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Jean Henri Chandler




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PostPosted: Wed 05 May, 2021 10:40 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I read a couple of articles summarizing academic work on this in the last 100 years.

The big debate seems to be about who invented the longbow, and when. Whether neolithic longbows are real longbows etc., and it breaks down largely on nationalistic positions, predictably. I personally don't care about that.

Pertaining to the Welsh, there is academic debate, including quite recently (in other words, well beyond the Victorian era) as to whether the English had or used longbows militarily prior to the conquest of Wales by Edward I. Then it's a question of whether they just developed their own existing longbow archers into something more militarily significant, or adapted something from the Welsh, or something else happened.

There is often more heat than light in some of these debates. It seems clear to me that most of the people are arguing past each other, because it's an emotional issue due to reasons of national pride etc. It's obvious that longbows in the sense of bows with a very long stave (5 or 6') did in fact exist back to the Neolithic. It's also obvious that they were not being used on a large scale in the British Isles prior to the high medieval period. They did not, for example, seem to be available in the wars against the Vikings right up to the reign of Canute the Great who conquered England.

There may or may not be some evidence of their use during the Norman invasion but they don't seem to have been used en-masse in the 11th Century .

It's also clear that there were varying grades of 'longbows' - the Neolithic weapon or the Carolingian era one, don't seem to be the same as the (more standardized and more powerful) type being used by the time of the reign of Edward II, and those don't seem to be as powerful as the ones used in English victories in France in the 14th Century, which may or may not be surpassed by the ones used at Agincourt an around that same time period. Or the ones used unsuccessfully at the Siege of Neuss or in later battles during the Burgundian Wars.

All of these seem to be eclipsed by the bows in the Mary Rose, though scholars and experts remain divided on how precisely to estimate the power of those weapons, with some insisting on very high power / draw weight of up to 170 lbs and others going as low as 90-100 lbs for an average.

None of that is relevant to the question I asked, but it speaks to the reason behind the endless debates, which are similar to the divisive internet fault line that existed for years about whether English longbows (or Warbows, as the later ones are sometimes referred to) could penetrate top quality plate armor. (they can't, at least not the main pieces from the front)

I haven't seen any significant evidence that Welsh didn't use or have longbows or that they weren't used as mercenary archers. I consider that claim spurious.

J

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Last edited by Jean Henri Chandler on Wed 05 May, 2021 2:25 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Jonathan Dean




Location: Australia
Joined: 16 Feb 2019

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PostPosted: Wed 05 May, 2021 12:40 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Quote:
I haven't seen any significant evidence that Welsh didn't use or have longbows or that they weren't used as mercenary archers. I consider that claim spurious.


As I never made those claims, I consider your whole argument disingenuous and full of strawmanning.
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Jean Henri Chandler




Location: New Orleans
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PostPosted: Wed 05 May, 2021 1:16 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Jonathan Dean wrote:
Quote:
I haven't seen any significant evidence that Welsh didn't use or have longbows or that they weren't used as mercenary archers. I consider that claim spurious.


As I never made those claims, I consider your whole argument disingenuous and full of strawmanning.


Well, our perception of one another is mutual then.

You said 'Welsh longbowmen are a Victorian myth" - I consider that specific argument spurious.

Nothing I said was disingenous or anything to do with any straw man. I am just calling it like I see it. I wouldn't post on here any different than I would say it in person.

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Jean Henri Chandler




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PostPosted: Wed 05 May, 2021 1:23 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

For anyone else reading the thread, I recommend this article which was posted in the other thread from which this one was a side-branch:

http://www.tara.tcd.ie/handle/2262/77397

It summarizes the academic work in the 20th and 21st Century on the history of the longbow. I read three other articles which did the same thing but this one was the most thorough. Read it for yourself and I think you will find I did not misrepresent the extant research in my summary.

The whole claim that "Welsh longbowmen are a myth" was a pointless attempt to derail the discussion in the other thread, which is typical of the more hysterical enthusiasts of this kind of nationalistic issue. I consider it debunked and now have a sense of perspective of this individual.

Trying to understand antique weapons, if you actually want to understand them and not just make some kind of ideological point or stand up for people or regions you identify with for whatever reason, requires patient analysis and some degree of humility. These things are seldom simple and rarely adhere to elegant theories.

The past is a foreign country. History already happened and it doesn't care what we think about it.

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Anthony Clipsom




Location: YORKSHIRE, UK
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PostPosted: Thu 06 May, 2021 2:12 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

A rather disappointing conclusion to the affair, alas. I thought the original point was to raise the fact that certain things taken for granted in popular history, such as the Welsh origin of the longbow, do not stand on firm foundations. As to finding no evidence that the Welsh didn't use longbows before the 14th century, it stands against the fact that there is no evidence they did either. It is simply assumed on the basis of earlier scholarship, in this instance Oman and Morris, which was speculative.

On the subject of Welsh mercenary archers, there is plenty of evidence for their existence from the 12th century onward. However, to suggest that they were chosen because of a superior weapon, rather than, say, superior skill or simply superior availability, is a bit technologically determinist, IMO.

Anthony Clipsom
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Sean Manning




Location: Austria
Joined: 23 Mar 2008

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PostPosted: Thu 06 May, 2021 9:18 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Anthony Clipsom wrote:
On the subject of Welsh mercenary archers, there is plenty of evidence for their existence from the 12th century onward. However, to suggest that they were chosen because of a superior weapon, rather than, say, superior skill or simply superior availability, is a bit technologically determinist, IMO.

poor areas on waterways tend to produce mercenaries before the 20th century, just because its a source of paid work and the locals can get to where someone is hiring. The kind of mercenaries they produce can reflect local traditions of education ("all boys in the Balearic Islands learn to use a sling"), or what employers expect soldiers from there are good at ("everyone knows that Picards are good arquebusiers" / "the Unpronouncables are not a martial race").

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