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Longbow: A Social And Military History
With drama, vigor and enthusiasm, Robert Hardy chronicles the arrival of the longbow in Britain and its gradual adoption as the most important weapon in the English military arsenal, and its coming of age at the battles of Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt. Also examined is the longbow as a sporting and hunting weapon, and its status in Britain today.
244 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
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October 17, 2026Longbow: A Social and Military History, Robert Hardy, 1976, Appendix 1992, 5th ed. 2012, 244 pages, ISBN 9780857332486, Dewey 623.441 This edition includes what was learned from the 1979 discovery of bows and arrows on the /Mary Rose/, sunk in 1545.
50,000 years ago Arrowheads in north Africa. (Only the stone heads have survived.) pp. 12-13.
20,000-7,500 BCE Mesolithic. p. 13.
9,001 BCE Wooden-bow archery widespread in Europe. p. 19.
8,000 BCE Egyptian flint arrowheads. p. 22.
7,500-3,500 BCE Neolithic. p. 13.
After the glaciers retreated, plants returned: arctic willow, dwarf birch, then juniper, large birch, aspen, pine. Bows and arrows would have been in use. Hazel had reached the British Isles by 6,000 BCE, then elm, oak, lime, ash. Yew by 5,000 BCE. p. 18-19.
5,500 BCE-500 BCE Sahara dried, its forests died. p. 13.
4,000-3,001 BCE Wooden bows in Egypt; 350 years later supplanted by oryx-horn/wood composite bows from Syria or Asia Minor. The British Museum has Egyptian bows from 2,300 BCE to 1,400 BCE. p. 22.
2,820 BCE A bow was made, of shade-grown elm. Found in Zealand in 1959. p. 17.
2,690 BCE Oldest bow found in England, at Meare Heath. And one at Ashcott Heath, dated 2,665 BCE. Both in Somerset. pp. 18, 22.
Other bows date to 2,400 to 1,550 BCE, of yew, from Germany and Holland. p. 18. An oak bow in Denmark from 2,000 BCE or earlier, preserved in a peat bog. p. 20.
1,900 BCE Egyptian military archery was effective. p. 23.
1,500 BCE Archery became less important. p. 19. Bows, and arrowheads, became scarce. Supplanted by bronze hand-weapons? Hardy doesn't say it here, but his mention of armor-piercing arrows, 750 BCE, suggests that earlier archery was foiled by bronze armor and shields. p. 20-21.
1,320 BCE A yew bow, found at Edington Burtle in Somerset. An oak bow from 1,300 BCE, in Scotland. p. 20.
750 BCE Armor-piercing arrows. Archery returned to war. p. 21.
200 BCE Crossbows in China. p. 35.
53 BCE Parthians defeated Romans at Carrhae, bringing 1,000 camels with spare arrows. p. 50.
1 BCE Camels had arrived in the Sahara. p. 23.
100 CE - 350 CE Yew and fir bows in Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein, from bogs and ship-burials. pp. 21-22. Bows began to be made using heartwood for compression and sapwood for elasticity. Composite bows ruled eastern Europe. pp. 23, 28.
300 CE Roman crossbows. p. 35.
354 CE German archers kept Romans from crossing the Rhine. 388 CE Archery repulsed Roman attack on Neuss. pp. 21, 28.
449 King Vortigern was fighting in Britain. The bow and arrow may have been reintroduced to Britain in 449. pp. 29-30.
490 Frankish King Clovis decreed a fine of 2,500 dinars for shooting a poisoned arrow at a man. p. 30.
633 A Welsh, or maybe Mercian, archer killed Prince Offrid of Northumbria. p. 30.
701-800 Germans used yew longbows with the tensile sapwood at the back (the best design, as the English would use in the Hundred Years' War). p. 30.
800 Vikings had settled in Normandy. p. 29.
820-1266 The Isle of Man was a Norse kingdom. p. 29.
By 870, Danes infested Britain. p. 31.
876-954 Danish kings ruled in York. p. 29.
991 Bows were busy at the battle of Maldon, Britain. p. 31.
1001 Archery was general in northern Europe. p. 31.
1013-1035 Danes ruled England. p. 29.
1055 Welsh archers repulsed invading Saxon cavalry. p. 31. But Anglo-Saxons in Britain at the time used bows for hunting but not much for war. p. 32.
