Evidence OTHER than MR Bows of 120+ bows?

[Del the cat]

Yes I'll agree Warbow accuracy doesn't have to be less than ordinary longbow accuracy.
The other weekend I was demonstarting my bows to a visitor, he was having a go too. at the end of the session I was nicely warmed up so I couldn't resist having a go with the 100# bow. One shot only 10 ten yards drawn to the shoulder/chest rather than jaw. Twack straight in the centre of my 2x3" block of white foam which I have pinned to the target. A warboe anchor/draw jus tfeel sweird to start with, mind and body soon zone in to it.
Del

[WillS]

Good stuff!  Nothing quite compares to getting a good clean shot on target with a mighty big bow!  What arrows are you using for the 100#er?

I think a lot of people hit a plateau at about 70lbs which makes them stop, giving them the impression that 100lbs (for example) would be just impossible to control.  I think as long as the dedication and commitment to push into warbow weight is there then there's no reason for it to stop being accurate and start being silly.

[Del the cat]

The arrows were 70-75#spined Maple, self nocked,  Modkin points.
Pics n details here:-
http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/tudorfication-of-stuff.html
Someone told me that the Nidderday archery guy is no longer trading due to ill health... I haven't checked, but he had some great shafts.
Del

[outcaste]

Don't think anyone on this forum dressed in jeans and a t-shirt would like to be on the end of an arrow shot from a 36 pound bow at 200 yards or 20!

I'd like to think that I can keep an open mind on the draw weights of the bows found on the MR, but you do have to factor other aspects of the 'delivery system'. Warbow Wales have been testing the relative strength of natural strings at their flight shoots for some time and it is apparent that they can survive bow weights of 130,40, even 170lbs. Though one must look at the length of the MR arrows (two peaks 28in and just over 30ins), drawing to 32 will add at least 10-15lbs at the higher bow weights. Also in terms of addressing an 'average', do we think that those shorter bows of 72ins and below were shooting 200lb @ 32?

I totally agree that practice is the key to accuracy at the higher draw weights as it is at the lower and if you have a look at the link you'll see what WW are trying to achieve at their archery events.

http://warbowwales.com/

[WillS]

Well I do know that a lot of Steve's bows that he made as exact replicas of the MR bows were actually made 2-3 inches longer so they could withstand constant shooting without breaking, and most of his (using the same wood with the same ring count and dimensions of course) came out around 160-190lbs.  Factor in the poundage gained by shortening and 200lbs doesn't seem far fetched!

[toomanyknots]

Well I do know that a lot of Steve's bows that he made as exact replicas of the MR bows were actually made 2-3 inches longer so they could withstand constant shooting without breaking, and most of his (using the same wood with the same ring count and dimensions of course) came out around 160-190lbs.  Factor in the poundage gained by shortening and 200lbs doesn't seem far fetched!

Course than again if the historical draw length was not a full 32" (or at the least varied, judging by the arrows found on the mary rose) than we are right back to 160 - 190,  . That's crazy that his replicas were longer. Maybe some of the bigger dimensioned bows were just made of not that great wood, and had bigger dimensions to meet the typical weight the bowyer wanted. Do we know what the ring count of the wood used was on any of the bows, or have they been so effected by time and decay that it is not possible to know? I guess a bow would have to be cut up though to find out.

[Bearded bowyer]

Pfffftttsssh.  The "modern lifestyle" argument doesn't fly with me.  We as a generation are soft, spoiled, pampered and weedy compared to our medieval ancestors who fought to survive, worked outside every day, had no chemically modified food, tvs, computers etc and yet we can shoot 150+ bows after a couple years of training.  The idea that medieval man would have struggled even slightly is daft using that line of debate.

Debate is why we're all here.  If the conversation doesn't appeal, there's not a huge amount of point taking the time to post "stop arguing" is there? Just don't read/reply.  It's like the YouTube comments such as "this music is crap" - just skip it, not hard.

I apologise for being old and grumpy  But I does seem incredible that there were thousands of people out there who used to be able to shoot 180-200lbs bow.........( what a truly terrifying prospect!)

