The Fight

The Prince of the Black Ruby

Edward of Woodstock,Prince of Wales,KG (15 June 1330 – 8 June 1376), popularly known as The Black Prince, was the eldest son of King Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault, and father to King Richard II of England. Edward, an exceptional military leader and popular during his life, died one year before his father and thus never ruled as king (becoming the first English Prince of Wales to suffer that fate). The throne passed instead to his son Richard, a minor, upon the death of Edward III.
Edward was born on 15 June 1330 at Woodstock Palace in Oxfordshire. Edward was created Earl of Chester in 1333, Duke of Cornwall in 1337 (the first creation of an English duke) and finally invested as Prince of Wales in 1343. In England Edward served as a symbolic regent for periods in 1339, 1340, and 1342 while Edward III was on campaign. He was expected to attend all council meetings, and he performed the negotiations with the papacy about the war in 1337.
Edward had been raised with his cousin Joan ,"The Fair Maid of Kent". Edward gained Innocent VI's papal permission and absolution for this marriage to a blood-relative (as had Edward III when marrying Philippa of Hainaut, being her second cousin) and married Joan in 10 October 1361 at Windsor Castle, prompting some controversy, mainly because of Joan's chequered marital history and the fact that marriage to an Englishwoman wasted an opportunity to form an alliance with a foreign power.
When in England, Edward's chief residence was at Wallingford Castle in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire). He served as the king's representative in Aquitaine, where he and Joan kept a court which was considered among the most brilliant of the time. It was the resort of exiled kings, like James of Majorca and Pedro of Castile.
Pedro, thrust from his throne by his illegitimate brother, Henry of Trantamara, offered Edward the lordship of Biscay in 1367, in return for the Black Prince's aid in recovering his throne. Edward was successful in the Battle of Najera in which he soundly defeated the combined French and Spanish forces led by Bertrand du Guesclin.
During this period, he fathered two sons: Edward (27 January 1365 – 1372), who died at the age of 6; and Richard, born in 1367 and often called Richard of Bordeaux for his place of birth, who would later rule as Richard II of England.
The Black Prince returned to England in January 1371 and died a few years later after a long wasting illness that may have been cancer.
Edward lived in a century of decline for the knightly ideal of chivalry. The formation of the order of the Garter, an English royal order of which Edward was a founding member, signified a shift towards patriotism and away from the crusader mentality that characterized England in the previous two centuries. Edward's stance in this evolution is seemingly somewhat divided. Edward displayed obedience to typical chivalric obligations through his pious contributions to Canterbury Cathedral throughout his life.
On one hand, after capturing John the Good, king of France, and his youngest son at Poitiers, he treated them with great respect, at one point giving John leave to return home, and reportedly praying with John at Canterbury Cathedral. Notably, he also allowed a day for preparations before the Battle of Poitiers so that the two sides could discuss the coming battle with one another, and so that the Cardinal of Perigord could plead for peace. Though not agreeing with knightly charges on the battlefield, he also was devoted to tournament jousting.
On the other hand, his chivalric tendencies were overridden by pragmatism on many occasions. The Black Prince's repeated use of the chevauchee strategy (burning and pillaging towns and farms) was not in keeping with contemporary notions of chivalry, but it was quite effective in accomplishing the goals of his campaigns and weakening the unity and economy of France. On the battlefield, pragmatism over chivalry is also demonstrated via the massed use of infantry strongholds, dismounted men at arms, longbowmen, and flank attacks (a revolutionary practice in such a chivalric age). Moreover, he was exceptionally harsh toward and contemptuous of lower classes in society, as indicated by the heavy taxes he levied as Prince of Aquitaine and by the massacres he perpetrated at Limoges and Caen. Edward's behaviour was typical of an increasing number of English knights and nobles during the late Middle Ages who paid less and less attention to the high ideal of chivalry, which would soon influence other countries.
The 1345 Flanders Campaign on the Northern Front, which was of little significance and ended after three weeks when one of Edward's allies was murdered.
The Crecy Campaign on the Northern Front, which crippled the French army for 10 years, allowing the siege of Calais to occur with little conventional resistance before the plague set in. Even when France's army did recover, the forces they deployed were about a quarter of that deployed at Crecy (as shown at Poitiers). Normandy came virtually under English control, but a decision was made to focus on northern France, leaving Normandy under the control of England's vassal allies instead.
The Siege of Calais on the Northern Front, during which the inhabitants suffered worst and were reduced to eating dogs and rats. The siege gave the English personal and vassal control over northern France before the temporary peace due to the Black Death.
The Calais counter-offensive on the Northern Front, after which Calais remained in English hands.
Les Espagnols sur Mer or the Battle of Winchelsea on the English Channel Front, which was a Pyrrhic victory of little significance beyond preventing Spanish raids on Essex.
The Great Raid of 1355 on the Aquitaine–Languedoc Front, which crippled southern France economically, and provoked resentment of the French throne among French peasantry. The raid also 'cushioned' the area for conquest, opened up alliances with neighbours in Aquitaine of which that with Charles the Bad of Navarre is most notable, and caused many regions to move towards autonomy from France, as France was not as united as England.
The Aquitaine Conquests on the Aquitaine Front, which brought much firmer control in Aquitaine, much land for resources and many people to fight for Edward.
The Poitiers Campaign on the Aquitaine-Loire Front, which crippled the French Army for the next 13 years, causing the anarchy and chaos which would inevitably cause the Treaty of Bretigney to be signed in 1360. Following this campaign, there was no French Army leader, there were challenges towards Charles the Wise, and more aristocrats were killed at Crécy and Poitiers than those lost to the Black Death.
The Reims Campaign, following which peace was finally achieved with the Treaty of Bretigny.This being the crimeajewel. But, on the same terms, England was left with about a third of France rather than a little under half which they would have received through the Treaty of London. This is due to the failure to take Reims which led to the need for a safe passage out of France. As a result, a lesser treaty was agreed to and Edward III was obliged to drop his claims to the French throne. France was still forced to pay a huge ransom of around four times France's gross annual domestic product for John the Good. The ransom paid was, however, a little short of that demanded by the English, and John the Good was not returned to the French. Thus, this campaign yielded mixed results, but was mostly positive for Edward. One must also remember Edward III never actually dropped his claim to the throne, and that about half of France was controlled by the English anyway through many vassals.
The Najera Campaign on the Castilian Front, during which Pedro the Cruel was temporarily saved from a coup, thus confirming Castilian Spanish dedication to the Prince's cause. Later, however, Pedro was murdered. As a result of Pedro's murder, the money the prince put into the war effort became pointless, and Edward was effectively bankrupt. This forced heavy taxes to be levied in Aquitaine to relieve Edward's financial troubles, leading to a vicious cycle of resentment in Aquitaine and vicious repression of this resentment by Edward. Charles the Wise, king of France, was able to take advantage of the resentment against Edward in Aquitaine. However, the prince temporarily became the Lord of Biscay.
