RECURVED ELBs - TRUE OR NOT?

[greybeard]

Not quite. At least one of the bows that they Deane Brother retrieved from the Mary Rose in 1840 appears to show both reflex and to some extent recurve. The downside is those bows were sold to the publich and who knows where they are now.

The wording "appears to show" is a bit flimsy.

Where is the evidence i.e. accurate drawing/illustrations etc. or is the statement hearsay?

Daryl.

[GrahameA]

Not quite. At least one of the bows that they Deane Brother retrieved from the Mary Rose in 1840 appears to show both reflex and to some extent recurve. The downside is those bows were sold to the publich and who knows where they are now.

The wording "appears to show" is a bit flimsy.

Where is the evidence i.e. accurate drawing/illustrations etc. or is the statement hearsay?

Daryl.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=P21 ... ow&f=false

Addenda. Had to dig through my book collection
Re: Soar, Secret of the English Warbow p37

[Dennis La Varenne]

Grahame,

I disagree with you there. The Deane bows description relies on vague written description of two bows only. Whereas we now have over 100 bows from the same origin of the Mary Rose wreck which are straight ended bows. The evidence of two bows of questionable description which now do not exist against over 100 bows which do exist and can be measured and described accurately and those dimensions verified mitigates overwhelmingly against the Deane bows being representative of the type.

I would say that, in fact, we DO know how these bows were made. And that if there was any advantage in recurving the ends of these bows, it would surely have survived towards the end of their era as defensive armour improved. Any of us who has recurved the ends of bows knows how much extra work and care is needed over straight ended bows. I cannot accept that recurving would have been utilised unless there was a useful purpose which gave a demonstrable advantage considering the additional work involved to effect them.

Again, I refer to my original post above and the fact of the recurve-ended bows in my collection all having a much greater degree of set, including those of Yew. That amount of set would easily mitigate against any perceived advantage conferred by having recurves. If these recurves actually worked in the modern sense, then yes, it would have been worthwhile having them. If Yew were strong enough to withstand the long static recurves of the oriental bows, then yes again, they would almost certainly have been employed. But Yew is wood and it simply does not have the ability to withstand the compression forces of long static recurves or even smaller ones to any advantage.

I can't understand why it seems so important to so many people that English mediaeval military long bows had recurved ends, when they were perfectly useful to their intended purpose with straight ends and easier to make in large numbers.

[Dennis La Varenne]

I have just looked at Grahame's URL and particularly at the picture of the Deane bow shown. Indeed that bow had deflexed and reflexed limbs, but I would be VERY cautious about inferring that this was the way in which this bow was built given that it was so long underwater and who knows what amount of weight it had on it or that ordinary drying out had caused the limbs to take that shape. I have recently posted elsewhere about a Yew bow I have here at home which arrived to me from Hungary with 3 inches of reflex over its entire length and over the intervening year or so, it gained another 5 inches of reflex from drying out in the very low humidity of where I live. Interestingly, the increased reflex was just as evenly distributed over the bow's length as it was when it first arrived.

Even so, despite the possibility that there may have been the odd long bow whose ends were recurved from natural causes or from being induced by a bowyer, evidence for them is vanishingly rare and cannot counter to the smallest degree the evidence of so many artifacts which we have to hand from the Mary Rose wreck that the standard English military long bow was straight ended.

[GrahameA]

Morning Dennis.

..... but I would be VERY cautious about inferring that this was the way in which this bow was built .....

In my case I have a very open mind on the subject.

... evidence ... is vanishingly rare and cannot counter to the smallest degree the evidence of so many artifacts which we have to hand from the Mary Rose wreck that the standard English military long bow was straight ended.

The evidence is not "vanishingly rare" the evidence is extremely rare. The facts are that from the thousands of bows made and used in England, and in their forays on the continent, during the period from Edward I through to Henry VIII (1270 - 1509, approx 250 years, the Golden Years of the English Longbow) there are only 172 that came from a single source - the Mary Rose - and another 3, Hedegely Moor, Flodden, Mendlesham - plus the three from the 1840 retrieval of the Mary Rose (and have gone missing). From this tiny sample the argument is put forward of a single definitive design.

Postscript - If anyone has a link to the work of Richard Galloway it would be appreciated.

