English longbow

In the Middle Ages, longbows were mostly made of yew wood. Trunks (less commonly branches) were split lengthwise. When stropping the outer surface (the side facing away from the archer: the "back"), care must be taken to ensure that the same growth ring forms the outer surface along the entire length of the bow, otherwise the bow tends to split between the growth rings. The "belly side," facing the archer and consisting of heartwood, is then carefully thinned ("tilled") until the limbs have a uniform bend.

Yew blanks in Central Europe primarily came from southern Germany and northern Italy. Due to the high demand, the yew was ruthlessly logged, so that it became relatively rare in the wild in Europe. Today, it is a protected species and is found almost exclusively in parks and cemeteries.

There is evidence of extremely powerful bows, such as the discovery of a warhead in the wooden roof of a tower of the Tower of London, whose penetration depth can only be explained by a bow weighing more than 120 pounds. Further evidence of draw weights exceeding 100 pounds is provided by the bow finds from the shipwreck of the Mary Rose, which sank in 1545. Deformations in the shoulder axis area of ​​skeletal remains of English longbowmen demonstrate physical wear and tear due to the heavy draw weights, which averaged around 80 pounds (equivalent to approximately 36 kg). Experiments with replicas of historical bows have yielded even higher values. The draw weights were far greater than those of the bare bows used today. The goal was to achieve the greatest possible penetration power for heavy arrows. Longbow arrows can reportedly penetrate mail armor, plate armor, or oak plates about 2.5 cm thick.

Longbowmen were highly specialized units requiring extensive training. Trained longbowmen could fire up to ten arrows per minute at ranges of up to 200 meters.

More emphasis was probably placed on quantity than accuracy, since in a battle, areas were more likely to be shot at than individual targets. 1,000 archers could thus fire 500 kg of arrows per minute. This immense consumption sustained an entire "industry," from which many professions existed: not only bowmakers (bowyers) and arrowsmiths (arrowsmiths, fletchers), but also blacksmiths, rope makers (stringers, stringfellows), timber merchants, hauliers, etc. Some of these occupational titles still survive today as English surnames.

According to a report in 1523, the Tower of London alone housed 11,000 bows, 6,000 bow staves, 384,000 arrows, and 86,400 bowstrings. By 1982, only a handful of bows remained. More than 3,500 preserved medieval arrows (mostly made of poplar wood) and 137 completely intact longbows were eventually recovered from the wreck of the Mary Rose, a warship of Henry VIII, which sank in 1545 and was raised in 1982. The bows are in excellent condition, making them the primary source for research into the English longbow. Their length ranges between 1.87 and 2.11 meters.