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  

the films, I’d really appreciate it. If you are  a subscriber, hey thanks a bunch if not, why  

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a Patreon account, the link for which is in the  description. So for now thank you very much, bye.