[Dennis La Varenne]

Grahame,

172 MR bows against perhaps 6 others which it is not definitively ascertainable whether or not they had recurved ends is so vanishingly rare as to be negligible being 3.5% of the total. I regard rare as being around 10 - 15% of the total.

[GrahameA]

Hi Dennis

172 MR bows against perhaps 6 others which it is not definitively ascertainable whether or not they had recurved ends is so vanishingly rare as to be negligible being 3.5% of the total. I regard rare as being around 10 - 15% of the total.

No, you appear to have misread what I meant.

The "English Longbow" medieval version probably comprised of several hundreds of thousands (or even more) of bows over several hundred years. Of those bows that were produced we have only a extremely tiny sample of examples. From that sample the view has been put forward that a single definitive design is the 'the design" and anything that fails to comply with that design is incorrect.

I, on the other hand, take a view that accepts what we have are examples of the bows that were used by some at some stage. However, variations probably did exist and thus I don't subscribe to a view that a singular design is the definitive design.

If we consider the geographical distribution there are more examples of Tyrannosaurus than there are ELBs. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrannosaurus) Plus they have been substantially more intensively studied.

[greybeard]

I do not place too much faith in old paintings, illustrations etc. as being an accurate representation of the object/item.

Check out the arrow in one of the paintings that was put up as evidence, surely we can’t accept this as a true representation of arrows of the time. Also note the angle of the hand /wrist at anchor.

001 Pic.jpg (36.49 KiB) Viewed 2686 times

By the same token why should we accept the artist’s interpretation of a longbow as being accurate?

Daryl.

[GrahameA]

Hi Daryl.

I do not place too much faith in old paintings, illustrations etc. as being an accurate representation of the object/item.

Check out the arrow in one of the paintings that was put up as evidence, surely we can’t accept this as a true representation of arrows of the time. Also note the angle of the hand /wrist at anchor.

001 Pic.jpg

By the same token why should we accept the artist’s interpretation of a longbow as being accurate?

The bend in the wrist looks inappropriate as does the bend in the arrow so I would ask the question what is happening. Is the fault in the photo the original or the scan? Is a painting or a tapestry?

However, the artist has been able to to accurately depict the variation in the colour of the timber in the bow. What people should do is look at depictions with a critical eye. The best depictions that you will ever get of events that happened several hundred years ago are paintings/drawing - unfortunately cameras had not been developed fully.

If people accept one image as being correct, because it supports their argument, why do they reject another that does support their argument?

[DavidM]

Well-argued Graham

[greybeard]

Hi Daryl.

I do not place too much faith in old paintings, illustrations etc. as being an accurate representation of the object/item.

Check out the arrow in one of the paintings that was put up as evidence, surely we can’t accept this as a true representation of arrows of the time. Also note the angle of the hand /wrist at anchor.

The attachment 001 Pic.jpg is no longer available

By the same token why should we accept the artist’s interpretation of a longbow as being accurate?

The bend in the wrist looks inappropriate as does the bend in the arrow so I would ask the question what is happening. Is the fault in the photo the original or the scan? Is a painting or a tapestry?

However, the artist has been able to to accurately depict the variation in the colour of the timber in the bow. What people should do is look at depictions with a critical eye. The best depictions that you will ever get of events that happened several hundred years ago are paintings/drawing - unfortunately cameras had not been developed fully.

If people accept one image as being correct, because it supports their argument, why do they reject another that does support their argument?

I think it fair that we make a decision based on the evidence as presented and not guess if something may or may not have happened during the copying process.

The following image is straight forward so we cannot blame the scanner.

002 Pic.jpg (31.64 KiB) Viewed 2665 times

The image clearly depicts the arrows being shot on the other side of the bow and not the hand.

Do we accept this as artistic licence or that the longbow was also shot using this method.

Daryl.


Daryl.

[Trad Bound]

I would suggest artist licience is at play here......ie the distance between two lots of archers and the victim. And the victim has mutiple arrows in the body and is still alive.

