Medieval longbowman: What was it like to be a medieval archer?

Hello, welcome to modern history, I'm here with a master

archer

, Luke, like we're okay, we've seen you before you hit me with the shield wall, if I remember correctly, it was a lot of fun, let's go see the weapon nemesis. of the night the English longbow and hopefully we're going to try it and we have some goals to try to achieve so you want to explain a little bit about the history of the longbow and your experience. Well, first of all, the longbow is not a term that was used at the time. The longbow appears around the year 1700, back in the Middle Ages, when it was really at its peak of use, it was simply known as the English bow or bow. war bow for reasons it wasn't purely for war, so my particular area of ​​expertise is mounted horsemanship, so the Knights are cutting a lot of steel and stuff.

Obviously I have to cross that gap so I can hit you with my spear if I can. 12 feet from you, but you could theoretically hit me from much farther than that, so yeah, you're looking at about 240 yards as sort of an average distance, so I'd probably line up 300 yards away just to be in the safe side, okay and then I have to use the speed of the horse to cross that gap while you shoot your arrows at me, you are not looking to hit that piece of armor on that night you are looking to launch as many arrows as you can into that big wall of arms moving towards you, the sheer force of that wall of cavalry hitting you is its main destructive force, so if we can interrupt that line before it reaches us, you know, lower the horses and create obstacles for other horses, that It's the actual effectiveness of the bow, it's not necessarily about piercing the armor of each arrow, it's a numbers game, it's shooting as many arrows as you can at that densely packed group of men and simply stopping them from getting any closer.

You, like them, will beat the men, you will eat the horse, he will use the ground, I suppose sometimes, but if I am knee to knee with my companions, there is not much room for your arrows to reach the ground, yes. I know there isn't much area to lose as it is a huge target, we must be looking at the formation of the men, it must have been horrendous and how many arrows would be shot in an hour, do we have any knowledge of that? It is not an absolutely accurate record. that we can say how many arrows were taken in the campaign, we know very well in every pitched battle, the period of the Hundred Years War, that all the

archer

s ran out of arrows, no one said that they ran out of everything they had, You shoot until you have nothing left, obviously, once you've shot all your arrows, you won't just stand still on the battlefield.

What did the archers know? The arch joined together. They were fighting men. Archers were cheap. They were effective. We know they were effective because

what

was written. but also just because of their sheer numbers, during that amount of time you don't spend more than a hundred and twenty years fighting overseas and you deploy a weapon that doesn't work over and over again due to the fact that it was used so much that it must have been incredibly effective exactly , we don't know how effective it was in terms of armor penetration, we don't know if the effectiveness was through blunt trauma when you actually hit it with an arrow, but we know it must have been effective, otherwise why?

Use it, yes you are looking at massive draw weights compared to modern archery. I think Olympic archery is over 60 pounds gross weight, the minimum rating in modern terms for a war zone, anything over 75 pounds weighs over 70 and over 75 pounds. Yes, 32 inches, that's not much in comparison. The historical bodies that were found at Mary Rose emerged in the 70's, they weighed approximately 120 to 160 pounds on average and there are some that were huge. Read over that, but we can't. Really try them out unless the bow I'm using today is 140 pounds 144 140 pounds at 34 inches, which is my full draw, so it's mid-range so we think we're sorry you're making me sound like crap.

I'm going to have my sister Ogle, I think with the 75 pound bow, but we'll see

what

we can, it's all about practice. Now we've come up with a little idea, but we think it's probably some sort of Victorian notion, but let's play with how. Are we doing the concept of being able to shoot through a woman's bracelet here? There are 80 steps. I'm not too optimistic, but we'll see. Yes, we made this beautiful bracelet for this challenge, but I said it was too beautiful. Shooting shadow arrows, yes, but it's too beautiful to risk, so we've got a simpler copper bracelet there, so let's give it a try.