The Siege of Limoges in 1370 on the Aquitaine Front, after which the Black Prince was obliged to leave his post for his sickness and financial issues, but also because of the cruelty of the siege, which saw the massacre of some 3,000 residents according to the chronicler Froissart. Without the Prince, the English war effort against Charles the Wise and Bertrand Du Guesclin was doomed. The Prince's brother John of Gaunt was not interested with the war in France, being more interested in the war of succession in Spain.
King Edward III and the prince sail from Sandwich with 400 ships, carrying 4,000 men at arms and 10,000 archers for France, but after six weeks of bad weather and being blown off course they are driven back to England.
He requested to be buried in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral rather than next to the shrine, and a chapel was prepared there as a chantry for him and his wife Joan (this is now the French Protestant Chapel, and contains ceiling bosses of her face and of their coats of arms). However, this was overruled after his death and he was buried on the south side of the shrine of Thomas Becket behind the quire. His tomb consists of a bronze effigy beneath a tester depicting the Holy Trinity, with his heraldic achievements hung over the tester. The achievements have now been replaced by replicas, though the originals can still be seen nearby, and the tester was restored in 2006.
Although Edward is almost always now called the "Black Prince", there is no record of this name being used during his lifetime. He was instead known as Edward of Woodstock, after his place of birth. The "Black Prince" sobriquet "is first found in writing in Richard Grafton's "Chronicle of England" (1568). Its origin is uncertain; it is usually considered to be derived from an ornate black cuirass presented to the young prince by Edward III at the Battle of Crecy.
In fact, this nickname comes more than probably from his "shield of peace", his coat of arms used during tournaments, which is represented around his effigy at Canterbury. This coat of arms is black with three white ostrich feathers.
It is possible that the name was first coined by French chroniclers in reference to the ruinous military defeats he had inflicted on France or his cruelty in these. Also possible is the idea that Edward garnered the nickname from his explosive temper; the legendary Angevin temper being associated with his family's line since Geoffrey d'Anjou.
Edward is referred to in William Shakespeare's Henry V,Act 1, Scene 2 CANTERBURY
Look back into your mighty ancestors: Go, my dread lord to your great-grandsire's tomb, from whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit, and your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy, Making his defeat on the full power of France, Whiles his most mighty father on a hill Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp Forage in blood of French Nobility.
and in Act 2, Scene 4 KING OF FRANCE
And he is bred out of that bloody strain That haunted us in our familiar paths: Witness our too much memorable shame When Cressy battle fatally was struck, And all our princes captiv'd by the hand Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales
and again later in Act 4, Scene 7 FLUELLEN
Your grandfather of famous memory, an't please your majesty, and your great-uncle Edward the Black Prince of Wales, as I have read in the chronicles, fought a most prave pattle here in France.
The Black Prince is also prominently referred to in George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan. From Scene 1: ROBERT
Have you heard no tales of their Black Prince who was blacker than the devil himself, or of the English King's father? …
JOAN
I have heard tales of the Black Prince. The moment he touched the soil of our country the devil entered into him, and made him a black fiend. But at home, in the place made for him by God, he was good. It is always so.
The Story of Crecy. The Battle of Crécy (often the Battle of Cressy in English) took place on 26 August 1346 near Crecy in northern France, and was one of the most important battles of the Hundred Years' War. The combination of new weapons and tactics have caused many historians to consider this battle the beginning of the end of chivalry.
Crécy was a battle in which a much smaller English army of 12,000 to 16,000 (depending on source), commanded by Edward III of England and heavily outnumbered by Philip VI of France's force of 35,000 to 100,000 (depending on source), was victorious as a result of superior weaponry and tactics, demonstrating the importance of the modern military concept of fire power. The effectiveness of the English longbow,the crimeajewel of the age when used en masse, was proven against armoured knights, contrary to the conventional wisdom of the day which held that archers would be ineffective and be butchered when the armoured units closed in.
In the battle, the French knights, protected by mail reinforced with plate, nearly exhausted by having to walk through a quagmire of mud to charge up a shallow hill into English and Welsh arrow storms, were cut down. The result was that much of the french nobility died, perhaps even a third (estimates of the actual numbers in each army vary considerably, depending on the source).
Knights' armour had not yet evolved to the stage where longbows could not penetrate, and the knights' horses were barely protected at all. The storm of arrows killed or disabled the knights' mounts, and left the knights floundering about in the mud on foot beneath a withering fire.
The battle is seen by many historians as the beginning of the end of chivalry; during the course of the battle, many of the prisoners and wounded were killed. This was against the chivalric codes of warfare; and knights on horseback were no longer "undefeatable" by infantry.
Crécy may also have seen the first real use of cannon on the European battlefield, which were used only in small numbers by a few states during the 1340s. "Ribaldis", a type of cannon, were first mentioned in the English Privy Wardrobe accounts during preparations for the battle between 1345 and 346, and they were perhaps employed against both the Genoese and the cavalry. Similar cannon would appear also at the Siege of Calais in the same year, although it would not be until the 1380s that the "ribaudekin" was mounted on wheels. The use of firearms at this battle is only mentioned in one contemporary account of the battle, that of Villani (d. 1348). Villani did travel abroad during much of the early 14th century, yet he had returned to his home in Florence at the time of the Battle of Crécy, so his information was likely second hand if not third or fourth hand. His account also conflicts with almost all of the other contemporary chronicles of this time on the events of the battle, specifically the use of firearms. In one of the later versions of his chronicle, Froissart does mention guns being used in the battle, but by that time firearms had become more common in warfare. His earlier versions fail to include any mention of firearms. So while firearms were perhaps employed, their possible effect on the battle should be viewed critically.
The political consequences of the battle were significant for Edward III especially, who had financed and supplied his expedition to Normandy with increasingly unpopular policies. The widespread use of purveyance and the arresting of ships to provide transport for his armies had left the King with potential sources of discontent in his kingdom. Likewise, the bold and unprecedented move to expand compulsory service, usually only required for defence of the coasts, to supply overseas service in France proved to be deeply unpopular with many of his subjects. However, the successes of the campaign did much to mute opposition when English Parliament was called at 11th – 20th September 1346.
Following the outbreak of war in 1337, the Battle of Sluys was the first great battle of the Hundred Years' War, on 23 June 1340. In the years following this battle, Edward attempted to invade France through Flanders, but failed due to financial difficulties and unstable alliances. Six years later, Edward planned a different route, and put into action a massive raid through the lands of Normandy, winning victories at Caen on 26 July and the Battle of Blanchetaque on 24 August. A French plan to trap the English force between the Seine and the Somme Rivers failed, and the English escape led to the Battle of Crécy, one of the greatest battles in the whole war.
As in previous battles against the Scots, Edward III disposed his forces in an area of flat agricultural land, choosing high ground surrounded by natural obstacles on the flanks. The king installed himself and his staff in a windmill on a small hill that protected the rear, where he could direct the course of the battle.
