What was the origin of the Longbow? | AskHistorians Archive Observer

The longbow is a prehistoric invention; some of the oldest bows that have been found are longbows. These have been found in northern Europe, mostly Denmark. There isn't any reason to think that such bows were invented there, it just appears that bows of that age are more likely to have survived to the present day in Danish bogs than elsewhere. Longbows have been used in North America, in Africa, in new Guinea, in India, in Europe, in South America - they saw pre-modern use in all continents except Australia and Antarctica (neither of which had any pre-modern archery tradition, Antarctica obviously due to the lack of potential archers, i.e., humans).

The "Welshness" of the longbow comes from two sources. First, the Medieval writer Gerald of Wales wrote about Welsh archery, noting that Welsh bows were powerful and effective, despite being ugly things that weren't composite bows nor made of yew (they were elm), and describing their effectiveness against English soldiers (including the penetration of armour).

Second, some of the earliest descriptions we have of English armies making large-scale use of archery is from Edward I's wars against Scotland, shortly after his wars with the Welsh (which often involved substantial Welsh forces on his side). Edward I had substantial numbers of archers in his first invasion of Wales in 1277, about 25% of his army (which was mostly (over 90%?) infantry); over half of this force was Welsh. Welsh or English archers? - a good question without a clear answer. A couple of decades later, in his wars with Scotland, his armies were about 20% archers, with a similar fraction of archers in both the English and Welsh components of his armies. (The number might have been higher; these are reasonable estimates of the minimum fraction that was archers. Strickland and Hardy (2005), perhaps somewhat overenthusiastically, say of the 1277 war, "the majority of infantry were archers".)

It was under Edward III that archery - and therefore the longbow - became more important. Edward III's army at Crecy was approximately half archers, the increase appearing to result from Edward's shift to a paid professional army rather than traditional feudal service. In some later battles in the Hundred Years War, the fraction of English armies that were archers was even higher.

Despite this often-claimed Welshness, the bow was already an important weapon in English armies before Edward I. The Assize of Arms of 1242, by Henry III, required men holding land worth from 40 to 100 shillings to serve as archers (richer men were to serve as armoured cavalry and armoured infantry).

It has been suggested that what the English adopted from the Welsh was the use of higher draw weight bows. This is based on the comments about the power of Welsh bows by Gerald of Wales. According to this version, the English were already using longbows, but of lower draw weight than their later bows. Being suitably impressed by the effectiveness of Welsh archery, they switched to using more powerful bows themselves. The evidence supporting this story is slim - just Gerald of Wales. A shift to higher draw weights might well result from more widespread use of armour, but the requirement that bows be powerful to be able to penetrate armour is fairly obvious (and was known to many peoples around the world), and the English were quite capable of figuring it out themselves. Also, this would not be a change from weak bows to powerful bows, but a change from powerful bows to even more powerful bows.