longbowmen in close combat

[Stuart]

2

[twrchtrwyth]

Good question. I think it's one of those things that were attributed to Welsh by the English during the various English v Welsh conflicts of the 14th and 15th centuries, so whether it was more common in Wales than elsewhere, or just something that was picked up on by chroniclers, or just a bit of a myth ... [gives Gallic shrug]. From what I recall the Welsh bill (aka Welsh hook) was supposedly converted from an agricultural bill and given the hook to counter the threat from heavy English mounted men-at-arms.

It would certainly fit with a rural Wales lacking heavy armoured cavalry.

[Patrice]

I believe that bills or vouges were rare and almost unknown at the beginning of the HYW (except perhaps for some mercenaries coming from Germany or Italy) and that spears were a much more common weapon.

They seem to appear in our areas in the late 14th and early 15th C.

[Arlequín]

From what I recall the Welsh bill (aka Welsh hook) was supposedly converted from an agricultural bill and given the hook to counter the threat from heavy English mounted men-at-arms.

The Welsh Hook is a new one on me, so that can be added to a few other names; a Calais Garrison stocktaking gives White Bills, Black Bills and just Bills. In 1476 an edict from the Council of the Duchy of Lancaster prohibited in Congleton, the making of bills and glaives, and the bearing of Hedge Bills with blades over a yard and a half in length (presumably we would have added a comma today to infer it was the weapon and shaft combined that was to be no more than 4.5 feet).
  
In 1471 Daffydd Thomas of Pembrokeshire;

"suddenly gathered together a rude rabble to the number of eight thousand within the compass of eight days and so attended by his ragged regiment with hooks , prongs, glaives and other rustic weapons."

He was able to break the Siege of Pembroke Castle with this motley crew.

Gervase Phillips the Anglo Scots Wars 1513-1550

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Mr Phillips for a place on a MA course, in which he largely gushed on about this book he was writing about the Anglo-Scots Wars.
 

I'm not convinced that archers were commonly doubly-armed with pole arms and bows, but certainly if an archer could pick up a poleaxe from the field or something like that, he'd be unlikely to fork out cash for a sword and buckler.

If you haven't already read it, you might enjoy this; Longbow & Hackbutt.

I believe that bills or vouges were rare and almost unknown at the beginning of the HYW (except perhaps for some mercenaries coming from Germany or Italy) and that spears were a much more common weapon.

They seem to appear in our areas in the late 14th and early 15th C.

I think bill become a common term in England after the end of the HYW, but Glaive is the most typical pole weapon mentioned from the 12th Century to almost the end of the 15th, with the pole axe taking over during the 15th Century. 'Bills' is quite rare before 1450 and 'Billmen' is very much a 16th Century term. Glaive was very much a vague term though and I suspect bills fell under the heading for a time.

Obviously Voulge is a term from your side of the Channel Patrice and I don't recall seeing it used in English texts.

Or perhaps did archers fire in rotation, so they could cover their comrades who had finished firing from most of the onslaught of the enemy, meaning that men at arms and the front most archers would only have to deal with those that made contact, with the majority withdrawing back to form new lines?  I don't know, are any of these two valid suppositions? There must have been differing tactics for different situations...

I'm sorry, I was pushed for time previously and missed commenting on this.

I don't think that within a unit they were too tactically sophisticated or disciplined enough to perform complex evolutions, but it wouldn't in my opinion at least, be hard for seperate units to conduct 'fire and movement' tactics with their fellows, so as to provide constant shooting and movement across the whole.

[Patrice]

I think bill become a common term in England after the end of the HYW, but Glaive is the most typical pole weapon mentioned from the 12th Century to almost the end of the 15th, with the pole axe taking over during the 15th Century. 'Bills' is quite rare before 1450 and 'Billmen' is very much a 16th Century term. Glaive was very much a vague term though and I suspect bills fell under the heading for a time.

Obviously Voulge is a term from your side of the Channel Patrice and I don't recall seeing it used in English texts.

Thanks for these very interesting details.

Period sources are unclear; but I have the impression that these weapons: vouges/voulges, fauchards, bills, some sorts of glaive, or whatever their local name, were not in common use in Brittany and France in the mid-14th C. Descriptions of the Combat of the Thirty (1351) mention a guy on the English side "Hucheton Clamaban" (could be a foreign mercenary, or a French mistranscription) fighting with a "fauchard" which had a cutting side and a hook(?) as if it was uncommon; and a poem about Bretons fighting in Italy in the 1370s ("Gestes des Bretons en Italie" written by Guillaume de la Penne) mentions that they were met there by "vilains o grant gisarmes" (= "commoners with great guisarmes") as if it were an uncommon sight.

[Cubs]

The Welsh Hook is a new one on me, so that can be added to a few other names; a Calais Garrison stocktaking gives White Bills, Black Bills and just Bills.

I'm Googling around (dangerous stuff I know) and this has come up as a Welsh hook (sadly I couldn't trace the book it was printed in) -



Also seen here on the left.



But I've also seen it labelled as simply the 'English' name for the guisarme. Maybe that's just because they're both hedging bills of various shapes. The different shapes of pole arms and the various names they attract send me dizzy, it must be said.

[Arlequín]

Thanks for that, actual Welsh Hook not, it certainly is a bill. The variety of pole arms and the application of names to them by modern experts, is indeed bewildering, and I've seen different 'experts' call the same weapon different names. The other side of the coin is that a variety of different weapons are often presented as an example of something else. Patrice's mention of a Fauchard is indeed sometimes depicted by something very much like one form of an English bill.

Ultimately for my purposes the classification of a weapon as being a two-handed 'pole arm' or 'pole-axe' is quite sufficient. The rise of these weapons seems to coincide with the abandonment of shields, so pretty much the 15th Century. The lance/spear (or even lance-spear as it was described in one English period source) of about 12-15' seems to have been relegated to purely a mounted weapon, or a weapon used by dismounted men, more than a typical infantry weapon.

Fortunately there are fewer varieties of 'Archers Maul' to choose from and while 'in period' maul or 'mailly' could describe anything from a large lump hammer to a sledge hammer, or even a lead or wood mallet, the 'sledge axe' or 'splitting maul' are the only single tool you would use to emplace archers stakes.



They come in one-handed and two-handed types today and I suppose it would depend on whether 'stakes' or 'staves' were being knocked into the ground, as to which were needed, presuming those two terms had any weight attached to them. The trouble is that these would not usually be described as 'Lead Mallets' as is often the case.



I came across this nice little blog post on the topic of "Archer's Mauls", but which does also sort of provide evidence for archers fighting too.
Archer's Mauls