In a strong defensive position, Edward III ordered that everybody fight on foot and distributed the army in three divisions, one commanded by his sixteen-year-old son, Edward,the Black Prince. The longbowmen were deployed in a "V-formation" along the crest of the hill. In the period of waiting that followed, the English built a system of ditches, pits and caltrops to maim and bring down the enemy cavalry.
The French army, commanded by Philip VI, was much more disorganized, due to overconfidence on the part of his knights. The French tactical mindset was centred on the use of cavalry, and Philip was naturally confident that his cavalry could overwhelm Edward's much smaller cavalry contingent. Philip stationed his Genoese mercenary crossbowmen, under Ottone Doria, in the front line, with the cavalry in the back. The French even went as far as to leave the pavises, the only means of defence for the crossbowmen, behind, along with the infantries. Both decisions proved deadly mistakes. French chronicler Froissart gives an account of the action:
“ The English, who were drawn up in three divisions and seated on the ground, on seeing their enemies advance, arose boldly and fell into their ranks...You must know that these kings, earls, barons, and lords of France did not advance in any regular order...There were about fifteen thousand Genoese crossbowmen; but they were quite fatigued, having marched on foot that day six leagues, completely armed, and with their crossbows. They told the constable that they were not in a fit condition to do any great things that day in battle. The earl of Alençon, hearing this, said, "This is what one gets by employing such scoundrels, who fail when there is any need for them." The first attack was from the crossbowmen, who launched a series of volleys with the purpose of disorganizing and frightening the English infantry. This first move was accompanied by the sound of musical instruments, brought by Philip VI to scare the enemy. But the crossbowmen would prove completely useless. With a firing rate of around 1-2 shots every minute, they were no match for the longbowmen, who could fire one shot every 5 seconds. Furthermore, their weapons were damaged by the brief thunderstorm that had preceded the battle, while the longbowmen were able to simply unstring their bows until the weather improved. The crossbowmen did not have their pavises, which were needed to cover their bows during the long reloading procedure and had remained in the baggage train. Under the hail of English arrows, the Genoese crossbowmen suffered heavy losses and were unable to approach the English lines to the point where their crossbows would have been effective. Frustrated and confused, they retreated, as any trained professional soldier would have done. The knights, however, hurled insults at the crossbowmen. Calling these crossbowmen cowards, the knights and kings hacked down their own men. The fault was not the crossbowmen's, for the decision of leaving the pavises was made by the king. By the time this contretemps ended, several waves of longbow fire had already fallen among the French. At this the French knights decided it was time to charge, and they ran right over the retreating Genoese in an unorganized way. The English longbowmen continued firing as the infantry advanced, and many French knights fell along the way.
Froissart writes that English cannon had made "two or three discharges on the Genoese", which is taken to mean individual shots by two or three guns because of the time necessary to reload such primitive artillery. These were believed to shoot large arrows and simplistic grapeshot. The Florentine Giovanni Villani agreed that they were destructive on the field, though he also indicated that the guns continued to fire upon French cavalry later in the battle:
"The English guns cast iron balls by means of fire...They made a noise like thunder and caused much loss in men and horses...The Genoese were continually hit by the archers and the gunners...[by the end of the battle] the whole plain was covered by men struck down by arrows and cannon balls."
With the crossbowmen invalid, the French cavalry charged again in organized rows. However, the slope and man-made obstacles disrupted the charge. At the same time, the longbowmen continued firing volleys of arrows upon the knights. Each time, more corpses fell, blocking successive waves of advance. The French attack could not break the English formation, even after 16 attempts, and they suffered frightful casualties. Edward III's son, The Black Prince, came under attack, but his father refused to send help, saying that he wanted him to "win his spurs". The prince subsequently proved himself to be an outstanding soldier.
At nightfall, Philip VI, himself wounded, ordered the retreat. It was a disastrous and humiliating defeat for France and a majestic win for England.
After the French left the field, the English looked through the wounded French to see who was worth taking prisoner for ransom. Those knights who were too severely wounded to be easily carried off the field were dispatched with misericordias (mercy-givers). These were long daggers which were inserted through the unprotected underarms and into the heart, or through visor slits and into the brain. This was against the chivalric codes of warfare, since peasants were killing knights; knights were also dying from anonymous arrow shots rather than face to face in combat with peers.
This battle established the military supremacy of the English / Welsh longbow over the French combination of crossbow and armoured knights (due to the yeoman archer's significantly greater rates of fire and range longer than that of the contemporary crossbow), and was to alter significantly the way in which war was conducted for a considerable period of time thereafter. After the Battle of Crécy, Edward III went on to besiege the city of Calais, which surrendered to him after eleven months, giving the English a base in northern France. The next major battle in the Hundred Years War, the Battle of Poitiers in 1356, would see another defeat for the French, under very similar conditions.
At this stage in history the longbow was capable of penetrating armour (particularly the parts not yet covered by plates), but not all the arrows shot by the longbowmen would have found a target or penetrated the armour of the advancing French knights if they did, partly due to angles at which they happened to strike. However, victims would have their horses shot out from under them, and it is worth remembering that even a non-piercing impact would still be substantial enough to bruise, wind and knock down knights on foot as they attempted to advance. Froissart claimed the barrages of arrows were so heavy and frequent that they blotted out the sun, and even allowing for some poetic licence, not every arrow would have needed to find a target. If survivors of the volleys reached the English formation, they were cut down with relative ease by the defensive line of dismounted English men-at-arms. The overall effect was devastating.
After the battle, the Black Prince, having won respect and honour, was triumphant. Yet he did not go straight to his father Edward III, but stayed on the battle field to pay his tribute to a stranger - King John of Bohemia. John was a middle-aged man who was almost blind, and yet he fought very bravely during the battle and killed many of the few English casualties. Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince, was deeply impressed and mourned the loss of a hero. As a last gesture of admiration and respect, he took the old king's shield and made it his own (Prince of Wales's feathers). It is now a famous symbol throughout England and Wales, being the crest of the Surrey Cricket Club and of course the Welsh Rugby Union.
When the battle was over and the Welsh longbowmen had returned to their home in Llantrisant, South Wales, they were given an acre of land for their bravery. They were also awarded "Freemen" status and were exempted from paying tax for grazing rights for their cattle.
Battle of Poitiers 1356 The Battle of Poitiers was fought between the Kingdoms of England and France on September 19,1356 near Poitiers, resulting in the second of the three great English victories of the Hundred Years' War: Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt.
On August 8,1356,Edward the Black Prince began a great chevauchée (raid) north from the English base in Aquitaine, in an effort to relieve allied garrisons in central France, as well as to raid and ravage the countryside. His sortie met little resistance, his Anglo-Gascon forces burning numerous towns to the ground and living off the land, until they reached the Loire River at Tours. His army was unable to take the castle nor could they burn the town, due to a heavy downpour. His delay there allowed John II,King of France, to attempt to catch Edward's army and eliminate it. The King, who had been confronting Henry of Grosmont in Normandy, arranged the bulk of his army at Chatres to the north of the besieged Tours, dismissing around 15,000–20,000 of his low-grade infantry to increase the speed of his forces.
