Cover; Title; Acknowledgements; Contents; Money in Medieval England; I Popular Archery after the Norman Conquest; II Law of Archery before the Black Death; III Bows and Arrows as Part of Medieval Life; IV Archery for Sport and Practice; V Breaking the Law; VI Hunting Practices in Medieval England; VII Hunting and Poaching; VIII Military Archery before Edward III; IX Contemporary Evidence for Bows and Arrows in Medieval England; X What Drove the Rise of the English Longbowman?; Bibliography; Plates; Copyright
Summary
How was it that ordinary men in medieval England and Wales became such skilled archers that they defeated noble knights in battle after battle? The archer in medieval England became a forerunner of John Bull as a symbol of the spirit of the ordinary Englishman. He had his own popular literature that left us a romantic version of the lives and activities of outlaws and poachers such as Robin Hood. This remarkable development began 150 years after the traumatic events of the Norman Conquest transformed the English way of life, in ways that were almost never to the benefit of the English. This bo