MrCorvusC Both good points, but the major distinguishing feature is actually the fact that when you stand both types of bows on the same surface, the longbow is generally taller
+Khornedevotee If I could re write my initial comment I would add some "!" lol. I started watching his channel, more to listen, while I do busy work, but I find myself not getting anything done lol Though thanks to him my sling ability is, a thing!
Straight outta' Mirkwood. Baddest forest west of the Misty Mountains. They've literally got giant spiders in his hood. It don't get more gangsta' than that.
Because the tree is a stand, Wooden Tree. It has the power to trap anything inside of its roots. This quite contrasts the stand Long Bow, which can shoot any projectile at very high speeds over a very long range.
No shit, I never fired a bow, but I know some stats: A arrow fired from a 50 lbs bow moves at about 140 feet per second. That means that the string that imparted that motion moved to at least that speed. A string that moves at 140 feet per second and slaps on your skin, that will leave a serious mark or split your skin open. Common sense really, at least for me it seems to be ...
I know what the string will do to you. I have been shooting traditional archery for a long time. I was making a reference from the video as a joke. no need to get ticked with me.
I personally use a 53 # and have trained myself to be used to the slap so that I can give someone else my arm guard. It doesnt hurt not does it feel good.
***** Merriam-Webster dictionary: 2 fire verb : to shoot a weapon : to throw (something) with speed and force : to give life or energy to (something or someone) the freedictionary.com a. The discharge of firearms or artillery: heard the fire of cannon. b. The launching of a missile, rocket, or similar ballistic body. c. Discharged bullets or other projectiles: subjected enemy positions to heavy mortar fire; struck by rifle fire. Education: get some, son you really need it !
This is most likely totally quirky, but I don't understand how filmmakers miss such an opportunity: Imagine a historical or fantasy movie and it's the scene before the last big fight. The castle is about to get assaulted, the last stand is about to happen, the major forces are finally about to clash, whatever you like. And you get this dramatic build-up to the battle: troops are deploying, arrows are stacked, armour is put on, water is heated up to be thrown down from the battlement. And then you see a shot of some archers warming up their bows like that. Isn't that a powerful image? Isn't this foreboding a long and bloody fight? Isn't the audience immediatly going to understand that these warriors are preparing to shot their weapons very soon and very often? It REALLY goes to show that researching the material you are about to present in art form not only gives it an authentic feel, but also gets you information like this that help you in your creative efford.
wow...I never thought I'd disagree with someone about not using realism in certain stories.I agree with him-if done right it could be a powerful image. of course it isn't NECESSARY to add in-as a matter of fact its never really necessary to add too much realism to any story (just make sure everything makes sense and that it follows its rules rigidly) but It can certainly add something to the story.example:RWBY obviously isn't very realistic, but it follows its own rules quite well. hunters can survive and even heal from devastating attacks because their aura both reduces the damage they take and heals them because they have excellent control over their aura. whereas the normal bystander CAN'T because they don't have nearly as much control over it or can't use it at all.actually that was a bad example...that was more of a example about following your story's rules well...oh well I hope my general message wasn't lost anyway XD
The French, having been beaten by the longbow, decided to respond by making their armour heavier and better. Then there was Agincourt... Of course armour was not useless. If it was, the English would have stopped wearing it at home.
Naww what happened in runescape was EU policy. Yew was burned outside the banks in long lines of fires to keep the price high to avoid PC woodcutters being outpriced by foreign bots.
+NotSoSober Gamer Or Welshmen/Scotsmen Depending on time of day and geographical location. At least according to urban legend/out of date British laws.
Elves are probably holding their bows sideways because they learned from Hollywood that shooting rapid fire from the hip is way more accurate than using sights/scopes
+Balinux You've got that backwards. Shooting a bow "from the hip" gives it a _weaker_ effective draw, and massively saps the energy of the arrow. If they were really that strong, they'd just draw the normal way, in order to actually _kill things_ with their rather expensive clothyard sheaf arrows. Basically, drawing sideways like that just makes the bow less efficient, for no good reason.
Jonathan Hughes Why would it be a weaker draw, if their body is more than addapted to it? It all comes down to the bow, and how much force the arrow can take with it without snapping.
It is one of my personal bugbears when archers refer to the American flatbow as a longbow! The reason why the flatbow developed over in the states and we developed the classic D-shaped longbow is all down to the native wood found in each Country each wood lends its self to a different type of bow (or so I've come to understand)... Keep up the great work!
This was very entertaining! In this age of pretty low attention span I never thought I'd spend almost 9 minutes listening to a guy in a sweater talking about long bows.
hahaha even if he said "a piece of wood under tension from roping" its still queen annes revenge. Even used for hunting works cause you could say hunting other pirates/merchants or whales (at a stretch... maybe he liked whaling lmao)
The reason you might want to warm up your bow is probably because bow's are basically huge springs. Elastic things, like springs, are just things that convert other kinds of energy, into kinetic energy, and if your bow is quite hot, then it has more energy to convert. A fun experiment, if you have a thermal camera, is to take like a slingshot, look at it with the camera, shoot it a few times, and look again. You'll notice, of course, it's quite a lot colder than it was. If you, like me, *don't* own a thermal camera, i'm pretty sure mister Sprage has a video about this on the slingshot channel.
30 years building and hunting with longbows. 1) To string a longbow; place the end of the bow between your legs, with the belly of the bow resting against the calf of your left leg, and the front of the bow resting against the ankle of your right leg. Flex the bow forward using your legs as a lever and string it. Much more gentle on the bow and you don't ruin the tip by digging it into the dirt. 2) Unlike compound bows, which hold the arrow in place, allowing for a vertical shooting, it's much more stable to fire a longbow with a 10-15 degree angle in it. Also reduces the contact between your hand and the arrow reducing the need for your glove. 3) When you draw your bow, you extend your bow arm and draw arm at the same time, locking them both into position. It's less wear and tear on your draw arm as you're pulling the bow away from the string, as you're pulling the string away from the bow. 4) A longbow takes greater skill to shoot than a short bow as the longer arms mean minor movements at the grip mean greater movements at the arrow point. I.E. 1 degree off on a short bow may only put a shot off by a few inches, but 1 degree on a longbow can set it off by as much as a foot or two. 5) If you can't fire your bow without hitting your forearm, it's too powerful for you. You need to practice and make your wrists stronger, or get a lighter bow.
MattMexor No you're absolutely right, and I was trying to explain the right point in the wrong way. I started off trying to explain it as sway and control and it got away from me. A short bow is far less susceptible to sway at the tips while a long bow, because of length and weight, tends to exaggerate that sway. If that's not clear I can only recommend shooting both and feeling the difference for yourself. Another factor is that a long bow also generally has a longer draw length to it meaning longer arrows. Longer arrows can also add to the exaggerated sway. That's why most trick shooters opt for short recurves.
In my car tripping out thinking someones tapping the glass. I even got out of the car and looked around thinking " Alright ive had enough of this! Come out!!"
this gentleman is beyond amusing. The knowledge of longbows he has along with the humorous presentation is just great to experience. Love these videos and traditional bows convey art,history,sport,hobby...just awesome .
No, I had it made for me. Yes, in war, long-distance shooting was usually at formations of troops rather than at individuals, who would be picked out at perhaps 60 yards.
The hip firing with Hollywood about bows is the same way with guns. It gets on my nerves. You have very interesting videos and I enjoy watching them. I hope you keep it up!
Karasu Not sideways though. I don't know why but people who make movies seem to think it looks really cool to shoot things with your weapon sideways. Though it should be said that some gun experts agree that there are circumstances where shooting your gun sideways may be beneficial, but they are almost always where accuracy doesn't matter (like firing a gun with rapid fire and a lot of recoil into a crowd)
If you are hunting and don't need the full power of the bow, you might decide to hold the bow horizontal to avoid the limbs striking tree branches. I've done this when hunting in Australia. It is one of the times that 'instinctive aiming' has an advantage over relying on sights.
"This is a long bow, they're long" Now my keyboard has got a beautifull mixture of coffee and saliva thoroughly tucked down between its buttons.. But a good morning laugh non the less! I salute you sir...
Right. Thanks for that. Informative. I have a 50 lb draw bow for practice in technique, but understand the war bows would be 100 to 120 or 130 pounds around Ajincourt...
Bruce Burns I'm fifteen and I have a 50 pound ash longbow. Archiologists found deformations in the shoulders as well because at that time you would start archery at 8 years old
Native Americans tended to use lighter (40 - 50 lbs) bows, held mostly horizontally, with a chest draw instead of a cheek draw. This was convenient because they were using two-fletch arrows, instead of the typical European three-fletch. On Native American bows, you can sometimes find a nock in the middle of the bow to assist in keeping the arrow on the right part of the bow body. This seems like it might be less accurate until you realise that it virtually eliminates paradox and what little remains will be an up-down wiggle instead of side-to-side.
-I suspect there's some requirement for all experimental archaeologists to stake a claim to the origin of the phrase "rule of thumb." I've heard so many.
The mechanical definition of what constitutes a longbow: One of the main things bow designs do is deal with the ability of a bow to be drawn to a given point for a given length of bow. A ratio of bow length to draw length. There are a number of ways of dealing with this through material, limb width, limb depth, brace height design, tiller, recurves on the limb tips, nock design, and so forth. A longbow is a bow that predominantly deals with this design challenge by simply making the bow longer. If in contrast you wanted to have a bow that like some Mongol bows could be carried in a holster, you would have to rely on everything other than length to make ration. Ration is important to allow you to gain the draw length a particular archer needs, but if you simple go sloppy on getting there, you loose cast. So getting to the ratio efficiently is at the heart of performance. Longbows are not the most efficient design, but they have many advantages beyond cast efficiency.
