THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES 58
The English and their Enemies
6.1. The English and their Enemies
A.D. 1272–1485
From the accession of Edward I to the end of the Wars of the Roses.
The use of the long-bow is as much the key to the successes of the English armies in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as that of the pike is to the successes of the Swiss. Dissimilar as were the characters of the two weapons, and the national tactics to which their use led, they were both employed for the same end of terminating the ascendancy in war of the mailed horseman of the feudal régime. It is certainly not the least curious part of the military history of the period, that the commanders who made such good use of their archery, had no conception of the tendencies of their action. Edward the Black Prince and his father regarded themselves as the flower of chivalry, and would have been horrified had they realised that their own tactics were going far to make chivalrous warfare impossible. Such, however, was the case: that unscientific kind of combat which resembled a huge tilting match could not continue, if one side persisted in bringing into the field auxiliaries who could prevent their opponents from approaching near enough to break a lance. The needs of the moment, however, prevented the English commanders being troubled by such thoughts; they made the best use of the material at their disposal, and if they thus found themselves able to beat the enemy, they were satisfied.
It is not till the last quarter of the thirteenth century that we find the long-bow taking up its position as the national weapon of England. In the armies of our Norman and Angevin kings archers were indeed to be found, but they formed neither the most numerous nor the most effective part of the array. On this side of the Channel, just as beyond it, the supremacy of the mailed horseman was still unquestioned. It is indeed noteworthy that the theory which attributes to the Normans the introduction of the long-bow is difficult to substantiate. If we are to trust the Bayeux Tapestry--whose accuracy is in other matters thoroughly borne out by all contemporary evidence--the weapon of William’s archers was in no way different to that already known in England, and used by a few of the English in the fight of Senlac. It is the short-bow, drawn to the breast and not to the ear. The bowmen who are occasionally mentioned during the succeeding century, as, for example, those present at the Battle of the Standard, do not appear to form any very important part of the national force.
Nothing can be more conclusive as to the insignificance of the weapon than the fact that it is not mentioned at all in the Assize of Arms of 1181. In the reign of Henry II, therefore, we may fairly conclude that the bow did not form the proper weapon of any class of English society. A similar deduction is suggested by Richard Cœur de Lion’s predilection for the arbalest: it is impossible that he should have introduced that weapon as a new and superior arm, if he had been acquainted with the splendid long-bow of the fourteenth century. It is evident that the bow must always preserve an advantage in rapidity of fire over the arbalest; the latter must therefore have been considered by Richard to surpass in range and penetrating power. But nothing is better established than the fact that the trained archer of the Hundred Years’ War was able to beat the cross-bowmen on both these points. It is, therefore, rational to conclude that the weapon superseded by the arbalest was merely the old short-bow, which had been in constant use since Saxon times.
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