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The development of the longbow in late medieval England and ‘technological determinism’

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 37; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.jmedhist.2011.06.002

1873-1279

Clifford J. Rogers,

Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies

Abstract Traditional understandings of the development of the medieval English longbow and its role in the fourteenth-century ‘infantry revolution’ have recently been challenged by historians. This article responds to the revisionists, arguing based on archaeological, iconographic and textual evidence that the proper longbow was a weapon of extraordinary power, and was qualitatively different from – and more effective than – the shorter self-bows that were the norm in England (and western Europe generally) before the fourteenth century. It is further argued that acknowledging the importance of the weapon as a necessary element of any credible explanation of English military successes in the era of the Hundred Years War does not constitute ‘technological determinism’. ☆ My thanks to the Journal of Medieval History's anonymous reader for helpful comments. Keywords: LongbowTechnological determinismMilitary historyBowsArcheryMilitary revolutions Notes ☆ My thanks to the Journal of Medieval History's anonymous reader for helpful comments. 1 Clifford J. Rogers, ‘The military revolutions of the Hundred Years War’, Journal of Military History, 57 (1993), 241–78. Reprinted with revisions in The military revolution debate, ed. Clifford J. Rogers (Boulder, 1995), 55-93; citations below are to this version. 2 Rogers, ‘Military revolutions’, 59. Emphasis added. 3 Rogers, ‘Military revolutions’, 60. 4 Kelly DeVries, ‘Catapults are not atom bombs: towards a redefinition of “effectiveness” in pre-modern military technology’, War in History, 4 (1997), 454–70 (454–5); he lists me along with Jim Bradbury as historians who ‘have tried to resurrect the old claim of longbow effectiveness’ (462) – though in fact I was not trying to ‘resurrect’ a claim that I did not think had ever been seriously wounded, much less killed off – and implies that I subscribe to the idea of the ‘invincibility’ of the longbow, which I certainly do not. 5 Clifford J. Rogers, ‘The efficacy of the medieval longbow: a reply to Kelly DeVries’, War in History, 5 (1998), 233–42. 6 John Stone, ‘Technology, society, and the infantry revolution of the fourteenth century’, Journal of Military History, 68 (2004), 361–80 (368, 380). Surprisingly, Stone also in effect accuses Kelly DeVries himself of technological determinism, using the typically indirect formulation that ‘DeVries’ readership might be forgiven for inferring that technology is, after all, the driving force behind the nature of medieval warfare’ (366). Similarly Stone says Geoffrey Parker’s work ‘invites the inference that [the military revolution’s] developmental trajectory was governed by a logic inherent in the technology itself’, and then refers to Parker’s ‘technological determinism’ as if it were something present in Parker’s work rather than something that could be inferred from it (367). 7 Matthew Strickland and Robert Hardy, The great warbow: a history of the military archer (New York, 2005); Jim Bradbury, The medieval archer (Woodbridge, 1985), 12–15, 71–5, and passim; James C. Holt, Robin Hood (London, 1982), 78–9. 8 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 36. 9 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 36. 10 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 34; cf. 36, quoting Bradbury: ‘probably the ordinary bow in England did have a longer stave in the later middle ages, but this should not be emphasised to the point of treating the weapon of the fifteenth century as something quite divorced from that used at Hastings’. 11 Kelly DeVries, ‘Longbow archery and the earliest Robin Hood legends’, in: Robin Hood in popular culture. Violence, transgression and justice, ed. Thomas Hahn (Cambridge, 2000), 39, 51; John France, Western warfare in the age of the Crusades (Ithaca, 1999), 26. David Whetham, in a variation on the theme, does not dismiss the shortbow’s existence, but does still discount the idea that the longbow is a late medieval development. He claims instead that between Hastings and Edward I’s reign ‘the bow, both long and short, remained popular not only in Britain but elsewhere.’ See ‘The English longbow: a revolution in technology?’ in: The Hundred Years War (Part II). Different vistas, ed. L.J. Andrew Villalon and Donald J. Kagay (Leiden, 2008), 220; note also 232. 12 English historical review, 122 (2007), 469–71. Prestwich’s willingness to accept Strickland and Hardy’s case so completely is surprising given his own observation in the same review that ‘it is curious that casualty levels appear to have increased as defensive armour became more sophisticated in the later middle ages, particularly if, as is argued here, there was little development in bow technology.’ 13 For the British Longbow Society definition, see Whetham, ‘Longbow’, 215, n. 4. 14 Oxford English dictionary, s.v.: ‘The name given to the bow drawn by hand and discharging a long feathered arrow (and so distinguished from cross-bow), the national arm of England from the fourteenth century till the introduction of firearms’. Merriam-Webster’s definition is similar. 15 Calendar of inquisitions miscellaneous (Chancery) preserved in the Public Record Office, 8 vols (London, 1916–2003), vol. 4 (1377–88), 200, for a 1386 record of 100 bows ‘called “longbowes”’ having been provided, earlier, for the defence of Pembroke castle. My thanks to Brent Hanner for this reference. Note also The parliament rolls of medieval England 1275–1504, ed. Chris Given-Wilson and others, 16 vols (Woodbridge, 2005), vol. 12, 54 (Feb. 1449, m. 5, col. b: ‘longe bowe’); vol. 14, 464 (Jan. 1483, m. 2 col. b); vol. 15, 383 (Nov. 1487, m. 12); Statute rolls of the parliament of Ireland, ed. Henry F. Berry, J.F. Morrissey and P. Connolly, 5 vols (Dublin, 1907–2002), vol. 2, 646–8; The Paston letters, A.D. 1422–1509, ed. J. Gairdner, new edn, 6 vols (London, 1904), vol. 2, 101 (1449?). 16 The meaning of this term is unclear. Despite the natural presumption, it does not seem to have meant a Turkish composite bow, since the one in the Esnyngton case, discussed below, is described as made of Spanish yew. They were also not necessarily shortbows: Chaucer refers to one ‘Turke bow’ as ‘long’ (The Romaunt of the Rose (Montana, 2004), 28), and Gaston Phébus seems to recommend the same length for Turkish and English bows (see below, n. 92). The word may perhaps have been used for bows with double-convex forms. 17 See below. 18 John Smythe, Certain discourses … concerning the formes and effects of divers sorts of weapons (London, 1590) unpaginated introduction, f. 39 (quotation), 49v. English bows were described by a sixteenth-century Italian writer as ‘ingentes’ (enormous). Paulus Jovius, quoted George Agar Hansard, The book of archery (London, 1841), 373. 19 A full draw to the ear, in the classic English archer stance, is around 30in. to 32in. for a man of normal height. Although a bow can potentially be used with an arrow fully half its length (so that a 5ft bow could theoretically shoot a 30in. arrow), this is dangerous and also bad for the bow – especially with a powerful bow. One manual, oriented towards archers using 50 to 80lb longbows equal in height to the archer, recommends arrows of just 24in. for bows of under 5ft and arrows of 28in. only for bows at least 5ft 10in. Archer’s manual, or the art of shooting with the longbow (Philadelphia, 1830), 19–20; slightly differing from its source, Thomas Waring, A treatise on archery (London, 1824), 26. Saxton Pope notes that it would be practically impossible for a 4ft bow to be used with a 26in. arrow unless backed with sinew and that a twentieth-century English target bow will ‘invariably’ fracture if drawn to 30in.; that a bow of around 5ft 6in. to 5ft 8in. will break if drawn to 31in.; and that it would take a 6ft 6in. longbow to be able to withstand the strain of a 36in. draw. Saxton T. Pope, ‘A study of bows and arrows’, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, 13, no. 6 (1923), 354–5; Hunting with the bow and arrow (New York, 1923), 42, 45; Pope, ‘Study’, 366. In other words, a shoulder-high D–section bow cannot be drawn fully to the ear without snapping, whereas a head-high one can. This fundamental point seems to be missed by Bradbury, Archer, 73, and Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 35, though it was appreciated by earlier writers such as J.E. Morris, in his The Welsh wars of Edward I (Oxford, 1901), 26, 34, 100-102. See also The traditional bowyer’s bible, ed. Jim Hamm and others, 4 vols (Guilford, CT, 1992–2008), [hereafter TBB], vol. 1, 61–2. 20 For the documentary and iconographic evidence, see below. 