BOOK REVIEW - 'THE LONGBOW' by Mike Loades

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Dennis La Varenne
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BOOK REVIEW - 'THE LONGBOW' by Mike Loades

#1 Post by Dennis La Varenne » Tue Dec 24, 2013 5:22 pm

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I bought 2 copies of this book on spec while browsing through some eBay trad archery sites, not knowing who Mike Loades was (until later) and wondering what he would know about the traditional English Longbow. I like to buy second copies of interesting books in case the one is lost or damaged and it ceases print runs.

Mike Loades, as it turns out, is that oft-summoned ebullient, enthusiastic 'weapons' expert so often seen on BBC docos to do with Mediaeval Europe and even back to Roman Europe. He also features on 'thousands' of YouTube sites on the same topic. Just put Mike Loades into its search engine and you will see what I mean.

In this book, printed for the first time this year, Loades gives one of, if not the best analysis of the English Longbow, its accoutrements, its use and capabilities that I have read so far. Hardy and Strickland's 'The Great Warbow' and Hardy's 'Longbow - A Social and Military History' notwithstanding, this little A4 sized paperback book of only 80 pages, Loades treats the subject with an uncommon amount of common sense analysis despite an obvious infatuation with the subject which he clearly does not allow to overshadow his analysis.

The contents page is sparse to say the least and gives no indication of the amount of background knowledge and research he has clearly devoted to a fraught subject, whose times and usage are perhaps more obscured by myth than fact or where that is not discoverable.

By a common sense approach based on the idea that if 'X' was the objective, what you require of 'Y' to achieve it in the most efficient way practicable, he utilises this approach throughout the book with some surprising and challenging speculations where no proof is available, and some sound reasons as to why when the evidence is clearly present.

One is caught out at times with the significance of an idea he raises when he discusses the types of body armour used against sword, lance and arrow strike and its efficacy, and how arrow heads changed in design and metallurgy as body armour changed.

He discusses at length for instance the real likelihood of just how many archers could actively and continuously draw the massive bows used in combat and how it is probable that contrary to popular belief, far from most yeomen archers could do so in real life – that all men were NOT created equal in strength and ability to use the longbow – and that the statutes enjoining men of a certain age to practice archery on Sundays and Holy days (aka holidays) resulted in a pool of competent archers from which to draw a militia rather than to try to create a standing equally armed and competent standing pool of archers. He suggests that statute often had a benefit not so much from its stated intent but often from unintended consequence.

The other fraught subject about whether or not the English Longbow had recurved tips is likewise discussed. He correctly points out that there is no serious evidence to suggest anywhere that such bows were ever put into use by English armies. However, English archers were well known and sought after mercenaries in their off-season and many depictions of them arrayed with recurves ended long bows abound. But as Loades points out that in many of these pictures, these archers are arrayed in the colours of the Duke of Burgundy and other central European states which did use long bows with recurved ends and which were supplied by that state to its mercenary archers – hence the confusion and misplaced debate.

Using Loades approach, if one were to arm a large proportion of its available manpower with bows, most of which were made to order for the Crown in their tens if not hundreds of thousands (enough to ruin the Yew Forests of Europe for another several centuries), would one waste time and effort on the time-consuming work of recurving bow ends for the very marginal gain in performance it permitted.

Also, as required by law, archers were required to array themselves with a certain amount of self-supplied equipment depending upon their annual income. Loades then goes on to discuss the cost of each article of kit a Yeoman archer may have to fork out for his equipment and, surprise, surprise – how hugely expensive it was to purchase a sheaf of 24 arrows. Using comparisons, he goes on to suggest that a sheaf of arrows would likely cost our Yeoman a full week’s wages making arrows one of the most expensive missile weapons ever used in battle.

He extrapolates from there to how it would then be more than likely that battlefield retrievals would have been the norm and broken arrows would likely have been ‘pieced’ together again by what we know as ‘footing’. They were just too expensive to throw away or leave behind if at all retrievable.