The really amazing thing about Longbows are how cheap they are to make. A trunk usually could be split into 8 to 12 staves and most of the material removed while wet to allow quicker drying of the wood. Different from other flat bows of the time they used the depth and sapwood of the material for power and made a skinnier profile (A piece of rawhide glued to the back of the bow helped prevent splitting Skinnier=less material used.). You didn't have to waste time recurving or laminating pieces. Tilling the bows is easy and can be done quickly with a file or a rasp. If the bow broke a tip saw off both ends remake the knocks and send it back out, and rarely did it fall out of tiller. Longbows aren't as useful hunting. They tangle in branches and rattle brush and scare away prey animals. They could be used in either hand. They could be used lying, sitting and crouching positions because the breech (the hand and thumb distance) was so low. For someone wanting to make one it's a fun and easy project. Mine was out of easy to find red oak. All the tools and supplies cost about $25. Strings can be bought to length on Ebay pretty cheap.
Any such laws would be local bye-laws (there may have been such a statute in Chester), and would not now be enforceable, as national law would override them. TRiG.
I read a novel about a medieval archer. I'm not claiming that everything in all novels is accurate or anything but in the book, he described why English archers need so much training. Pick the bow up and draw it aiming down the arrow like a recurve bow. Now you're at half draw. With a full draw, you can't really see. It takes instinct and intuition and all that. I'm just reporting what the novel says. I'm no expert. Now discuss. All the people who think I'm a complete idiot on one side and all the people who think I'm totally right on the other.
No you're right. For a warbow you draw back to your shoulder and immediately release, meaning you don't really aim. Your muscle memory and years of practice is what allows you to hit things reliably.
If you're shooting relatively flat, you can aim using the arrow and the alignment of the string just fine. Shooting at a high trajectory is subject the same issues whether you're using a recurve or a longbow (in my limited experience of shooting the two)
That would make an amount of sense, but it's not what's shown. Spreading your entire wingspan to draw the bow would be very odd, and in the tight longbow formations... It doesn't sound too plausible. Also I think that'd have to be an insanely long bow. Longer than what we know of.
The Armored Idiot Well, I didn't mean that you had to straighten out both arms like a bird if that's what you mean. It just requires a fuller draw. I guess that he meant one needed to move his head slightly out of the way for a full draw and you couldn't aim down the arrow like any modern archer would understand. The novel did go on to describe how if the enemy would get close enough he didn't need to draw it like that and he could take them out with what he called "half draw". I guess the full draw was for the enemies in the distant battlefield.
The longbow apparently originated in the Welsh border country, the men of Gwent used elm longbows which didn't have the range of a yew bow but had tremendous power over their shorter range. Gerald Cambrensis tells some interesting stories about the Welsh bowmen.
There are several efficient archery stances and hand positions, different combinations have different merits. The method you showed here is certainly the best for firing arrows long distances or accurately, and it fits the longbow best, but there are much faster methods which still retain enough power to be useful. I've experimented with some of the hand positions used in movies and some allow the archer to fire quite rapidly while still maintaining accuracy. These methods are better suited for shorter bows, of course. The most efficient method I've found is to bend one's back outwards just a bit and rest the arrow on the outside of the bow. It feels slightly awkward at first, but I can fire 4 times as many arrows like this, and I've been using the traditional method for years.
Hollywood has gotten better at realism but still the film comes first... My theory is film is widescreen, so holding a bow horizontally looks better because it fills the screen. Youve gotta think like a director. Everything is about visuals and framing.
Another way to string a bow is the “step through” method. One end on the ground against the inside of one foot, step through between the string and bow, pull the upper end of the bow back and slide the string up. This gives you leverage against the draw weight of the bow. Works fine, lasts a long time.
About that sideways way of holding the bow: Yes, full-on horizontal is pretty crappy. But among the Native longbowmen of the Eastern/Southeastern Woodlands (Seminole, Muskogee, Iroquois, Cherokee and the like) The bow was canted at an angle. Sort of a 45 degree thing. Not sure why, having not really tested it, but it is something to wonder about.
I'll tell you why: it helps with aiming. It keeps an arrow between your bow-holding hand and the wood of the bow in a natural v-nook made by the 45-degree angle you're holding the bow at. You can move the bow around and aim better, without needing to look straight down the bow. If you need to make snap movements, like pivoting to hit fleeing prey, it really helps.
I've only ever seen tribal hunters do this and I suspect (in this case) it is because they are smaller, lighter bows and depend on poison to down their prey (poison for hog or deer sized prey, but no need for rodents, reptiles and marsupials). I can't imagine hunters using too big a bow, moving through brush and forested areas would just be comical!
Another thing about doing instinctive archery and shooting it at an angle, it keeps the bow out of your vision so you have a better line of sight on the target and around it.
In modern usage a long bow is one where the string only touches the bow at the nocks, as compared to a recurve bow where the string touches the curved limbs until drawn. Long bows are longer so as to store the same amount of energy as a shorter recurve bow, both limited by the archer's strength and draw length. Recurves were developed in Asia for use on horseback, something for which long bows are ill suited. The use of different hand positions on the string is called 'string walking'. I am not aware of historical use of that technique because it reduces arrow velocity, but it is possible.
The simplest way to string a longbow without using a stringer is to step through the bow with your left foot (so your leg is between the limb and the string) then hook the bottom horn behind your right foot, then grip the upper limb with your left hand and lean into it, so your're bending the bow pretty much using your weight and leg strength (which is much greater than arm strength). This bends it enough to slip the top loop up the limb and into the nock. You then try to extricate yourself without tripping over, or you'll look a bit of a tit.
***** That is a way to string a low power bow, and btw a good way to twist the limbs on a modern recurce bow. Try to string a 120lbs bow that way and the people around you will have something to laugh about. I shoot Fita-Recurve, english longbow and traditional korean bow. The korean bow has 50lbs and i string it like you mentioned, because thats kind of the way it is traditionally strung. My Fita bow is always strung with a stringer cord, to keep the carbon lims from twisting. My longbow has 80lbs, and I tried the method lindybeige pointed out and to string it locked in my legs, both methods do not really work.
***** I've made bows for customers who were way too heavy for me to draw, including a monster of a self bow (no lamination, no backing, just a single piece of wood) that was 175 lbs at 27 inches (he had short arms). The best way I've found with no bow stringer (the monster bow another way) is to put a cloth on the ground, place the bow in a sideways position with a good stiff arm on the upper tip, and driving your knee into the handle, using my whole body to bend the bow. Three points of contact with the knee at center, and a huge mechanical advantage. No limb twist but not the way to string the recurve. Ugg, the video is still going on and he's talking about wrist slap from the string: Properly weighted arrows and good form will fix that. I brace my flatbows at a mere 4 inches and never get wrist slap.
I live in america too, and i have three bows, two are recurve and one is a compound bow. I grew up using it, as i lived near a indian reserve for awhile, and bows are significant for them.
It always bugged me that in the rangers apprentice book they supposedly shoot their longbows from horseback and string them very quickly in very confined spaces.
A properly trained full time archer probably could string the bow really fast if they absolutely needed to, and it's not impossible to fire a longbow from horse back. If you're firing the bow say right handed like most people, that would just mean you're stuck shooting straight ahead of you and to the left as far as you could turn, you lose the ability to shoot to the right or further cause the lower limb of the bow is generally stuck on the saddle. Recurves and shorter bows are better on horse back because the shorter limbs make it so you can shoot at more angles then a longbow. Or you could just go the Japanese way and basically make it so a horse archers horse's saddle has little platforms you can stand on so you can literally stand up on your horse xD
A long bow on a horse back is hard but not impossible, but the methods he showed for stringing your bow are both, well used especially for really heavy bows but usually you would flip your bow so the back of the bow is against your foot, and pull at the handle and slit the noose upwards whilst pulling the tip of the bow downwards, as if you are pulling the bow but from the wrong side as to say. that is done, if skilled, within a few seconds and doesn't really need much space.
can't say much about the rangers and what it says in the book as I've never read it but personally it only takes me a few seconds to string my main 60lb bow and only a little longer to string my old 80lb bow (mostly because it's wood and I don't want it to suddenly shatter in my hands) and that's without the use of bow stringers or other aids the one time I did get to string a reconstruction welsh longbow (around 140-150lb) it took me a good 30 seconds but mostly because I didn't want to risk breaking it by forcing the bow (did that once the first time I strung an old wood self bow) but yeah stringing a bow quickly is quiet easily done
I'm surprised you didn't touch on the English national offensive finger gesture. From what I understand it was born during the time of the hundred years war when the english longbowmen were so effective at killing french people that the French threatened to cut the index and middle fingers from every English prisoner they captured. And so the English, being the English, found no small bit of joy in taunting the French with their own threat by bearing their bow fingers after a volley. Does that sound about right?
I am unaware of the truth of it. That's why I didn't insist that it was the truth. I have learned that someone disagrees with what I thought I knew, therefore I have more research to do.
If you're interested, you might want to read this, and the associated links the author provides: bshistorian.wordpress.com/2007/07/02/two-fingers-up-to-english-history/
Functionally the real distinction is between a long-draw bow and a short-draw bow. The long bow is merely the simplest method of achieving a long draw and has been ubiquitous in North Western Europe since the neolithic. A long draw provides a long power stroke which has greater mechanical efficiency in casting a long heavy arrow which gives range, stability in flight and good penetration. "Rule of thumb"? Fistmele is the term you're looking for. The functional reason for canting or holding a short bow horizontally is to convert lateral cast-off with a short stiff arrow into part of the solution in elevation, even if you don't understand the theoretical basis, it is something easily enough demonstrated by the test of shooting such equipment.