21 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 17. 22 TBB, vol. 1, 66, and Bob Kooi, personal communication. Hence, most of the neolithic and pre-Christian Germanic longbows which have been found had only around 50–60% of the strength of a median Mary Rose longbow. By calculation, from Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 39. 23 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 40. 24 Statute rolls of … Ireland, ed. Berry, Morrissey and Connolly, vol. 3, 292. For fifteenth- and sixteenth-century depictions of longbows significantly above the height of the user, see Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 332, f. 18v; MS Douce 353, f. 154; New York, Pierpoint Morgan Library, MSS G 23, f. 93v; G 55, f. 140v; M 285, f. 249v; M 1053, f. 191; Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 363, 392; Bradbury, Archer, 37, 47, 161. For fourteenth-century examples, see London, British Library [hereafter BL], MS Royal 10 E IV, f. 93v, 168; The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek [hereafter KBH], MS MMW 10 B 23, f. 317. 25 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 36 (quoting Bradbury). Strickland accepts as a ‘longbow’ the Chessel Down bow, which the excavation report described as ‘about 5ft in length’ (40). C.J. Arnold, The Anglo-Saxon cemeteries of the Isle of Wight (London, 1982), 66. 26 The Luttrell Psalter artist depicts archers whose strung bows are the same height as they are (meaning the bows unstrung would be around 3in. longer), as does for example the artist of BL, MS Royal 6 E VI, f. 303v (c.1360–75). The Skeffington murder case (discussed below) describes a bow 6 ft in height, which would be at least 4 in. taller than the average Englishman of the time. The Mary Rose crew were on average about 5ft 7in. tall. 27 This was the usage of, for example, Oman and Morris, though Bradbury argued the word ‘shortbow’ should be used only for composite bows. 28 Longbows in medieval England were usually just called ‘bows’: ‘shortbow’ and ‘medium bow’ are modern categorisations, not terms used at the time. 29 Above, note 19, and Jim Hamm, Bows and arrows of the native Americans (Guilford, CT, 1992), 28; Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 418, n. 42. 30 Rogers, ‘Revolutions’, 59–60; Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 37. The F/D–curves comparing a 4ft bow to a 6ft bow, each tillered to draw 50lb at 28in., in TBB, vol. 1, 52, indicate that the longer bow stores roughly 22% more energy at the 28in. draw, and (by extrapolation) around 76% more energy at a 32in. draw (compared to the shorter bow at 28in. draw, about the maximum it could handle without breaking, even if sinew-backed). If the 4ft bow were drawn only to a safer 24in., it would have a draw weight of around 33lb and would store only about 40% as much energy as the longer bow at the longer draw. 31 See below. 32 TBB, vol. 1, 70, 74–5, 78. 33 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 36, 48. 34 Rogers, ‘Reply’. 35 For example, Morris, Welsh wars, 26, 28. 36 Morris, Welsh wars, 28, 100. 37 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 35. 38 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 76; note also 78. 39 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 78–9. 40 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 79–80. 41 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 83. 42 Henry of Huntington, Henrici archidiaconi Huntendunensis historia Anglorum, ed. Thomas Arnold (Rolls Series, 74, London, 1879), 264–5. Other chroniclers understood the same point. William of Newburgh says the battle was won when the ‘light-armoured men’ (‘levis … armaturae homines’) were put to flight by the English arrows: Chronicles of the reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, ed. R. Howlett, 4 vols (Rolls Series, 82, London, 1884–89), vol. 1, 34. Henry’s expectations match with the suggestion in version C of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that an English archer did no good in attempting to dislodge a mail-shirted Norwegian who was guarding Stamford bridge in 1066, and thereby preventing King Harold from pursuing the defeated invaders. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. and tr. Benjamin Thorpe, 2 vols (London, 1861), vol. 1, 339; vol. 2, 168. The Old English text is unfortunately ambiguous as the verb ‘sciten’ can mean either shot or thrown, and the noun ‘flan’ can refer either to a javelin or an arrow, though it more often means the latter (Joseph Bosworth, An Anglo-Saxon dictionary, ed. and enlarged T. Northcote Toller, Supplement [Oxford, n.d.], s.v. flán). Either way, however, the episode is a testimony to the lack of effective archery: either there was a bowman who failed to do anything against a mailed target, or else there was apparently no bowman available even to try. 43 John of Hexham, in: Symeonis monachi opera omnia, ed. Thomas Arnold, 2 vols (Rolls Series, 75, London, 1882–5), vol. 2, 294. 44 Even a relatively weak longbow in the 65 to 70lb draw range is highly effective against mail. Clifford J. Rogers, ‘The Battle of Agincourt,’ in: The Hundred Years War (Part II), ed. Villalon and Kagay, 44–5, n. 22, and Appendix I. 45 Henry of Huntington, Historia Anglorum, 265. 46 Ailred of Rievaulx, in: Chronicles of the reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, ed. Howlett, vol. 3, 196; trans. from Alan O. Anderson, Scottish annals from English chroniclers, A.D. 500 to 1286 (London, 1908), 203. 47 For abundant evidence of the ability of the fourteenth-century longbow to inflict large numbers of deaths on horses and armoured men-at-arms alike, see Rogers, ‘Efficacy’, especially 240–1. In the Morgan Picture Bible of c.1250, arrows are usually shown penetrating their (mail-armoured) targets only to the depth of the head or a bit more: e.g. Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 80, 108. In fifteenth-century manuscripts, arrows from fully developed longbows are frequently shown having penetrated (judging by the amount of shaft still visible) right through human targets, including sometimes plate-armoured targets, e.g. Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 210, 236, 266; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, [hereafter BN], MS fr. 2663, f. 61; Bodleian Library, MS Douce 353, f. 154. The point is not that these images should be taken as photographic evidence of terminal effects, but rather that they reflect what artists and their audiences expected, or at least found within the boundaries of willing suspension of disbelief. The hedgehog metaphor is also used in descriptions of Crusaders peppered with arrows from Eastern composite shortbows: e.g. Ambroise, L’Estoire de la guerre sainte, ed. Gaston Paris (Paris, 1897), ll. 11,625–11,630, describes Richard sallying out into the midst of a crowd of Turks and returning without harm (‘perte’), though he and his horse were so covered with arrows as to look like a hedgehog. The metaphor is also used in a longbow context with reference to the Germans at Stoke Field in 1487, who were ‘broken and defeated, shot up and covered with arrows like hedgehogs’. The latter, however, despite being half-armoured in plate, clearly did not escape without harm. Jean Molinet, Chroniques, ed. J.-A. Buchon, 5 vols (Paris, 1827–8), vol. 3, 155–6. 48 See note 77, below. 49 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 36. Strickland acknowledges that Bradbury himself ‘believed there was a development in the weapon itself from “the ordinary wooden bow” to the longbow’; but Strickland then adds ‘though this transformation was gradual rather than the result of some technical revolution’. Strickland notes we do not ‘find any chroniclers or contemporary observers remarking on a major technical improvement in bow design or a military “big bang” in the weaponry of the English armies during the decades spanning the end of the thirteenth century’ (38). My linkage between the development of the longbow and the infantry revolution has to do with a revolution in the weapon’s effectiveness, and does not disallow the possibility of that revolutionary change being the result of an evolutionary development; indeed, I make it clear that evolutionary change eventually producing or contributing to revolutionary effects is a common pattern in military history, e.g. with the artillery revolution of the fifteenth century resting on a century of evolutionary progress. 50 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 78–9. 51 Rogers, ‘Efficacy’. 52 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 78–9. 53 Charles Oman, A history of the art of war in the middle ages, 2nd edn, 2 vols (London, 1924), vol. 2, 58; Morris, Welsh wars, 26, 34, 100–2. Anna Comnena, Alexiad, trans. E.A.S. Dawes (London, 1928), 341. For a different translation and other examples to the same point, see Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 100–1, and below in this article. 