Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
peterleeson.com
Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
1–10 of 180 posts
Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
#2I don't know, maybe because bow is a peasants' weapon, and France had knigts?
Western Europe had its share of stupidity, like kings leading charges instead of commanding battles on a tactical level.
Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
#3An apparent preprint: http://www.peterleeson.com/Longbow.pdf
Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
#4An apparent preprint: http://www.peterleeson.com/Longbow.pdf
Ok, we changed the URL to that from http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/684231.
Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
#5I don't know, maybe because bow is a peasants' weapon, and France had knigts ? Western Europe had its share of stupidity, like kings leading charges instead of commanding battles on a tactical level.
"I don't know, maybe because bow is a peasants' weapon, and France had knigts?"
If you read the abstract (I'm not saying you didn't), you'll see that this is what they are saying. The TL;DR version is that using longbows meant training peasants, which will pose internal security problems. England was more stable at this time so it was less dangerous for them to train peasants to fight.
Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
#6I don't know, maybe because bow is a peasants' weapon, and France had knigts ? Western Europe had its share of stupidity, like kings leading charges instead of commanding battles on a tactical level.
from the abstract:
Rulers choosing between missile technologies thus confronted a trade-off with respect to internal and external security.
England alone in late medieval Europe was sufficiently politically stable to allow its rulers the first-best technology option. In France and Scotland political instability prevailed, constraining rulers in these nations to the crossbow.
Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
#7Great paper. Nice to see the authors include Edward III's compulsory practice longbow after church on Sundays for two hours.
Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
#8I 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 (unstable) central government and have an even easier road to glory against their own technologically inferior king.
I admittedly did not read carefully the whole paper, but this possibility does not seem to be addressed.
Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
#9Great paper. Nice to see the authors include Edward III's compulsory practice longbow after church on Sundays for two hours.
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Re: Why didn't France adopt the longbow like England did?
#10Kevin Hicks is a great resource on the longbow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvKJcxa8x_g
He is also very knowledgeable about all things from this period of history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUYd6pNy6QU
There is also some more detail regarding the make up of the "English" army bowmen here: http://www.bowyers.com/bowyery_longbowOrigins.php
Sidenote:
- Bowyer: Makes the bow
- Fletcher: Makes the arrow
- Stringfellow: Makes the string
- Arrowsmith: Makes the arrowhead