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The
Crossbow > Chapter 5
> Range of the Medieval Crossbow
> p.21
The Range of the Medieval Crossbow
If one of these strong military crossbows was aimed horizontally at
the forehead of a man standing at a distance of 50 yards, the bolt would
not strike lower than his chin.
A few years ago I tested the shooting powers of many fine examples of
crossbows, military and sporting, made near the end of the fifteenth century,
some of which were formerly in a well-known Continental arsenal, and others
in my own collection.
I fitted their steel bows with thick hempen strings, set their stocks
and locks in order, and shot, to and fro over level ground, numbers of
bolts
of diverse lengths and weights, which I had caused to be made in exact
imitation of the decayed originals to be found in Continental and other
armouries.
The longest flight I obtained from one of the best and strongest of
these weapons, originally carried by a crossbowman in battle, was 390 yards.1
The shortest flight, from the same bow, was 380 yards. The weight of this
crossbow, without its windlass, was 15 1/2 Lbs. Its steel bow was 2 ft.
7 1/2 in. long, and at its centre 1 3/4 in. wide and 3/4 in. thick. The
former distance, in my opinion, is considerably further than any longbow
archer of mediaeval, or later times, could drive the arrow used in
sport or in warfare.
Very few of the most powerful and skilled of modern archers, even with
selected bows and light flighting arrows, are able to achieve a range of
300 yards, 280 to 290 yards being an exceptional feat. There is no reason
whatever to suppose that our ancestors were so vastly superior in the use
of the longbow, as to excel these distances
by so much as 90 yards - especially with the heavy shafts and heads of
warfare2 - and thus to equal with the arrow of the longbow,
the length of flight (370 to 380 yards) attained by the bolt of a large
military
crossbow with a thick steel bow.
In 'King Henry IV.,' Second Part, Act III, Scene II, Shakespeare makes
Shallow exclaim of Double - ' Dead ! a' would have clapped i' the clout
at twelve score ; and carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen
and a half.'
From this it is evident that in the time of Shakespeare, 1564-1616,
it was considered a notable performance to send a forehand shaft (presumably
a flight arrow) 14 to 14 1/2 score yards (280 to 290 yards that is), which,
1 'On March 21, 1661, 400 archers, with their
bows and arrows, made a splendid and glorious show in Hide Parke, with
their colours flying and crossbows to guard them. Several of the archers
shot near 20 score yards with their crossbows.' - Extract from Wood's Bowman's
Glory, 1682.
2 There is no doubt that the heads, or piles,
of the war arrows used by our ancestors were far heavier than those of
the target-arrows of the present day. The arrow of the ancient longbow
had a barbed head, in order that its extraction might be a dangerous and
difficult matter.
In the ninth year of the reign of Edward III. 'the King
commanded the Mayors and Sheriffs of the county to supply 300 good bows,
and four chests of arrows of the length of one ell, the heads of the said
arrows to have flukes or barbs of a large size.' - Cotton MS.
The Crossbow
> Chapter 5 > Range
of the Medieval Crossbow > p.21
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