54 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 81. 55 Galbert de Bruges, Histoire du meurtre de Charles le Bon, ed. Henri Pirenne (Paris, 1891), 59: ‘persequebatur armatos sine vulnere contunsos, stupefactos in fugam vertebat’. Galbert does, however, mention one armiger killed by an arrow to the heart in an earlier assault (along with many killed by stones) (54). 56 There is a reproduction of the Harding Bible scene showing archers (Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 14, f. 13v) in Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 77; compare to the photograph of the replica Apache bow in C.A. Bergman and others, ‘Experimental archery: projectile velocities and comparison of bow performances’, Antiquity, 62 (1988), 664. The Apache bow was very light (with a 37.8lb. draw at 24in.), but it did impart more kinetic energy than did a Sioux bow of similar size and heavier draw (54.7lb), which, according to Bergman and others, imparted only 13.5joules (9.59 foot-pounds) to its arrow (p. 663). It would take something like 45joules (33foot-pounds) for an arrow of moderate weight to penetrate mail and light padding and inflict a serious wound. Rogers, ‘Agincourt’, appendix 1. 57 Les Annales et la chronique des Dominicains de Colmar, ed. and tr. Charles Gérard and L. Liblin (Colmar, 1854), 354. 58 Bergman and others, ‘Experimental archery’, 663; cf. Rogers, ‘Agincourt’, appendix I, 110–11. 59 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 79, 83. 60 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 35; also Charles Oman, A history of the art of war in the middle ages, 2nd edn, 2 vols (London, 1924), vol. 2, 58. 61 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 104–7; Chronicon Ricardi Divisiensis de rebus gestis Ricardi primi regis Anglie, ed. Joseph Stevenson (London, 1838), 23–4. For a twelfth-century English example of effective archery during a siege, see Gesta Stephani, ed. K.R. Potter, 2nd edn (London, 1976), 182–3. 62 Oman, Art of war, vol. 2, 58–9. Indeed, Strickland fully accepts that ‘in the later twelfth and thirteenth centuries it is clear that it was the crossbow that reigned supreme as the missile weapon of choice not only in much of Europe but also in the lands of the Angevin kings of England’. Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 113; see also 119. 63 Ambroise, Estoire, ll. 11,455–11464, 11,502–11,505; Ralph of Coggeshall, Chronicon Anglicanum, ed. J. Stevenson (Rolls Series, 66, London, 1875), 50. 64 Richard of Holy Trinity, Itinerarium peregrinorum et gesta regis Ricardi, ed. William Stubbs (London, 1864), 410. 65 Richard of Holy Trinity, Itinerarium peregrinorum, 225. 66 Not just at Acre, where he was ill and his use of the weapon could be attributed to weakness, but also at Jaffa. Richard of Holy Trinity, Itinerarium peregrinorum, 225, 408. By contrast, Edward III (1327–77) seems to have been a powerful longbow archer: in 1333, the wardrobe paid 10s. to an archer in recompense for a bow broken by the king: The National Archives, Kew, E 387/9, under 4 July. 67 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 109, 118; Frederick C. Suppe, Military institutions on the Welsh Marches: Shropshire, A.D. 1066–1300 (Woodbridge, 1994), 22. 68 Alexiad, 255–6; Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 121. 69 Clifford J. Rogers, Soldiers’ lives through history: the middle ages (Westport, 2007), 172. 70 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 101. 71 Alexiad, 341. 72 Jean de Joinville, Histoire de Saint Louis, ed. Natalis de Wailly, 2nd edn (Paris, 1874), 132, 212-14; Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 100–1. For exceptions, see Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 100, and cf. n. 74 below. Bergman and others tested two types of replica eastern composite bows and found that the replica of an ancient Egyptian bow could impart a maximum of 46joules (34 foot-pounds) to its arrows, while the replica Crimean bow could impart a more formidable 63joules (46.5 foot-pounds). The former is not enough to do much damage through mail and a heavy gambeson; the latter is, at least at fairly close range. Bergman, ‘Experimental archery’, 663 (ke); Rogers, ‘Agincourt’, Appendix I (requirement). Ottoman Turks in the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries seem to have used substantially more powerful