Category Blog

Archery Tactics, Part 3: Mounted Archery

Mounted Archery Last time we discussed the age of the great warbow. As important as the warbow was to late medieval warfare in Western Europe, the bow really achieved its most brilliant deployment as a military technology among the horseback…

Archery Tactics, Part 2: The Age of the Great Warbow.

Heavy warbows came into their own in western Europe when they began to be deployed in mass volleys, the so-called “arrow storm,” by the Normans. The primary purpose of the arrow storm was to disrupt, weaken, and dishearten an advancing…

The Myth of Robin Hood

   As I noted in my last post on archery tactics, the bow was long used as a weapon of ambush. In the English-speaking world, the yew longbow has become synonymous with noble outlaws, such as Robin Hood, who defied…

Ancient Archer

Hi all, I recently came across a translation of a Latin inscription about a Syrian soldier in the Batavian legion of the Roman army named Soranus. He died in 118 AD and left a remarkable epitaph. Here it is: “I…