FENWICK
BOWS
The History of the English Longbow
The bow of western Europe, the English Longbow was perfected and made famous by the English during the Hundred Years War.
Traditionally made out of a single stave of Yew wood, the shooting of the Longbow became a culture in England. Shooting became mandatory by law for every man between the ages of 6 and 60. Merchants importing goods from certain countries were required to include a portion of Yew staves as payment to the King.
The English Longbow was the way that a small island nation, cut off from the arms makers of Italy and Germany, could rise to the might of France and Spain and later to become a global power.
It has been said that the English Longbow may also have been a tool used to birth the middle class in England. In Europe, soldiers were required to fight for a certain amount of time in exchange for access of land. This was known as “Fixed-term Military Service”. As the wars in France wore on however, those “contracts” began ending, soldiers (and often archers) would offer their prolonged service by forming privatized “Free Companies”. These members of Free Companies for the first time began making good money - an avenue for people to rise through the class system.
What we know of the English Longbow comes from manuscripts, but primarily from the Mary Rose Bows, which were preserved in the mud of the Solent, the English Channel, after Henry VIII’s flagship sank in 1545. The Mary Rose was raised in 1982, forever changing our perspective of late Medieval/Tudor archery.
Fenwick Bows bases all of our Longbows off of the dimensions and styles of these bows. Because no two staves of wood are alike, there of course subtle variations according to the timber (just like the Mary Rose bows) and wood species.
Though all the bows of the Mary Rose were made of Yew, in the Middle Ages other species were used too. Referred to as “Meanwood Bows” or Whitewood bows. Many other tree species will make a fine bow. The Welsh famously introduced just how lethal a Meanwood longbow could be to the English. They favoured Elm, or more accurately Wych Elm. Ash was also commonly used, which is what we like to use as our signature Meanwood English Longbow at Fenwick Bows due to the amount of quality White Ash trees that we have access to. We also make Elm and Ironwood (Hop-Hornbeam) English Longbows but because of more limited supply, for the time being we do not make them on commission, but you may find them here: