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Hi Kim,


Please find below the next installment of answers to your questions: -



5) In some fantasy books, the auther claims it only takes someone a few months to learn to use the long bow. What do you say about this? How long does it take to learn the long bow?


This is a difficult question to answer. I guess it depends on what poundage of bow you wish to use, and to what level of proficiency. As mentioned before in a previous answer, during the Middle Ages children from the age of 7 were taught to use the bow so that when they reached their mid to late teens they were able to handle the most powerful warbows with a level of accuracy we can only dream of today. Ascham also states in his archery treatise of 1545 that an archer will never shoot well unless he has been brought up to it. i.e. from childhood. With this in mind it is fair to assume that the medieval man believed it took 8 to 10 years to be able to shoot the heavy draw weight longbow to a level required for military service.


Today we can give a fully grown adult a longbow with a draw weight of around 40 lbs and have them shooting it adequately at a target 20 yards away in a month or two. To shoot such bows accurately over distances of 50 to 60 yards may take a year of regular practise, and at distances of 80 yards some archers never hit with more than a quarter of their arrows, no matter how long they train.


Now try the same with a bow of 120 – 140lbs draw weight or more and everything changes. For a start most people cannot even begin to draw such a bow back more than a few inches. To do so not only requires the mastery of a special technique, but you need to develop a fair degree of physical strength and joint strength and it is this which is the limiting factor and one of the reasons why the bow declined in use as a weapon of war from the Tudor (1500s) period onwards. It was simply impossible to raise an army of archers quickly from scratch, and once those skills had been lost there would be a gap of 8 to 10 years before archers could be brought back up to the level required from childhood.


Is it possible to learn to shoot a 140lb warbow accurately in a few months? No, of course not. I have been shooting warbows for 8 years. I can just about fully draw a bow of 130lbs draw weight, but my accuracy with one leaves a lot to be desired. Although we should be wary of believing everything medieval chroniclers wrote about their contemporary archers, it is often quoted that they were able to hit a man’s outstretched palm at 100 yards and an open visor at 200 yards. Clearly an exaggeration but no doubt these men were far more proficient with their bows than we could ever hope to be. Naturally some men can learn to shoot such bows in a shorter period of time, but as a generalisation I would say that, at least where the military warbow was concerned, it was only really feasilble to teach archery from childhood if one wanted to shoot the most powerful bows well. Smaller hunting bows would naturally be much easier to learn, but it would still take a year or two to be any good with one.


6) I noticed you bend the right knee when you shoot the arrow up into the sky. Why do you do this?


Every archer has their own style of shooting. Sometimes this is dictated by their build and flexibility, other times by whoever originally taught them to shoot and sometimes simply by a desire to copy the style of another archer or another period of archery, perhaps adopting a medieval style of shooting as we often do.


To shoot an arrow 200 yards or more the bow, and therefore bow arm (left arm usually) have to be elevated to around 45 degrees. If the right hand were kept stationary throughout this movement then the distance between the left hand holding the bow, and the right hand holding the string would decrease as the left arm is raised. Therefore in concert with the raising of the left arm the right arm must drop, thereby maintaining a straight line between the two hands and maintaining the maximum draw length. It is possible to move each arm thus without bending at the waist, but it feels very awkward as the muscles of the torso are at this point tensed and under great strain. To eleviate this stress we bend the right knee. This drops the right side of the torso, lowering the right hand in the process as we elevate the left hand. This keeps a straight line through both hands, maintaining the fully drawn distance and imparting the maximum amount of force into the arrow on the loose.


Not every archer shoots this way, but it is more common with archers drawing bows of the heaviest draw weights and it works well for us.


7) How do you find the target when you’re shooting up to the sky? And how are you able to find the distance?


When we shoot long distance at a target we need to get the correct line and the correct range. To get the line is quite simple. We draw the bow up flat, aiming directly at the target before elevating the bow. In this way we know our shot will be straight.


Getting the correct range comes from many years of practise. We simply learn, through trial and error, how far we need to elevate the bow in order to get a required distance. Whether we are shooting at a target 10 yards away, or 200 yards away, we will always draw the bow back to full draw so that the arrow has the maximum amount of force transferred into it on the loose. If the target is approximately 60 yards away or less, then we need not elevate the bow at all. The arrow will have enough energy to fly to the target on a flat trajectory. As the range increases beyond this point we need to progressively elevate the bow up to an optimum elevation of around 45 degrees. Beyond that point any increase in elevation will have the adverse affect of decreasing the range as the shot will be too high. If the arrow cannot reach the target at the optimum elevation then either a stronger bow, or lighter arrow, would be required to get further distance out of the shot.


10) Do you know of any stories about medieval archers that folks can read?


Yes, there are some absolutely cracking novels out there that focus on the English archer during the longbow’s heyday, namely the Hundred Years War. These are as follows: -


AZINCOURT by Bernard Cornwell


KEMP:THE ROAD TO CRECY and KEMP:PASSAGE AT ARMS by Daniel Hall


The Grail Quest trilogy of HARLEQUIN, VAGABOND and HERETIC by Bernard Cornwell


THE WHITE COMPANY and SIR NIGEL by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle


Best wishes,


Nick
Nick’s Youtube website