Basically during a medieval battle like Azincourt, you just needed to be strong enough to draw a bow to fit in. Henry V:s army was 5/6 peasants with longbows with a commander doing all the thinking, measuring and ordering. The only skill you had to have, as an archer, during such a battle was to angle the bow accordingly, draw it and release when ordered. Nice vid! I prefer Hungarian-type recurve bows but am interested in history and medieval archery specifically. Cheers!
Another great video. The reason for warming up the bow before you shoot it is so it doesnt break if you draw it fully when its cold. A bit like when you do stretches before exercise. Love the cricket jumper!
Is great to hear some sense talked about longbows! Incidentally, I remember reading some time ago that longbows were about strength, not accuracy. The weights were such that an archer could not hold it back enough for an accurate shot. It was draw and fire as fast as was possible, to get the heavy bodkin-pointed arrows into massed troops on the battlefield, to create as much mayhem as possible.
I understand where you come from and why you don't accept the wiki definition...but your definition at 0:45 "piece of wood taller than its user"...so if a really tall person stands besides your bow...it stops being a longbow?
+Alonso de Hojeda Bows are custom made for the user, well at least wooden ones and you shouldn't let a taller person use your custom made wooden bow because he has a longer arm, ergo a longer draw and he might just break your bow in a thousand pieces. Wooden bows aren't transferable goods, they fall in the category of "user fitted weapons" like a plate armor for example.
Zamolxes77 I have my doubt whether in the era they were custom made...or mass produced. When you equip an army...you cannot really meet each soldier :) I may be wrong of course.
Alonso de Hojeda Its middle ages, nothing is mass produced. Except maybe arrows. We have the original roster of Henry the 5th Army just before they sailed into France. Look it up, is a very interesting document that contains every single name of every soldier that sailed with Henry, their signature and how much they were paid. Is suggested that archers provide their own gear and is one of the 1st documents that suggests England was moving away towards a more modern contractual system, over France who relied on their feudal levies. Mercs usually provide their own gear. The 1st signs of mass production and the equipment of a professional army by the state is in 17th century, exception off course the roman legion.
+Alonso de Hojeda No, because the fool next to you isn't using it. I have a bow that, for my 5'2" sister, is a long bow. But me, with my 6'3" frame, were to use it, it would just be a regular bow. I wouldn't call it short, as a five foot six bow is not inconsequential.
the horizontal one is used for instinctive shooting in crouch position, it was done in old korea and even adopted by the shinobi i heard, they take a short heavy bow with short drawlength and holding it horizontal makes hiding easier, i tried it over and over and eventually your body just knows were to aim wen you look at something.
It was, but in combination with other factors, and a penetration isn't the only way the arrow can work. It can concuss, drain morale, break up formations, slow a charge. Advancing against a hail of arrows is difficult even if none of them penetrates.
Thank you, Mister. Veeery, veeery much!!! For sharing knowledge and passion with us, who, as well, might have a great deal of passion, but not as much knowledge (I am speaking just for myself, at this point). Very helpful and educative. Wish you all the best, and keep up the good work.
When I bought my longbow, I was taught a technique to string it by placing one foot under the bow and the other inside, allowing the bow to be bent against the leg with one hand and strung with the other. It's quick and doesn't require a secondary device.
Continuing with the theme of longbow ranges. The formation taken by English archers is described as "en herce" or in harrow formation. A mediaeval harrow appears to be a wooden lattice of squares with a spike at each intersection. It's thus a word sometimes used to describe a portcullis. If you stand your archers in such a formation with sufficient distance between them, then it is possible to allow everyone to shoot at flat trajectory by allowing sufficient gaps between each archer. To form up, the archers wouldn't need harrows or anything. You just set up the first rank with a distance of say, three feet between them. The second rank set themselves up three feet behind the front (to allow room to manipulate the bow) and step one foot to the right this allows both ranks to shoot in a flat trajectory with the second rank shooting past the first. The third rank is set up three feet behind the second and, in turn, steps out one foot to the right of them. The third rank then has a "lane" to shoot down on a flat trajectory alongside the ranks further forward. Thus you get a dense volley on a flat trajectory while maintaining formation depth for any hand-to-hand encounters. Whatever the number of ranks you use in this way, you get a formation that has equally spaced archers which looks like the spikes set in a contemporary, chequerboard-shape harrow - "en herce" - optimised for shooting at shorter ranges.
Medieval pictures show draws to various places, not all of which could have been correct (some are weirdly high), but as far back as the ear is not uncommon, and is used by people today. Many pictures show bare-handed archers, that's true, but I have shot without a tab and quickly skinned my fingers. With much-calloused hands, things would be different. I may mention the leaning-in technique in a future video. Guards are pictured in medieval drawings.
Excuse me sir! I am a longbow archer! its really simple to string! Just put it against your leading hands foot and against the bridge. Place your leading hand in the middle of the bow to bend it and with your other hand around the top of the bow supporting the bend but under the string so when its being bended 123 and you got yourself a stringed bow! :D
The reason for doing a few half-draws before shooting is to re-compress the belly wood so as to not over-stress the backing ring when first coming to full draw. On self-bows especially, this is a moderate concern. The belly wood will decompress a little when the bow is unstrung for awhile. Stringing and coming to full draw right away will put higher tension on the back than it''s used to and micro flaws or new damage could cause an eruption. Not common, but it happens.
There are tention cords with leather strips you can put halfway on the limbs of the bow (or with leather "cups" but this does not work on longbows), then stand on it and pull as was described. I've also heard that there are certain kinds of short heavily curved (Mongolian?) rider bows that *need* to be warmed up lest they break. Another thing a lot of people seem to misunderstand: Having strong arm muscles does not mean you can pull a heavy bow. It's all in the shoulders and back.
About the strength/skill point; Pulling a warbow in the English style was very different to modern archery. Rather than "drawing" the string with one arm, the archer used both arms and his back to bend it. I can shoot about 60-70lb one way, and over 110lb with that technique, and I've seen this hold true for near beginners too. However the big difference is that this way you end up with the arrow drawn to your ear rather than to your jaw. The larger radius of the bow is important to tiller huge weights without it snapping, in turn meaning you can use heavier arrows which were key. But it also means that you can no longer 'aim' down the arrow. This is the tricky bit, pulling warbows isn't too hard.. Learning to aim instinctively is harder. Plus their training at the butts was to hit a man size target at 200-240 paces so they had pretty high standards.
The bee wax rubbed in the string acts as a lubricant. This prevents the fibers from rubbing against eachother. Without the wax you will notice the string will start to fray very soon.
I saw a documentary about the Mary Rose which showed a longbow man that had a deformed shoulder bone from where he was training with a bow from a young age. The continuous strength needed to draw the bow meant that bones in his shoulder had worn away and researchers thought it was probably a painful condition. Also said that longbow men used their backs to draw the bow, placing the bow slightly above and drawing it down and out. Difficult to describe but gains more power by using back muscles rather than drawing with just the arms. A fascinating weapon.
all archers use their back. pulling a bow, especially the heavy ones, is a very compound movement, lists of muscles involved. and it wasn't just the bones on the back that showed stress but in fingers and arms too (forearm bones that braced the bow were denser, just like in modern archers that pull similar weighted bows). but muscle and none grow together abd they wouldn't have been deformed, nor would they have felt pain from the bone grinding down. that's probably a condition that the archery exaggerated. anyway, buy the book about the warbows find on the Mary rose, and you'll read about the evidence for recurved warbows.
On the point that longbows take a lot of skill to use was that it is true of all bows. This is one of the large reasons why crossbows became popular was that while there rate of fire was poor, they where incredible easy to use, one just had to estimate drop and point in the right direction. Something that one could train villagers to do in a few short hours and be ready for battle with them out of range.
I use an archery style (although I use a recurve) that is about not looking down the arrow. When using a traditional bow (not compound) it takes quite a bit of muscle to hold back a bow and move it around and aim it. Instead, you focus on the target and draw back. Your aim shifts towards your point of focus after a bit of practice. It's a bit harder to focus on the target if you've got the bow vertical (it can block your vision). That's why sometimes people shoot slightly canted. However, you are right about having it completely horizontal.
There are a lot of historical accounts of archers across different cultures show archers holding their bows at an 85-72 degree angle when drawing and aiming, supposedly it was used to help hold the bow against the shaft since there wasnt much of an arrow guide, it also supposedly helps relieve some of the weight of the bow
To repeat what you said in more technical language, the stiffness of a material is relative to its temperature by warming the bow you are reducing its stiffness which means it will bend more under the same force which means although the force applied to the arrow is the same the force is applied for a longer period of time so the arrow will fly faster and thus hit with more force and be more lethal. This will also increase the life of the bow by reducing fatigue wear
For those that think you can use a short draw on a war bow, what you are talking about were actually composite Bows. Composite bows were good for Crouching, horseback and in close combat areas. The War bow needed room for long distance shots. Its what its whole purpose was for. I know as i have used one in my Sword & Shield Re enactment society in Cumberland (UK). Its not something you can just throw around! Takes massive energy, and needs a little room for the draw. You can NOT fire a War bow from a horse! Its fucking impossible. English Archers on horse used to dismount to draw the bow.
I pull to near my ear, and sight along the arrow. The two do not contradict. One quickly gets a feel for where the arrow is pointing, even though one's eye is not directly behind the arrow.
Just a note, you mention you are wearing a glove to stop the fletchings hitting your hand. IF the fletchings are cutting into your hand, this is often because the nocking point (point at which your arrow nock sits on the string) is to low. Arrows on a longbow should not sit horizontal but should be pointing down slightly. This is because when you draw back and loose the arrow lifts off your hand. I do modern target archery with an English longbow but I've also chatted to people in the English Warbow society that shoot medieval weight bows, and most shoot without glove on the bow hands. Also if the string is hitting your arm on the release then you maybe holding the bow incorrectly, knuckles should be approximately 45 degrees to the bow which takes your arm out of the way. If you are getting hit on the return of the string then this is common thing with English longbows.
