[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Dan Howard]

English archers were also overrun by French cavalry at Mauron (1352).

[Josh Warren]

Mr. Connoly, I am very firmly of the persuasion that your friend is incorrect in many of his assumptions.

Remember that at Agincourt the French armoured men-at-arms did in fact reach the English line, and were defeated in hand-to-hand combat, not by archery. The high casualty figures for the men-at-arms are probably the result of Henry ordering all prisoners to be slaughtered after they were captured and bound.

Also, remember that Agincourt is the last of the great English longbow victories. It did not prove as effective against advancing armour technology. Plate armour won the conflict with the longbow. Sure, there was a back-and-forth, and at times the longbow even had the upper hand at a few points in the 14th century, but ultimately plate armour prevailed. It took the advent of effective firearms to drive armour from the battlefield. William Turner, writing hudreds of years later in the late 17th century argues that longbow use should be revived because, "...arrows would do more mischief than formerly they did: since neither men nor horses are so well armed now to resist them, as in former ages they used to be." Essentially, he believed that a force of longbowmen would be effective in battle since they can shoot more quickly than musketeers, but also because soldiers would be vulnerable to the arrows precisely because they no longer made a practice of wearing armour into battle. He acknowledges that armour defeated arrows and drove the longbow from its once-exalted position on the battlefield. A century later, none other than Benjamin Franklin would echo his words.

The longbow won at Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt simply because the English got to pick the battlefield and made the French fight on their terms, which included placing their longbowmen behind substantial field fortifications. What conclusion should we draw from the results of other battles in which English archers were ridden down by the very heavy cavalry whose bane they supposedly were? In the battle of Patay, that's just what happened. Where was the longbow's armour-piercing power then?

I submit the following passage from Dr. Michael Lacy's paper on the Effectiveness of Medieval Knightly Armour. This portion deals with the battle of Flodden (1513) wherein the Scots fielded a force clad in the latest plate infantry armours mass-produced on the Continent:

"...the longbow, so decisive in the wars of the last century, was defeated by the heavy German armour of the Scottish front ranks; a contemporary account describes them as "most assuredly harnesed" in armour, and that they "abode the most dangerous shot of arrows, which sore them annoyed but yet except it hit them in some bare place, did them no hurt." Bishop Ruthal, writing 10 days after the battle remarked "they were so well cased in armour that the arrows did them no harm, and were such large and stout men that one would not fall when four or five bills struck them."

Pay special attention to the sections I have picked out in bold. That's right, contemporary English chroniclers reveal that the longbow did not pierce armour. Other accounts from Poitiers and Brouwershaven (1426) tell similar stories, to say nothing of reports of battles from the English dynastic struggle known as the Wars of the Roses in which both sides turned the longbow on each other, in which it is specially pointed out that Lords Clifford and Dacre were not vulnerable to arrows until they had lifted their visors to drink or shout or breathe.

More near the time of Agincourt, here is a passage from the biography of Don Pero Niño, a Spanish privateer, who raided the English coast a couple of years before Agincourt:

"...they (the Spanish) were so near them (the English) that they could easily tell the fair men from the dark...the standard and he who bore it were likewise riddled with arrows, and the standard bearer had as many round his body as a bull in the ring, but he was shielded by his good armour"

For what it's worth, that standard bearer was none other than the author of this account himself, Gutierre Diaz de Gamez. It is noteworthy that his plate armour enabled him to survive a close-range arrow onslaught and live to write this passage years later.

The longbow was not the "king of the battlefield," the magical nuclear armour-piercer that its fanboys want you to believe. It was only effective under certain controlled circumstances, and even then was mostly an anti-cavalry weapon. Don't buy the hype. Don't misunderstand me--the English were awesome during the early part of the Hundred Years War, but it was because of their strategic expertise, and canny use of combined arms tactics, not because they possessed some magical, battle-winning wonder weapon.

I call on your friend to kindly offer proof, citing primary source material, that the longbow was the almighty armour-piercer that he says it was. If he is unable to do so, then I politely request that he graciously revise his position on the issue.

Now, as to his question about the thickness of plate armour, see here:
http://www.allenantiques.com/Breastplate%20Thickness%20Study.html
and here:
http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/viewto...+thickness

Bear in mind that many of these breastplates could be made from much harder steel than your friend's steel can he claims to have shot through. I seriously doubt you could easily shove a sword through most of those.

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

Yeah, I completely agree, Josh. As I said, the bow-versus-gun debate is telling. If the longbow could have pierced plate, I feel certain Smythe would have mentioned it. He didn't. Instead, he specifically noted how arrows would have to fall on unarmed spots, which may have included mail, to cause damage.

[Randall Moffett]

Josh,

Long time no see.

Agincourt.
Not saying that the archers decimated everyone on the field but there are clear instances of armour penetration from this battle, written then by men who were there it gets no better than that.

Show me one period account or decent secondary one that claims more men at arms were killed as captives. Perhaps the melee but as captives.... I think not. The Chaplain, an eye witness, gives the victory over at least two french battles to the archers arrows. One dismounted. They continue to loose arrows until they run out for a reason. They were wounding and killing men in the last and very large number of dismounted men at arms. Not saying they actually killed more or wounded more in this way as numbers are hard to come by but as we have discussed before there is little indication that more men at arms died as captives and until someone proveds some bit of evidence to the contrary I cannot for the life of me guess why. Take a look at Curry's book on the sources of Agincourt if you'd like a nice and complete list of the sources and quick discussing of them.

Patay-
Have you read throught some of primary accounts on this not just secondary works? Most cleary state a variety of issues coming up, armour being but one factor and a fairly small one in the grand scheme of the battle. The reason the Longbow proved of no effect on the lombard cavalry was indeed in part their armour, horse armour and greater part distance. The Longbowmen had no stakes, the ground being too hard for them, to hold the italians off and before they could get into the kill range. If you want to give that victory to their armour so be it but the other variables are the only things that allowed that to play a part how it did. It was not till M. Jones latched on to one little reason, clung and ran with that it became popular. Patay was more an accident than anything like a battle. If anything it shows the importance for the English to set up a good position over arrow proof armour. It certainly seems to have helped against the Scot and French Men at arms and other soldiers there.

Even after this time you get clear mention of plate penetrated by arrows. Recently I have been doing some studies in the 2nd half of the 15th and you still can find them faorly often but clearly accounts of men saved by such armour does seem more common. This sould be expected. The use of armour would have been disgarded if every arrow rendered it useless. The fact that it deflected most arrows made it important. On the other side the longbow worked and worked well. Its primary job was not to punch holes in armour, though clearly it happened. The variables that controlled the arrows ability to puncture armour limited this weapon where the gun was not so.

In the end the gun has advantages the bow does not. It was still becoming more powerful and a better weapon while the bow had reached its limit in many ways. The gun could be used by all with little need for lifelong practice. Against armour the gun was able to in many situations blow holes in armour where the bow clearly had many variables at work against it to accomplish this.

RPM

[Josh Warren]

I do not say that most of the casualties at Agincourt are the result of Henry's slaughtering of prisoners, but it can't be denied that that action did indeed inflate the numbers of men of rank who perished there.

I think I do make mention of the fact that the English were caught out in the open as being a decisive factor in the French victory. Again, IMO the English longbow seems to prevail over armoured men only if the English get to choose the ground and have time to set up their stakes and such beforehand.

I have lately dug up another account in support of armour stopping arrows. This is from a letter written by one Jehan Baugey, and dated 16 September 1475:

"That Monday after supper the English (mercenary longbowmen) quarreled over a wench and wanted to kill each other. As soon as the duke (of Burgundy) heard of this, he went to them with a few people to appease them but they, not recognizing the duke, as they claimed, shot two or three times directly at him with their bows. (The arrows went) very near his head and it was extraordinarily lucky that he was not killed, for he had no armour on at all."

