Pei: During the 100 Years War against France the English longbowmen became the prime means of defeating the heavily fancied noble French cavalry Or so the legend goes. The role of the longbowmen is significand but often considerably overestimated. Or rather the role the longbows themselves played. It was more the whole military organisation relying on high-quality professional paid troops compared to the french system.
while the English pointed out that it was a very difficult and exacting skill which they had spent many years learning and just because the opposition couldn't get the hang of it wasn't their fault. As an owner of a (62-lb) logbow I can tell you it's not difficult. You just have to be a very big and strong man and practice few hours a week. It is a magnificent weapon but by no means a miracle.
Besides perhaps there should be less whingeing and the opposition should instead put some effort in and learn how to fire a longbow too. It was not possible for a social organisation that French had to use longbowmen. You need a strong yeomanry class to produce mercenaries and a centralised monarchy to use the professional army. French had neither.
Anyway the French instituted a campaign of cutting the first two fingers off the bow hand of any english archer they caught. That is largely a legend. The longbowmen were considered lowly peasants who had no place in combat. The prisoner conventions common for nobles did not apply to them, so the captured longbowmen usually had their heads cut off, not their fingers.
Cutting two fingers would have been a very stupid thing to do. The
three funger grip - not two - was common in England but many other countries used thumb grip.
Maybe an archer would not have been able to draw 90 pounds using a thumb grip but even a 60 pound bow is quite a deadly weapon.
davidpt40: The only real victory longbowmen had over french cavalry is when the french dismounted in an extremely muddy field, and trudged towards english lines. At Agincourt practically no french were killed or even hurt with arrows. Yes, the archers did kill a lot of fench and defeated them - but they did it in a hand-to-hand combat.
French made two major mistakes - they attacked in columns and they cut their lances just a bit shorter then the english. So when the head of the columns locked lances with the english men-at-armes and failed to push through, the most french were deep into the crown and could not even move much, let alone participate in combat. The english archers closed in on the flanks with their long knives and swords and slaughtered the french.
Did I mention that all longbowmen were huge men and extremely strong?
"The Face of Battle" by John Keegan miko