I am a competitive archer in my area, and I had planned to shoot some bows with a friend of mine who was new to the sport. brought along my 45 pound re curve bow, which is about as tall as I am in length. (6,1'') My friend decided to bring his new "long bow". Long story short, like lindybeige said "The bows come up to here!".
Longbows these days are defined not by their size, but by their lack of recurves. If the string doesn't rest on the limb, its a longbow. -friendly American longbowman
A note about holding your bow sideways: It could be useful if you were hunting because it allows you to shoot a bow crouched. You just have to make sure that you get the bow close enough to your face to aim.
+Shoes his point still holds true, you aren't pulling back at a full draw because your chest is in the way of the string as you pull back. with a shorter bow which are far more common for hunting, because deer rarely wear armor or carry shields, you could possibly get away with this.
Katalowins Well if you hold the bow the way I imagine it you could still get a pretty long draw by holding the bow sideways with your arm outstretched. It wouldn't be enough to make full use of a longbow but the draw length you can get with a longbow borders on the ridiculous anyway.
+Shoes nothing wrong with a long draw length, especially when you use a recurve bow you gain a nearly doubled amount of force to a smaller bow of the same material. so much so that medieval arrows needed to be nocked with a bit of horn inserted to the end to keep the arrow splitting and wasting energy as it is propelled off the string. this amount of power is frankly overkill for hunting, unless you wanted to kill an elephant. it is also rather unwieldy for moving quietly through brush and approaching game.
The warming the bow thing is something reported, but I do not know of any scientific test to see how much difference it makes. I suspect, though, that a useful side-effect is that it warms up the archer, so he is likely to perform better.
With modern bows any bow were the string doesn't touch the the back of the limbs is a "longbow" as opposed to a recurve bow where the string rests against the back of the limb.
Another reason for the warming up of the bow is it may break if you shoot it from cold. Most bows you find nowaday are glass-coated. This helps against things like moisture and caring for the bow and it also resolves the cold-shooting problem. Why I know that a non-glass-coated bow can break if you don't warm it up before, is that this actually happened to me when i was in a bowyer's shop. It just broke and you can imagine how embarassing that was. And sad for it was a beautiful bow.
If I may add a few points... You shoot "in" the longbow, because the size (length) of the bow limbs, therefore the amount you draw the string back (traditionally, a cloth yard) means your body is inside the bow. Typically, medieval archers drew the warbow string to the corner or the mouth or to the ear; as opposed to the Victorian/modern practice of kissing the string on the lips. In the warbow you want maximum drawlength. Warbows vs the Hunting Longbow. In medieval times, all Englishmen from the age of around 12 years (age varied at different times) were required, by law, to practice in their longbow every Sunday. And, as those laws have never been revoked, we Englishmen are still legally required to practice in our longbows to this day. In fact, in the university city of Oxford, it is still the law that the peasants have to clear the high street once we've set up the archery butts and started shooting. (The police got a bit worried when some university students proposed to invoke this law, as they admitted they had no legal power to prevent us.) Getting back to the difference between the warbow, which is what the ancient laws refer to, and the hunting version of the longbow. The law defines the draw weight of a warbow. It also defines the prices bowyers and fletchers are permitted to charge -- which, as these laws are still extant, raises an interesting question about the price of today's yew self bows. (A "self" bow being one made from the natural heart and sap wood, rather than being laminated.) Peasants, like you and me, would only be permitted to own a warbow, with (once we've developed the muscles to draw it) a draw weight of around 150-200 lbs. Two reasons for this: 1) we were in training for war, so needed a powerful war weapon, and 2) the Lord of the manor didn't want us owning a less powerful, therefore more accurate, hunting bow, in case we thought to hunt his deer or even hunt him. For which reason, ownership of medieval hunting bows was confined to the aristocracy. Another point that Lindsay touched upon in another video was that the bow and arrows need to be matched, in order to convey the maximum amount of energy to the arrow. There's a further point to this. If the arrow is too light, then it will not take up all of the energy you've put into the bow limbs. After the arrow has shot away, the residual energy will transfer down the bow limbs into the archer's hand and arm. This is one of several reasons why arthritis is so common amongst archers. And, finally, yes you do need to give your longbow some Warming Up before shooting it. Archers will vigorously rub the limbs of the bow before moving on to Lindsay's string pulling exercise. Failure to do so can result in the bow breaking at full draw, at which point both of the tethered limbs will fly backwards and hit you in the back. Just imagine the force in a 150-200 lbs warbow! Rick (English, English Longbowman)
You said that a longbow took a lot of strength to pull and I agree with that but there is another consideration. In fact it also takes a lot of technique to pull up such a heavy poundage bow. You pull up a heavy bow by using your back muscles using an action a bit like opening a huge book. medieval archers would also lean back because the majority of arrows were shot in clouts. (up in the air gliding down onto the target).
People think that every self-bow is a longbow. That general design is called a self-bow (as opposed to a composite bow or a recurve bow, etc.) Longbows are those self-bows that are (generally speaking) 6 feet long or longer and used for war. Smaller (and lighter) self-bows were usually hunting bows. War bows that were shorter than 6 feet were usually a different design (such as composite or recurve or composite recurve, or you name it) unless you go back to Egyptian times.
Well, every bow has its drawbacks...
+Richard Smith Badum dum. Thank you, I'll be here all week.
With 2 drums and a cymbal
nice 1
I see what you did there...
Clearly funny for its target audience.
ahah fantastic an English man teaching long bows in a cricket sweater ahahahah Lindybeige you are great :D :D
Love your vids man
Two of the coolest history Wizs coming together. This is the crossover that all the noble ones have been waiting for.
jumper
Ankur Nandi 4 years ago...
.0
one thing that distinguishes long bows from shorter ones, is that they are longer...
I would also add that short bows are generally shorter than longbows.
godsfuneral
Another thing worth mentioning is difference in length is main distinction between short and long bow.
MrCorvusC Both good points, but the major distinguishing feature is actually the fact that when you stand both types of bows on the same surface, the longbow is generally taller
***** Jesus jumping Christ.
***** Definitely not in skinny jeans...
I wish Mr.Lindybeige could be my teacher. This guy is terribly interesting. Thanks for all your great videos.
+CrazyCamo Yes and he is terribly entertaining and funny too. :D ''HA! Pancies!'' xD
+Khornedevotee If I could re write my initial comment I would add some "!" lol. I started watching his channel, more to listen, while I do busy work, but I find myself not getting anything done lol Though thanks to him my sling ability is, a thing!
+Khornedevotee Imagine a history lesson:
Nr Nelson was a hero! HE STUFFED THE FRENCH! (french kids start crying...)
He is our teacher, we just didnt have to go to school to see him. This channel is basically a free college history course.
I love his language. Not formal, not hard, just like an old neighbor telling you a fun tale.
Maybe they hold the bow sideways because they're gangsta.
Straight outta' Mirkwood.
Baddest forest west of the Misty Mountains. They've literally got giant spiders in his hood. It don't get more gangsta' than that.
+Valchrist1313 Mirkwood is east of the Misty Mountains.
+Salsajoe Bro Not when you're stuck upside down in a web
+Stu MacDonald OG Legolas
WE WUZ ELVEZ N SHIEET
0:43 "Longbow: A piece of wood that is taller than its user."
That would be a "tree". :-P
Because the tree is a stand, Wooden Tree. It has the power to trap anything inside of its roots. This quite contrasts the stand Long Bow, which can shoot any projectile at very high speeds over a very long range.
Ah, yes. The tree. My favorite tool. I use them often.
Holding the bow sideways, just like Ye Olde Gangsta.
sunburstbasser Gangsterre
+sunburstbasser actually lol'd in real life :D
Ye old thug lyfe
Vile beggar
ye olde crip
"This one is made out of ash." I wasn't aware that medieval bow-makers were that good at glueing things back together!
You deserve an award
Ashwood bro, ashwood
To which I'd add that they were even better at convincing you to let yourself be made into a bow.
+Uber_Crowbar They were also apparently made of you.
HA..........HA.......SO.........FUNNY........
it only takes one slap to decide that an arm guard is in need
No shit, I never fired a bow, but I know some stats: A arrow fired from a 50 lbs bow moves at about 140 feet per second. That means that the string that imparted that motion moved to at least that speed. A string that moves at 140 feet per second and slaps on your skin, that will leave a serious mark or split your skin open. Common sense really, at least for me it seems to be ...
I know what the string will do to you. I have been shooting traditional archery for a long time. I was making a reference from the video as a joke. no need to get ticked with me.
I have a 60 pound bow and it slaps my forearm all day long but I think it doesn't hurt that much. It feels kind of good actually.
I personally use a 53 # and have trained myself to be used to the slap so that I can give someone else my arm guard. It doesnt hurt not does it feel good.
*****
Merriam-Webster dictionary:
2 fire verb
: to shoot a weapon
: to throw (something) with speed and force
: to give life or energy to (something or someone)
the freedictionary.com
a. The discharge of firearms or artillery: heard the fire of cannon.
b. The launching of a missile, rocket, or similar ballistic body.
c. Discharged bullets or other projectiles: subjected enemy positions to heavy mortar fire; struck by rifle fire.
Education: get some, son you really need it !
This is most likely totally quirky, but I don't understand how filmmakers miss such an opportunity:
Imagine a historical or fantasy movie and it's the scene before the last big fight. The castle is about to get assaulted, the last stand is about to happen, the major forces are finally about to clash, whatever you like. And you get this dramatic build-up to the battle: troops are deploying, arrows are stacked, armour is put on, water is heated up to be thrown down from the battlement. And then you see a shot of some archers warming up their bows like that. Isn't that a powerful image? Isn't this foreboding a long and bloody fight? Isn't the audience immediatly going to understand that these warriors are preparing to shot their weapons very soon and very often?
