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Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?

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Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?

#71

Post by vacri »

notahacker wrote: post #39
gobbo wrote: post #8

I see a possible problem with this theory: in few words, according to the authors the French and Scots did not adopt the longbow for fear of rebellion. Still the nobles participated to the very battles that saw them being defeated by the English and their longbow. If the longbow was cheap and relatively easy to adopt, a noble aspiring to the crown would have been able to develop the technology independently from the…

There's another major problem: preventing peasants from being a threat whilst still yielding some benefit from the longbow could easily have been achieved by restricting archery training to nobles and selected privileged guards, who had more time and inclination towards military training than the peasantry anyway. This would have resulted in less firepower than the English mass armies, but far more than the crossbows…

Your alternate theory is particularly interesting. We forget that in days gone by, technology spread with difficulty, and certain crafts had their knowledge particularly well-hoarded. It's one thing to say "you make a longbow from a yew tree in this manner", and another to actually do it effectively. Even if you had a few people who knew technology X in the local population, they may not have wanted to share that knowledge for fear of diluting their own power and prestige, regardless of what Mr King wanted.

Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?

#73

Post by kd0amg »

ajuc wrote: post #45
Kurtz79 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide a concrete example ? I really can't see this assumption made anywhere in the paper.

> For over a century the longbow reigned as undisputed king of medieval European missile weapons. Yet only England used the longbow as a mainstay in its military arsenal; France and Scotland clung to the technologically inferior cross- bow. > England alone, for a 150-year window in late medieval Europe, was politically stable enough to render the longbow its rulers’ optimal technology choice. In contrast, in France a…

Saying "Goofus does X; by contrast, Gallant does Y" is not suggesting these are the only two humans in the entire world.

Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?

#74

Post by lambda »

mhd wrote: post #51
lambda wrote: post #33

I think that the way this paper discusses on the longbow as being the superior weapon may obscure a key fact here. Man for man, a crossbow is a superior weapon; requires less skill to operate, has longer range, much easier to aim, better penetrating power. The main advantage of a longbow is how simple and cheap it is. Speed of reloading is another advantage the longbow has, but I think this article overstates it. Whi…

Actually, some papers written about crossbows seriously doubt that the penetrating power was that much better -- if at all. The poundage certainly was, but it had to be -- crossbow arms are short and the arrow doesn't travel as long, thus less time is available to transfer energy. And "large populace" makes it sound like they just handed out crossbows to peasant levies, instead of them being very highly paid mercenar…

Hmm. I'd be interested in seeing your source for that. Yes, the power imparted to the arrow is the integral of the poundage supplied by the bow or prod, over the distance that it is propelling the arrow, and that distance is shorter on a crossbow than a longbow. But you can have a much higher poundage and still be usable with a crossbow; you have two arms to draw together, and are supporting none of the draw weight while aiming. I've seen the analysis of draw weights of longbows on the Mary Rose; do you know where there are sources for that of crossbows?

And yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like they were just handing out longbows. Longbows do require significantly more training. In part, the tradeoff for longbows is that you have cheaper weapons but need to put more into training the archers.

Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?

#75

Post by vacri »

Wildgoose wrote: post #56
arethuza wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, England did have the distinct advantage of being the largest power on an island - while they didn't manage to conquer the Scots the Scots weren't really much of a threat to them. So they got a certain amount of stability largely through geography.

Not strictly true - Cromwell conquered Scotland after yet another of the interminable invasions of England by Scotland. It was more a case that after Edward I, England simply wasn't interested in conquering Scotland - there were richer prizes elsewhere.

Cromwell comes after the age of longbows, though.

Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?

#76

Post by lambda »

razzaj wrote: post #61
lambda wrote: post #33

I think that the way this paper discusses on the longbow as being the superior weapon may obscure a key fact here. Man for man, a crossbow is a superior weapon; requires less skill to operate, has longer range, much easier to aim, better penetrating power. The main advantage of a longbow is how simple and cheap it is. Speed of reloading is another advantage the longbow has, but I think this article overstates it. Whi…

In fact http://www.bowyers.com/bowyery_longbowOrigins.php says the contrary to what you are claiming, and in their account of the Cercy battle they clearly mention how the longbow outranged, and out-powered the crossbow (look for paragraph "Crecy 1346: the Longbow's Finest Day"). Excerpt 1: "The crossbowmen had a lethal range of up to about 80 yards, and took up an initial position 100 yards from the English, in line…

According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cr%C3%A9cy#The_Frenc..., and of course take with the same grain of salt applied to anything on Wikipedia, I don't have the sources on hand to cross check):

