The Medieval Archer

Medieval archer

Bradbury turns his attention to the more detailed study of the longbow's genesis and development in Britain. It is definitively impossible to know when the longbow first came into existence in Britain. However, history does record several historical periods when we know that the longbow, or a weapon similar to it, was used and introduced by invaders of the British Isles. There is evidence that shows that the Germanic longbow made its way into Britain with the invasion of the Saxons in the fifth century. Viking law, from mid-tenth century, required that while aboard ship, fighting men must be equipped with bows and arrows as an addition to their other usual weapons that they employed in their raiding parties. One can still read Viking Sagas of the era extolling the use of bows and arrows as weapons. In 1055, Welsh bowmen while firing from hidden positions on mountain ridges, cut down the Earl of Hereford's Saxon cavalry with devastating effect. This action would be a great lesson lost on King Harold eleven years later, in his defeat at the battle of Hastings. King Harold did have some longbow men in the battle, if one takes the Bayeux Tapestry to be a true pictorial history of the Norman Conquest. Unfortunately, for the Anglo-Saxon army of King Harold, he had to travel very quickly over 250 miles south to engage the invading Normans, which prevented him from taking many archers on foot. In fact, the Bayeux Tapestry is famous for its depiction of King Harold being fatally shot in the eye by a Norman arrow, and thus, changing the course of British history forever.
It is during the fourteenth century in Britain that the longbow gains its reputation as a force multiplier in battle. In military terminology, a force multiplier denotes a factor, in this case, the longbow providing a technological factor, dramatically increasing the combat capability of a military force. In keeping with the theme of our course in comparing fourteenth century events to modern times, one can easily equate the importance of the longbow to fourteenth century warfare in the same way that one can compare the importance that the machine gun had on early twentieth century warfare-specifically during World War I. The longbow provided the English armies of Edward I, through the end of the Hundred Years' War, a distinct and singular advantage over the French armies and their cavalry forces.
Despite all of the early history of the longbow in Britain, it is Edward I who is the real progenitor of the longbow, as used in battle. Edward I keenly learned the tactics and logistics that were necessary to employ with great success the longbow on the battlefields of Wales and Scotland. He realized that the longbow was less expensive and awkward to use in battle then the crossbow, and with a moderate amount of practice, his Welsh bowmen could shoot more arrows in a given time then cross bowmen could. He worked hard at building a national army. In 1298, at the battle of Falkirk, most of his longbow men were Welsh. By 1346, most longbow men were English. They were well trained, well paid, and could be counted by the thousands. Longbow men where deemed so important to the army that they were given pardons for all types of offenses, including murder, in order to go off to France to fight. Their pay was comparable to that of master craftsmen. During the reign of Edward II, English military prowess was in decline. Although Edward II continued many of the recruiting and logistical policies of his father, his tactical decisions, and those of his commanders, were sorely lacking. He suffered an embarrassing defeat at the battle of Bannockburn at the hands of Robert the Bruce of Scotland. However, the lessons his son, Edward III, learned from that defeat put the British army in good stead for fighting in the Hundred Years' War. Those lessons, learned and used in such future battles as Crécy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, were insuring good organization before battle and good discipline of soldiers during the fight. In addition, cavalry without longbow support was useless against enemy spearmen. Conversely, longbow men who were isolated on the battlefield without support, would easily fall prey to enemy cavalry attack.
Crécy is emblematic of the successes that the British enjoyed at the battles of Poitiers and Agincourt. It was the sight of the first major battle of The Hundred Years' War and was a rousing success for the invading British army of Edward III and his sixteen-year-old son, Edward, also known as the Black Prince. Edward III had 12,000 men arrayed against a French force of between 30,000 to 40,000 combatants. Although heavily outnumbered, Edward's longbow men were the force multiplier that garnered a stunning victory for the British over the French. The record shows that the English longbow men were capable of firing ten arrows in a minute. Most estimates of the longbow tactics used in the battle, state that the over one-half million arrows fired by the British, easily cut down the French armored cavalry. The longbow, and the brilliant way in which it was employed, were responsible for the lopsided casualty figures of the battle. Although casualty figures are somewhat unreliable, most sources put the French losses at one-third of the French nobility-about 12,000 men in all, against the British losses of 150 to 1,000 total. In the battle, longbow men comprised anywhere from between five to one, upwards to three to one, of the English invading force. Bradbury states in his book, "They were some of the finest, most highly trained and militarily efficient troops that any nation ever put into the field of battle." So, why did the French when seeing the efficient destructive power of the longbow, not learn from the advantage it could afford them and emulate the English? Bradbury postulates a few reasons, such as, the French culture of class snobbery made it difficult for the nobles to accept peasants as equals on the battlefield. In addition, cavalry and chivalry were too hard for French nobles to give up. Another reason was that the French King did not have the power to field a national army in the same way that his English counterparts did. French kings had to rely on their nobles and Italian mercenaries to prosecute their wars during this time; thus, they could not enforce regular training regimens, nor standardized battlefield logistics and tactics. In fact, the longbow reigned supreme on the battlefield until the mid-sixteenth century. By this time, other technologies such as better-tempered armor, cannon, and musketry, overtook the effectiveness of the longbow.
In conclusion, I highly recommend Bradbury's book to any serious student of medieval history. "The Medieval Archer" is an excellent introductory work for understanding the significance that the weapon had during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It is well written and appointed with plenty of illustrations. The book is a very enjoyable read for anyone with even a casual interest in the longbow or the Hundred Years' War.