It REALLY goes to show that researching the material you are about to present in art form not only gives it an authentic feel, but also gets you information like this that help you in your creative efford.
wow...I never thought I'd disagree with someone about not using realism in certain stories.I agree with him-if done right it could be a powerful image. of course it isn't NECESSARY to add in-as a matter of fact its never really necessary to add too much realism to any story (just make sure everything makes sense and that it follows its rules rigidly) but It can certainly add something to the story.example:RWBY obviously isn't very realistic, but it follows its own rules quite well. hunters can survive and even heal from devastating attacks because their aura both reduces the damage they take and heals them because they have excellent control over their aura. whereas the normal bystander CAN'T because they don't have nearly as much control over it or can't use it at all.actually that was a bad example...that was more of a example about following your story's rules well...oh well I hope my general message wasn't lost anyway XD
The French, having been beaten by the longbow, decided to respond by making their armour heavier and better. Then there was Agincourt...
Of course armour was not useless. If it was, the English would have stopped wearing it at home.
If runescape has taught me anything, it's the fact that yew will always be very expensive.
Naww what happened in runescape was EU policy. Yew was burned outside the banks in long lines of fires to keep the price high to avoid PC woodcutters being outpriced by foreign bots.
It that true? I just thought they were grinding their firemaking skill
IRL yew is harvested for a chemotherapy drug called taxol.
The law required them to practice every week.
The best definition of a longbow: a long bow used to kill Frenchmen
+NotSoSober Gamer Or Welshmen/Scotsmen Depending on time of day and geographical location. At least according to urban legend/out of date British laws.
@The_Jaguar_ Knight Shots fired! Lol.
made in Wales.
davebuchan81 Literally!
Elves are probably holding their bows sideways because they learned from Hollywood that shooting rapid fire from the hip is way more accurate than using sights/scopes
It's also a lot more gangsta.
That's important to elves.
+HATECELL Or because they've been training for a thousand years and draw strenght isn't an issue for them anymore.
+Balinux
You've got that backwards. Shooting a bow "from the hip" gives it a _weaker_ effective draw, and massively saps the energy of the arrow. If they were really that strong, they'd just draw the normal way, in order to actually _kill things_ with their rather expensive clothyard sheaf arrows.
Basically, drawing sideways like that just makes the bow less efficient, for no good reason.
Jonathan Hughes
Why would it be a weaker draw, if their body is more than addapted to it? It all comes down to the bow, and how much force the arrow can take with it without snapping.
Balinux The body doesn't decide the draw, the bow does. Training is irrelevant if you can only draw the bow back two inches.
It is one of my personal bugbears when archers refer to the American flatbow as a longbow! The reason why the flatbow developed over in the states and we developed the classic D-shaped longbow is all down to the native wood found in each Country each wood lends its self to a different type of bow (or so I've come to understand)... Keep up the great work!
Obviously dark elves use the horizontal grip ...
Bruh
This was very entertaining! In this age of pretty low attention span I never thought I'd spend almost 9 minutes listening to a guy in a sweater talking about long bows.
In the nineties, yes I did.
Magic shortbow is the best
Dark bow masterrace
Crystal bow m8
Steel Say that to my dragon arrow fueled special attack
its all about the oak bow guys what are you saying?
These guys don't know what they're talking about. It's chaos short bow all the way, just make sure you have enough humanity.
By your definition 0:42 The Queen Anne's Revenge is also a longbow
Yes, by those exact words, but not in the context. I think instead of 'piece of wood' he should have said 'bow'
I guess the bow was kind of long...
hahaha even if he said "a piece of wood under tension from roping" its still queen annes revenge. Even used for hunting works cause you could say hunting other pirates/merchants or whales (at a stretch... maybe he liked whaling lmao)
Nice profile picture
@@benmasta5814 ok
The reason you might want to warm up your bow is probably because bow's are basically huge springs.
Elastic things, like springs, are just things that convert other kinds of energy, into kinetic energy, and if your bow is quite hot, then it has more energy to convert. A fun experiment, if you have a thermal camera, is to take like a slingshot, look at it with the camera, shoot it a few times, and look again. You'll notice, of course, it's quite a lot colder than it was. If you, like me, *don't* own a thermal camera, i'm pretty sure mister Sprage has a video about this on the slingshot channel.
30 years building and hunting with longbows.
1) To string a longbow; place the end of the bow between your legs, with the belly of the bow resting against the calf of your left leg, and the front of the bow resting against the ankle of your right leg. Flex the bow forward using your legs as a lever and string it. Much more gentle on the bow and you don't ruin the tip by digging it into the dirt.
2) Unlike compound bows, which hold the arrow in place, allowing for a vertical shooting, it's much more stable to fire a longbow with a 10-15 degree angle in it. Also reduces the contact between your hand and the arrow reducing the need for your glove.
3) When you draw your bow, you extend your bow arm and draw arm at the same time, locking them both into position. It's less wear and tear on your draw arm as you're pulling the bow away from the string, as you're pulling the string away from the bow.
4) A longbow takes greater skill to shoot than a short bow as the longer arms mean minor movements at the grip mean greater movements at the arrow point. I.E. 1 degree off on a short bow may only put a shot off by a few inches, but 1 degree on a longbow can set it off by as much as a foot or two.
5) If you can't fire your bow without hitting your forearm, it's too powerful for you. You need to practice and make your wrists stronger, or get a lighter bow.
MattMexor
No you're absolutely right, and I was trying to explain the right point in the wrong way. I started off trying to explain it as sway and control and it got away from me. A short bow is far less susceptible to sway at the tips while a long bow, because of length and weight, tends to exaggerate that sway. If that's not clear I can only recommend shooting both and feeling the difference for yourself.
Another factor is that a long bow also generally has a longer draw length to it meaning longer arrows. Longer arrows can also add to the exaggerated sway. That's why most trick shooters opt for short recurves.
+antagonizerr eXCELLENT POSTS
+MRWDL800 HEHE I'M RUINING YOUR SCHOLARLY DISPLAY WITH CAPS LOCK. RARRR INTERNET
"This is a longbow, They're long."
Best Lindybeige fact ever
anyone else looked around them when they heard the nocking sound in the vid? sounds like someone is tapping overear headphones
Yeah I was thinking either a roommate was having sex in a shitty bed or another one was knocking on my walls to make me turn the sound down at 4 PM.
In my car tripping out thinking someones tapping the glass. I even got out of the car and looked around thinking " Alright ive had enough of this! Come out!!"
@@Electric_snot this^ thought I was going mad.
@@Electric_snot holy shit me too
I suppose a "nocking sound" [sic] is appropriate for a video about bows, though :P
1:21 invisible demon appears and taps the camera
awmygawd you right
freaked me out wearing headphones lol
I have scars on the top of my left hand from shooting a bow so much when I was younger. It made me smile and look at my hand when you mentioned that.
Swear to god, with ending notes like that you and Tear of Grace might just be friends
this gentleman is beyond amusing. The knowledge of longbows he has along with the humorous presentation is just great to experience. Love these videos and traditional bows convey art,history,sport,hobby...just awesome
.
wow you could really feel the extra englishness
Sounds like a commercial for an OE 800
"Katwang" is a very accurate sound effect. The passion in its delivery was also majestic.
I'd love to try roving one day.
No, I had it made for me. Yes, in war, long-distance shooting was usually at formations of troops rather than at individuals, who would be picked out at perhaps 60 yards.
The hip firing with Hollywood about bows is the same way with guns. It gets on my nerves. You have very interesting videos and I enjoy watching them. I hope you keep it up!
Differently from bows, though, Guns can be shot from the hip with accuracy. Although it would have to be a very, very skilled individual.
Maybe a short bow or if your coming out of brush you'd have it that way the switch to the normal style before firing.
Karasu Not sideways though. I don't know why but people who make movies seem to think it looks really cool to shoot things with your weapon sideways.
Though it should be said that some gun experts agree that there are circumstances where shooting your gun sideways may be beneficial, but they are almost always where accuracy doesn't matter (like firing a gun with rapid fire and a lot of recoil into a crowd)
If you are hunting and don't need the full power of the bow, you might decide to hold the bow horizontal to avoid the limbs striking tree branches. I've done this when hunting in Australia. It is one of the times that 'instinctive aiming' has an advantage over relying on sights.
"This is a long bow, they're long"
Now my keyboard has got a beautifull mixture of coffee and saliva thoroughly tucked down between its buttons..
But a good morning laugh non the less!
I salute you sir...
Right. Thanks for that. Informative. I have a 50 lb draw bow for practice in technique, but understand the war bows would be 100 to 120 or 130 pounds around Ajincourt...
I`be heard of 184 pounds bows wath fo you think of that?
I think about the spinal deformities discovered in the skeletons of English longbowman pulled from the wreck of a fifteenth century galley.
Bruce Burns quite interesting lad
Bruce Burns I'm fifteen and I have a 50 pound ash longbow. Archiologists found deformations in the shoulders as well because at that time you would start archery at 8 years old
death thenks guys
Native Americans tended to use lighter (40 - 50 lbs) bows, held mostly horizontally, with a chest draw instead of a cheek draw. This was convenient because they were using two-fletch arrows, instead of the typical European three-fletch. On Native American bows, you can sometimes find a nock in the middle of the bow to assist in keeping the arrow on the right part of the bow body. This seems like it might be less accurate until you realise that it virtually eliminates paradox and what little remains will be an up-down wiggle instead of side-to-side.
-I suspect there's some requirement for all experimental archaeologists to stake a claim to the origin of the phrase "rule of thumb." I've heard so many.
