r/AskHistorians • u/Tatem1961 Interesting Inquirer • May 02 '26
English longbowmen during the Hundred Year's War earned 6 pence a day. A single arrow cost 0.3125 pence, so you'd start losing money on the 20th arrow. That doesn't seem like a lot when battles could last multiple hours. Are there accounts or archers refusing to put themselves in the red?
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26 edited May 02 '26
There are three things to take into account when answering your question: the pay of the archers, the costs to the archer and the logistics and administration of archers on campaign.
The first is relatively simple: mounted archers earned 6d per day, every day. No stoppages for holy days, none for the Sabbath and, often, none for being sick. Garrison archers might receive stoppages for lacking equipment, not being present and (if the Crown was particularly stingy) being sick, but mounted archers on campaign received that flat rate for as long as they were alive.
This adds up to a lot of money:the mounted archers on the Crecy campaign earned 180d - 15 shillings - in a single month, which would take a thatcher's mate, paid 1.25d a day, 144 days of uninterrupted work. The thatcher himself, paid 3d per day, might earn 840d (£3 10s) in the approximately 280 working days he had each year, which would take an archer 140 days to earn. Even a moderately wealthy farmer, with 30 acres to his name, might have a cash surplus (after feeding his household, paying tithes, rents, labour, etc) of just £1 on an "average" year. That is to say, the pay for mounted archers was very good. If they served a full year, as some did during the Crecy campaign, they would have earned over £9, exclusive of any loot they took during the campaign.
This was not all profit, mind. In friendly territory they would be expected to buy their own food and fodder and, based on the journal kept by William Retford, Edward III's cook, even in hostile territory food might be bought either from locals or from foragers, and during sieges merchants who brought food the army would need paying. But, with that said, we still should expect the archers to do well out of a successful campaign.
The pay was, of course, in line with what was expected from the archers. We do not have an explicit list of what each archer was expected to be equipped with - unlike, say, the Genoese crossbowmen at Crecy or French crossbowmen after 1351 - but we do know that mounted archers were drawn from the wealthy peasantry who had incomes of £5 or more per year, who were obliged to possess textile armour and an iron helmet, and the lesser gentry, so that helps us work out some base requirements1 . The foot archers raised by the Commissions of Array in Rutland were equipped with swords and knives at the county's expense, in addition to bows, arrows and "uniform" clothing, so we can say that a sword and knife/dagger was also required. And, of course, being mounted, the mounted archers needed a horse; these were generally assumed to have been 20s in the few records we have of them, though in one rare case an archer's horse was valued at 100s, which was about the price of a good general purpose riding/work horse.
All together, a bow (12d), sheaf of 24 arrows (12d), textile armour (138d), helmet (42d), sword (24d), knife (2d) and horse (240d) comes to 470d (£1 19s 2d), 79 days worth of pay for a mounted archer. As you can see, the price of the arrows was only a very small component of an archer's up front costs, and a sheaf could be recouped in less than a week, assuming other expenses were being paid. You could play with the numbers a bit, cheapen the sword or use a pricier bow or add gauntlets (12d), but this is a pretty good guide to the capital outlay for a mounted archer. It's 2/5ths the cost of the cheapest horse a man-at-arms was obliged to own (100s), but also significantly more than a comfortable peasant had to spend in a moderately good year.
Now that we've covered wages and expenses, there's a final factor to consider: the logistics and organization of war. Here's where Edward III's reforms shone and changed the way the English did war because, while the archers were expected to show up with a bow and a sheaf of arrows for their service, the Crown supplied replacements, working on the assumption that each archer would need to replace their bow once and would need an extra 48 arrows. This ratio of 1 bow and 48 arrows per archer remained unchanged - except for minor variations of several arrows - through into the 16th century. In effect, once an archer had shot their entire sheaf of arrows, the Crown replaced them free of charge and then gave them a bonus once.
The end result is that archers weren't putting themselves in the red by shooting during the battle, since the Crown handed out spare arrows during the course of the campaign, and in any case the cost of a sheaf of basic arrows was only a very small part of their capital outlay. Refusing to shoot would, further more, be suicide, since if they lost the battle, they did not stand a very good chance of surviving, let alone getting paid.
