Pre 14thC bulbous English arrows.

[davecrocket]

That was very helpful.  I am going to put a conclusion in to finish everything off.

My quest was to find out what arrows were originally shot in anger from the English War Bow. 

They started to get rare around 1400.  For some reason after this date Aspen and the like were used and the design had to be changed.
Maybe ash trees got rare.  Maybe fletcher`s guilds could make more money by making loads of straight target arrows.  Maybe gun powder took over.  Maybe they were so much more costly to make than Aspen arrows.  We may never know for sure.  Here is what I have concluded.

1.  Bulbous nocks.
I don`t think they were as big or functional as I first thought.  Sure, they help placing on the string and holding the arrow there, but only to a relatively small degree.  (I made a very thin nocked arrow once and it was a pain holding it on the string).  I conclude they were there because that was the thinest the fletcher could safely make a nock.  The aftshaft just happens to be thinner.

2.  The grip.
Two fingers.  No doubt here.  Since writing this I have modified all my tabs to two fingers.  I have always used three and thought I would not be able to pull a strong bow with just two fingers.  How wrong I was.

3.  Number of fletchings.
Again I think I may have to stand corrected.  What you gain in less drag by using just three fletchings instead of four must outweigh advantages over blind nocking.

4.  Antony of Burgundy.
This portrait answered most of my questions.  I had come across it in the past in "Secrets of the English War Bow" but the picture was rather small and I dismissed it as a target arrow.  I didn`t even appreciate the tapering.  The larger picture above is much clearer.  It has to be ash as there is no horn insert or reinforcement in the nock as far as I can see.
Also the portrait was mid 15th C and I thought the arrows that I am interested in had long gone.  Feel a bit daft now.  I don`t think he would be holding the latest fad in an important portrait like this.  He would be holding an arrow his ansesters would have used.

5.  Dimensions.
I think I will take the dimensions from the portrait.  I know this may not be very accurate but everything else looks in proportion. Take his iris as 12mm (fairly standard in humans).  It looks like the thinnest part of the arrow is only about 6mm!  The nock seems to be about 9mm and the thickest part of the arrow by his fingers is about 12mm.  The portrait is showing about 45cm of the arrow.

6.  Performance.
I think the aftshaft is very thin to bend round the bow when shot(AP).  It is aerodynamic as well but not the primary function.  I do not think, however, that the very end of the arrow bends at all.  If you put the head of the arrow in a vice horizonally and push down on the nock I think it will make a pleasing and ever increasing curve.  What this curve looks like I don`t know, but this curve will affect the performance and of course there will be an optimum curve for an optimum performance.

Cheers!
Dave.

[Rod]

You say that you dismissed it as a target arrow....

Well it probably is, it has all the hallmarks of a gentleman's sporting shaft.
But without seeing the point it is not certain that it might not be a hunting shaft, but it certainly is a fancy sporting shaft, not a livery type of "war" shaft.

Rod.

[davecrocket]

You may be right there Rod.  I know he did shoot in competitions  (and won!). He also used his bow in conflicts.
Sporting, to me, can imply target and game hunting.  I don`t think the arrow will differ that much, apart from the point, from a war arrow and, say, an arrow to take down a deer or boar.

The question is; did he have target arrows or did he use his war/game arrows?  I am still trying to make one and I have learned that to make a sporting/war arrow is a lot of trouble and they must have cost so much make. 

I don`t think he was short of a bob or two, so he would have had his arrows made for him as opposed to taking livery ones.  I don`t know when livery arrows came in, but I think around this time livery could mean money given in order to buy certain goods, for example war arrows.  Livery soon came to mean goods bought by the King and they were marked in some way I think.  Either way, I  don`t think this is a livery arrow.

I have a friend who thinks he can turn me an arrow like Burgundy`s on a laythe.  I think that this is impossible but he is convinced, so I will let him try.  In the mean time I am having another shaving plate made so I can shape my arrow.  This time I will include half holes around the edge of the tool.

Cheers!

Dave.

[Davepim]

Dave,
     Labour costs were cheap in those days, so livery arrows, with horn-reinforced nocks and silk bindings, involved as they are to make, would have cost relatively less to make than today - the only real costs being the iron/steel for the heads and the silk for the binding.

Cheers, Dave

[davecrocket]

Good point Dave.  Also in those days they would have had large families that would have worked for the business.  Maybe they were expensive because of the Guilds`s monoply on arrow making or shortage of materials.

As with the horn nock, well, I think I am going to have to side with Bowtoxo here.  I think they had to be put in when they started to use popular type woods, other wise the string would split the arrow.  Before that I think they used ash which doesn`t need a horn nock.  Seasoned ash is very hard to split with an axe-let alone a bow string.  I had to chop down a type of popular a few months ago and I was splitting huge great logs with just a tap of the axe-and the grain was so straight!

What I am interested in is what was the design of the arrow before they used softer woods with a horn nock.  I don`t know when the transaction took place or why, but I`m having a wild stab in the dark and saying possibly around 1400.

Thank you for your input Dave.

Dave.

(Off the subject slightly...is anyone else counting down to goose feather collecting day?  Domestic geese are loosing their primaries now in my area, so maybe another four weeks for wild geese?)

[bow-toxo]

davecrocket ====A few points. No doubt about two fingers ?  Our three written mediaeval instruction sources say three fingers. Four vane fletching if cut lower and not helical would not increase drag. The difference between a hunting and a war shaft;:the hunting bow being weaker, it would take a thinner shaft. If the Anthony of Burgundy arrow is indeed 12 mm= ½ inch thick, [I doubt it] it would be the thickness of MR war arrows, therefore would be a war arrow. Re.bulbous nocks, I think they were left thick to be less likely to split. It was, and is, a lot quicker and easier for a fletcher to taper a shaft to the very end which can be done with a plane and chuting board, even with insertion of the then advisable horn slip provided by a horner, than to taper one up to the full sized nock. The tapered shaftment [ what you call ‘aftshaft’] was for better recovery from archers paradox. An Alemannic arrow is 1cm thick at head and nock tapered to 57.4 mm just before the noch swelling. The only arrowhead of flat plate I have seen is a single Viking forked head, no resemblance to yours which is shaped like a stone arrowhead. Of course Anthony bouight his arrows like everyone else except wartime archers who got livery [issued]  arrows from their lord or king, and he was a lord.

                                                        Erik

[Rod]

Given the title (pre 14thC bulbous English arrows) I'm wondering why so much time is being spent on discussing a picture of a 15thC Burgiundian.  :-)

Rod.