The mechanical definition of what constitutes a longbow:
One of the main things bow designs do is deal with the ability of a bow to be drawn to a given point for a given length of bow. A ratio of bow length to draw length. There are a number of ways of dealing with this through material, limb width, limb depth, brace height design, tiller, recurves on the limb tips, nock design, and so forth. A longbow is a bow that predominantly deals with this design challenge by simply making the bow longer. If in contrast you wanted to have a bow that like some Mongol bows could be carried in a holster, you would have to rely on everything other than length to make ration. Ration is important to allow you to gain the draw length a particular archer needs, but if you simple go sloppy on getting there, you loose cast. So getting to the ratio efficiently is at the heart of performance. Longbows are not the most efficient design, but they have many advantages beyond cast efficiency.
question: what is the sound that a long bow makes when shooting an arrow:
Lindybeige: KA-TWANGGGGG
The really amazing thing about Longbows are how cheap they are to make. A trunk usually could be split into 8 to 12 staves and most of the material removed while wet to allow quicker drying of the wood. Different from other flat bows of the time they used the depth and sapwood of the material for power and made a skinnier profile (A piece of rawhide glued to the back of the bow helped prevent splitting Skinnier=less material used.). You didn't have to waste time recurving or laminating pieces. Tilling the bows is easy and can be done quickly with a file or a rasp. If the bow broke a tip saw off both ends remake the knocks and send it back out, and rarely did it fall out of tiller.
Longbows aren't as useful hunting. They tangle in branches and rattle brush and scare away prey animals. They could be used in either hand. They could be used lying, sitting and crouching positions because the breech (the hand and thumb distance) was so low.
For someone wanting to make one it's a fun and easy project. Mine was out of easy to find red oak. All the tools and supplies cost about $25. Strings can be bought to length on Ebay pretty cheap.
Is it still legal to kill a welshman on a sunday after church with a longbow as archery practice ?
there was an old law dating back from king ??? and he put the welsh on a curfew as folklore goes you can whack one and preferabley ian watkins
+BRICKBAT we can shoot pure blooded Scotsmen in York from the wall after midnight have to be a pure blooded Yorkshireman
Any such laws would be local bye-laws (there may have been such a statute in Chester), and would not now be enforceable, as national law would override them.
TRiG.
Thank you
I hope it is still legal. Sundays are so boring.
Just wait until he becomes an Elite Longbowman
I read a novel about a medieval archer. I'm not claiming that everything in all novels is accurate or anything but in the book, he described why English archers need so much training. Pick the bow up and draw it aiming down the arrow like a recurve bow. Now you're at half draw. With a full draw, you can't really see. It takes instinct and intuition and all that. I'm just reporting what the novel says. I'm no expert. Now discuss. All the people who think I'm a complete idiot on one side and all the people who think I'm totally right on the other.
No you're right. For a warbow you draw back to your shoulder and immediately release, meaning you don't really aim. Your muscle memory and years of practice is what allows you to hit things reliably.
If you're shooting relatively flat, you can aim using the arrow and the alignment of the string just fine. Shooting at a high trajectory is subject the same issues whether you're using a recurve or a longbow (in my limited experience of shooting the two)
That would make an amount of sense, but it's not what's shown. Spreading your entire wingspan to draw the bow would be very odd, and in the tight longbow formations... It doesn't sound too plausible. Also I think that'd have to be an insanely long bow. Longer than what we know of.
The Armored Idiot Well, I didn't mean that you had to straighten out both arms like a bird if that's what you mean. It just requires a fuller draw. I guess that he meant one needed to move his head slightly out of the way for a full draw and you couldn't aim down the arrow like any modern archer would understand.
The novel did go on to describe how if the enemy would get close enough he didn't need to draw it like that and he could take them out with what he called "half draw". I guess the full draw was for the enemies in the distant battlefield.
+Paul TheSkeptic Ah. That sounds like an interesting book. Do you remember what it was called?
The longbow apparently originated in the Welsh border country, the men of Gwent used elm longbows which didn't have the range of a yew bow but had tremendous power over their shorter range. Gerald Cambrensis tells some interesting stories about the Welsh bowmen.
This is how we shoot bows in the hood
In the wood*
There are several efficient archery stances and hand positions, different combinations have different merits. The method you showed here is certainly the best for firing arrows long distances or accurately, and it fits the longbow best, but there are much faster methods which still retain enough power to be useful. I've experimented with some of the hand positions used in movies and some allow the archer to fire quite rapidly while still maintaining accuracy. These methods are better suited for shorter bows, of course. The most efficient method I've found is to bend one's back outwards just a bit and rest the arrow on the outside of the bow. It feels slightly awkward at first, but I can fire 4 times as many arrows like this, and I've been using the traditional method for years.
Hollywood has gotten better at realism but still the film comes first... My theory is film is widescreen, so holding a bow horizontally looks better because it fills the screen. Youve gotta think like a director. Everything is about visuals and framing.
Probably even simpler than that. A horizontal bow doesn't block the actor's face.
Another way to string a bow is the “step through” method. One end on the ground against the inside of one foot, step through between the string and bow, pull the upper end of the bow back and slide the string up. This gives you leverage against the draw weight of the bow. Works fine, lasts a long time.
About that sideways way of holding the bow: Yes, full-on horizontal is pretty crappy. But among the Native longbowmen of the Eastern/Southeastern Woodlands (Seminole, Muskogee, Iroquois, Cherokee and the like) The bow was canted at an angle. Sort of a 45 degree thing. Not sure why, having not really tested it, but it is something to wonder about.
I'll tell you why: it helps with aiming.
It keeps an arrow between your bow-holding hand and the wood of the bow in a natural v-nook made by the 45-degree angle you're holding the bow at. You can move the bow around and aim better, without needing to look straight down the bow. If you need to make snap movements, like pivoting to hit fleeing prey, it really helps.
FlintTD Cool! I figured as much, but I wasn't really sure. Thanks!
I've only ever seen tribal hunters do this and I suspect (in this case) it is because they are smaller, lighter bows and depend on poison to down their prey (poison for hog or deer sized prey, but no need for rodents, reptiles and marsupials). I can't imagine hunters using too big a bow, moving through brush and forested areas would just be comical!
Another thing about doing instinctive archery and shooting it at an angle, it keeps the bow out of your vision so you have a better line of sight on the target and around it.
In modern usage a long bow is one where the string only touches the bow at the nocks, as compared to a recurve bow where the string touches the curved limbs until drawn. Long bows are longer so as to store the same amount of energy as a shorter recurve bow, both limited by the archer's strength and draw length. Recurves were developed in Asia for use on horseback, something for which long bows are ill suited. The use of different hand positions on the string is called 'string walking'. I am not aware of historical use of that technique because it reduces arrow velocity, but it is possible.
The simplest way to string a longbow without using a stringer is to step through the bow with your left foot (so your leg is between the limb and the string) then hook the bottom horn behind your right foot, then grip the upper limb with your left hand and lean into it, so your're bending the bow pretty much using your weight and leg strength (which is much greater than arm strength). This bends it enough to slip the top loop up the limb and into the nock.
You then try to extricate yourself without tripping over, or you'll look a bit of a tit.
***** That is a way to string a low power bow, and btw a good way to twist the limbs on a modern recurce bow.
Try to string a 120lbs bow that way and the people around you will have something to laugh about.
I shoot Fita-Recurve, english longbow and traditional korean bow.
The korean bow has 50lbs and i string it like you mentioned, because thats kind of the way it is traditionally strung.
My Fita bow is always strung with a stringer cord, to keep the carbon lims from twisting.
My longbow has 80lbs, and I tried the method lindybeige pointed out and to string it locked in my legs, both methods do not really work.
bansheemopar Well, I've done exactly that with my dad's 70-80lb longbow. Worked just fine. Much less fiddly than using a stringer.
***** I've made bows for customers who were way too heavy for me to draw, including a monster of a self bow (no lamination, no backing, just a single piece of wood) that was 175 lbs at 27 inches (he had short arms). The best way I've found with no bow stringer (the monster bow another way) is to put a cloth on the ground, place the bow in a sideways position with a good stiff arm on the upper tip, and driving your knee into the handle, using my whole body to bend the bow. Three points of contact with the knee at center, and a huge mechanical advantage. No limb twist but not the way to string the recurve. Ugg, the video is still going on and he's talking about wrist slap from the string: Properly weighted arrows and good form will fix that. I brace my flatbows at a mere 4 inches and never get wrist slap.
Too bad you can't use the same method so reliably with recurves, risers get in the way
I live in america too, and i have three bows, two are recurve and one is a compound bow. I grew up using it, as i lived near a indian reserve for awhile, and bows are significant for them.
It always bugged me that in the rangers apprentice book they supposedly shoot their longbows from horseback and string them very quickly in very confined spaces.
If memory serves weren't the bows the rangers used some kind of recurve variant?
A Cooliohenderson The young trainees had recurves but after they become full rangers they get longbows.
A properly trained full time archer probably could string the bow really fast if they absolutely needed to, and it's not impossible to fire a longbow from horse back. If you're firing the bow say right handed like most people, that would just mean you're stuck shooting straight ahead of you and to the left as far as you could turn, you lose the ability to shoot to the right or further cause the lower limb of the bow is generally stuck on the saddle. Recurves and shorter bows are better on horse back because the shorter limbs make it so you can shoot at more angles then a longbow. Or you could just go the Japanese way and basically make it so a horse archers horse's saddle has little platforms you can stand on so you can literally stand up on your horse xD
A long bow on a horse back is hard but not impossible, but the methods he showed for stringing your bow are both, well used especially for really heavy bows but usually you would flip your bow so the back of the bow is against your foot, and pull at the handle and slit the noose upwards whilst pulling the tip of the bow downwards, as if you are pulling the bow but from the wrong side as to say. that is done, if skilled, within a few seconds and doesn't really need much space.
can't say much about the rangers and what it says in the book as I've never read it but personally it only takes me a few seconds to string my main 60lb bow and only a little longer to string my old 80lb bow (mostly because it's wood and I don't want it to suddenly shatter in my hands) and that's without the use of bow stringers or other aids the one time I did get to string a reconstruction welsh longbow (around 140-150lb) it took me a good 30 seconds but mostly because I didn't want to risk breaking it by forcing the bow (did that once the first time I strung an old wood self bow) but yeah stringing a bow quickly is quiet easily done
"For extra Englishness." Love it.