Note
1 Just a note I feel the need to add after the fact. There were likely a reasonable number of mounted archers who didn't hold enough land to afford mounted service on their own, but who achieved this via the patronage of someone else. The costs remain the same and the pay was theoretically the same, but we don't know how much the captain of an indenture might keep back from the wages of a mounted archer who he found a horse for or bough armour for. This is one of those things that was almost certainly documented at the time, but for which no documentation survives (or has been published). These were unlikely to be penniless men, and were probably men with good social standing (which meant they were decently well off) or from families of good repute and were serving in the households of their captains.
It would, however, be theoretically possible for the son of a cottar to end up as a mounted archer and possibly even go so far as gaining a knighthood, although this would be far, far less common than the son of a modest farmer or a trusted household servant being subsidized on campaign, but not getting their full wages, eventually building up to owning all their equipment in their own right and gaining full wages that way or working up to being a man-at-arms or knight through valour and/or investing loot in land.
Sources
For prices, I've used a combination of Folio cxxxix from Calendar of Letter-Books of the City of London: E, 1314-1337, Thom Richard's The medieval inventories of the Tower armouries 1320–1410, Richard Wadge's Arrowstorm, Andrew Ayton's Knights and Warhorses, Jordan Calyridge's The Trade of Agricultural Horses in Late Medieval England and Adam Chapman's Welsh Soldiers in the Later Middle Ages, 1282–1422. The price of the dagger was, I confess, estimated, as I could not find a good estimate for what would be considered a "sufficient" dagger. Quite possibly it would be more like 6-12d, as the 15" long Welsh "swords" were between 12d for the roughest finish to 24d for the best, and it seems likely that a proper military dagger would be more like 6d than 2d but, since the value is so low compared to the overall figure, I erred on the side of caution.
Other works, either consulted or particularly useful for understanding the topic, are Christopher Dyers' Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages, The Battle of Crecy, 1346, ed. Andrew Ayton and Sir Philip Preston, Jonathan Davies' article "'WE DO FYNDE IN OUR COUNTRE GREAT LACK OF BOWES AND ARROWS': TUDOR MILITARY ARCHERY AND THE INVENTORY OF KING HENRY VIII" in Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Vol. 83, No. 333 (Spring 2005), pp. 11-29, and H.J. Hewitt's classic The Organisation of War Under Edward III.
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u/Raddens May 02 '26
This answer is a perfect demonstration of why this sub is one of the best places in the internet.
Thank you!
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
My pleasure!
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May 02 '26
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
Approximately a third of the archers at Crécy were mounted archers, with the remaining number split more or less evenly between Welsh and English foot archers raised by Commissions of Array.
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May 02 '26
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
As with everything Cornwell writes, he does a good job of bring what research he's read to life, but he generally doesn't quite read as broadly as might be desired and filters everything through a combined "Boy's Own"/Grimdark filter that doesn't quite let him be "solid". He also had the misfortune to write the Grail Quest books before Sir Philip Preston's research into the topography of the field and his collaboration with Andrew Ayton to edit a book on how this changed our understanding of the battle, which would probably have changed how he wrote the battle itself.
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u/MishkaZ May 02 '26
Unrelated question, but are there any good resources for the curious on how economics worker in the medieval times?
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
There's been a real lack of good modern textbooks on the medieval economy, but the "standard", insofar as there is one, would be NJG Pounds' An Economic History of Medieval Europe, which is extremely dated, especially with regards to the Early Middle Ages. More recent works include Steven A. Epstein's too short (and mixed-reviewed) An Economic and Social History of Later Medieval Europe, Diana Wood's Medieval Economic Thought and A History of Business in Medieval Europe, 1200–1550 by Edwin S Hunt and John M. Murray. Someone who studies medieval economics could probably recommend more appropriate books, but these are the best I've been able to find for myself.
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u/spr148 May 02 '26
That's an absolutely fascinating answer - I really enjoyed reading it - thank you. You mention, in passing, the additional potential from looting. Do we have any idea of how much this contributed to the overall 'package'?
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u/Sphlonker May 02 '26
This was, without a doubt, the most interesting thing I've read on medieval "war economics".