Upon receiving reports of the French army on the move, Edward decided a retreat was in order. He marched south pursued in earnest by John. The French caught up to the English a few miles southwest of Poitiers. A veteran of the battle of Crécy, at which he had fought when he was only sixteen years old, the Black Prince decided on the same tactical scheme employed at that earlier battle. He positioned his troops in a strongly defensive position, in a plain surrounded by natural obstacles, such as a creek on the left and a wood on the back. The luggage wagons, with a great amount of plunder, remained along the old Roman road, the main route from Poitiers to Bordeaux, to give protection to his weak right side. All his men dismounted and were organized in two, or perhaps three units, with the English and Welsh longbowmen placed in a V-formation on both flanks. The Black Prince kept a small cavalry unit, commanded by Jean de Grailly, the Captal de Buch, hidden in the woods at the rear.
The attacking French forces were divided in four parts. At the front were around 300 elite knights, commanded by general Clermont and accompanied by German mercenary pikemen. The purpose of this group was to charge the English archers and eliminate the threat they posed. These were followed by three groups of infantry (dismounted cavalry) commanded by the Dauphin,( later Charles V of France ), the Duke of Orleans and King John.
At the beginning of the battle, the English simulated flight on their left wing. This provoked a hasty charge by the French knights against the archers. However, the English were expecting this and quickly attacked the enemy, especially the horses, with a shower of arrows. Belgian chronicler Jean Froissart writes that the French armour was invulnerable to the English arrows, that the arrowheads either skidded off the armour or shattered on impact. English history of the battle disputes this, as some claim that the narrow bodkin point arrows they used have been proven capable of penetrating most plate armour of that time period. While tests have been done to support this with fixed pieces of flat metal, armor was curved and moving men make very poor anvils—so the point is debatable. Given the following actions of the English archers—it seems likely Froissart was correct. The armour on the horses was weaker on the sides and back, so the English archers moved to the sides of the cavalry and shot the horses in the flanks. This was a popular method of stopping a cavalry charge, as a falling horse often destroyed the cohesion of the enemy's line. The results were devastating.
This attack was followed by the Dauphin's infantry, who engaged in heavy fighting, but withdrew to regroup. The next wave of infantry under Orleans, seeing that the Dauphin's men were not attacking, turned back and panicked. This stranded the forces led by the King himself. This was a formidable fighting force, and the English archers were out of arrows: the archers joined the infantry in the fight and some of both groups mounted horses to form an improvised cavalry. Combat was hard, but the Black Prince still had a mobile reserve hidden in the woods, which were able to circle around and attack the French in the flank and rear. The French were fearful of encirclement and attempted to flee. King John was captured with his immediate entourage.
The result was a decisive French defeat, not only in military terms, but also economically: France would be asked to pay a ransom equivalent to twice the country's yearly income to have the king returned. John, who was accorded royal privileges whilst being a prisoner, was permitted to return to France to try to raise the required funds. He subsequently handed himself back to the English, claiming to be unable to pay the ransom, and died a few months later. In many ways, Poitiers was a repeat of the battle of Crecy showing once again that tactics and strategy can overcome a disadvantage in numbers. As the Black Prince wrote shortly afterward in a letter to the people of London:
“ …it was agreed that we should take our way, flanking them, in such a manner that if they wished for battle or to draw towards us, in a place not very much to our disadvantage, we should be the first… the enemy was discomfited, and the king was taken, and his son; and a great number of other great people were both taken and slain… The Battle of Agincourt. The Battle of Agincourt was an English victory against a larger French army in the Hundred Years' War. The battle occurred on Friday 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin's Day) , in northern France.Henry V's victory started a new period in the war, in which Henry married the French King's daughter and his son was made heir to the throne of France, but his achievement was squandered by his heirs.
The French king of the time was Charles VI; however, he did not command the French army himself as he was incapacitated. Instead the French were commanded by Constable Charles d'Albert and various prominent French noblemen of the Armagnac party.
The battle is notable for the use of the English longbow, which Henry used in very large numbers, with longbowmen forming the vast majority of his army. The battle was also immortalised by William Shakespeare as the centrepiece of his play Henry V.
Henry V invaded following the failure of negotiations with the French. He claimed the title of King of France through his great-grandfather Edward III, although in practice the English kings were generally prepared to renounce this claim if the French would acknowledge their claim on Aquitaine and other French lands (the terms of the Treaty of Bretigny). He initially called a great council in the spring of 1414 to discuss going to war with France, but the lords insisted that he should negotiate further and moderate his claims. In the following negotiations Henry said that he would give up his claim to the French throne if the French would pay the 1.6 million crowns outstanding from the ransom of John II (who had been captured at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356), and the lands of Normandy, Touraine, Anjou, Brittany and Flanders, as well as Aquitaine. Henry would marry Princess Catherine, the young daughter of Charles VI, and receive a dowry of 2 million crowns. The French responded with what they considered the generous terms of marriage with Princess Catherine, a dowry of 600,000 crowns, and an enlarged Aquitaine. By 1415 negotiations had ground to a halt, with the English claiming that the French had mocked their claims and ridiculed Henry himself. In December 1414, the English parliament was persuaded to grant Henry a "double subsidy", a tax at twice the traditional rate, to recover his inheritance from the French. On 19 April 1415, Henry again asked the great council to sanction war with France, and this time they did.
Henry's army landed in northern France on 13 August 1415 and besieged the port of Harfleur with an army of about 12,000. The siege took longer than expected. The town surrendered on 22 September, and the English army did not leave until 8 October. The campaign season was coming to an end, and the English army had suffered many casualties through disease. Henry decided to move most of his army (roughly 7,000) to the port of Calais, the English stronghold in northern France, where they could re-equip over the winter.
During the siege, the French had raised an army which assembled around Rouen. This was not a feudal army, as sometimes has been said, but an army paid through a system very similar to the English. The French hoped to raise 9,000 troops, but the army was not ready in time to relieve Harfleur. Then after Henry V marched to the north, the French moved to blockade them along the River Somme. They were successful for a time, forcing Henry to move south, away from Calais, to find a ford. The English finally crossed the Somme south of Péronne, at Béthencourt and Voyennes and resumed marching north. Without the river protection, the French were hesitant to force a battle. They shadowed Henry's army while calling a semonce des nobles, calling on local nobles to join the army. By October 24 both armies faced each other for battle, but the French declined, hoping for the arrival of more troops. The next day the French initiated negotiations as a delaying tactic, but Henry ordered his army to advance and to start a battle that, given the state of his army, he would have preferred to avoid. The English had very little food, had marched 260 miles in two-and-a-half weeks, were suffering from sickness such as dysentery, and faced much larger numbers of well equipped French men at arms. However Henry needed to get to the safety of Calais, and knew if he waited, the French would get more reinforcements.