I'm surprised you didn't touch on the English national offensive finger gesture. From what I understand it was born during the time of the hundred years war when the english longbowmen were so effective at killing french people that the French threatened to cut the index and middle fingers from every English prisoner they captured. And so the English, being the English, found no small bit of joy in taunting the French with their own threat by bearing their bow fingers after a volley. Does that sound about right?
GasMaskTrenchCoat Except for the part that it's not true.
I am unaware of the truth of it. That's why I didn't insist that it was the truth. I have learned that someone disagrees with what I thought I knew, therefore I have more research to do.
If you're interested, you might want to read this, and the associated links the author provides:
bshistorian.wordpress.com/2007/07/02/two-fingers-up-to-english-history/
Matt D Every day I learn something is a good day. Thanks for the material.
Functionally the real distinction is between a long-draw bow and a short-draw bow. The long bow is merely the simplest method of achieving a long draw and has been ubiquitous in North Western Europe since the neolithic. A long draw provides a long power stroke which has greater mechanical efficiency in casting a long heavy arrow which gives range, stability in flight and good penetration.
"Rule of thumb"? Fistmele is the term you're looking for.
The functional reason for canting or holding a short bow horizontally is to convert lateral cast-off with a short stiff arrow into part of the solution in elevation, even if you don't understand the theoretical basis, it is something easily enough demonstrated by the test of shooting such equipment.
i feel like lloyd doesnt have AC so he can buy this type of stuff, and that's why he wears like 90 layers
Bravo, another bullseye for our historian, Sir Lindford Beige.
How tall is Lindy?
A little bit shorter than a longbow.
I think I read somewhere that he was 6' 3", but don't quote me on it.
everybody to quote The Red Army Lives On...Lindy is "6'3"!
@memmett9 & @Michael Mathes
But quite a bit taller than a shortbow.
Basically during a medieval battle like Azincourt, you just needed to be strong enough to draw a bow to fit in. Henry V:s army was 5/6 peasants with longbows with a commander doing all the thinking, measuring and ordering.
The only skill you had to have, as an archer, during such a battle was to angle the bow accordingly, draw it and release when ordered.
Nice vid! I prefer Hungarian-type recurve bows but am interested in history and medieval archery specifically. Cheers!
Curious, what's the draw weight of this bow?
Another great video. The reason for warming up the bow before you shoot it is so it doesnt break if you draw it fully when its cold. A bit like when you do stretches before exercise. Love the cricket jumper!
The Welsh versions were vastly superior to your peasants bows
Ps I know there basically the same
Is great to hear some sense talked about longbows! Incidentally, I remember reading some time ago that longbows were about strength, not accuracy. The weights were such that an archer could not hold it back enough for an accurate shot. It was draw and fire as fast as was possible, to get the heavy bodkin-pointed arrows into massed troops on the battlefield, to create as much mayhem as possible.
I understand where you come from and why you don't accept the wiki definition...but your definition at 0:45 "piece of wood taller than its user"...so if a really tall person stands besides your bow...it stops being a longbow?
+Alonso de Hojeda Bows are custom made for the user, well at least wooden ones and you shouldn't let a taller person use your custom made wooden bow because he has a longer arm, ergo a longer draw and he might just break your bow in a thousand pieces. Wooden bows aren't transferable goods, they fall in the category of "user fitted weapons" like a plate armor for example.
Zamolxes77
I have my doubt whether in the era they were custom made...or mass produced. When you equip an army...you cannot really meet each soldier :) I may be wrong of course.
Alonso de Hojeda Its middle ages, nothing is mass produced. Except maybe arrows. We have the original roster of Henry the 5th Army just before they sailed into France. Look it up, is a very interesting document that contains every single name of every soldier that sailed with Henry, their signature and how much they were paid. Is suggested that archers provide their own gear and is one of the 1st documents that suggests England was moving away towards a more modern contractual system, over France who relied on their feudal levies. Mercs usually provide their own gear.
The 1st signs of mass production and the equipment of a professional army by the state is in 17th century, exception off course the roman legion.
Thanks for the detailed comment, I will defeinitely look up the document.
+Alonso de Hojeda No, because the fool next to you isn't using it. I have a bow that, for my 5'2" sister, is a long bow. But me, with my 6'3" frame, were to use it, it would just be a regular bow. I wouldn't call it short, as a five foot six bow is not inconsequential.
the horizontal one is used for instinctive shooting in crouch position, it was done in old korea and even adopted by the shinobi i heard, they take a short heavy bow with short drawlength and holding it horizontal makes hiding easier, i tried it over and over and eventually your body just knows were to aim wen you look at something.
@Lindybeige Cricket 'sweater'? Surely jumper if you are trying to maximise Englishness.
He also uses inches which I found a bit American
Inches are used in Britain still - we've got a mixed metric-imperial system. As Bryce says we invented them.
+Aaron Ritchie we invented imperial. the metric system is french in origin
lewis powell Yeah I was meaning we invented inches, I am tres aware the French invented le metric system. Sorry it wasn't very clear how I typed it.
State of Dekay hence imperial . we still use it for axton of stuff mainly in building work .
It was, but in combination with other factors, and a penetration isn't the only way the arrow can work. It can concuss, drain morale, break up formations, slow a charge. Advancing against a hail of arrows is difficult even if none of them penetrates.
Drinking game: Watch his videos and take a shot every time he says "buy in large".
I'm pretty sure it's "by" not "buy".
by and large www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/by%20and%20large
I really need to learn to read....
"buy in large"? lmao fuck sake
***** lol no."by and large". Basically meaning the same as "generally speaking".
Now that's what I call nailing down the essentials!... Good work!
Thank you, Mister. Veeery, veeery much!!!
For sharing knowledge and passion with us, who, as well, might have a great deal of passion, but not as much knowledge (I am speaking just for myself, at this point). Very helpful and educative.
Wish you all the best, and keep up the good work.
When I bought my longbow, I was taught a technique to string it by placing one foot under the bow and the other inside, allowing the bow to be bent against the leg with one hand and strung with the other. It's quick and doesn't require a secondary device.
Legolas scoffs at you, skillless human!
Continuing with the theme of longbow ranges. The formation taken by English archers is described as "en herce" or in harrow formation. A mediaeval harrow appears to be a wooden lattice of squares with a spike at each intersection. It's thus a word sometimes used to describe a portcullis. If you stand your archers in such a formation with sufficient distance between them, then it is possible to allow everyone to shoot at flat trajectory by allowing sufficient gaps between each archer. To form up, the archers wouldn't need harrows or anything. You just set up the first rank with a distance of say, three feet between them. The second rank set themselves up three feet behind the front (to allow room to manipulate the bow) and step one foot to the right this allows both ranks to shoot in a flat trajectory with the second rank shooting past the first. The third rank is set up three feet behind the second and, in turn, steps out one foot to the right of them. The third rank then has a "lane" to shoot down on a flat trajectory alongside the ranks further forward. Thus you get a dense volley on a flat trajectory while maintaining formation depth for any hand-to-hand encounters. Whatever the number of ranks you use in this way, you get a formation that has equally spaced archers which looks like the spikes set in a contemporary, chequerboard-shape harrow - "en herce" - optimised for shooting at shorter ranges.
Medieval pictures show draws to various places, not all of which could have been correct (some are weirdly high), but as far back as the ear is not uncommon, and is used by people today. Many pictures show bare-handed archers, that's true, but I have shot without a tab and quickly skinned my fingers. With much-calloused hands, things would be different. I may mention the leaning-in technique in a future video. Guards are pictured in medieval drawings.
Excuse me sir! I am a longbow archer! its really simple to string!
Just put it against your leading hands foot and against the bridge.
Place your leading hand in the middle of the bow to bend it and with your other hand around the top of the bow supporting the bend but under the string so when its being bended 123 and you got yourself a stringed bow! :D
Bet you couldn't string a full powered longbow like that.
The reason for doing a few half-draws before shooting is to re-compress the belly wood so as to not over-stress the backing ring when first coming to full draw. On self-bows especially, this is a moderate concern. The belly wood will decompress a little when the bow is unstrung for awhile. Stringing and coming to full draw right away will put higher tension on the back than it''s used to and micro flaws or new damage could cause an eruption. Not common, but it happens.
There are tention cords with leather strips you can put halfway on the limbs of the bow (or with leather "cups" but this does not work on longbows), then stand on it and pull as was described.
I've also heard that there are certain kinds of short heavily curved (Mongolian?) rider bows that *need* to be warmed up lest they break.
Another thing a lot of people seem to misunderstand: Having strong arm muscles does not mean you can pull a heavy bow. It's all in the shoulders and back.
About the strength/skill point;
Pulling a warbow in the English style was very different to modern archery. Rather than "drawing" the string with one arm, the archer used both arms and his back to bend it. I can shoot about 60-70lb one way, and over 110lb with that technique, and I've seen this hold true for near beginners too.
However the big difference is that this way you end up with the arrow drawn to your ear rather than to your jaw. The larger radius of the bow is important to tiller huge weights without it snapping, in turn meaning you can use heavier arrows which were key. But it also means that you can no longer 'aim' down the arrow.