Likewise, he covers the making of the arrows and the glues used which often contained copper compounds leading to some current thinking that this was a deliberate attempt at poisoning opponents. This hypothesis does not receive too much serious discussion because there is far more evidence against it than for.

Something I did not know was that the heads were not glued or pinned in place, but rather were heated by the fletcher and scorched onto the cone. They were meant to come off easily leaving a dirty infection promoting foreign object inside a wound while allowing easy retrieval of the very expensive arrow shaft.

The copper compounds used in fletchery were more an attempt at keeping bugs from eating the feathers and whipping hence ruining hundreds of thousands of arrows whilst in storage in the Tower than trying to poison an opponent by administering sub-toxic doses of copper glue into their bodies if they were unlucky enough for the shaft to even penetrate that far.

At any rate, from the above, readers should be able to get a grasp of the methodology employed by Loades in his book. I found Hardy’s first book somewhat of a flag-waver and his and mainly Strickland’s monumental tome on the Great Warbow more for the academician and which wound a rather tortuous course through the whole gamut of mediaeval archery.

This little book of Loade’s is direct and to the point without being particularly academic in its approach.

Recommended reading indeed. It is now out in its second edition this year already.
Dennis La Varénne

Have the courage to argue your beliefs with conviction, but the humility to accept that you may be wrong.

QVIS CVSTODIET IPSOS CVSTODES (Who polices the police?) - DECIMVS IVNIVS IVVENALIS (Juvenal) - Satire VI, lines 347–8

What is the difference between free enterprise capitalism and organised crime?

HOMO LVPVS HOMINIS - Man is his own predator.

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Roadie
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Re: BOOK REVIEW - 'THE LONGBOW' by Mike Loades

#2 Post by Roadie » Tue Dec 24, 2013 6:20 pm

Dennis have you red " A Crooked Stick", by Hugh Saur. An interesting book. Cheers Roadie.

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Gringa Bows
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Re: BOOK REVIEW - 'THE LONGBOW' by Mike Loades

#3 Post by Gringa Bows » Tue Dec 24, 2013 8:59 pm

Looks interesting Dennis :biggrin:

Dennis La Varenne
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Joined: Sun Sep 07, 2003 10:56 pm
Location: Tocumwal, NSW. Australia

Re: BOOK REVIEW - 'THE LONGBOW' by Mike Loades

#4 Post by Dennis La Varenne » Tue Dec 24, 2013 9:22 pm

Roadie,

Yes, I have read it, but not with nearly a much enthusiasm. I do not mean that to be churlish, but I thought Hugh Soar suffers the same kind of affliction which Robert Hardy does on this topic. I really did not learn much I didn't already know from Soar. Most of us are just as enthusiastic on the topic as these two gentlemen, but hard facts and seriously considered working and reasonably testable hypotheses on the artifacts of those times are hard to come by.

I have tried to approach the subject from the point of view of lean logistics and utility to try to work out how and why things were done and I found that Loades does similarly, viz. if something is necessary, what is the best way to achieve it with the minimum of effort and waste materials, or, if something doesn't actually contribute to function or utility, why would you incorporate it. Are there sociological or cultural reasons for its incorporation into the technology for instance.

I love these bows and have always done, but I try to see past my own enthusiasm which is a main reason why clues to a subject are often missed or dismissed, or worse, accepted uncritically.

Rod,
Yes it is interesting and not hard to keep going back to as a source reference for good explanations of the how and whys of those times.
Dennis La Varénne

Have the courage to argue your beliefs with conviction, but the humility to accept that you may be wrong.

QVIS CVSTODIET IPSOS CVSTODES (Who polices the police?) - DECIMVS IVNIVS IVVENALIS (Juvenal) - Satire VI, lines 347–8

What is the difference between free enterprise capitalism and organised crime?

HOMO LVPVS HOMINIS - Man is his own predator.

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