I have been doing some research into the history of archery in the British Isles and have encountered two arguments as to the origin and development of the longbow (I am using “longbow” to mean a bow roughy as tall or taller than a man’s height, which gain a reputation for decisive victories in the Hundred Years War).
The first is by Clifford Rogers. He argues the longbow of the Hundred Years War was developed in the late 13 and early 14th centuries, and was a unique and revolutionary weapon. Prior to this, an inferior,weaker, less effective shortbow of 3-4 feet was nearly ubiquitous in Europe. This includes amongst the Normans when they invaded England in 1066, and amongst the Welsh during their battles with the Anglo-Normans prior the 13th century. The only exception was amongst the Vikings.
The second is by Strickland and Hardy, and one similar by Stuart Gorman. They argue bows prior to the 13th and 14th centuries were not exclusively shortbows. (In the case of Strickland and Hardy, they argue the shortbow was a myth). Longbows of the Hundred Years War were the results of gradual improvements upon a pre-existing design. This basic design remained largely the same throughout history. As such, bows similar in design and construction to those of those of the Hundred Years War existed prior to the 13th century, including in during the period of the Norman conquest.
What do you all think? Who do you think has the better argument?
My bias is towards the second argument. I don’t see why the Vikings would have used a bow analogous to that used in the Hundred Years War, only for their Norman ancestors to abandon it for a weaker bow, only to for the superior design to be rediscovered centuries later. Further, given the Viking influence on Britain, I don’t see why a weapon analogous to the bow they used would not have been present in the Isles in the years before and after the Norman conquest. But I am open-minded. Am I missing something?
Sources:
Rogers, Clifford, “The development of the longbow in late medieval England and ‘technological determinism’”, Journal of Medieval History, 37:3 (2011). 321-341.
Strickland, Matthew, and Robert Hardy, The Great Warbow: From Hastings to the Mary Rose, (2005, repr. Somerset, 2011).
http://www.tara.tcd.ie/bitstream/handle/2262/77397/Stuart%20Gorman%20Thesis.pdf?sequence=1
I've previously given an overview of how the idea of the longbow supplanting the shortbow came to be here, and although I'm going to walk back a bit on the idea that all shortbows were powerful military weapons here, it offers a pretty good overview of how this discussion originally came to be.
So, regarding the shortbow, it's undeniable that these existed during the High Middle Ages, from approximately 1000 CE to at least 1300 CE. One complete shortbow and about half or two more have been found in Waterford, Ireland, dating to the 12th and 13th centuries, and the complete bow was found with a military arrow. Another was found while excavating the moat at Burg Elmendorf, dating to the 13th century, while in Pineuilh, France, one shortbow dating to the 11th century has also been found. Small fragments of what might be several others - based on the rectangular/sub-rectangular cross-section typical of the complete or near complete bows - have also been found in the 10th-11th site in Charavines, France.
Perhaps more interesting are the hunting arrows found above the snowline in the mountains around Oppdal, Norway. Arrows dating from 600-1000 CE range in length from 57cm to 70cm long, which is actually shorter than the arrows of 400-600 CE, which fell into two categories of 66-70cm long and 70-75cm long. Unfortunately no arrowshafts from the period 1000-1200 CE were found when the original study was published, but the 1200-1700 CE shafts were between 58 and 65cm long. The authors suggested that a shorter, but more powerful, bow had been adopted from the Lapp peoples, but it's important to remember that we were already seeing shorter arrows in the Viking Age.
What this builds is a picture of a period in which the prominence of longer bows fell while shorter bows rose in use, even in military contexts. In fact, even if we assume that longbows were still in use, the evidence from the diameters of existing arrowheads suggest that they weren't necessarily very powerful weapons. The Anglo-Norman arrowheads from Ireland generally have socket diameters of 8-9mm, as do civilian and some military arrows from 13th century England, as Richard Wadge has shown. There are some limits to this, and manors and castles in England feature arrowheads with socket diameters regularly above 10mm in diameter. The arrowheads from the 1287 siege of Dryslwyn Castle, for example, have sockets that are quite frequently 10-12mm in diameter, although some are also more like 8-9mm in diameter as well.
Interestingly, something of this survives into the 14th century. Most uncontexted LM16/Jessop M4 arrowheads (eg: those in the Museum of London, Royal Armouries and finds recorded in the Portable antiquities Scheme) tend to have socket diameters of 9-10mm, but those from military sites or manors tend to be 10-12mm. Once you move into the 15th century, though, few military arrowheads are 11mm in diameter, let alone 10mm, so I think that there's some evidence for an early split between professional and levied military archers that gradually died as professional archers became the default.
I tend to see shortbows as used alongside longbows in both civilian and military life, rather than sole type of bow, and I think that the "medium" bow is better seen as part of the shortbow continuum rather than its own separate thing. As to the question of why shortbows came into use and longbows fall out of favour to a degree, that's not a question I've been able to answer yet. Perhaps it was the result of increased reliance on peasant archers who fought with their hunting bows, or perhaps there was a preference for short, handy bows that could be used almost anywhere and the long, slender blades of the bodkin arrows allowed them to make up for the lack of energy.
Sorry I can't provide you with a clear answer. If you want to read more about the evidence for shortbows in medieval England, Richard Wadge's Archery in Medieval England is the best summary, including all the available archaeological evidence for England. The paper on the Oppdal arrows can be found here, the archaeological evidence for Anglo-Norman archery in Ireland is from Andrew Halpin's thesis here and the paper on the Pineuilh bow is here.