Hi, my name's Kevin Hicks and welcome to my YouTube channel the History Squad,
and to this the part three of our spin-off series about logistics during the Hundred Years War.
Now if you've missed any of our previous episodes you can find the playlist in the description
yeah? So yew bows and arrows that's what it's all about but I’m just very quickly cover the
bow because this is more about the logistics of the arrows this bow my favorite my old faithful
made of a single piece of you heart and sapwood the strings they were made of uh hemp linen. These
were strictly governed, if you look at Richard III’s reign, um I think it was
four bow staves were brought in as taxes on one ton of wine, one barrel of wine and it was
a yeah very you know the guilds of bowyers and fletchers they were very strict about the quality
because let's face it the last thing you need when you're facing the enemy is to draw a bow
and it snaps first time yeah? So this was a whole industry. Now the bows because they're
not as great in number as the arrows they're not such a problem I mean they used to import the,
the yew from all over Europe and it was a great trade so I’m going to turn to the arrows
this is the business that's often lost and forgotten in the films uh a single arrow let me
bring it closer so you can see the knock where the string goes has to be reinforced with a piece of
cow horn look at why the fletchings are actually glued on and they are tied on it's called a
whipping there yeah this is one of my old arrows the fletchings by the way are from the goose
and they used to be as a tax for the peasantry they got no money so they could bring so many
goose feathers as attacks the arrow shaft aspen or ash and then a steel or iron tip that's a bodkin
interestingly uh what I found out is the best places to get these
was Staffordshire Gloucestershire Oxfordshire, good iron producing counties in the Midlands,
so the man who puts the arrow together the fletcher, the arrow smith,
they were all over England, they were all over Wales and they were very important people
when you put the whole thing together but then they had to be bundled
this is a sheaf of arrows that's not been sleeved a sheath of 24 arrows these have been painted
they are all ready to go so your village would be commanded maybe to make 20 sheaves, the sheriff
who's in charge he will come round and he will order and they will be paid for then they will be
gathered very much like virtual supplies food in the town but these don't have to be shipped by sea
they are not that perishable they're going to one place in England and that is the tower of London
because archery was becoming big business hopefully you'll get your arrows sleeved
this is another sheath when you turn up at the size you've got to make sure that you have your
longbow and at least one sheaf of arrows it's interesting because at the size of arms in 1252
if you owned 40 or less than 100 shillings of land if I understand you had to turn up ready for war
with a sword, sword dagger bow and arrows yeah so it was becoming law that the bowmen would have
to do these things now if we look at what was actually stored in the tower of London just for
the cress I campaign yeah there were there was problems I’ve been reading about how in London
they needed 500 bowmen but when they turned up the captains had a problem with these bowmen because
many of them weren't fit yeah so there were bands on bowman going abroad unless they had a license
also there were bans on exporting bows and arrows because they didn't want the
French to catch on with the idea but if you look Edward III, for his cressy campaign
had 7,700 bows stored in the Tower of London and 130,000 sheaves of arrows. So you actually had
a person to look after these and I learned this at Warwick Castle that they would turn the arrows
yeah, rotate them so they didn't warp. Henry V in 1413 was Nicholas meinert, he was the keeper
of the king's arrows. This whole system came about in the 13, 1400s and was the first time a nation
had ever done such a thing. But I get asked what happens to the arrows after the battle.
Now there are records that they did collect them and reshoot them yeah, like Crecy and Poitiers,
but there is, 1343 Rob Middlehall 7,000 arrows were collected from a campaign in Brittany
returned to England to be stripped cleaned re-fletched. It took ten workers, six days
to re-fletch and fix the arrows. So you look at a film, next time you see bowman shooting away with
their arrows you now know that the arrows were made, bundled, collected, centralized
all with a proper industry the same as the bows. The guilds of the fletchers and the bowyers,
the string fellows the people who made the strings. Just a little note on that,
the women often made the strings, they're more nimble dexterous with their fingers yeah?
So I hope you've enjoyed our little film this brings our kind of sideline for the Hundred
Years War to an end but it's interesting little points eh? So just before I finish our little
film um I’m going to answer some questions that I’ve been asked about how the bowmen
carried their arrows. Now we have a bag of arrows, a sheath you can carry them over your
back like Robin Hood like you would do in a quiver or like I do you can bundle them just at the back
of your belt on your spine but what I often do is I take a sheaf of arrows, take the spacer out
and I literally shove them in my belt and I, I like that. That suits me fine. Sometimes across
me belt, some across me back, sometimes just in my belt. But one of the questions was do
they stick them in the ground? Now I’ve seen lots of drawings, medieval drawings of bowman
and there are arrows on the ground. Personally I don't like that, because what if you've got to
run? What if you've got a move yeah? Now these are little questions but they all build up don't they?
What did the bowman carry? Well he carried 48 arrows into battle, when he turned up for his
muster only 24. So, I hope these have answered your questions. Just to clarify that one
yeah, I’ve seen pictures of the bowman with the arrows on the floor or stuck in the ground
but personally, as somebody who’s shot thousands upon thousands of arrows I don't like doing
that. I like them in my belt, I like them to be comfortable. Well I hope you enjoyed that film
and if you did please give it a thumbs up yeah, and if you're a subscriber hey thanks a million
but can you share the heck out of these films yeah? Let's make it grow then I can produce
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and you'll find the link in the description yeah, but for now thank you very much and bye for now.