bows, with draw-weights comparable to strong Mary Rose longbows. However, since these were used with shorter draws and lighter arrows, they still did not have equal terminal effects. A middling 110lb at 28in. Ottoman bow using a heavy Turkish war arrow might impart to an arrow around 95joules (70foot-pounds) of kinetic energy and 2.76kg∗m/sec (20pound feet per second) momentum, whereas a middling 150lb at 32in. longbow might impart 136joules (100foot-pounds) and 5.1kg∗m/sec (36.9pound feet per second), i.e. 43% more kinetic energy and a formidable 89% more momentum. Even an arrow from a very heavy Ottoman bow (180lb draw-weight), though it might have slightly more kinetic energy (145–7joules, 107–8foot-pounds) than one from a 150lb longbow, would still have a third less momentum. Adam Karpowicz, ‘Ottoman bows – an assessment of draw weight, performance and tactical use’, Antiquity, 81 (2007), 681–2; Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 409–11. 73 Joseph O’Callaghan, Reconquest and crusade in medieval Spain (Philadelphia, 2003), 141; J.F. Powers, A society organized for war: the Iberian municipal militias in the central middle ages, 1000–1284 (Berkeley, c.1988), 133, n. 92; Alexiad, 398; Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 98 (Gesta Francorum), 109 (Richard I). Composite shortbows, like short self-bows, were recognised as weaker than crossbows (e.g. Ibn Said, quoted by Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 109). In the fifteenth century, by contrast, English longbows were noted as shooting as far as Italian arbalests – which at that date might well be steel-bowed weapons – and since English arrows were at least as heavy as crossbow bolts, this indicates approximately equal power. Dominic Mancini, The usurpation of Richard the Third, tr. C.A.J. Armstrong (London, 1989), 8–9. Also in the fifteenth century, Bertrandon de la Broquière’s Voyage d’Outremer, ed. Charles Schefer (Paris, 1892), 226–8, 271 (and quoted in Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 101), mainly with English longbowmen in mind, treated Christian bows as equivalent to crossbows with crannequins in their superiority to Muslim composite bows, in both range and hitting power. The experienced soldier Jean Waurin, indeed, described the shot of English archers as more valuable than that of Liégeois crossbowmen at Othée in 1408: Jehan de Waurin, Recueil des croniques et anchiennes istories de la Grant Bretaigne, a present nomme Engleterre, ed. William Hardy, 5 vols (Rolls Series, 39, London, 1864–91), vol. 2 (1399–1422), 124. 74 There is on the other hand the isolated statement of Gerald of Wales that describes a twelfth-century Welsh archer’s arrow penetrating two layers of mail, a man’s thigh, and a saddle to kill a horse. This is so obviously exaggerated, however, that it can be disregarded entirely, just as can be the same author’s story of beavers castrating themselves to avoid hunters who desired their testicles for medicinal uses. Gerald's other examples of the power of the Welsh bow – that it could drive an arrow through mail to pin a soldier’s leg to his horse, or through an oak door as thick as a palm (which, rather than ‘a palm [4in.] thick’, is probably what Gerald meant by ‘palmalis … spissitudinis’; if not, the story can be dismissed as a tall tale) so that the arrowhead protruded on the other side – do indicate a strong bow, with penetrating power comparable to a contemporary crossbow (as he explicitly indicates). However, it is clear that his text is meant to be surprising, indicating that the normal expectation would be that an arrow from a bow could not do such things. It is also clear that he is retelling soldiers’ tales of feats understood to be exceptional even for Welsh archers. Giraldus Cambrensis, Opera, ed. J.F. Dimock and G.F. Warner, 8 vols (Rolls Series, 21, London, 1861–91), vol. 6, 54. 75 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 38–41; for more detail, J.G.D. Clark, ‘Neolithic bows from Somerset, England, and the prehistory of archery in north-western Europe’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 29 (1963), 50–98; G. Rausig, The bow. Some notes on its origins and development (Lund, 1967). Prehistoric shortbows: one approximately 1.25m (4ft 1in.) long was excavated in Slovenia, for example, and Neolithic bows from northern Europe outside the Alps are mostly ‘rather small’ flatbows, e.g. one from Saxony at about 1.34m (4ft 4¾in). Boštjan Odar, ‘The archer from Carnium’, Arheološki vestnik, 57 (2006), 262; Clark, ‘Neolithic bows’, 64; note also 84. 