Just to add my own experience, I'm now shooting 100lbs@28" target style. I can hold it at full draw for several seconds comfortably. But I admit I'm not a great shot, even with a 30lb bow.
My personal aim is to see just how high I can go with target style draw rather than warbow draw. It will be interesting to see just how far I can go.
And in the defence of my generation, we didn't have computer, didn't watch much T.V, didn't eat junk food. And I personally work a 12-14 hour day most days......we aren't all soft ! 
I did read some very interesting studies into nutrition and development back when I was at med school, It basically stated that the upper and middle classes mostly reached full maturity by their early twenties, but the working classes quite often didn't reach full physical maturity until nearly 30!
There figures were probably based on the industrial age, so I'm not sure how this would equate to medieval times though......
The physiology of strength development is fairly straight forward though. progressive training with sufficient amino acids/ protein to allow the strengthening of the muscles ligaments and tendons.
Does anyone out there know what sort of diet was available back then?

Grumpy Matt

[WillS]

Daniel, there are quite a few excellent cross section photos of Mary rose bows, and the wood quality is SUPERB.  I'll try and find some and post them here.  Steve has inspected them all by hand, so he knows the quality and is able to make replicas closer than most, especially considering his ability to get hold of Italian yew from the same area.

The reason the bowyers guilds imported yew from so far away was to get premium quality.  They were only using the absolute best of the best!

[WillS]

Here ya go, one cross section! This shows just why Italian yew is so highly treasured - you won't get density like this on English yew!

(Well, maybe you do but I've not found any this good yet!)

[toomanyknots]

Here ya go, one cross section! This shows just why Italian yew is so highly treasured - you won't get density like this on English yew!

(Well, maybe you do but I've not found any this good yet!)

Woah! Wow! Those are some tight rings right there! Thank you for the info and the picture. That's some slow growing wood.

[Del the cat]

...The reason the bowyers guilds imported yew from so far away was to get premium quality.  They were only using the absolute best of the best!

There is absolutely no justification for that statement!
a) Yes they imported it, as a tax... but we only know that it was because we didn't have enough of our own.
b) High altitude Yew? Yes, because all the low lying land in Italy would be used for agriculture and it is a relatively mountainous country. Ipso facto the Yew will be growing in the mountains!
I too have handled the Mary Rose bows and there certainly some less than premium staves there.
We should confine ourselves to fact and not attribute random motives to fit them.

A classic story is the bowl shaped depression in the doorway of some Iron age roundhouses found between the post holes. These were attributed by various 'experts' to be of religious significance, where small offerings or rituals would take place.
When experimental archeaologists built such a settlement and lived in it, they found it was merely where the chickens chose to dust bath.

Please note:- I'm not saying Italian Yew isn't better etc etc. (IMO it's debatable) and I have no personal axe to grid.
What I'm saying is we cannot say we imported it because of quality, any more than because of price (free!) or quantity.
Del

[Del the cat]

Great photo!
It nicely shows the section of that particular bow is more circle with a slightly flattened back than a  'D'
Del

[WillS]

...The reason the bowyers guilds imported yew from so far away was to get premium quality.  They were only using the absolute best of the best!

There is absolutely no justification for that statement!
a) Yes they imported it, as a tax... but we only know that it was because we didn't have enough of our own.
b) High altitude Yew? Yes, because all the low lying land in Italy would be used for agriculture and it is a relatively mountainous country. Ipso facto the Yew will be growing in the mountains!
I too have handled the Mary Rose bows and there certainly some less than premium staves there.
We should confine ourselves to fact and not attribute random motives to fit them.

A classic story is the bowl shaped depression in the doorway of some Iron age roundhouses found between the post holes. These were attributed by various 'experts' to be of religious significance, where small offerings or rituals would take place.
When experimental archeaologists built such a settlement and lived in it, they found it was merely where the chickens chose to dust bath.

Please note:- I'm not saying Italian Yew isn't better etc etc. (IMO it's debatable) and I have no personal axe to grid.
What I'm saying is we cannot say we imported it because of quality, any more than because of price (free!) or quantity.
Del

No no, you are right.  I love debates like this and I always get a tad carried away and get all "but it MUST have been because..." when I don't actually know.  I'm really bad at it!

BUT.

Surely - picking up on point a) - the reason we didn't have enough is because we didn't have enough QUALITY yew.  England is FULL of yew - it's one of our native plants.  There's no way the entire country's yew population was wiped out just to make bows and then we looked elsewhere to carry on. 

I honestly think that they went through the majority of yew and realised it just wasn't good enough.  Our yew is perfect for the hobby bowyer, because you can take your time going through loads of it, and end up with one or two fantastic warbows/longbows.  But if you had to make thousands of seriously good, seriously heavy bows it just isn't reliable and dense enough, when compared to the yew that grows in really harsh, really cold environments such as in the alps.  The bowmakers on this forum for example relish the thought of crazy staves, little dips and knots to work around, the challenge of uneven sapwood, twists, cracks etc etc.  It's a bit of an adventure and makes it all far more exciting.  We also can all appreciate the workmanship if the bowyer manages to pull off a fantastic bow despite all of these "flaws" in the wood.  But a medieval bowyer, commissioned to make hundreds of warbows in a very short time would surely not want to spend his life with a scraper easing around knots and taking his time.  He wants to bash out a load of powerful, heavy warbows because to him it's a job.  You can't do that with English yew, each piece seems to have some challenge or problem.

I know you know this, but harsh climate = slower growth.  Slower growth = denser, tougher wood.  Tougher wood = higher poundage without needing 2inchx2inch handle areas.  Italian yew is unquestionably different to English/American yew.  The huge price tag on it is not just because it's "more traditional" or for the stigma attached to it.  It's definitely better quality wood as a whole.  If you know that another country has "premium" quality wood compared to your own hit and miss quality, of course you're gonna get it imported, right?

Now, obviously some of the Italian/Spanish/Portugese wood that was imported wasn't AAA grade wood, and some of that wood made it to the MR bows.  But in general, the majority of those bows are top quality wood that would take somebody a long time to find in the UK.  And that time just wasn't available when you had to cater for large numbers in a short time.

[WillS]

Oh, also, by the time the MR sank in 1545 the 100 Years War had been and gone.  So I would imagine (no facts here  ) that a huge amount of the really good European yew that was imported had been used during the campaigns and was perhaps starting to run thin around the Tudor times.  It's really impossible to know what sort of wood was used during the HYW as we just don't have any examples (which I still find weird...?) but I guess there's a chance the MR bows is a spectrum of the really really good stuff (like in that cross section photo) down to much lower quality wood because that's all that was left.

I was talking to one of the owners of Fairbow during the NLHF and he actually told me that Italian yew now that most people are able to get hold of is starting to get much closer in quality to American yew/top English yew just because all the good stuff has been taken or used.  The price is coming down for the wood itself, but the import price is still more or less the same so it seems like the wood is too expensive for the quality.

[Del the cat]

The big confusion is in the word 'Quality'
If you mean clean straight Yew suiatble for a longbow that is entirely different from saying the actual properties of the wood are somehow "higher quality".
You can buy plenty of really "good quality" Yew on the internet really cheaply... but it's 300mm long and won't make a bow!
There are plenty of other factors which we just don't know... here are some that may or may not be relevant.
Yew may have been managed in plantations, if so it takes a long time to get a crop. Our native wood lands may have been full of gnarled twisted stuff whereas plantations grown close together in naturally occuring high altitude woods (where the trees all huddle together for warmth ) may have yielded close grown straight trees
Woodland was being maintained for hunting? Growing Oak for ship building? Being managed for charcoal for iron making? or cut down for agriculture?
Language is a tricky chap and people will interpret the words to suit their own purpose. We should try and apply scientific rigor to what we say.
Note my prolific use of the word 'may' I don't know the answers, but at least I know that I don't know (drifts off into that famous Donald Rumsfeldt speach about the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns)
Your ability to leap to unsupported conclusion is still pretty breathtaking. The 130# Yew bow I just made could easilly have been a 150#, I had trouble getting the weight down, it the quality of the wood was so bad, I'd have had to make it bigger than MR dimensions not smaller.

You are certainly right about the current Italian Yew ... what I've seen in the flesh and on the internet is V similar to the English Yew I've used, and some has paler wood of lower ring count.
Del