The French suffered a catastrophic defeat, not just in terms of the sheer numbers killed, but also because of the number of high-ranking nobles lost. It took several years more campaigning, but Henry was eventually able to fulfil all his objectives. He was recognised by the French in the Treaty of Troyes (1420) as the regent and heir to the French throne. This was cemented by his marriage to Catherine of Valois, the daughter of King Charles VI.
Henry V and his troops were marching to Calais to embark for England when he was intercepted by French forces which outnumbered his. English effectiveness and readiness was questionable as a result of their prior manoeuvres consisting of an 18 day march across 250 miles of hostile territory under constant harassment. They suffered from dysentery and exhaustion, and were further hampered by inclement weather.
The lack of reliable and consistent sources makes it very difficult to accurately estimate the numbers on both sides. Most contemporary English sources have the English outnumbered by 10–1 or more. The Burgundian sources use numbers of 50,000 for the French, and 11,000 or 13,000 for the English. The other French sources include at least one which has the English army as slightly larger than the French. Another has the French "more than half again as numerous as the English".
Estimates used by recent historians vary from 6,000 to 9,000 for the English, and from about 12,000 to about 36,000 for the French. Anne Curry, basing her research on administrative records rather than contemporary chronicles, has recently argued that the odds were much less in favour of the French than traditionally thought, at about 4–3 (12,000 French to 9,000 English). The English were probably not outnumbered as badly as the legend would have it, however many modern British historians (for example, Juliet Barker,Christopher Hibbert) would still accept that they were outnumbered by 3–1 or more. In response to Curry's work, Barker has argued that the eyewitness accounts make no sense if the odds were as low as 4–3.
The battle was fought in the narrow strip of open land formed between the woods of Tramecourt and Agincourt (close to the modern village of Azincourt). The French army was positioned by d'Albret at the northern exit so as to bar the way to Calais. The night of 24 October was spent by the two armies on open ground.
Early on the 25th, Henry deployed his army (approximately 900 men-at-arms and 5,000 longbowmen the latter commanded by Thomas Erpingham) across a 750 yard part of the defile. (It has been argued that fresh men were brought in after the siege of Harfleur; however, other historians argue that this is wrong, and that although 9,200 English left Harfleur, after a 250 mile march and more sickness had set in, they were down to roughly 5,900 by the time of the battle.) It is likely that the English adopted their usual battle line of longbowmen on either flank, men-at-arms and knights in the centre, and at the very centre roughly 200 archers. The English men-at-arms in plate and mail were placed shoulder to shoulder four deep. The English archers on the flanks drove pointed wooden stakes called palings into the ground at an angle to force cavalry to veer off.
The English must have feared that they wouldn't get out alive. In fact, an English account describes the day before the battle as a day of remorse in which all soldiers cleansed themselves of their sins to avoid hell. The English nobles were lucky to be able to ransom themselves back if they were captured. French accounts state that, prior to the battle, Henry V gave a speech reassuring his nobles that if the French prevailed, the English nobles would be spared, to be captured and ransomed instead. However, the common soldier would have no such luck and therefore he told them they had better fight for their lives.
The French, on the other hand, were confident that they would prevail and were eager to fight. The French believed they would triumph over the English not only because their force was considerably larger, fresher and better equipped, but also because the large number of noble men-at-arms would have considered themselves superior to the large number of commoners (such as the longbowmen) in the English army. The English army contained approximately 1,000 men-at-arms; using the lowest detailed French estimate (the Herald of Berry), the French army contained 10,000 men-at-arms (1,200 of which were mounted). Provided they could close with the English army, the French would therefore have been confident that their much larger number of heavily armoured troops would prevail in hand-to-hand fighting. Another reason for impatience was that many had fathers and grandfathers who had been humiliated in previous battles such as Crecy and Poitiers, and the French nobility was determined to get revenge. Several French accounts emphasise that the French leaders were so eager to defeat the English that they insisted on being in the first line. For example: "All the lords wanted to be in the vanguard, against the opinion of the constable and the experienced knights".
The French were arrayed in three lines called "battles". Chronicler Jehan de Waurin says there were 8,000 men-at-arms, 4,000 archers and 1,500 crossbowmen in the vanguard, with two wings of 600 and 800 mounted men-at-arms, and the main battle having "as many knights, esquires and archers as in the vanguard", with the rearguard containing "all of the rest of the men-at-arms". The Herald of Berry uses somewhat different figures of 4,800 men-at-arms in the first line, 3,000 men in the second line, with two "wings" containing 600 mounted men-at-arms each, and a total of "10,000 men-at-arms". The Herald does not mention a third line.
There appear to have been thousands of troops in the rearguard, containing commoners who the French were either unable or unwilling to deploy. Waurin gives the total French army size as 50,000. He says: "They had plenty of archers and crossbowmen but nobody wanted to let them fire. The reason for this was that the site was so narrow that there was only enough room for the men-at-arms." Similarly the monk of Saint-Denis says "Four thousand of their best crossbowmen who ought to have marched in the front and begun the attack were found to not be at their post and it seems that they had been given permission to depart by the lords of the army on the pretext that they had no need of their help."
The rearguard played little or no part in the battle however, with English and French accounts agreeing that a significant proportion of the French army fled after seeing so many French nobles killed and captured in the fighting.
Arguably, the deciding factor for the outcome was the terrain. The narrow field of battle, recently ploughed land hemmed in by dense woodland, favoured the English. An analysis by Battlefield Detectives has looked at the crowd dynamics of the battlefield. The 900 English men-at-arms are described as shoulder to shoulder and four deep, which implies a tight line about 225 men long (perhaps split in two by a central group of archers). The remainder of the field would have been filled with the longbowmen behind their palings. The French first line contained between four and eight thousand men-at-arms, outnumbering the English men-at-arms at least four to one, but they had no way to outflank the English line. The French, divided into the three battles, one behind the other at their initial starting position, could not bring all their forces to bear: the initial engagement was between the English army and the first battle line of the French. When the second French battle line started their advance, the soldiers were pushed closer together and their effectiveness was reduced. Casualties in the front line from longbow fire would also have increased the congestion, as following men would have to walk around the fallen. The Battlefield Detectives state that when the density reached four men per square metre, soldiers would not even be able to take full steps forward, lowering the speed of the advance by 70%. Accounts of the battle describe the French engaging the English men-at-arms before being rushed from the sides by the longbowmen as the melée developed. The English account in the Gesta Henrici says: "For when some of them, killed when battle was first joined, fall at the front, so great was the undisciplined violence and pressure of the mass of men behind them that the living fell on top of the dead, and others falling on top of the living were killed as well". Although the French initially pushed the English back, they became so closely packed that they are described as having trouble using their weapons properly. The French monk of St. Denis says: "Their vanguard, composed of about 5,000 men, found itself at first so tightly packed that those who were in the third rank could scarcely use their swords.", and the Burgundian sources have a similar passage. In practice there was not enough room for all these men to fight, and they were unable to respond effectively when the English longbowmen joined the hand-to-hand fighting. By the time the second French line arrived, for a total of perhaps 8,000 men (depending on the source), the crush would have been even worse. The press of men arriving from behind actually hindered those fighting at the front.
