2011/08/28 by Clifford J. Rogers · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Eurasian Exchange Networks #Metallurgy and Cultural Artifacts #Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies
paper · doi:10.1016/j.jmedhist.2011.06.002
openalex publication_date 2011/08/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Traditional understandings of the development of the medieval English longbow and its role in the fourteenth-century ‘infantry revolution’ have recently been challenged by historians. This article responds to the revisionists, arguing based on archaeological, iconographic and textual evidence that the proper longbow was a weapon of extraordinary power, and was qualitatively different from – and more effective than – the shorter self-bows that were the norm in England (and western Europe generally) before the fourteenth century. It is further argued that acknowledging the importance of the weapon as a necessary element of any credible explanation of English military successes in the era of the Hundred Years War does not constitute ‘technological determinism’. ☆ My thanks to the Journal of Medieval History's anonymous reader for helpful comments.