Hello All,
Here’s my input, please feel free to agree/disagree or ignore, as this is only what I believe.
1. Recurves. I like the point about recurves. Any one who has tillered a bow with one natural recurve knows that it would be much easier to artificially bend another in. The effectiveness of the design is well documented and works on two levels. It improves the f/d curve and allows the tips to be thinned thus reducing limb mass. Both improve cast. Burgundian archers used this type of bow and the English must have been aware of them. This may be what Ascham refers to ‘whipping’ the ends. Contemporary images of recurved bows are problematic as many are French in origin, but I think it’s safe to assume their existence in an Anglo-Welsh context. Here’s me drawing just such a bow with one natural recurve. Due to BL-BS regulations I left the stave unaltered but left to my own devises I would of added a recurve to the bottom limb. (I’m the follicly challenged one at the back!)
http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q280/yeomanbowman/Badminton1.jpg 2. Wood choice. That laminations add performance to a bow and make effective weapons is not in doubt. However, they were not used in a military context in medieval England, and for me it’s as simple as that. I know of ash backed yew bows in the Stuart period, but hand bows had been dropped from the arms of assize by many trained bands by then and the military use of hand bows in steep decline. As to the use of period wood it as deliberate anachronistic. I have made a 100Lb bow from ash purchased at a timber merchant that was very inexpensive. Premium yew is not readily accessible or cheap but so what? It’s not the only period choice. In 1360 William de Rothewell, the keeper of the Privy Wardrobe ordered: -
4062 pained bow (perhaps yew)
11303 white bows (lots of this stuff around)
However, in 1542 (due to the scarcity of good yew) a statute required that bowyers produce "for one bow of yew shall make four of elm, wych, hazel, ash or other wood apt for the same." The ratio had switched. To this list of period woods I would add laburnum, box and brasil (sic).
To paraphrase Josh, who summed it up well for me, laminated bows are nothing to be ashamed of but are not true recreations of warbows.
3. Draw weight. This is very important and here form follows function. A 15Lb bow could not be called a viable hunting weapon and a 60Lb bow could not be called an English warbow. Projecting a heavy missile over a long range cannot be done at a lower draw weight. 80Lb draw weight would be my minimum as anything below this would be ineffective for the intended use.
4. Bow section/profile. Many MR bow profiles are stacked, to a lesser or greater extent. However, the two heaviest are a radiused rectangle in section. Therefore, to me this section must be perfectly acceptable in any EWB definition.
5. Arrow length. Ascham talks of arrows that are too short being better than arrows that are too long, so he obviously did not like the idea of undrawn shafts sticking out past the back of a bow. This must reflect the received wisdom for the Tudor period. As the MR arrows fall in this time scale it would seem odd to assume 26” draw length as normal as most MR arrows are well over this length. The MR archers ranged from 5’7” to over 6’ and whilst I will accept that the King’s flagship had the crème it also indicates persons who were well capable of drawing the supplied arrows to the head.
This only my opinion and I have been called anally retentive
before on another forum, which was maybe their way of saying purist
. To be honest I don’t really care as I can live with either. However, I am passionate about English warbows and their proud history. I believe in inclusively, but not at the expense of political correctness or ‘dumming down’ the original artefact so much as to be a meaningless shadow of what they should represent. English warbows do not have to be expensive but if you are drawing a 60Lb laminated bow to 26” then you are not shooting in the English warbow. I can’t run a marathon by don’t shorten it to 4 miles just so I can join in.
Jeremy