1066 Norse won at Hastings. English had few archers. pp. 32-33. See Hope Muntz's imagining of the battle in /Golden Warrior/. p. 34.
1138 King Stephen beat the Scots in Yorkshire, using archers. p. 36.
1139 Armor-piercing crossbows had nearly superseded simple bows. Pope forbade crossbow-use against Christians. p. 35.
1170-1171 Richard "Strongbow" conquered Ireland, using many archers. p. 36.
1199 A crossbowman killed Richard I. p. 35.
1215 Magna Carta condemned the crossbow. p. 42.
1277 Edward I used hundreds of longbowmen in war against the northern Welsh. pp. 42-47.
1298 English archery defeated the Scots at Falkirk. pp. 47-49.
1314 Scots won at Bannock Burn: English archers weren't well deployed. pp. 49-50.
1327 500 English men-at-arms and 1,500 archers massacred a 10,000-Scot army at Dupplin Muir. p. 51.
1328 English archers beat Scots at Halidon Hill near Berwick. The Dupplin-and-Halidon strategy of massing men-at-arms, flanked by archers, standing while the enemy attacks, would be reused effectively during the Hundred Years War. pp. 51-52.
1338-1339 French burned English southern-coastal towns. p. 78.
1346 Crécy. p. 46, 53.
1346 English beat Scots under David Bruce at Neville's Cross, near Durham. p. 75.
1347 Black Death killed 1/3 of the population. p. 76.
1356 Poitiers. p. 75.
1377 William Langland wrote /The Dream of Piers Plowman/, first mention of Robin Hood (11 words). Robin supposedly lived 1160-1247. The first collection of Robin Hood ballads, /Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode/, is of 1495. John Maior, 1469-1549, wrote of Robertus Hoodus. pp. 38-42.
1415 Agincourt. p. 6.
1429 Jeanne d'Arc led the charge that broke the siege of Orléans. p. 120.
1435 Burgundy, England's ally, made peace with France. The decline had begun. p. 120.
1453 French slaughtered English at Castillon. The 100-Years War was over. English were gone from France except Calais. pp. 124-125.
1455-1485 English civil war.
1485 Henry VII Tudor's army killed Richard III Plantagenet, the last medieval warrior, at Bosworth. p. 130.
1500s Armor was thick enough to stop longbow arrows. Plagues killed 1/3 of England's population in the 1540s and 1550s. Tillers of soil were turfed out of common lands by wool magnates. Inflation withered archers' wages. Cannon were needed for sieges. pp. 131-135.
1545 Mary Rose warship sank. Longbows preserved under water. pp. 4-5, 21.
1545 Roger Ascham archery treatise, /Toxophilus/, earliest surviving handbook for archers. pp. 4, 135. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
1967 Dennis Holman wrote /The Elephant People/, about elephant-hunting archers in Africa. They used poisoned arrows. pp. 24-27.
1976 This book published.
50,000 years ago Arrowheads in north Africa. (Only the stone heads have survived.) pp. 12-13.
20,000-7,500 BCE Mesolithic. p. 13.
9,001 BCE Wooden-bow archery widespread in Europe. p. 19.
8,000 BCE Egyptian flint arrowheads. p. 22.
7,500-3,500 BCE Neolithic. p. 13.
After the glaciers retreated, plants returned: arctic willow, dwarf birch, then juniper, large birch, aspen, pine. Bows and arrows would have been in use. Hazel had reached the British Isles by 6,000 BCE, then elm, oak, lime, ash. Yew by 5,000 BCE. p. 18-19.
5,500 BCE-500 BCE Sahara dried, its forests died. p. 13.
4,000-3,001 BCE Wooden bows in Egypt; 350 years later supplanted by oryx-horn/wood composite bows from Syria or Asia Minor. The British Museum has Egyptian bows from 2,300 BCE to 1,400 BCE. p. 22.
2,820 BCE A bow was made, of shade-grown elm. Found in Zealand in 1959. p. 17.
2,690 BCE Oldest bow found in England, at Meare Heath. And one at Ashcott Heath, dated 2,665 BCE. Both in Somerset. pp. 18, 22.