The Burgundians had been hiring English longbowmen as mercenaries for years, and would have been intimately familiar with the power of the longbow. Yet they still expected that plate armour would have saved a man if he were struck by one of those arrows. What conclusion should we draw from this?

Here is a passage from Vaughan's Philip the Good that deals with the battle of Brouwershaven:

"...they (The English) returned fire with their deadly long-bows and drove the Dutch back in disorder. However, arrows could make no impression on Philip and his heavily-armed knights, who now arrived on the scene. The chronicler points out that Andrieu de Valines was killed by an arrow in the eye because he was not wearing a helmet."

Here, not only do we again have the expectation that a helmet would have saved one man, but a direct statement that the arrows from those longbows made no impression on the (presumably plate-clad) knights.

Primary sources trump modern anecdotes about piercing a can with an arrow. A modern can, of mild steel, is not a late medieval steel breastplate, made according to guild standards, and it is wrong of Mr. Connoly's friend to draw his conclusions about medieval armour vs. arrows from his backyard experiment. Almost worse is his belief that it was common to shove swords through steel plate. It sounds like he doesn't place much stock in the ability of armour of any sort to stop an attack from a sharp point.

Randall, I'd be interested in seeing these clear mentions of arrows piercing plate from the late 15th century. I am glad to hear that they aren't as numerous as accounts of armour resisting arrows, though.

[Randall Moffett]

Josh,

I agree backyard tests are dangerous to gain 'proof' either way. Even decent researchers make some big assumptions and errors in testing. To me the biggest issue is selective testing. If we got the hardness of wrought iron and medium carbon steel hardened to a fair degree with pieces in between we might begin to get an idea about this.

As far as the examples you put in. Most certainly. I'd expect the dukes of burgundy to have the closest thing to arrow proof armour in existence available. I think it dangerous to link this as a general statement though as it clearly is relating to Charles's armour.

With regards to Philip once more I bet he and the top of his group were in highly proofed armour. That said I'd have too look into the context of this second account before I could say. It could be a number of things. AS far as a gent being killed sin armour this is a common occurrence in lit of this period, almost a moral to it. Some accounts indicate Talbot died at Castillion in this fashion, having not work a bevor…

I am working on an article that I hope to get out that involves accounts with both armour penetration and deflection. By far deflection would win if it were by simple numbers of accounts. Something to keep in mind as these is all after 1455 and in infancy. I will try and get a bibliography for it in order for you and PM it to you. I have classes starting soon so I have to get that in order first. It would be bad to show up to my class with nothing to teach...

RPM

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[Josh Warren]

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

Yeah, that's right. The source on English arrows piercing helms would be from the Gesta Henrici Quinti:

[Dan Howard]

[Dan Howard]

[Glen A Cleeton]

Slightly tangental but is there a list of what the erudite assembly here would consider solid sources for information on the battle of Shrewsbury? More topical to the thread, would the royal forces have been fielding men at arms and archers with more than mail and helms (I am but assuming the insurgents were a bit less prepared but many probably had some gear from previous services)? Also, real time esitmates of total casulties attributed to the archery that day?

Cheers

GC

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[Dan Howard]

[Randall Moffett]

Dan,

Thanks for that. I had read that before as well. If I can remember where I found the bevor one I will post it. I think something about him taking a bolt or arrow or poleaxe to the throat. I will look around if it comes to mind but I do recollect the account about him wearing the brig as a letter of the law of his agreement.

RPM

[Dan Howard]

I thought that Talbot was taken down by arrows to his unprotected legs.

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Randall Moffett]

Lafayette,

Sorry thats right. Patay its the French who catch them by surprise and Verneuil its the Lombards. Either way same issue. Lack of stakes or men at arms.

RPM