[Jay Bluff]

Hi all,
I've been working on some research on and off based on Thom Richardson's thesis on the Tower of London armouries. Basically, I was trying to see if I could narrow down the point in time the steel cuirass begins to displace the coat/pair of plate in English harnesses.

Examining monumental evidence has been fairly inconclusive, but it at least got me into the ball park of 1350 to 1375, and from that, I began going over the Coram Rege accounts and Close Rolls, as well as the guild records that survive for the period to see if the orders for the Tower armoury gave a clear date. Unfortunately not.

Then I'd began to wonder, if I couldn't find evidence in the tower armouries for a clear transitional period, might I find a trace of it in a reaction in the weapons of the time? While I wasn't expecting a smoking gun, I did find something. It's regarding the type Arrows made for the English army.

A little background. First, there's the well known rolls extract before the Sluys campaign.

[Pieter B.]

Steel was a more exotic material but it seems common on weapons before it became common in armour. At least that is the impression I got from reading some work of metal analysis. Helmets and breastplates seem to have been made from iron or very low carbon steel centuries after swords and the like were made exclusively from steel or had steel insets for the tip or edges.

I believe England produced it locally but also imported a fair bit of the stuff from Sweden and Flanders with the best coming from the Iberian Peninsula. In Bruges and London a premium price was paid for the Spanish stuff which suggests it had some quality. In terms of price Alan William citing Thorold Rogers suggests it was around three and a half to twice as expensive as Iron in the year 1300 and 1400 respectively.

Besides material expense I suppose working the harder material is also more time consuming. All the extra effort put into steeling arrowheads or giving them steel heads would be pointless if you did not expect to derive any advantage from it. .

Almost a century earlier around 1240 John of Plano Carpini tells us that to fight the Mongols the Christians ought to use hardened arrows and bolts.

*Note that the translation is simply from the web so I cannot vouch for its accuracy.

[Dan Howard]

We have examples of steel armour dating back to Roman times. IMO steel armour was developed purely as a means of reducing weight and had nothing to do with the weapons they faced. Even when firearms came on the scene, wrought iron armour was used to stop bullets, but it was thick and heavy. Steel enabled the same armour to be made lighter.

Steel arrowheads were acknowledged in many sources all over the world to be better against armour, regardless of what type of armour they faced.

[Jay Bluff]

[Dan Howard]

The chance of an arrow punching through plate far enough to incapacitate the wearer is negligible. It happened occasionally but not enough to influence the outcome of a battle. Steel arrowheads have a better chance against mail and brigandines, but not solid plate.

[Jay Bluff]

[Anthony Clipsom]

There is, according to Richard Wadge in Arrowstorm a reference to a 1338 order for 4000 arrows with steel heads. Reference is Calendar Patent Rolls 1338-40, p.124. You may wish to check the original wording but this may count against the idea that steel arrowheads were novel in govt orders in 1368. There are, of course, a whole lot of things around arrow supply ramping up in the middle of the 14th century which may be having an impact on the inability to deliver orders than a shortage of steel or steel workers. There may, for example, have been a shortage of seasoned arrow timber.

[Jay Bluff]

Thanks, Anthony. I'll look into that.

[Leo Todeschini]

Was having a chat about this with Kevin from Plessis Armouries and he made this very good point
“
some interesting references used there, thanks.
The year 1368 was also "the third pestilence", a large scale return of the black death to England. We always need to reference the socioeconomic factors during research. Maybe the arrow makers or shaft suppliers suffered heavily?
Lots of things to consider but steel heads just the same seem to be the head of choice.

Tod

[Jay Bluff]

That's a good point, Tod. I hadn't considered the impact the plague might've had. The peasant revolt is only 10 years later, too. So the socio-economic changes are undeniable.