Other bows date to 2,400 to 1,550 BCE, of yew, from Germany and Holland. p. 18. An oak bow in Denmark from 2,000 BCE or earlier, preserved in a peat bog. p. 20.
1,900 BCE Egyptian military archery was effective. p. 23.
1,500 BCE Archery became less important. p. 19. Bows, and arrowheads, became scarce. Supplanted by bronze hand-weapons? Hardy doesn't say it here, but his mention of armor-piercing arrows, 750 BCE, suggests that earlier archery was foiled by bronze armor and shields. p. 20-21.
1,320 BCE A yew bow, found at Edington Burtle in Somerset. An oak bow from 1,300 BCE, in Scotland. p. 20.
750 BCE Armor-piercing arrows. Archery returned to war. p. 21.
200 BCE Crossbows in China. p. 35.
53 BCE Parthians defeated Romans at Carrhae, bringing 1,000 camels with spare arrows. p. 50.
1 BCE Camels had arrived in the Sahara. p. 23.
100 CE - 350 CE Yew and fir bows in Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein, from bogs and ship-burials. pp. 21-22. Bows began to be made using heartwood for compression and sapwood for elasticity. Composite bows ruled eastern Europe. pp. 23, 28.
300 CE Roman crossbows. p. 35.
354 CE German archers kept Romans from crossing the Rhine. 388 CE Archery repulsed Roman attack on Neuss. pp. 21, 28.
449 King Vortigern was fighting in Britain. The bow and arrow may have been reintroduced to Britain in 449. pp. 29-30.
490 Frankish King Clovis decreed a fine of 2,500 dinars for shooting a poisoned arrow at a man. p. 30.
633 A Welsh, or maybe Mercian, archer killed Prince Offrid of Northumbria. p. 30.
701-800 Germans used yew longbows with the tensile sapwood at the back (the best design, as the English would use in the Hundred Years' War). p. 30.
800 Vikings had settled in Normandy. p. 29.
820-1266 The Isle of Man was a Norse kingdom. p. 29.
By 870, Danes infested Britain. p. 31.
876-954 Danish kings ruled in York. p. 29.
991 Bows were busy at the battle of Maldon, Britain. p. 31.
1001 Archery was general in northern Europe. p. 31.
1013-1035 Danes ruled England. p. 29.
1055 Welsh archers repulsed invading Saxon cavalry. p. 31. But Anglo-Saxons in Britain at the time used bows for hunting but not much for war. p. 32.
1066 Norse won at Hastings. English had few archers. pp. 32-33. See Hope Muntz's imagining of the battle in /Golden Warrior/. p. 34.
1138 King Stephen beat the Scots in Yorkshire, using archers. p. 36.
1139 Armor-piercing crossbows had nearly superseded simple bows. Pope forbade crossbow-use against Christians. p. 35.
1170-1171 Richard "Strongbow" conquered Ireland, using many archers. p. 36.
1199 A crossbowman killed Richard I. p. 35.
1215 Magna Carta condemned the crossbow. p. 42.
1277 Edward I used hundreds of longbowmen in war against the northern Welsh. pp. 42-47.
1298 English archery defeated the Scots at Falkirk. pp. 47-49.
1314 Scots won at Bannock Burn: English archers weren't well deployed. pp. 49-50.
1327 500 English men-at-arms and 1,500 archers massacred a 10,000-Scot army at Dupplin Muir. p. 51.
1328 English archers beat Scots at Halidon Hill near Berwick. The Dupplin-and-Halidon strategy of massing men-at-arms, flanked by archers, standing while the enemy attacks, would be reused effectively during the Hundred Years War. pp. 51-52.
1338-1339 French burned English southern-coastal towns. p. 78.
1346 Crécy. p. 46, 53.
1346 English beat Scots under David Bruce at Neville's Cross, near Durham. p. 75.
1347 Black Death killed 1/3 of the population. p. 76.
1356 Poitiers. p. 75.
1377 William Langland wrote /The Dream of Piers Plowman/, first mention of Robin Hood (11 words). Robin supposedly lived 1160-1247. The first collection of Robin Hood ballads, /Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode/, is of 1495. John Maior, 1469-1549, wrote of Robertus Hoodus. pp. 38-42.
