The Medieval Archer Book

Really enjoyed this short piece piece on Medieval archers and archery where the author looks at the place of bows of different types both militarily and socially in western Europe between the 11th and 16th centuries. He explores some of the overt mythology like Robin Hood and explodes some of the more subtle mythology like the Welsh origin of a distinct "longbow", the originality of English tactics at Agincourt and the image of French chivalry riding to their doom against a hail of arrows, among others. There are a few frustrating typos and the author perhaps might have inferred something from the later use of firearms in association with pile regiments by western European forces during the renaissance and later, as to how bow and spear/bill troops might have interacted in the earlier period, rather than argue, as he does that archers were largely and most effectively used on the wings of the entire army rather than on the wings of smaller regiments or divisions. This, to me would more easily explain the mysterious reference to "herces" of archers in some literature.