As the battle was fought on a recently ploughed field, and there had recently been heavy rain leaving it very muddy, it proved very tiring to walk through in full plate armour. The French monk of St. Denis describes the French troops as "marching through the middle of the mud where they sank up to their knees. So they were already overcome with fatigue even before they advanced against the enemy". The deep, soft mud particularly favoured the English force because, once knocked to the ground, the heavily armoured French knights struggled to get back up to fight in the melée. Barker (2005) states that several knights, encumbered by their armour, actually drowned in it. Their limited mobility made them easy targets for the volleys from the English archers. The mud also increased the ability of the much more lightly armoured English archers to join in hand-to-hand fighting against the heavily armed French men-at-arms.
On the morning of the 25th the French were still waiting for additional troops to arrive. The Duke of Brabant, the Duke of Anjou and the Duke of Brittany, each commanding 1,000–2,000 fighting men, were all marching to join the army. This left the French with a question of whether or not to advance towards the English.
For three hours after sunrise there was no fighting. The French, knowing that the English were trapped, and perhaps aware of their previous failures attacking English prepared positions, would not attack. Henry would have known as well as the French did that his army would perform better in a defensive battle, but he was eventually forced to take a calculated risk, and move his army further forward. This entailed pulling out the palings (long stakes pointed outwards toward the enemy) which protected the longbowmen, and abandoning his chosen position. (The use of palings was an innovation: during the battles of Crecy and Poitiers, two similar engagements between the French and the English, the archers did not use them.) If the French cavalry had charged before the palings had been hammered back in, the result would probably have been disastrous for the English, as it was at the Battle of Patay. However the French seem to have been caught off guard by the English advance. The tightness of the terrain also seems to have restricted the planned deployment of their forces. A battle plan had originally been drawn up which had archers and crossbowmen in front of the men-at-arms, with a cavalry force at the rear specifically designed to "fall upon the archers, and use their force to break them". However in the event the archers and crossbowmen were deployed behind and to the sides of the men-at-arms, where they seem to have played almost no part in the battle, except possibly for an initial volley of arrows at the start of the battle. The cavalry force, which could have devastated the English line if it had attacked while they moved their position, only seems to have charged after the initial volley of arrows from the English. It is unclear if this is because the French were still hoping the English would launch a frontal assault themselves, or because they simply did not expect the English to advance at the exact moment they did. French chroniclers agree that when the mounted charge did come, it did not contain as many men as it should; Gilles le Bouvier states that some had wandered off to warm themselves and others were walking or feeding their horses.
In any case, within extreme bowshot from the French line (approximately 300 yards), the longbowmen dug in their palings, and then opened the engagement with a barrage of arrows.
The French cavalry, despite being somewhat disorganised and not at full numbers, charged the longbowmen, but it was a disaster, with the French knights unable to outflank the longbowmen (because of the encroaching woodland) and unable to charge through the palings that protected the archers. Keegan (1976) argues that the longbows' main influence on the battle was at this point: only armoured on the head, many horses would have become dangerously out of control when struck in the back or flank from the high-elevation shots used as the charge started. The effect of the mounted charge and then retreat was to further churn up the mud the French had to cross to reach the English. Barker (2005) quotes a contemporary account by a monk of St.Denis who reports how the panicking horses also galloped back through the advancing infantry, scattering them and trampling them down in their headlong flight. The Burgundian sources similarly say that the mounted men-at-arms retreated back into the advancing French vanguard, "causing great disarray and breaking the line in many places".
The constable himself led the attack of the dismounted French men-at-arms. French accounts describe their vanguard alone as containing about 5,000 men-at-arms, which would have outnumbered the English men-at-arms by about 5–1, but before they could engage in hand-to-hand fighting they had to cross the muddy field under a bombardment of arrows. The armour of the French men-at-arms is described by the Burgundian sources Jean Le Fevre and Jehan de Waurin as follows:
In addition, the French were so weighed down by armour that they could hardly move forward. First, they were armed with long coats of armour, stretching beyond their knees and being very heavy. Below these they had 'harnois de jambes' (leg armour) and above 'blans harnois ' (white i.e. polished armour). In addition they had 'bascinets de carvail'. So heavy were their arms that as the ground was so soft they could scarcely lift their weapons.
Such heavy armour allowed them to close the 300 yards or so to the English lines while being under what the French monk of Saint Denis described as "a terrifying hail of arrow shot". However they had to lower their visors and bend their heads to avoid being shot in the face (the eye and airholes in their helmets were some of the weakest points in the armour), which restricted both their breathing and their vision, and then they had to walk a few hundred yards through thick mud, wearing armour which weighed 50–60 pounds.
The French men-at-arms reached the English line and actually pushed it back, with the longbowmen continuing to fire until they ran out of arrows and then dropping their bows and joining the melée (which lasted about three hours), implying that the French were able to walk through the fire of tens of thousands of arrows while taking comparatively few casualties. The physical pounding even from non-penetrating arrows, combined with the slog in heavy armour through the mud, the heat and lack of oxygen in plate armour with the visor down, and the crush of their numbers, meant they could "scarcely lift their weapons" when they finally engaged the English line however.
When the English archers, using hatchets,swords and other weapons, attacked the now disordered and fatigued French, the French could not cope with their unarmoured assailants (who were much less hindered by the mud). The exhausted French men-at-arms are described as being knocked to the ground and then unable to get back up. As the melee developed, the French second line also joined the attack, but they too were swallowed up, with the narrow terrain meaning the extra numbers could not be used effectively, and French men-at-arms were taken prisoner or killed in their thousands. The fighting lasted about three hours, but eventually the leaders of the second line were killed or captured, as those of the first line had been. The English Gesta Henrici describes three great heaps of the slain "which had risen above a man's height" around the three main English standards.
One of the best anecdotes of the battle involves Humphrey,Duke of Gloucester, Henry V's youngest brother. According to the story, Henry, upon hearing that his brother had been wounded in the abdomen, took his household guard and cut a path through the French, standing over his brother and beating back waves of soldiers until Humphrey could be dragged to safety.
The only French success was a sally from Agincourt Castle behind the lines attacking the lightly protected English baggage train, with Ysembart d'Azincourt (leading a small number of men-at-arms and about 600 peasants) seizing some of Henry's personal treasures, including a crown. In some accounts this happened towards the end of the battle, and led the English to think they were being attacked from the rear. Barker (2005) prefers the Gesta Henrici however, believed to have been written by an English chaplain who was actually in the baggage train, who says that the attack happened at the start of the battle.
