Bow-toxo
In 1548, three years after he published his book, Ascham was appointed to the post of teaching the then Princess Elizabeth, in teaching her he also taught her the art of shooting the bow.
As for your assertion to the ownership by the majority of multiple bows I suggest you look at the price of a bow compared with the money people earned, between 1270 and 1400 a carpenter earned between 3d and 5d a day while during the same period an agricultural worker earned 2d to 4d a day. Taking 1359 as an example the cost of a bow was 18d for a painted bow or 12d for a white bow, a sheath of arrows cost 17d and three strings 1d, so it would cost a carpenter 4 to 6 days work for a painted bow or 3 days work for a white one, these times can be multiplied out to get the cost in days to an agricultural worker and remember part of an agricultural workers wage could be paid in food. Now in Australia the minimum wage is $14.31 per hour, if we multiply that up by the say 10hr day we get $143.10 per day so a painted bow and 3 strings would have cost the equivalent of $1,001.70 this of course ignores the cost of arrows and their heads. How many people on minimum wage do you know that could afford to throw away multiple $1000's to own a number of different bows. The idea is ludicrous.
Le livre du roi Modus et de la Royne Racio was written about 1370 some 33 years after the start of the 100 Years' War not before it or don't you think that Crécy in 1346, La Roche-Derrien in 1347, Potiers in 1356 and the other 11 major battles between 1337 and 1369 were part of the 100 Years' War? The book was written by a Frenchman for the French aristocracy and is as much a moral treatise as a hunting one. The French peasant did not have one let alone 2 bows, neither did the majority of the french nobility who regarded the bow with distaste. They may have had a hunting bow and even a flight bow but not a war bow. It is to be remembered that the French of that period were not renowned for their expertise in the use of the longbow or for their expertise in any form of archery. Which is one of the reasons I would place little faith in its contents.
Craig.