  The French army moved forward late in the afternoon, around 
  4pm after it had formed up. As it advanced, a sudden 
  rainstorm broke over the field of battle. The English 
  archers de-strung their bows to avoid the strings becoming 
  damaged; the Genoese with their crossbows could take no 
  such precautions, resulting in damage to their weapons.[26] 
  The crossbowmen began their advance, however they had left 
  their pavises back in the baggage train, and thus had no 
  means of protection as they loaded their weapons.[27][28] 
  The Genoese moved within range and discharged their 
  weapons. Damaged by the rain, the slackened crossbows had 
  little effect on the English line. The English archers shot 
  their bows in retaliation, inflicting heavy casualties on 
  the Genoese, causing them to retreat. The knights and 
  nobles following in Alençon's division, seeing the routed 
  mercenaries, hacked them down as they retreated. Froissart 
  writes of the event:

    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 wet crossbows. They told 
    the constable that they were not in a fit condition to do 
    any great things that day in battle. The Count of 
    Alençon, hearing this, was reported to say, "This is what 
    one gets by employing such scoundrels, who fail when 
    there is any need for them."[29]
So, it doesn't sound like the crossbows were in pristine condition. Rather, their range was limited by the fact that their strings had gotten wet, while the relatively simpler (and easier to string) longbows were able to be protected from the rainstorm.

Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?

#77

Post by mirod1 »

ezzaf wrote: post #27
gobbo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I read that, and of course it is possible. Nevertheless the fact that the centralized government was unstable and news would not travel too fast makes me think that it is a bit strange nobody tried it in 150 years. The maps of France they present also shows that lots of territories would not recognize the French crown for long time. Those could have developed the technology and either take over the throne or giv…

One of the notes does actually address this point: 23 At the battle of Courtrai, for instance, the small principality of Flanders was able to muster an army of archers larger than the army of the entire kingdom of France, which consisted of knights and men-at-arms (Rogers 1993, p. 252). In this sense, a weapon like the longbow allows for the military enfranchisement of commoners, which institutionally constrains the…

Actually the descriptions of the battle I have seen do not mention archers.

Rather it looks like a militia on foot was able to defeat a cavalry-based army by choosing (and preparing) the battlefield. It seems that both armies used crossbows, and that actually the French did better with them.

References: http://www.liebaart.org/slag_e.htm http://www.military-history.org/articles/the-battle-of-court...

Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?

#78

Post by lambda »

ajuc wrote: post #63
Kurtz79 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I read those, but I still don't see the assumption made. The first more general sentence does not imply that the all the countries mentioned in the second make up the entirety of Europe. It makes sense that the author would make a specific comparison with the countries involved in the war, rather than doing so for all the countries in medieval Europe.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this. It's just that I disagree with both sentences. Mongol composite bows were superior ranged weapons and were used in Europe since 14th century. And there were other politicaly stable countries in that period, including Teutonic Order, Poland, Venetian Republic among others.

Like the difference between crossbows and longbows, they were superior in some ways and inferior in others.

Since they were composite, they were dependent on glue and cord holding them together; they were somewhat more susceptible to weather. They were also more expensive to produce. However, as recurves they had better power with less stacking (force required to hold them at a full draw), and they were also shorter so could be used from horseback, a huge advantage for a nomadic people on the steppes.

Your point is well taken, however, that the paper is really only comparing a very limited portion of Europe over a fairly limited amount of time. It's an interesting analysis, but I don't think it has enough data or broad enough application to make it definitive.

Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?

#79

Post by matwood »

thearn4 wrote: post #50
zhte415 wrote: post #30

tl;dr: The abstract does a wonderful job. It is will worth reading. Longbow was cheap and technically superior, but required training. Crossbow more expensive, required less training. Rulers of England less worried about rebellion, OK to invest in training. Rulers of France/Scotland not so happy because of fear to give potential of overthrow to the people (Scotland not in title, but in article along with France). Per…

If I remember correctly (and I'm still looking for a better source than this[1]), the Duke Of Wellington had requested a corps of longbowmen be made ready for use against the French in the Napoleonic wars, but was advised that no one with the skill needed to train them still existed (the training being the most difficult part of the technology). The last use of trained english longbowmen seemed to have been by some o…

> the art of dogfighting was deemed to have been lost for a brief period between WWII and the air war over Vietnam, and had to be re-engineered.

That's the premise laid out at the start of the Top Gun movie. That the Top Gun school was created to bring back the art of dogfighting.

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