Regardless, there was definitely a point after the initial English victory where Henry became alarmed that the French were regrouping for another attack. The Gesta Henrici puts this after the English had overcome the onslaught of the French men-at-arms, and the weary English troops were eyeing the French rearguard ("in incomparable number and still fresh"). Le Fevre and Waurin similarly say that it was signs of the French rearguard regrouping and "marching forward in battle order" which made the English think they were still in danger.
In any event, Henry ordered the slaughter of what was perhaps several thousand French prisoners, with only the most illustrious being spared. His fear was that they would rearm themselves with the weapons strewn upon the field, and the exhausted English (who had been fighting for about three hours) would be overwhelmed. This was certainly ruthless, but arguably justifiable given the situation of the battle; perhaps surprisingly, even the French chroniclers do not criticise him for this. This marked the end of the battle, as the French rearguard, having seen so many of the French nobility captured and killed, fled the battlefield.
Due to a lack of reliable sources it is impossible to give a precise figure for the French and English casualties. However, it is clear that though the English were considerably outnumbered, their losses were far lower than those of the French. The French sources all give 4,000–10,000 French dead, with up to 1,600 English dead. The lowest ratio in these French sources has the French losing six times more dead than the English. The English sources vary between about 1,500 and 11,000 for the French dead, with English dead put at no more than 100. The lowest ratio in the English sources has the French losing more than fifty times more dead than the English.
Barker identifies from the available records "at least" 112 Englishmen who died in the fighting (including Edward of Norwich,2nd Duke of York, a grandson of Edward III), but this excludes the wounded. One fairly widely used estimate puts the English casualties at 450, not an insignificant number in an army of 6,000, but far less than the thousands the French lost, nearly all of whom were killed or captured. Using the lowest French estimate of their own dead of 4,000 would imply a ratio of nearly 9–1 in favour of the English, or over 10–1 if the prisoners are included.
The French suffered heavily. The constable, three dukes, five counts and 90 barons all died. Estimates of the number of prisoners vary between 700 and 2,200, amongst them the Duke of Orleans (the famous poet Charles d'Orléans) and Jean le Maingre,Marshal of France. Almost all these prisoners would have been nobles, as the less valuable prisoners were slaughtered.
Notable casualties
Antoine of Burgundy,Duke of Brabant and Limburg (b. 1384)
Philip of Burgundy, Count of Nevers and Rethel (b. 1389)
Charles I d'Albret,Count of Dreux, the Constable of France
John II,Count of Bethune (b. 1359)
John I,Duke of Alencon (b. 1385)
Frederick of Lorraine,Count of Vaudemont (b. 1371)
Robert,Count of Marles and Soissons
Edward III of Bar (the Duchy of Bar lost its independence as a consequence of his death)
John VI,Count of Roucy
Edward of Norwich,2nd Duke of York (b. 1373)
Michael de la Pole,3rd Earl of Suffolk
When Sir Peers Legh was wounded, his mastiff stood over him and protected him for many hours through the battle. Although Legh later died, the mastiff returned to Legh's home and became the forefather of the Lyme Park mastiffs. Five centuries later, this pedigree figured prominently in founding the modern English Mastiff breed.
Until recently, Agincourt has been fêted as one of the greatest victories in English military history. But, in Agincourt, A New History (2005),Anne Curry contradicts what previous historians have argued, and other contemporary Agincourt historians continue to argue; in Curry's view, the scale of the English triumph at Agincourt has been overstated for almost six centuries.
Basing her research on contemporary administrative records rather than chronicles, Curry estimates that the French still outnumbered the English, but at worst only by a factor of three to two (12,000 Frenchmen against 7,000 to 9,000 Englishmen). According to Curry, the Battle of Agincourt was a "myth constructed around Henry to build up his reputation as a king". The legend of the English as underdogs at Agincourt was given credence in popular English culture with William Shakespeare's Henry V in 1599. In the speech before the battle, Shakespeare puts in the mouth of Henry V the famous words, "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers," immediately after numbering English troops at twelve thousand, versus sixty thousand Frenchman. (Westmoreland: "Of fighting men they have full three-score thousand." Exeter: "There's five to one ..." (Act IV, scene 3). Shakespeare equally overstated the French and understated the English casualties as well; at the end (Act IV, Scene 8), when Henry's herald delivers the death toll, the numbers are 10,000 French dead and just "five and twenty" English. (The well known Olivier film version of 1944 has this as "five and twenty score" i.e. 500, which is closer to the modern estimate of casualties.)
Juliet Barker in Agincourt: The King, the Campaign, the Battle (published slightly after A New History) argues the English and Welsh were outnumbered "at least four to one and possibly as much as six to one". She prefers the figures given by Jehan de Waurin who is relatively detailed about the French army, and suggests figures of about 6,000 for the English and 36,000 for the French, "based on [Waurin's] suggestion that the French were six times more numerous than the English". Curry's book was published too late to significantly influence Barker's work. In the Acknowledgements, however, while paying tribute to Curry's scholarship, Barker says: "Surviving administrative records on both sides, but especially the French, are simply too incomplete to support her assertion that nine thousand English were pitted against an army only twelve thousand strong. And if the differential really was as low as three to four then this makes a nonsense of the course of the battle as described by eyewitnesses and contemporaries."
Many documentaries about the Battle of Agincourt use the figures of about 6,000 English and 36,000 French, with a French superiority in numbers of 6–1. The 1911 Encylopædia Britannica puts the English at 6,000 archers, 1,000 men-at-arms and "a few thousands of other foot", with the French outnumbering them by "at least four times". Other historians put the English numbers at 6,000 and the French numbers at 20,000–30,000, which would also be consistent with the English being outnumbered 4–1. Curry is currently alone among scholars in English in putting the odds at significantly less than this, although she is also the only one to have relied primarily on administrative records when estimating the odds (rather than contemporary accounts). However, Curry does not include the numbers of armed French locals who answered the call to arms (for which there is little good documentary evidence to provide a precise figure).
Notes of the English Longbow A longbow is a type of bow that is tall (roughly equal to the height of a person who uses it), is not significantly recurved and has relatively narrow limbs, that are circular or D-shaped in cross section. It will normally allow its user a fairly long draw, at least to the jaw; the average length of the Mary Rose arrowshafts is 75 cm (30 inches). Organizations which run archery competitions have set out formal definitions for the various classes; many definitions of the longbow (see links section) would exclude some medieval examples, materials, and techniques of use. According to the British Longbow Society, the English longbow is made so that its thickness is at least ⅝ (62.5%) of its width, as in Victorian longbows, and is widest at the handle. This differs from the Medieval longbow, which had a thickness between 33% and 40% of the width. Also, the Victorian longbow does not bend throughout the entire length, as does the medieval longbow. Longbows have been used for hunting and warfare, by many cultures around the world, a famous example being the English longbow, during the Middle ages.
