I'm curious to know more about the English longbows but I know very little about them. The Wikipedia article says they are usually 1-3 years old wood, that they were ugly and unfinished looking. Extra history mentions stuff about how the English boys of the time would have been taught by their fathers how to shoot, like cub scouts of their time.
I'm imagining something like, longbows we're suggested as a sort of national sport for people. I'm guessing the boys got their longbows by making them with their fathers, who built then to teach their boys to shoot. So when the time came to fight for their country, all the trained English longbowmen we're the adult boys who didn't their childhood learning how to shoot. This might also explain why the weapons might have looked ugly, or unfinished, was because the bows were handmade by amateurs just enough to be able to shoot, or something like that.
Who made the English longbows, originally, and how did the tradition of English longbows get started? Thanks.
It was from the 16th century onwards in fact the law that all able bodied men of a certain age had to practice archery every week. The first legally implemented statute of this appears to be the following a part of which, specifically the part saying what ages should practice, I am going to quote here.
Anno tertio HENRICI VIII. (A.D. 1511-12.)STATUTES made in the Parliament begun and holden at Westminster on Wednesday the Fourth Day of February, in the Third Year of the Reign of King HENRY VIII. [...]CAP. III An Act concerning Shooting in Long Bows."ALL Sorts of Men under the Age of Forty Years shall have Bows and Arrows, and use Shooting; certain Persons excepted"
30 years later this seems to be expanded to be more precise and clear on its terms and to become a permanent statute of the law as opposed to a temporary declaration.
"All Men under the Age of sixty Years "shall have Bows and Arrows for shooting. Men-Children between Seven "Years and Seventeen shall have a Bow and 2 Shafts. Men about Seventeen "Years of Age shall keep a Bow and 4 Arrows - Penalty 6s.8d."
These statutes explicitly talk about the decline of Archery and the need to revive it, so presumably before this time it was not seen as necessary to demand people practice their Archery as it was taken as a given that they would do it regardless.
There are many many Churches which have deep gouges in the stone that are commonly said to have been made by parishioners sharpening their arrowheads on the stone so they could followup their Sunday Service by immediately doing their weekly practice in the Churchyard, though it is possible this is mere folklore, here is a picture of said gouges outside a Church of which many feature similar marks.
I mention this for completeness, and due to how prevalent it is as a story. It is not something there is the strongest evidence for and should be taken as folklore of questionable veracity, interesting as it may be. It was absolutely the law that everyone practiced regularly however.
It is incredibly hard to answer a question like who built the original English Longbow, because of the difficulty of the question of what constitutes the first of the English Longbows, and what constitutes the last of the previous type of Bow. The Archers of Wales however were particularly regarded for their skill and their quality Bows by the other British peoples going back into History long before the whole of Great Britain became a military entity renowned for Archery internationally.
