Came across a claim about mary rose nocks being antler? Is this bee ess or not?

[PatM]

Wouldn't that depend on where the cut was made and at what stage of the growth?

[adb]

Cow horn is a LOT easier to cut than any antler. Certainly a consideration in mass producing bows for war.

[PatM]

Have to know a bit more about the actual types of cattle typical back then. Polled cattle were likely selected for fairly early in the domestication process.  That's going to reduce the available horn considerably.

[Marc St Louis]

Wouldn't that depend on where the cut was made and at what stage of the growth?

You only need the last 2" or so of the Cows horn for horn nocks and that grows back fairly quickly, most likely a bit more was cut off to take advantage of this natural hollow you get.  In those days all cattle had horns and growth started at an early age.  I've seen 2 year old cows with 4" horns and these Cows had horns bred out of them.  Original stock probably had respectable horns after 1 years growth.

[turtle]

I would think it hard to say what the NORM was based off of only one surviving specimen. Could possibly be that the one that survived went against the norm.

[mikekeswick]

Cow horn is my bet. Cow horn however doesn't tend to be the best material.
Who said elk antler?? Aye we've got loads of elk knocking about here on our green and pleasant land........

[toomanyknots]

Is there any art work that is known of depicting english longbow nocks in any way?

[toomanyknots]

Well here's a painting painted in Germany around 1493-1494, located in Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, depicting very clearly a black horn nock:







Source: http://www.medievalwarfare.info/weapons.htm

The Mary Rose sank on July 19th, 1545, so this would of been around the same period. So is the consensus that this quote is bull, or was there actually an antler nock found? Anybody know?

[WillS]

Don't take the colours in medieval artwork too seriously, a lot of them were exaggerated to display wealth, or simplified for ease of painting.   The reds and blues alone in that painting wouldn't have been worn by soldiers. 

In Weapons of Warre page 633:

"The nock is carved from the natural tip of a cow horn and is badly degraded.  It is 70mm long with an internal diameter of 14mm and wall thickness of 1-2mm"

[toomanyknots]

Don't take the colours in medieval artwork too seriously, a lot of them were exaggerated to display wealth, or simplified for ease of painting.   The reds and blues alone in that painting wouldn't have been worn by soldiers. 

In Weapons of Warre page 633:

"The nock is carved from the natural tip of a cow horn and is badly degraded.  It is 70mm long with an internal diameter of 14mm and wall thickness of 1-2mm"

Thank you WillS!

[WillS]

No worries.  So far only one single nock has been found from the ship, along with a few horn inserts from arrows.  It's documented as cow horn, but there's obviously no way to know whether it was one material across the board, whether individual bowyers preferred different materials and so on. 

What I find interesting is that there seem to be a few bowyers marks on the bows found that are the same, often with up to 10 totally different bows all having the same bowyers Mark (usually a pattern of arrows or chevrons, or a set of dots) so I guess there weren't many bowyers making the creme-de-la-creme bows and there may have been some competition/rivalry amongst them.  This could have lead to fancy nocks or nock materials being used to distinguish the different bowyers so it's a real shame only one survived!

[PatM]

Mike, I don't believe anyone said "Elk" antler but your Red Deer is the equivalent animal. Indeed the subspecies of our NA Elk actually extends well across Northern Eurasia before definitively even changing to a different subspecies.

[JW_Halverson]

"Little Jack Horner sat in his corner
Working his butt off making buttons, combs, book covers, lant horns, tools, spoons, ladles, etc..."


Horners were very busy crafters, they were called upon to make numerous products from combs to "lant horns" (lanterns).  Horn was the plastic of the day because it could be heated and molded into various shapes and was quite easy to work.  Horn products were very much in demand and it is unlikely that there would be a demand for polled cattle (hornless) since it meant there was less of the cow to be sold.  Most polled breeds of cows were established in the mid to late 1800's, long after the market for longbow nocks had faded out.

[Matt_H]

I usually just lurk here, but know people who raised the Mary Rose and working next to it in Portsmouth dockyard I just have to reply.
from the trusts database;



Unspecified/Identified horn side nock. only one found as it was not attached to a bow but stored wrapped thus surviving where all the others rotted away..



No reason why the horn wasn't imported either, allegedly the staves came from Italian sources because the growing conditions were better

[Carson (CMB)]

It seems to me that cow horn would have been the choice even if antler was equally available simply because it takes glue so well compared to antler.   

"Little Jack Horner sat in his corner
Working his butt off making buttons, combs, book covers, lant horns, tools, spoons, ladles, etc..."