Medieval Welsh Weaponry

[Hotspur]

Josh,

If your interests of Welsh history is in the colonial American period, feel free to ping me as it is my heritage as well. Although my surname has been bound up by researchers insisting one source or another, the migration patterns from the Virginias, then south along known highways and byways then through the Carolinas and out through Cumberland shadowing Boone and others is a great escape to families histories. Look well to Charleston archives for entries as well but a lot of the settlement of families actually did migrate south as opposed to entry there.

Cheers

GC

[fearn]

Hi Hotspur,

You're probably right, but the deep archeological evidence from all over Europe (British Isles and mainland) shows that longbows were widespread throughout, from the mesolithic. For example the oldest longbow in the British Isles was exhumed from Ashcott Heath, Somerset dated to 2665 BCE (link).

There's a couple of things going on here. One is the physical size of the weapon itself, the other is fielding contingents of archers. It looks like the Welsh fighters were the impetus for the English longbows.

F

[Hotspur]

A wiki article?

[Hotspur]

http://netsword.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000676.html

[jswillems]

Thanks Hotspur for the links, I just glanced at them, but they look like they have a lot of information. I'll be sure to read them in depth. As far as the family history goes, I was extremely lucky and came across a guy who had already done a ton of research that included my own family line. Thanks again!

[fearn]

Originally Posted by Hotspur

A wiki article?

. Sure. If it has a reference, it gets you into secondary reference works. Since I don't currently have a university library system to draw on, and I didn't want to take more than three minutes finding out if you were probably right (which you were, according to Wikipedia), it doesn't need more.

Not good enough for writing a paper, but that's not the point here.

As for the longbow reference, I've seen pictures and reconstructions of the original meso/neolithic bows in other (primary) literature (most readily accessible in <i>The Traditional Bowyer's Bible</i> series, but the wiki link is a good start. Elm isn't yew, but it's a perfectly good bow wood if the bow is properly designed, and it was widely used in Europe.

English longbows were designed in part to maximize the number of bow staves they could get from a yew log (primary literature), as well as to maximize their weapon potential, and that is where the narrow, D-shaped cross section of the English long bow comes from.


F

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by fearn

. Sure. If it has a reference, it gets you into secondary reference works. Since I don't currently have a university library system to draw on, and I didn't want to take more than three minutes finding out if you were probably right (which you were, according to Wikipedia), it doesn't need more.

Not good enough for writing a paper, but that's not the point here.

As for the longbow reference, I've seen pictures and reconstructions of the original meso/neolithic bows in other (primary) literature (most readily accessible in <i>The Traditional Bowyer's Bible</i> series, but the wiki link is a good start. Elm isn't yew, but it's a perfectly good bow wood if the bow is properly designed, and it was widely used in Europe.

English longbows were designed in part to maximize the number of bow staves they could get from a yew log (primary literature), as well as to maximize their weapon potential, and that is where the narrow, D-shaped cross section of the English long bow comes from.


F

Extremely well said Fearn!!! and true, Wikipedia is an excellent source to a field of other references which must be carefully considered to develop the material required in the study of a topic. It indeed saves many steps, and as I do recall the 'old days' of many months of research to find supporting evidence on subjects. Modern technology is great, and it seems standards have changed a lot......in my day, a calculator was not permissable in a math class (I think there were some invented by then, though there were some abacus' around .

All best regards,
Jim

[Hotspur]

Perhaps what frustrates me is the trend to view and reference Wikis as a
primary source, when a good many of the articles are often poorly managed.

Cheers

GC

[fearn]

Hi Hotspur,

It's a good point. Wikipedia is not perfect. Thing is, accuracy was less important than speed, and I was more concerned with figuring out if you were probably right than what the truth was, in detail.

Besides that, Wikipedia can be updated. If you have serious concerns about the accuracy of pages that are important to you, why aren't you contributing? I have, on occasion.

Best,

F