Traditional longbows are self bows, made from a single natural piece of wood. They have been used for thousands of years, for hunting and warfare by, among others,Nubians,Kurds,Arabs,Native American tribes such as the Cherokee, South American tribes like the Bari,Indians at the time of Alexander, African tribes such as the Bassa, and Europeans since Mesolithic times. As a hunting weapon, longbows are simple, reliable and capable of taking game as large as African elephants. As a weapon of war the longbow has been instrumental to several cultures. Worldwide the average power for bows of all designs is about 220 newtons (50 pounds) at 70 cm (28 inches) of draw which is suitable for most hunting applications. Bows for warfare tend to be much more powerful, with the most powerful bows being the English longbow and the African elephant bow, both of which topped the 900 N (200-pound) at 80 cm (32 inches) mark. Many men in medieval England were capable of shooting bows from 670–900 N (150–200 pounds) — deformed skeletons of archers have been studied, revealing spur like growths on their bones where the over-developed muscles pulled. However, these men did train daily from a very young age and their lives depended on being able to use such powerful bows. There are modern day examples of men who are quite capable of shooting these bows so, doing so is possible. Mark Stretton currently holds the world record for shooting a 900 N (200 pound) longbow.
In ancient Japan, very distinctive long bamboo and wood laminated bows, known as yumi, became important to mounted Samurai warfare. Modern Japanese archery (called kyudo or kyujutsu) still uses this style of bow. Modern yumi can be made of fibreglass or carbon-fibre, as well as of the traditional wood/bamboo laminate. Yumi are recurved bows, and have the unusual characteristic of being off-center. That is, the lower arm of the bow is shorter than the upper arm; this is useful when the bow is used from horseback, so that the archer can turn without the bottom of the bow hitting the horse.
In the Middle Ages the Welsh and the English were famous for their very heavy, long-ranged English longbows, used to great effect in the civil wars of the period and against the French in the Hundred Years' War (with notable success at the battles of Crecy (1346), Poitiers (1356) and Agincourt (1415)).
Although firearms supplanted bows in warfare, wooden or fibreglass laminated longbows continue to be used by traditional archers and some tribal societies, for recreation and hunting. A longbow has practical advantages compared to a modern recurve or compound bow, it is usually lighter, quicker to prepare for shooting, and shoots more quietly. However, other things being equal, the modern bow will shoot a faster arrow more accurately than the longbow.
Because the longbow can be made from a single piece of wood, it can be crafted relatively easily and quickly. Amateur bowyers today can craft a longbow in about ten to twenty hours, while highly skilled bowyers, such as those who produced medieval English Longbows, can craft wooden longbows in just a few hours.
One of the simpler longbow designs is known as the self bow. By definition, a self bow is made from a single piece of wood. Truly traditional English longbows are self bows, made from yew wood. The bowstave is cut from the radius of the tree so that the sapwood (on the outside of the tree) becomes the back two thirds and the belly, the remaining one third, is heartwood. Yew sapwood is good only in tension, while the heartwood is good in compression. However, one must make compromises when making a yew longbow, as it is difficult to find perfect unblemished yew. The demand for yew bowstaves was such that by the late 1500s, mature yew trees were almost extinct in northern Europe. In other desirable woods such as Osage orange and Mulberry the sapwood is almost useless and is normally removed entirely.
Longbows, because of their narrow limbs and rounded cross-section (which does not spread out stress within the wood as evenly as a flatbow’s rectangular cross section), need to be either less powerful, longer or of more elastic wood than an equivalent flatbow. In Europe the latter approach was used, with yew being the wood of choice, because of its high compressive strength, light weight and elasticity. Yew is the only widespread European timber that will make good self longbows, and has been the main wood used in European bows since Neolithic times. More common and cheaper hard woods, like elm, oak, ash, hazel or maple are good for flatbows. A narrow longbow with high draw-weight can be made from these woods, but it is likely to take a permanent bend (known as "set" or "following the string") and would likely be outshot by an equivalent made of yew.
Wooden laminated longbows can be made by gluing together two or more different pieces of wood. Usually this is done to take advantage of the inherent properties of different woods: some woods can better withstand compression while others are better at withstanding tension. Examples include hickory and lemonwood or bamboo and yew longbows: hickory or bamboo is used on the back of the bow (the part facing away from the archer when shooting) and so is in tension, while the belly (the part facing the archer when shooting) is made of lemonwood or yew and undergoes compression . Traditionally made Japanese yumi are also laminated long bows, made from strips of wood: the core of the bow is bamboo, the back and belly are bamboo or hardwood and hardwood strips are laminated to the bows sides to prevent twisting.
Today, good laminated longbows may be made of wood or can be purchased commercially. Any wooden bow must have gentle treatment and be protected from excessive damp or dryness. Wooden bows may shoot as well as fiberglass, but they are more easily dented or broken by abuse. Bows made of modern materials can be left strung for longer amounts of time than wood bows. Wooden bows should be unstrung immediately after use to avoid large amounts of set.
The arming sword (also sometimes called a knight's or knightly sword) is the single handed cruciform sword of the High Middle Ages, in common use between ca. 1000 and 1350, possibly remaining in rare use into the 16th century. Arming swords correspond to Oakeshott types XI, XII and XIII and are generally considered to be descendant from the migration period or Viking swords. A combination of the Oakeshott and Peterson Typologies shows a chronological progression from the Viking sword to the "transitional sword", which incorporated elements of both Viking and arming swords. The "transitional sword" continued to evolve into to the presently defined arming sword. Arming swords were normally forged using the pattern welding "braiding" method normally used during the time period, making them excellent weapons.
Typically used with a shield or buckler, the arming sword was the standard military sword of the knight (merely called a "war sword", an ambiguous title given to many types of swords carried for battle) until technological changes led to the rise of the longsword in the late 13th century. There are many texts and pictures depicting effective arming sword combat without the benefit of a shield. According to Medieval texts, in the absence of a shield the empty (normally left) hand could be used for grabbing or grappling opponents. The arming sword was overall a light, versatile weapon capable of both cut and thrust combat; and normally boasts excellent balance. Although a variety of designs fall under the heading of 'arming sword', they are most commonly recognized as single-handed double-edged swords that were designed more for cutting than thrusting. Possessing wider and heavier blades than the Victorian small sword, modern scholars have often erroneously classified them as .
It is a common weapon in period artwork, and there are many surviving examples in museums. The arming sword was worn by a knight even when not in armor, and he would be considered 'undressed' for public if he were without it. The first longswords were actually little more than two-handed arming swords, but the difference in length grew substantially as time passed. Long after these larger weapons came into use, the arming sword was retained as a common sidearm, eventually evolving into the cut & thrust swords of the Renaissance.
Arming swords are sometimes incorrectly referred to as longswords or broadswords (the former actually refers to a long-bladed two-handed sword and the latter to a type of broad-bladed basket-hilted sword popular in the 17th and 18th centuries).