This is the tricky bit, pulling warbows isn't too hard.. Learning to aim instinctively is harder. Plus their training at the butts was to hit a man size target at 200-240 paces so they had pretty high standards.
"Hold the bow sideways like this, Twang!" rabbit dies brutally for humorous effect.
The bee wax rubbed in the string acts as a lubricant. This prevents the fibers from rubbing against eachother. Without the wax you will notice the string will start to fray very soon.
I saw a documentary about the Mary Rose which showed a longbow man that had a deformed shoulder bone from where he was training with a bow from a young age. The continuous strength needed to draw the bow meant that bones in his shoulder had worn away and researchers thought it was probably a painful condition. Also said that longbow men used their backs to draw the bow, placing the bow slightly above and drawing it down and out. Difficult to describe but gains more power by using back muscles rather than drawing with just the arms. A fascinating weapon.
all archers use their back. pulling a bow, especially the heavy ones, is a very compound movement, lists of muscles involved. and it wasn't just the bones on the back that showed stress but in fingers and arms too (forearm bones that braced the bow were denser, just like in modern archers that pull similar weighted bows).
but muscle and none grow together abd they wouldn't have been deformed, nor would they have felt pain from the bone grinding down. that's probably a condition that the archery exaggerated.
anyway, buy the book about the warbows find on the Mary rose, and you'll read about the evidence for recurved warbows.
+fatsamcastle ah interesting! thanks for that. I think I will treat myself to a book in the new year then!
+thewyj The Great Warbow by Robert Strickland and Thomas Hardy
+fatsamcastle thanks! it's now on my list!
On the point that longbows take a lot of skill to use was that it is true of all bows.
This is one of the large reasons why crossbows became popular was that while there rate of fire was poor, they where incredible easy to use, one just had to estimate drop and point in the right direction. Something that one could train villagers to do in a few short hours and be ready for battle with them out of range.
I use an archery style (although I use a recurve) that is about not looking down the arrow. When using a traditional bow (not compound) it takes quite a bit of muscle to hold back a bow and move it around and aim it. Instead, you focus on the target and draw back. Your aim shifts towards your point of focus after a bit of practice. It's a bit harder to focus on the target if you've got the bow vertical (it can block your vision). That's why sometimes people shoot slightly canted. However, you are right about having it completely horizontal.
There are a lot of historical accounts of archers across different cultures show archers holding their bows at an 85-72 degree angle when drawing and aiming, supposedly it was used to help hold the bow against the shaft since there wasnt much of an arrow guide, it also supposedly helps relieve some of the weight of the bow
mostly used by proffessional hunters for helping to steady aim though, saw it from many professional modern traditional bow hunters too
To repeat what you said in more technical language, the stiffness of a material is relative to its temperature by warming the bow you are reducing its stiffness which means it will bend more under the same force which means although the force applied to the arrow is the same the force is applied for a longer period of time so the arrow will fly faster and thus hit with more force and be more lethal. This will also increase the life of the bow by reducing fatigue wear
For those that think you can use a short draw on a war bow, what you are talking about were actually composite Bows. Composite bows were good for Crouching, horseback and in close combat areas. The War bow needed room for long distance shots. Its what its whole purpose was for.
I know as i have used one in my Sword & Shield Re enactment society in Cumberland (UK). Its not something you can just throw around! Takes massive energy, and needs a little room for the draw.
You can NOT fire a War bow from a horse! Its fucking impossible. English Archers on horse used to dismount to draw the bow.
I pull to near my ear, and sight along the arrow. The two do not contradict. One quickly gets a feel for where the arrow is pointing, even though one's eye is not directly behind the arrow.
Just a note, you mention you are wearing a glove to stop the fletchings hitting your hand. IF the fletchings are cutting into your hand, this is often because the nocking point (point at which your arrow nock sits on the string) is to low. Arrows on a longbow should not sit horizontal but should be pointing down slightly. This is because when you draw back and loose the arrow lifts off your hand. I do modern target archery with an English longbow but I've also chatted to people in the English Warbow society that shoot medieval weight bows, and most shoot without glove on the bow hands.
Also if the string is hitting your arm on the release then you maybe holding the bow incorrectly, knuckles should be approximately 45 degrees to the bow which takes your arm out of the way. If you are getting hit on the return of the string then this is common thing with English longbows.
After viewing about eight of your videos I have come to the conclusion that I could listen to you talk about anything. Good job. Carry on !
I am a competitive archer in my area, and I had planned to shoot some bows with a friend of mine who was new to the sport. brought along my 45 pound re curve bow, which is about as tall as I am in length. (6,1'') My friend decided to bring his new "long bow". Long story short, like lindybeige said "The bows come up to here!".
Longbows these days are defined not by their size, but by their lack of recurves. If the string doesn't rest on the limb, its a longbow.
-friendly American longbowman
A note about holding your bow sideways: It could be useful if you were hunting because it allows you to shoot a bow crouched. You just have to make sure that you get the bow close enough to your face to aim.
+Shoes his point still holds true, you aren't pulling back at a full draw because your chest is in the way of the string as you pull back. with a shorter bow which are far more common for hunting, because deer rarely wear armor or carry shields, you could possibly get away with this.
Katalowins
Well if you hold the bow the way I imagine it you could still get a pretty long draw by holding the bow sideways with your arm outstretched. It wouldn't be enough to make full use of a longbow but the draw length you can get with a longbow borders on the ridiculous anyway.
+Shoes nothing wrong with a long draw length, especially when you use a recurve bow you gain a nearly doubled amount of force to a smaller bow of the same material. so much so that medieval arrows needed to be nocked with a bit of horn inserted to the end to keep the arrow splitting and wasting energy as it is propelled off the string. this amount of power is frankly overkill for hunting, unless you wanted to kill an elephant. it is also rather unwieldy for moving quietly through brush and approaching game.
WHAT...IS....THIS, a new lindybeige weapon video? The gods have smiled upon us this day!!
The warming the bow thing is something reported, but I do not know of any scientific test to see how much difference it makes. I suspect, though, that a useful side-effect is that it warms up the archer, so he is likely to perform better.
With modern bows any bow were the string doesn't touch the the back of the limbs is a "longbow" as opposed to a recurve bow where the string rests against the back of the limb.
Another reason for the warming up of the bow is it may break if you shoot it from cold.
Most bows you find nowaday are glass-coated. This helps against things like moisture and caring for the bow and it also resolves the cold-shooting problem.
Why I know that a non-glass-coated bow can break if you don't warm it up before, is
that this actually happened to me when i was in a bowyer's shop. It just broke and
you can imagine how embarassing that was. And sad for it was a beautiful bow.
If I may add a few points...
You shoot "in" the longbow, because the size (length) of the bow limbs, therefore the amount you draw the string back (traditionally, a cloth yard) means your body is inside the bow.
Typically, medieval archers drew the warbow string to the corner or the mouth or to the ear; as opposed to the Victorian/modern practice of kissing the string on the lips. In the warbow you want maximum drawlength.
Warbows vs the Hunting Longbow. In medieval times, all Englishmen from the age of around 12 years (age varied at different times) were required, by law, to practice in their longbow every Sunday.
And, as those laws have never been revoked, we Englishmen are still legally required to practice in our longbows to this day. In fact, in the university city of Oxford, it is still the law that the peasants have to clear the high street once we've set up the archery butts and started shooting. (The police got a bit worried when some university students proposed to invoke this law, as they admitted they had no legal power to prevent us.)
Getting back to the difference between the warbow, which is what the ancient laws refer to, and the hunting version of the longbow. The law defines the draw weight of a warbow. It also defines the prices bowyers and fletchers are permitted to charge -- which, as these laws are still extant, raises an interesting question about the price of today's yew self bows. (A "self" bow being one made from the natural heart and sap wood, rather than being laminated.) Peasants, like you and me, would only be permitted to own a warbow, with (once we've developed the muscles to draw it) a draw weight of around 150-200 lbs.
Two reasons for this: 1) we were in training for war, so needed a powerful war weapon, and 2) the Lord of the manor didn't want us owning a less powerful, therefore more accurate, hunting bow, in case we thought to hunt his deer or even hunt him. For which reason, ownership of medieval hunting bows was confined to the aristocracy.
Another point that Lindsay touched upon in another video was that the bow and arrows need to be matched, in order to convey the maximum amount of energy to the arrow. There's a further point to this. If the arrow is too light, then it will not take up all of the energy you've put into the bow limbs. After the arrow has shot away, the residual energy will transfer down the bow limbs into the archer's hand and arm. This is one of several reasons why arthritis is so common amongst archers.
And, finally, yes you do need to give your longbow some Warming Up before shooting it. Archers will vigorously rub the limbs of the bow before moving on to Lindsay's string pulling exercise. Failure to do so can result in the bow breaking at full draw, at which point both of the tethered limbs will fly backwards and hit you in the back. Just imagine the force in a 150-200 lbs warbow!
Rick
(English, English Longbowman)
You said that a longbow took a lot of strength to pull and I agree with that but there is another consideration. In fact it also takes a lot of technique to pull up such a heavy poundage bow. You pull up a heavy bow by using your back muscles using an action a bit like opening a huge book. medieval archers would also lean back because the majority of arrows were shot in clouts. (up in the air gliding down onto the target).
People think that every self-bow is a longbow. That general design is called a self-bow (as opposed to a composite bow or a recurve bow, etc.) Longbows are those self-bows that are (generally speaking) 6 feet long or longer and used for war. Smaller (and lighter) self-bows were usually hunting bows. War bows that were shorter than 6 feet were usually a different design (such as composite or recurve or composite recurve, or you name it) unless you go back to Egyptian times.