Hi, my name is Kevin Hicks and welcome to my YouTube channel the History Squad.
Now what we're looking at today is basically what a medieval bowman would have carried in his pouch,
in his bag yeah, as well as his longbow and his arrows so let's have a look shall we? First of all
my bow, this is nearly seven foot long it's uh, it's so much part of me yeah? And I can imagine
in medieval times you would become attached to your bow, but once it was snapped it's firewood
yeah, so you have to get used to that I've always got a bow in waiting just to let you know that and
of course a sheaf of arrows yeah, that’s 24. Now there are varying accounts that when you turned up
at your um rendezvous point in England you had to have 20 uh 24 arrows, one sheaf of arrows,
and then you were issued with the second one when you're on campaign, so you carried 48 arrows.
So let's have a look, now because my bow was uh out of the bag I would have a linen bow bag
yeah, keeps it nice, stops it from drying out. A vital piece of equipment. Now on my hands,
shooting glove on my left. I had a fletching from an arrow, the feather from an arrow,
go through the back of my knuckle and as you can see by the wearing here,
these left hand gloves don't last very long, and then I always have a shooting glove yeah, nice
leather shooting glove. When I show you this one, this is my bracer but I'm going to take it off.
And in fact I'm going to take these off so that I can show you closely,
because the bracer is actually a piece of ox horn and I copied this from an original
and engraved in it is a little soldier's prayer,
Ich Helpe it says. People go, 'what does Ich Helpe mean?'
It means Jesus help and that leads me to another thing
these people were superstitious, they were religious and this was made for me by a nun.
And she says the soldiers had shortened rosary. She wasn't a real nun, she was religious
and still is Della Rebours, I think that's her name hello Della. And she says you had to have a
shorter rosary because you'd have quicker prayers. And I've got that image in my mind of the enemy
are coming and you're going to be getting Holy Mary…mother god blah ble. So a soldier's rosary,
religious. I've got a bit of superstition here, is this going back to the pagan
times or this is a trophy from a boar that I killed? Robin Hood cross
Don't tell anybody they don't actually realize that I am Robin Hood. A nd here, this is a
talisman an ampoule. It's filled with something that is religious to us bowman, um a friend
of mine Mark Stretton gave me this, and it's soil from Agincourt so it's special to me, hey
then let's have a look, let's peel this off one at a time. A costral.
You've got to have water but this, from Jim the Pot, years ago. I've had this for years it keeps
the water cool it's nothing but a wooden plug a costral for water. Now you can have the more up,
up up market piece yeah, the more expensive piece which is made from leather yeah and these
very expensive right very expensive and uh let's have a look in my bag see what I've actually got.
So looped in keeping it waterproof some spare clothing simply that it's my hood
yeah and what's inside here? This is amazing stuff oh my goodness me
Entertainment it was homemade in those days wasn't it yeah?
So this bowman can play a flute or as some people would say he has a flute but he can't play it.
Eating knife. You have your own, and a pricker. They didn't have forks yeah, so you had a pricker
to hold the meat, stab it, cut it, lift it up take it off in your mouth careful not to
catch your mouth because uh mouth infection, quite serious in those days. So in my purse,
coins. Now these are all original and I've just dropped one
yeah. So you'd have a handful of coins i'll pick that one up later.
Interestingly, spare bow strings and of course when it rains, put them in your hat keep them dry.
A long bowman can change his string in seconds a crossbowman his string goes, he's out of action.
Some of this is quite boring
but I've got a bowl and I've got a spoon and it's mine, nobody else’s. I'm also very lucky because
I have a cup, a beaker but I also have one that I, shall we say found this is a little bit of booty.
This is a horned cup and it's lined with silver. Just an aside, I'm very lucky to have this.
I was bought this as a Christmas present many many years ago by my wife it's lovely.
And then most important, now I'm quite annoyed because I've had to get a new tin
because my other one believe it or not somebody pinched it. Inside the tin I have some tinder.
Normally you would keep this inside your your shirt or against your body keep it nice and warm,
nice and dry and here is my flint and steel. You've got to have this otherwise you can't make
a fire yeah. Just very simple, there it is yeah, a flint. This flint isn't very good yeah, I'm having
trouble getting English flint. English flint, the best you know. Ah can you imagine there it's
raining and you're trying to get, ah there we go, a decent flint so domestic things, bit of food,
some of your own personal belongings all there and my hunting horn.
I used to love sounding this from the battlements at the back of Chepstow Castle across the
River Wye it was excellent right so that's pretty much what a bowman would have carried
according to Kevin. Of course there'll be extra things yeah, but in my long years working as the
bowman at Warwick and various other castles I've learned what they would have carried yeah, so
we've got everything I think. I haven't missed anything, except what you need to kill with and
that's coming next. Well I hope you enjoyed our film. If you did thumbs up and if you can share
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