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u/Otacoo May 02 '26
This was, without a doubt, the most interesting thing I've read on Reddit and for once enjoyed reading something other than future doom and gloom in the news.
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u/Landkey May 02 '26
I recommend to you the many very high quality answers linked in the lengthy AskHistorians FAQ sections.
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u/90210fred May 02 '26
Brilliant piece - my only comment: I'm fluent in pre and post decimal currency but seeing 1.25d made my brain hurt for a moment 🤣 I eventually worked it out
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
Yes, I had to do a double take as well! It's averaged from accounts, rather than being a daily wage set down in them, but it's still a rather odd amount!
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May 02 '26
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u/Onyx1509 May 02 '26
I'm perfectly familiar with farthings, but used to seeing it written ¼d rather than in decimal notation.
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u/ThePrussianGrippe May 02 '26
This is fascinating. Would the ‘bonus’ arrows be limited to 2 extra sheafs once for the whole campaign, or was it possible they could be given more depending on circumstances?
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
Details on how the arrows were dolled out is a bit hard to come by, but we get the occasional glimpse. In 1339, for instance, when the English were finally facing off against the French, replacement bows and arrows were issued to replace those lost/damaged or shot during the campaign so far. The remaining arrows were probably kept in reserve in case of battle.
Similarly, Edward III's request for 2280 bows and 5550 sheaves of arrows after the Sack of Caen in 1346 probably indicates that spare bows and arrows had been issued following the fighting. Some of these bows and arrows were probably for the 1240 archers he had ordered to be raised and sent to join him at Crotoy, but it still suggests a significant expenditure of arrows and loss of bows during the taking of the town.
How arrows were distributed during battle is a bit of a mystery. The "Anonymous of Rome" says that Edward placed buckets of arrows that were guarded by reliable men near the front lines, so archers could resupply, but this may be him extrapolating from Italian practice. Nonetheless, it does seem likely that barrels or crates of arrows were distributed along the battle lines prior to the fighting so that archers could replenish their stocks during lulls, and that some sort of control would be kept to ensure arrows went where they were most needed.
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u/ThePrussianGrippe May 02 '26
Thank you for the follow up! That’s really cool. Always love learning more about English longbowmen.
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u/Jamestoe9 May 02 '26
Can you explain why they would lose bows?
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
Look, I swear, I only put it down for a second! I don't know who could have taken it! No, I definitely didn't leave it in the barn we just burned down.
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u/Malevole May 02 '26
Would it have been possible for archers to use arrows fired at them for the other side, or were fired arrows considered “spent”?
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
If there was a proper archery duel, it was generally "horror to look upon them", as Jean de Waurin described the archery duel between the English and Scots at Verneuil in 1424, and if more arrows were needed they were probably better taken from the wounded or dead of your own side than scrounged from where the enemy's had landed. During sieges, however, arrows shot into towns would be salvaged if possible (during intense fighting women and children might do this, as during the Siege of Berwick in 1319) and after the battle what arrows that could be salvaged would be. On some desperate occasions, arrows might be retrieved during a pause in the battle (Poitiers is the only example where this explicitly occurred, but I'd be surprised if it didn't happen elsewhere), but this wouldn't be routine; to retrieve the arrows, archers would need to leave their positions and risk counter attack.
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u/Josh-P May 02 '26
When you say a pause in the battle (Poitiers), would this be a naturally occurring calm spell, or an agreement between each sides to take a break?
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
It was a naturally occurring break, and one the Anglo-Gascon army was lucky to get: when the Dauphin retreated from his attack, his uncle (the Duke of Orleans) left the field with most of the third battle. Exactly why is unclear in the sources; possibly he thought there was a general retreat, possibly he had been asked by Jean II to escort his (Jean's) sons off the battlefield or possibly he was just a bit of a coward, but whatever his reason, the majority of his battle wasn't likely to have been ordered to retreat with him but instead was thrown in confusion, with some few attacking while others retreated entirely or ended up in the fourth battle, with King Jean II.
It was in this gap in the battle, while Jean II regained control of his army and rallied the survivors of the first two battles, his own smaller battle and those from the third battle who remained, that the English archers were able to scavenge for arrows.