76 Archer’s manual, vi. 77 Ramon de Perellós says ‘alguns se aiudan darcs, que son ayssi petitz com miech arc d’Anglaterra; he si fan aysi gran colp com los angleses’ (‘some [Irish soldiers] make use of bows, which are as short as half an English bow; but they hit as hard as the English [bows]’). See ‘Viatges del Cavaller Owein y de Ramón de Perellós al Purgatori de Sant Patrici’ in: Llegendes de l’altra vida, ed. R. Miquel y Planas (Barcelona, 1914), 144. Strickland suggests this must refer to composite bows, but I think he is too credulous of Perellós’ claim that the Irish bows were as powerful as English bows (something which, unlike the simple length of the bows, Perellós could not easily judge). Especially given the Waterford evidence of short self-bows we now have (see below), we can presume Perellós encountered self-bows. 1590s: Edmund Spenser, Veue on the present state of Ireland, in: Edmund Spenser, The complete works in verse and prose, ed. Alexander B. Grosart and others, 9 vols (London, 1882–4), vol. 9, 93. Spenser adds that though the arrows are short and the strings slack, so that the missiles ‘are shott forth weakely’, nonetheless ‘they enter into an armed man or horse most cruelly’ because of their extremely sharp and slender steel arrowheads. (There may be an error here in the use of ‘armed’ [i.e. armoured] since the overall sense makes the inclusion of that word improbable; perhaps the author wrote or meant ‘unarmed’. An earlier edition of Spenser’s work omits the word. The works of Edmund Spenser, with observations on his life and writings, new edn [London, 1850], 496.) A Spanish ambassador in 1529 likewise described Irishmen using ‘short bows’. J.A. Froude, History of England from the fall of Wolsey to the death of Elizabeth, 12 vols (London, 1870), vol. 2, 160. Sixteenth-century artistic depictions confirm Irish and Scottish use of shortbows: for example, Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 95; Geoffrey Parker, The military revolution (Cambridge, 1988), 50. 78 Giraldus Cambrensis, The conquest of Ireland, tr. Thomas Forester, rev. and ed. Thomas Wright (Cambridge, Ont., 2001), 76–7; note also 48, 81. However, there are indications that pre-Norman-invasion Irish did make at least some use of the bow in war, assuming that the Caithreim Cellachain Caisil is indeed a late eleventh-century text, and that references in it to arrows are not either mistranslations from the Irish or later interpolations (the earliest manuscript being from the fifteenth century.) See Caithreim Cellachain Caisil: the victorious career of Cellachan of Cashel, ed. and trans. A. Bugge (Christiania [Oslo], 1905), xvi, 64, 99, 101, 104, 105. Strickland notes some clear evidence of twelfth-century Irish use of bows: Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 94. In The war of the Gaedhil with the Gail, however, the only mention of archery I could find was a comment on the effectiveness of the Scandinavians’ ‘sharp, swift, bloody, crimsoned, bounding, barbed, keen, bitter, wounding, terrible, piercing, fatal, murderous poisoned arrows’, which seem (even allowing for the style of Irish poetry) to have made a great impression. By contrast, bows and arrows are notably absent from the roster of military equipment of the Gaels, unless perhaps (though not likely) the ‘terrible sharp darts with variegated silken strings; thick set with bright, dazzling, shining nails, to be violently cast at the heroes of valour and bravery’ are arrows. The war of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, ed. and tr. James Henthorn Todd (London, 1867), 159–63. 79 Clark, ‘Neolithic bows’, 88; see also Andrew Halpin, ‘Military archery in medieval Ireland: archaeology and history’, in: Military studies in medieval Europe, ed. Guy De Boe and Frans Verhaeghe (Papers of the ‘Medieval Europe Brugge 1997’ conference, volume 11, Zellik, 1997), 51. 80 Strickland and Hardy, Warbow, 40. Given that Strickland himself recognises the lack of datable longbows between the tenth and the sixteenth centuries, it seems clear that he overstated his case when he wrote (48) that the archaeological evidence ‘demonstrates the existence of longbows … from the neolithic period onwards and unequivocably disproves the supposed technical leap forward of the late thirteenth century’. Emphasis added. 81 Halpin, ‘Militar