Looking at warbow cultures where there is a written record, we only have information where archery was an activity of the literate classes, which lets out the post Roman european bow until Gaston Phoebus' "Livre de Chasse" or Ascham.
Where the literature is extensive the median for infantry bows appears to be in the 120lb to 150lb range, somewhat less for the smaller cavalry bows, from 90lb to 120lb.
Rod.
A 'warbow' is of course a longbow, just an especially strong one. Besides those you mention we do have one earlier reference, "The Book of Roi Modus" written before the Hundred Years War, that gives the measurements of the "English bow" and its arrows, clearly a longbow. Like other mediaeval writings it gives no details on draw weight which makes me curious to know where your information on draw weights comes from. We can of course estimate Tudor bow strengths from the laws that specify distances to be shot by nearly all adult males. Archers were the general population, not a chosen elite few. Toward the end of the Hundred Years War the ten archers for every man-at-arms were not a select few.
Thank you for the note about the Book of Roi Modus.
"Where archery was an activity of the literate classes" there is a written record of what was at different times the norm and what was , by inference, exceptional.
This leads to a conclusion that is by and large in agreement with what Steve Stratton, Mark Stretton and Chris Boyton have to say on the matter of "warbow" draw weights.
Also with the shared experience of some of those who do useful work on other styles of heavy bows and with what my own shooting experience leads me to believe to be rational and not unreasonable.
At the end of the day it is only an opinion, but hopefully a not entirely uninformed opinion.
By and large recruitment of archers was, when and where possible, quite selective.
And there were also times and conditions when recruitment was less selective, but in general, the elite would be taken where the option was available.
Men were sent home, for example, for not being capable of acheiving a desired "rate of fire".
("Rate of fire" is in inverted commas because it is a borowed term in common shooting parlance).
Given that shooting at the butts was a common form of practice, it seems likely that "rate of fire" and cast were not the only criteria.
It seems to me obvious and perfectly reasonable that a "warbow" is any kind of bow which, historically, was made for warfare and that the criteria might vary somewhat though in serious "warbow" environments the solutions reached no doubt had commonality, both in the task requirements and in the draw weights needed to eet them.
In this context, of course, certain types of crossbow are "warbows" but not necessarily of interest on a forum devoted to "hand drawn bows" except as an adversarial or an allied weapon.
And the list of other types of "warbow" of composite construction is not inconsiderable.
Whilst we can say that the longbow can be a "warbow", we cannot truthfully say that "the warbow"
is a longbow, only that the archetype of the English "warbow" is a longbow (or more precisely) a single stave yew longbow, but that certain other woods were acceptable substitutes.
Rod.
