Medieval Welsh Weaponry

[Hotspur]

Originally Posted by fearn

Hi Jim and all,

It's a common story that the English longbow developed from a Welsh predecessor. I don't know the origin of this story, but I figure it's probably true, given how the English traditionally felt about the Welsh.

As for the others, "bolg" means belly, or possibly lightning, and caladbolg means "hard belly" or possibly "hard lightning. Cuchulainn had a spear called "gae bolg" (belly spear or spear of light) Not sure why Celtic mythology has so many bolgs (including the fir bolg) but there you have it.

Best,

F

However,

In what I have read over the years regarding the "modern" Ed the Ist longbow development was Scandanavian southern plains Brit ish heritage and not the mountain Welsh tribes who used short hunting bows shown strung drawn to the chest and not man/long length bows drawn to the ear. If I recall correctly, it is actually Edward that first employed the longbow against the Welsh in early campaigns (I will find the battles if they seem scarce to others but this should be elementary history research for any). By the time of the 100 years war, Richard II was a darling amongst mid medieval Welshmen militaries and the infamous Cheshire archers that later blindly (and were falsely) led by the Percy camp to rise against Henry IV. Shrewsbury possibly being the epitome of British longbow warfare on both sides of that battle. Edward the oneth use of the longbow squads was to protect the more mobile and fellow spearmen. Again, I am abstracting but the notes of those actions of longbow development on the island are out there.

What particular age of medieval is the paper to address? We are looking at five centuries and more in that regard but the arms of the Welsh by 1066 and all that mostly regard the influences of other Norman and more Norse backgrounds. There is some mystical fancy in my mind that some seem to think the Welsh less organized or structured than the rest of the world. Check out Madoc on your way through mythologies as well.

The Medieval Sourcebook web pages http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/Sbook.html might help any and any graced with JSTOR access has the informations at their finger tips. Welsh arms before Ed I also include Roman and other Scandanavian influences of arms. Swords were already well formed and implemented by those owing them and showed no real outstanding ethnographic traits before Norse intermingling of the islands at large.

Look also to the writings and compilations of earlier English history by Thomas Walsingham (toss Froissart in the bucket in regard to the Welsh, you'd be better off reading Shakespeare). Also the British history online site
www.british-history.ac.uk/Default.aspx with the old histories, as well as
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ Also a great portal that pretty much began my internet interests early in the game is the Sir Clisto Tome and indexes
www.sirclisto.com/ Yes, SCCA but quite a list to browse and leads to the real depths of data well beyond poor old Ewart, et al.

Cheers

GC

[Hotspur]

Josh,

If your interests of Welsh history is in the colonial American period, feel free to ping me as it is my heritage as well. Although my surname has been bound up by researchers insisting one source or another, the migration patterns from the Virginias, then south along known highways and byways then through the Carolinas and out through Cumberland shadowing Boone and others is a great escape to families histories. Look well to Charleston archives for entries as well but a lot of the settlement of families actually did migrate south as opposed to entry there.

Cheers

GC

[fearn]

Hi Hotspur,

You're probably right, but the deep archeological evidence from all over Europe (British Isles and mainland) shows that longbows were widespread throughout, from the mesolithic. For example the oldest longbow in the British Isles was exhumed from Ashcott Heath, Somerset dated to 2665 BCE (link).

There's a couple of things going on here. One is the physical size of the weapon itself, the other is fielding contingents of archers. It looks like the Welsh fighters were the impetus for the English longbows.

F

[Hotspur]

A wiki article?

[Hotspur]

http://netsword.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000676.html

[jswillems]

Thanks Hotspur for the links, I just glanced at them, but they look like they have a lot of information. I'll be sure to read them in depth. As far as the family history goes, I was extremely lucky and came across a guy who had already done a ton of research that included my own family line. Thanks again!

[fearn]

Originally Posted by Hotspur

A wiki article?

. Sure. If it has a reference, it gets you into secondary reference works. Since I don't currently have a university library system to draw on, and I didn't want to take more than three minutes finding out if you were probably right (which you were, according to Wikipedia), it doesn't need more.

Not good enough for writing a paper, but that's not the point here.

As for the longbow reference, I've seen pictures and reconstructions of the original meso/neolithic bows in other (primary) literature (most readily accessible in <i>The Traditional Bowyer's Bible</i> series, but the wiki link is a good start. Elm isn't yew, but it's a perfectly good bow wood if the bow is properly designed, and it was widely used in Europe.

English longbows were designed in part to maximize the number of bow staves they could get from a yew log (primary literature), as well as to maximize their weapon potential, and that is where the narrow, D-shaped cross section of the English long bow comes from.


F

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by fearn

. Sure. If it has a reference, it gets you into secondary reference works. Since I don't currently have a university library system to draw on, and I didn't want to take more than three minutes finding out if you were probably right (which you were, according to Wikipedia), it doesn't need more.

Not good enough for writing a paper, but that's not the point here.

As for the longbow reference, I've seen pictures and reconstructions of the original meso/neolithic bows in other (primary) literature (most readily accessible in <i>The Traditional Bowyer's Bible</i> series, but the wiki link is a good start. Elm isn't yew, but it's a perfectly good bow wood if the bow is properly designed, and it was widely used in Europe.

English longbows were designed in part to maximize the number of bow staves they could get from a yew log (primary literature), as well as to maximize their weapon potential, and that is where the narrow, D-shaped cross section of the English long bow comes from.


F

Extremely well said Fearn!!! and true, Wikipedia is an excellent source to a field of other references which must be carefully considered to develop the material required in the study of a topic. It indeed saves many steps, and as I do recall the 'old days' of many months of research to find supporting evidence on subjects. Modern technology is great, and it seems standards have changed a lot......in my day, a calculator was not permissable in a math class (I think there were some invented by then, though there were some abacus' around .

All best regards,
Jim

[Hotspur]

Perhaps what frustrates me is the trend to view and reference Wikis as a
primary source, when a good many of the articles are often poorly managed.

Cheers

GC