It looks like you have two bows. Here's a big one. I mean, I'm not going to do it. try that why Oh, we'll start with the little bit smaller one to start now. Are you going to say it's a little smaller? Do you want to explain what that Bo is and you have all the weight? So here we have a selfish bow made from a single piece of English ash, this one measures about 75 pounds with a 32 inch draw, it's a lighter weight than the minimum weight or modern rating for a war bow, so that this is his light war bow, this is his kind of full path yeah yeah let's see so you want me to try it yeah see how we're going so tell me so the arrow goes this way yeah where would I put my hand so you As a right-handed Archer, you can hold the bow with your left hand just below that little cross that's there, that's your arrow, pass to the right, you're going to turn the left side of your body towards the target, so you know, give yourself the turn for us and you're just going to line up your feet so that your back toe and your front end are pointing straight toward the center of the target, so that's not the case, just turn them so that your side is in the step like that. , that's all right now if it follows the path of your feet that line should point someone is a sensor the right target right that's perfect okay there I'm sorry you're not ready to charge you're pretty much on the other side yes, it's a view towards the target, it's not facing forward, that's incomplete Leeside, you're lining up your entire body with the target, yeah, so here's your arrow.

You see he's got a big police pen there, so it's going to point it up, away from the boat, because it's three pens, one has to stick out. exactly right so that it doesn't collide with the bow when you release it, it will click there, click yes and then you will use three fingers, first the three fingers of your right hand, one on top, to blow in what is known as a Mediterranean draw and that's it's going to come back all the way back slightly shorter arrows here so it's going to come back to the corner of its mouth down the arrow and then straight towards the bullseye that's the theory that's the water let's try it here we go I'll say it, what did that not go far enough?

Did it scare the rabbit? Yes, right here you try another one. Yes. What you want to try to do with your trail arm instead of pulling down. Yes, you can pull up so your elbow is in a nice straight line. Line to the mathematics of the cornea Why is this so? I'm putting your pinches on the arrow so you can focus on the air. I try to draw the rope instead of the eye. It's on target again just as you draw. Yes, you are very hunched over. and you're pulling like this across your body, okay, try to turn that whole shoulder, okay, try to use your chest and back muscles as much as you can to not touch the arrow, so I have to say how. many of these I have to do in a

medieval

battle, there are many that are easy to count until they stop attacking you or you run out of arrows, so it's up and it's fun, yes you try one more, a couple more, maybe two more to complete the process. half a dozen Philosopher's that you concentrate on when you draw, yes, push with the front arm, yes, as much as you pull with the back arm, okay, because then you will use both your chest and your back at the same time if you lift your arm. and then pull your right arms doing all the work, okay, so you'll try to push and pull at the same time, that's all.

Well thank you very much. You must have practiced a lot, sir, yes. I've been doing this since I was a kid for a few years and years, she's absolutely right, really yes, historically you're looking to start around age 8 and 9 practicing as a lawyer 3 hours a week, so your profession with some of this to a that is fantastic, that's all, the energy that goes on is just extraordinary, go and take a look, it's not that bad. I have two on target, one on the gold pretty close and one on the edge, so three out of six is ​​nice. well for the first time, thank you, it was absolutely your instructions, that boyfriend sheet, that boyfriend is incredibly difficult to draw and doesn't really compare to your war boyfriend, how much training do you have to do to achieve that almost?

It's not something you can really quantify. As simple as you know. Do it for five hours for three weeks and you'll be fine. It all comes down to EADS thinking that some people are naturally prone to it and others not, and making the comparison. and I never quite understand it and then for you when I'm doing and I'm thinking about all the things I'm doing wrong and trying to remember everything, but presumably for you it all comes together and you just draw the arc and let go yeah, you don't worry anymore really by how you're shooting you know if you're pulling our back to a certain point it all becomes muscle memory you look at what you want you hit and nine times out of ten you don't do it but when you do it's great and your arrows were significantly those are war arrows, we all know they measure half an inch at the shoulder and then taper to three eighths. about an inch in the nock, so they're designed to fly, they're shaped perfectly for aerodynamics and we're hoping, yeah, and we talked a little bit about that, it's not really a question of precision. shooting arrows downhill in military archery is all about the volume you're looking at, mastering the samples by shooting at massive rows of men, there's no reason to suggest a test like this couldn't have been done, you know this was the type of national pastime, etc.

We have the same way we have people doing trick shots with football these days. There is no reason why the archers couldn't have been as accurate on the day. Yeah, I don't practice enough to be sure, but in terms of military use, it's all about volume, the amount of arrows in the air at the time of lifting a steel wall, so one of the things I noticed when I was shooting those war arrows was the massive impact they had on the target, so next time I think we should use them. some of your arrows against some evil armor and just see what it does sure yeah okay happy thanks for watching please like and subscribe and don't forget to use the notification button and see you next time.