1415 Agincourt. p. 6.
1429 Jeanne d'Arc led the charge that broke the siege of Orléans. p. 120.
1435 Burgundy, England's ally, made peace with France. The decline had begun. p. 120.
1453 French slaughtered English at Castillon. The 100-Years War was over. English were gone from France except Calais. pp. 124-125.
1455-1485 English civil war.
1485 Henry VII Tudor's army killed Richard III Plantagenet, the last medieval warrior, at Bosworth. p. 130.
1500s Armor was thick enough to stop longbow arrows. Plagues killed 1/3 of England's population in the 1540s and 1550s. Tillers of soil were turfed out of common lands by wool magnates. Inflation withered archers' wages. Cannon were needed for sieges. pp. 131-135.
1545 Mary Rose warship sank. Longbows preserved under water. pp. 4-5, 21.
1545 Roger Ascham archery treatise, /Toxophilus/, earliest surviving handbook for archers. pp. 4, 135. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
1967 Dennis Holman wrote /The Elephant People/, about elephant-hunting archers in Africa. They used poisoned arrows. pp. 24-27.
1976 This book published.
June 22, 2009
This book was first published in the 1970s and updated a couple of times since. The role of the longbow in both hunting/gathering and in war. Parts are quite technical and those I just browsed. The recovery of Henry VIII's favorite ship, the Mary Rose, in the early 1980s produced a vast store of unused longbows which has had a big impact on research in this field (they usually rot away, become firewood, etc.). The author added a major chapter at the end of the book as a result. It's out of print in the US right now -- this is the English version ordered from London via Amazon. Did I mention I was a geek?
March 12, 2012
This book, while more of a textbook and manual than anything, was absolutely helpful in my research of the Hundred Years War in which longbow men were highly sought after and greatly and effectively utilized to soundly defeat the French on many occasions. It beings with the basic history of archery all the way to the most recent uses of longbows and their wooden descendants. There are even some sections that describe how to make long bows with modern tools. Great and informative read.
May 31, 2010
Probably pretty boring stuff, if you're not a history junkie or particularly interested in the military and social history of England up through the middle ages. The writing is quite dry, but the book is packed solid with information including accounts of the pivotal battles of Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt. Much like the Spartan phalanx formation of locked shields with protruding lances, the disciplined formations of the Roman legions, and the swift mounted archery of the Mongols, it seems that certain societies were able to advance and prevail over their contemporaries largely due to unique advances in military science in the form of weaponry or tactics. The longbow provided this advantage to Norman English armies through the middle ages.
December 23, 2021
A fairly solid non-fiction book on the history of longbows. Very informative of British traditions of longbowing and quite humorous at points.
Readers more accustomed to modern non-fiction texts that are at least partially written with the lay person in mind may find the density and the prerequisite knowledge referenced throughout the book a bit challenging so I would only reccomend this to those with a strong interest in the topic.
Readers more accustomed to modern non-fiction texts that are at least partially written with the lay person in mind may find the density and the prerequisite knowledge referenced throughout the book a bit challenging so I would only reccomend this to those with a strong interest in the topic.
March 7, 2023
"Longbow" comes from an era where archers were obsessed with measuring the performance and efficiency of traditional bows, very much in the same vein as Paul Klopsteg's "Turkish Archery and the Composite Bow." Thankfully, Hardy's writing is not as dry, though there are sections regarding the crafting and cast of traditional bows that come close. His recounting of the longbow's history adds a lot of nice context to the weapon's usage. This is definitely another staple for my growing library of archery books that I look forward to revisiting.
September 21, 2017
This book is a wonderful source of history and practicality. The Longbow should be a 'must read' for archers.
June 9, 2022
This covers the history of the bow and arrow, concentrating on the longbow of England and the wars it was used in. Parts were a little dry, but worth a read.
May 30, 2009
Written by a true amateur, this is a wonderful history of archery. It's primary focus is English archery, which flowered fully at the battles of Crecy and Agincourt. It does deal a fair bit with the history of bows leading up to those pivotol battles, but it's overall focus is the English longbow. There is passing mention of other peoples and their bows, but for this author, everything crescendos at Agincourt with a relatively fast decline after that as the world moves on to gunpowder and guns. But even with all that, this is a wonderful book, filled to overflowing with one mans love of bows and arrows and gifted boyers, fletchers and bowman.
August 29, 2008
Excellent reference for Target Archers.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews