For more than three centuries the longbow was the dominant weapon in English military thinking, and England's archers were a force to be reckoned with on battlefields across Europe. From the famous battles of Crecy and Agincourt to forgotten skirmishes in Norfolk no serious fight was complete without the hum of the bow string. The study of the history of English archery could not be complete without reference to the vast bank of primary sources, documents written in the medieval and Tudor periods, which speak of the lives of the archers, their equipment, conditions, pay, and experiences. This book contains transcripts of 51 primary sources including, for the first time, all 23 parliamentary statutes relating to archery and the manufacture of bows and arrows passed between 1285 and 1571, miscellaneous primary sources from letters, household accounts, and medieval chronicles, and three extracts from larger sixteenth-century works arguing over the supremacy of guns or bows at a time when the military use of the bow was in terminal decline. Together these sources offer a glimpse into archers and archery during the Hundred Years' War, the Wars of the Roses, and the Tudor campaigns.