[Dennis La Varenne]

Never mind the remarkable shooting styles of the archers depicted in Daryl's last picture - it most certainly IS artistic licence to the degree that depicts mediaeval archers replete with contemporary armour using Yew long bows to shoot at poor St Sebastian who was killed in 288AD, some 1200 years previously - and, NO BLOOD AT ALL. Perhaps time travel was more advanced then than it is today and arrow heads back then were dipped in coagulants. Anyone taking serious notice of contemporary pictures should perhaps look at themselves more critically I suggest.

I am not persuaded by Grahame's argument that seems to be saying that 'possible may have beens' have the same evidential weight as known measurable material artifacts.

[GrahameA]

Morning Dennis

I am not persuaded by Grahame's argument that seems to be saying that 'possible may have beens' have the same evidential weight as known measurable material artifacts.

No. I am not saying stating anything regarding "evidential weight", that is an assumption on your part.

Much of the "evidence" that is presented is not backed up by any reference at all. And there is little Primary reference material with much material being secondary.

Daryl

Do we accept this as artistic licence or that the longbow was also shot using this method.

No. But it should at least raise the question, at least, within yourself as to:
# why is the bow being shot the way it is depicted
# is it at all possible that those archers were shooting that way

[Dennis La Varenne]

Grahame,

At some point the kind of speculation which you are trying to raise is not so much scientific in approach as nit-picking over very minor details. What is your point?

The thread is whether or not English military long bows had recurved ends or not. The clear evidence we DO have is that at the end of their era and arguably their most developed stage, these bows were not recurved as against mere speculation that judging by some very questionable contemporary illustrations and some well-disappeared bows which cannot be examined, that we should accept against the majority of available evidence of actual existing examinable artifacts that there were recurved military long bows. Are you seriously arguing that these did exist?

I do not know if your realise it, but the way you are putting your case very much appears that you are arguing that because something may possibly have existed, then it did in fact exist or that if it may have existed, then it is OK to presume that it did. Your line of argument reads as if you are confusing speculation with known fact. Are you aware of this? It is not usually like you to argue that way.

[Nezwin]

After viewing the image of the archer with the recurved tips to his longbow there was something not quite right that I couldn't place until today...

Why has the artist portrayed the bow in this way?

To my knowledge, the only bows being utilised at this time with recurve at the tips would've been Oriental/Middle Eastern, so how did the artist obtain the knowledge of bows being produced this way? Had he traveled to the Middle East or had he seen examples of these bows and applied their shape to the bows of his native land? I would imagine that an artist portraying an archer using the tool of his trade would be fairly familiar with this sight, enough to duplicate his armour as is demonstrated (although not enough to replicate passable form...). It does raise the possibility that the artist had witnessed people using bows with recurve in them, perhaps in a military context.

In a broader sense, I think that had ELB's been recurved at all in any mass scale I'm sure significant evidence would have survived for the argument to be moot. However, that's not to say that there had been no experimentation or small scale production of bows of this type. I would be surprised if this hadn't been the case - generation upon generation of bow builders never attempting to vary their design or try something new doesn't sound realistic in my opinion, but I am not a historian.

[Dennis La Varenne]

Nezwin,

I agree with you that it would be foolish to believe that there was NEVER any experimentation on these bows. However, in real life, the best archaeological records and artifacts we have to date just do not support the existence of recurve ended military long bows.

The many contemporary illustrations from manuscripts show all sorts of ends on bows, many of which are certainly so-called 'artistic licence' or just pure lack of knowledge of military bows by monks in monasteries who were exempt from practice and may never have been familiar with the standard issue military bow of those times. It would be very unwise to rely upon them for accuracy of depiction.

I would be quite happy to accept the existence of recurve ended military long bows IF it could be reasonably proven their existence by example of artifacts and written records showing that such bows were ordered from bowyers for instance. Presently, there is no better evidence if it can be called that than the wishful thinking of some people who have a belief that recurve ended long bows conferred a performance advantage.

I do not believe that for one minute based upon my collection of wood bows with recurved ends which have far worse string follow than any of the equivalent straight ended bows I have, ie, bows made exactly the same and from the same materials of the same length but without the recurved ends, have better performane. It is obvious when you shoot them against each other. The more the amount of set the less the performance.

[greybeard]

A photograph of some of the bows found on the Mary Rose.

Mary Rose Bows.jpg (97.7 KiB) Viewed 2601 times

It is impossible to know what effect salt water and mud had on the bows original profiles over hundreds of years of being submerged.

Daryl.

[yeoman]

I am sorry to come to this conversation late.

A few points which do not necessarily add either way to the original thesis, but nevertheless I think would be important to be aware of:

Of thin tipped bows on the Mary Rose:

I would be most resistant to believe that the bows on MR had thin tips in order to recurve them. This is for a few reasons:
- It is better to recurve the tips of a bow when the tips are wide, as this allows the bowyer to minimise twist in the tip, and leaves material to account for it if it does happen. I think even glass/carbon bowyers of today do this.
- These bows were weapons of war loaded onto a warship going to war. Just because the bows had tool marks left in them does not mean they were unfinished and/or meant to have further work done on them at the end of their journey. These weapons would have been efficient without having 320 grit sandpaper

Of recurved longbows:

Firstly, if it has recurved tips it is not a longbow...it is a recurve.

The point of a recurve is to provide beneficial mechanical advantage in a bow of such length compared to its draw length to allow for a fatter F/D curve that would otherwise experience stack in the draw. Ensuring a recurve remains recurved means adding wood to resist bending. This adds mass. This is not so great an issue on short bows because the mass, relatively, is all closer to the handle than on a longbow. On a longbow of sufficient length compared to its draw, there will be no stack unless it is tillered exceptionally poorly, and the F/D curve will have a nice plump shape at the bottom. Adding recurves for the sake of a few extra stored joules will be nullified by the extra mass that energy will have to accelerate.

If the tips of the MR bows had been recurved (or at least were intended to be recurved), then the resultant recurve would have nearly all pulled out early on, because there would not have been enough wood to support the load.

Of Yew and lightness

It is not the lightness of Yew that makes it a good wood. It is not even its stiffness, as its stiffness is very low. The reason Yew is such a star performer is because of its elasticity and its capacity to withstand strain. Good spotted gum might have a working strain in a bow of 0.75%. Very good spotted gum might have 0.82%. Yew regularly tests around the 1% range. A few pieces of exceptional Ash and Osage might also have such extraordinary numbers.

What does this mean? Well, the higher the working strain of a wood, the thicker it can be to achieve a given stress. As we know, stiffness increases with the third power of thickness. If you can find a wood that can take more strain, you can make the bow narrower and thicker. This means less mass, and logistically it means more staves out of a given diameter tree.

Of illustrations

I think it is perfectly reasonable to accept one image that supports a hypothesis and reject another that refutes it. Within reason.

Extant images must be treated in just the same way as extant texts. They must be analysed and assessed for creative bias, intended purpose and also the context of its creation and audience. We know the images of St. Sebastian are all terribly anachronistic. The people at the time probably knew. But they knew the artist was representing not just an event but a concept. It's quite a complex subject and probably best thrashed out elsewhere.

There are a few images in Hardy's Warbow where all the archers are shooting bows in which the lower limb is nearly straight and the upper limb has a slight hinge halfway up the top limb. Will this change how I tiller my bows? No. Do I understand how hard it is to draw/paint an even tiller? Yes. I'm sure there are a myriad of reasons the bows were drawn this way. I need not jump to the conclusion that the image must be representative of the material culture.

Aside from bows I also do historical martial arts. I have spent untold hours poring over images and translating arcane and obscure mittelhochdeutche. Some images I am happy to accept when they support my hypotheses, and am equally happy to reject others when they refute my hypotheses. But it is not because they refute or support my hypotheses that I accept or reject them.

On recurved bows

I think there are some clear cases where illustrations in medieval and renaissance art intended to show recurve bows and that the illustrators sought to represent real material culture. These bows often come from southern Italy and Spain.

I think there were recurve bows in medieval and renaissance times in Europe. Do I have hard evidence? No, not really. Does that mean there is no evidence? No idea. There might be some artefacts hidden somewhere. I hope there is.

I do not think there was a need to recurve the ends of English Warbows. I think this because of extensive personal experience making bows and studying engineering to make the best bows I can. Our toxophile ancestors (toxophilic ancestors?) did not have excel spreadsheets, but scores, nay hundreds, of generations of bowyers before them who passed on their hard-earned knowledge.