 thoughts on “A quick history of the English longbow”

  1. As always, very interesting Ellen. I’m a little surprised that you didn’t mention Churchill’s V for Victory sign was suppopsedly started at Agincourt by the archers who held up two fingers they draw the bow with to taunt the French who would cut off those two fingers on any English archers Caught.

    One other point, in Chester I don’t believe the law has ever been changed that any Welshman found within the walls after dusk could be used as a pincushion by the English archers. Hence i only visit during daylight or I stay the night.

    Huge Hugs

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    • It’s too early in the morning to go chasing this through the internet’s rabbit holes, but my highly fallible memory insists that the history of the V for victory sign is, basically, unverifiable. Or to be less kind about it, urban legend. As for staying out of Chester after dark, sounds like you’ve made the right decision. I don’t have so many readers who leave interesting comments that I can afford to lose one.

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    • For a second there I thought you were commenting about teaching pheasants to shoot, which in my opinion is both justified and overdue. But setting that aside as passing insanity: Interesting thought–the real one, that is. Peasants, I believe, had always been scooped up to fight in their lords’ wars. All that changed was the weaponry. Some of those agricultural tools were pretty damn lethal. My bet is that no one thought it through–and once they did they figured they could control the situation. But that’s pure speculation.

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  5. I tried archery a few years ago, the wimps version, small bow, relatively close target. It was good fun and I wasn’t totally useless at it, unlike most sports, but I really couldn’t see me with a genuine longbow. The idea that it was simply force of numbers that made the longbow successful makes the constant training seem bit redundant, unless it was a matter of muscle development? It’s not easy to draw any size of bow fully. One thing they always gloss over in the film versions of Robin Hood etc is the influence of the wind on accurate shooting.Even a slight change in the airflow can send an arrow adrift over a distance but okay, Hollywood isn’t known for its slavish devotion to accuracy.

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    • I expect it was to develop the muscles, to get used to factoring in the wind (and the wet bowstring) and–you’re right; it probably wasn’t only about a mass of arrows, although that was powerful–to become accurate.

      I shot a bow a few times as a kid and loved it. The fact that I could pull the bow at all left me impressed with myself. And–forget a bullseye–that I hit the target.

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  6. The progressive advancement of weapons … a comment often encountered in my reading of (American) Civil War battles is something like “we are always fighting the current war with the old war’s technology.” The Civil War introduced a lot of new ideas, but by the time they were used in WWI they were old news.
    There is a meme among Western reenactors showing an (American)Indian with a compound bow and the caption “What if ?”

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    • I always heard that saying about the fighting last war as something applying not to technology but to strategy and assumptions: France, for example, creating a heavily defended border that would’ve worked in WWI but did nothing to stop WWII’s German invasion. Even setting warfare aside, I expect we live a large portion of our lives that way.

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    • Absolutely no horses. They were expensive to buy and expensive to feed. Armies, I believe, would’ve had carts for heavy equipment (unless they lost them in an attack, a bog, or whatever), but I’d be surprised if they’d trust their bows to them. For one thing, I don’t know that bows were interchangeable. You’d want the one you had the feel of, not someone else’s. And if you had to react quickly–unlikely given the patterned battles they fought but still not out of the question–you’d want your weapon with you. The thing might’ve been awkward but it would at least be lighter than a musket.

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  11. I think the difference between longbows and crossbows (“Armbrust”) is the kind of projectile they shoot. A bow shoots a “Pfeil”, an arrow, mainly made from wood with a metall tip, while the crossbow shoots a “Bolzen”, a massive metall bolt. Such a bolt picks up a lot of cinetic energy, can pierce through a metal plate / armour (“Rüstung”) and hurt the flesh underneath, while a lousy wooden stick would only make a scratch in the nice shiny armour plate (at least on front).
    But when you deliver a damn cloud of these wooden sticks they may make a lot of damage to the horses, men on food, and lesser protected areas of an armour. Of course you have a larger “Kadenz” / rate of fire with bows than with crossbows, which need to be operated by teams of at least two experienced men (better three). It’s a bit like machine pistol against sniper rifle, far fetched I agree.

    A question, simply because I do not fully understand what you are saying :
    “Peasants, I believe, had always been scooped up to fight in their lords’ wars. ”
    What do you mean by “scooped up” ?

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    • Let’s start at the end. I used “scooped up” eccentrically here. Imagine two hands reaching into a bowl of marbles and scooping them up. It’s the helplessness of the marbles that drew me to that image. Peasants were often mobilized by their lords to go fight their battles.

      Sorry. My use of English isn’t friendly to someone who speaks it, however well, as a second language. I have a habit of pushing its boundaries, partly to amuse myself and hopefully to amuse readers. Inevitably, it doesn’t always work.

      As for the arrows: well argued and convincing but according to multiple sources wrong. The arrows could indeed pierce medieval armor, although horses did make an easy target. And they may have been wooden shafts but they were tipped with sharp metal.

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      • “Ausheben” is the translation, accidentially the old terminus technicus for recruiting / calling up a year (einen Jahrgang).
        Mobilising peasants ? It’s not the farmer’s job to go to war, that is what knights are for, at least in the early and high middle ages. Later things changed, especially with new weapons (powder) and cities. I would simply rent a Scottish regiment, and leave it to the pros, but that’s so 17th century.
        As for the wonder arrows – there are many re-enactment people, there must be gazillions of youtube videos, I am sure some bloke with too much time at his hands solved the problem by installing endless test runs. I refuse to go down this rabbit hole, ha !

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        • For the sake of not going too far down the rabbit hole, let’s go to Wikipedia on the question of peasants being mobilized to fight in wars:

          “By the 11th century, much of the infantry fighting was conducted by high-ranking nobles, middle-class freemen and peasants, who were expected to have a certain standard of equipment, often including helmet, spear, shield and secondary weapons in the form of an axe, long knife or sword. Peasants were also used for the role of archers and skirmishers, providing missile cover for the heavy infantry and cavalry.”

          I’ve seen one or two re-enactments and they’ve wisely steered clear of using bows. You can get a musket to make the right noise without loading a ball into it. You can hack at your opponent’s unsharpened sword with your own unsharpened sword, but shooting imaginary arrows just doesn’t work. I know a re-enactor and should ask how they deal with the problem. Last time we talked, he told me about a Civil War re-enactment accidentally setting a field on fire. Local people weren’t all that happy with them.

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