Warbows and Grilled Cheese...

[Condottiere]

Let's get controversial...

Longbow Origins Before Crecy - Was It Really Welsh?

So, Was The Longbow Really Welsh?

In a word: no.  The Welsh archers at Crecy and Poitiers were paid mercenaries, shooting English longbows; no longbows were ever commissioned from Wales.  The scaled up 6’ longbow was developed in England, between 1300 and 1320, in a large-scale English Army context.  The draw-weight power of the small but strong South Welsh bows must have been one of the influences that inspired a scaling up of the English bow; quite possibly it was picked up by the elite Cheshire archers while on service in Wales with Edward I.  The adoption of the springier self-yew bow stave in the 1290s (not a Welsh thing) will have improved the efficiency of Edward I’s English Army arrowstorms, and must also have been a great facilitating factor in scaling up to the 6’ longbow.The young King Edward III will have seen the new longbow in the 1320s and will have seen in it the power that would enable him to take on the heavily armoured French knights, and the weapon around which he could build his battle strategies, to give the longbow its legendary battle-winning success

[Captain Blood]

Where’s the quote from?

[dadlamassu]

There are many claims on the origin of the longbow
here is one http://www.themiddleages.net/longbow.html

"The longbow was used in the Middle Ages both for hunting and as a weapon of war and reached its zenith of perfection as a weapon in the hands of English and Welsh archers. The longbow was first recorded as being used by the Welsh in 633 C.E., when Offrid, the son of Edwin, king of Northumbria, was killed by an arrow shot from a Welsh longbow during a battle between the Welsh and the Mercians -- more than five centuries before any record of its military use in England."

There are, no doubt, many other claims.  Like the French
https://www.bowyers.com/bowyery_briefHistory.php
Although archery was adopted in England as early as the battle of Northallerton in 1138, it is to the 1251 Statue of Henry III that we turn to see the requirement for citizens to muster for warfare with bows and arrows; and this marks its formal acceptance as a weapon of war; an acceptance which, through the power of its limbs and the strength required, was to dub the brawny bowmen who used it "Milices redoubtable. La fleur des archiers du monde"

Even more
http://www.thebeckoning.com/medieval/longbow/longbow-chronology.html

So like many things the origin of the "longbow" is obscure and may not ever have a definitive answer. 

[Condottiere]

Where’s the quote from?

The linked article...

[Westfalia Chris]

The linked article...

Reformatted the link to be blue. The red is tricky to see in this template.

[Captain Blood]

Thanks Chris.

The paper concerned sets out all the background and arguments exhaustively. Why rehash it here? Seems, as you admit, like controversy for controversy’s sake. In which case, please don’t.

[Condottiere]

Thanks Chris.

The paper concerned sets out all the background and arguments exhaustively. Why rehash it here? Seems, as you admit, like controversy for controversy’s sake. In which case, please don’t.

It was meant in jest...  

I brought it up, as it hasn't been covered before. Instead of Welsh 'self' bows handed to English yeoman, the stave itself was modified from the original. The article isn't exhaustive: it doesn't mention the number of French subjects enrolled as archers in the various armies. I came across this article while looking for information on troops recruited from the Plantagenet territories.

If you want to, go ahead lock or delete this thread...

[Mosstrooper]

The earliest prehistoric bows found are 'longbows'

[Condottiere]

The earliest prehistoric bows found are 'longbows'

You missed the point of the article.

[Harry von Fleischmann]

If the Welsh had been able to deploy archers as a battle winning weapon in the HYW sense, then you’d have thought that there would have been even longer wars in Wales. So I personally - as a Welshman - suspect that my forbears used the bow as a short range ambush weapon and that it was developed east of Offas Dyke. Once the longbow was established or was being developed, what English king in his right mind would arm the Welsh in any great number with it? Asking for trouble, right?

That said, the article was written by/for the London Company of Bowyers - who are surely have a vested interest, bluntly, “he would say that, wouldn’t he?”

[Blackwolf]

"The Welsh hunt Leeks from afar with great bows hewn from the tree Baccata ". Bro. David,Gilbertine monk circa 1158.

[carlos marighela]

"The Welsh hunt Leeks from afar with great bows hewn from the tree Baccata ". Bro. David,Gilbertine monk circa 1158.

I thought they used it to hunt the Welsh Rabbit, or as others prefer, Rarebit. Must take a rare bit of luck to hit something disguised as a toasted cheese sandwich.

[Blackwolf]

I thought they used it to hunt the Welsh Rabbit, or as others prefer, Rarebit. Must take a rare bit of luck to hit something disguised as a toasted cheese sandwich.

Now you’re just being silly.

[Harry von Fleischmann]

No doubt the Honourable Company of Cheesemakers will be along to claim that Welsh Rarebit was actually invented in 1564 by a cheeseshop owner in Westminster.

[Atheling]

The "longbow" was reasonably ubiquitous around Western Europe would be my response and within what we now call the UK. IMHO it was really a matter of how they were deployed and used in their battlefield roll that is the question of whether they become the longbow of English use(?). For example where one the body the bow was drawn back to. The cheek or the ear? That sort of stuff.

One way to address the question is maybe to ask if the "longbow" was used at Hastings, though probably not to the same effect as in later centuries.

(As many on this particular section of the forum will know, during the latter stages of the HYW and certainly post 1453 here were were certainly efforts on the continent to replicate the use of the bow in English armies).

Kind Regards