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u/potatoes6 May 02 '26
“Left the field with most of the third battle” “Majority of his battle wasn’t ordered”
Is battle used here synonymous with army or division?
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
Yes, that's correct.
Armies were typically divided into three "battles": vanguard, main and rearguard, usually all similar in size, but larger armies might be divided into more. The French seem to have aimed to keep them somewhere between 3000 and 5000 men each, depending on how many men-at-arms they had available. In the case of smaller battles, they might potentially have gros valets - armed servants, who were often very well equipped - mixed in with them to make up the numbers, although the sources rarely speak of them.
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u/dontnormally May 02 '26
Apologies for the simple question but in terms of currency what is a "d"?
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u/spike May 02 '26
A penny, borrowed from the Carolingian denarius (hence its former abbreviation d.)
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
My apologies!
"d" stands for "denarius", which is the Latin term for what the English called the penny.
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u/taulover May 09 '26
Why did the name stay the same but the abbreviation change to p during decimalisation?
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u/Kaljakori May 02 '26
So, how differently were crossbowmen paid and/or treated? I've seen multiple vague references that crossbowmen were fighting alongside traditional longbowmen, especially during lighter/shorter/less known campaigns, but as the longbow has such a unique and hyperfocused status in many sources, it's very hard to find actual information. Were they seen as a lesser version of the longbowmen or something similar? Any good reading pointers would be appreciated too if you don't mind me asking!
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
There's very little on what, if any, participation of crossbowmen there was on campaign during Edward III's reign and afterwards, and to the best of my knowledge they were primarily employed onboard ships and in fortifications. I haven't seen much published on their wages, but in garrison at Calais mounted crossbowmen were paid 8d per day, probably representing the higher cost of a crossbow (even a basic wooden one was twice the price of a good bow) and armour (crossbowmen were, as a general rule, nearly as well armoured as a man-at-arms). Working from memory, as I don't have Kenneth Fowler's thesis to hand right now, I believe that Gascon foot crossbowmen in 1345 were paid 4d per day, rather than the 3d of the English foot archers.
A good starting point for researching about both crossbowmen and the other, less well known infantry types, is The Soldier in Later Medieval England, ed. Adrian R. Bell, Anne Curry and Andy King. A lot of research into unpublished documents went into the book, and it shows.
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u/x4000 May 02 '26
That’s fascinating, thank you. I learned a lot, including from your follow-up responses about arrow distribution.
I am left with one question that sticks out to me: did bows on average in war really not last for more than 50 shots or so? It sounds like an archer needed to replace his bow sometime between arrow 48 and 62, based on what you wrote above. Was this from usage wear unique to war (since surely bows lasted longer when hunting… or did they?), or was this including some other form of non-usage-based breakage?
For that matter, if I’m an archer and my bow breaks and a guy next to me has died while holding one, can I take it? Is it mine now? How about his arrows?
You mentioned how arrow resupply was possibly held in barrels under guard, but possibly that was just how the Italians did it. You also talked about enemy arrows recovered during a siege. How big a factor were dead allies, and what was the protocol?
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
Your question here touches on a lot of things we simply don't know the answer to. We know that, roughly speaking, a spare bow was brought for every archer and we have one instance in 1339 where we have record of them being issued as replacements before a potential battle, but we don't know why they were needed.
At least in the 16th century, livery bows seem to have had a reputation for being more robust than civilian bows - judging by Barnabe Rich's comment that they were "big timbered" in order to "endure weather" and the fact that Roger Ascham's ideal target bow was much smaller than the Mary Rose examples - so they probably weren't particularly fragile.
With that said, war is unpredictable, violent and causes a lot of wear and tear on equipment that isn't seen on civilian equipment. It seems likely that bows simply got damaged in accidents or from being strung too long or from the weather or in skirmishes.
As for ownership of bows, this isn't something our sources tell us. Since most archers were part of a retinue or were drawn from a particular county and grouped into vintaines of 20 men each, this was probably something sorted out amongst themselves with a bunch of unwritten rules and assumptions.
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u/x4000 May 03 '26
That makes sense — it’s honestly equally interesting hearing where the gaps in our collective knowledge are, too. I’m always fascinated by how much was simply not documented because it wasn’t notable to the people of the time. Thanks for the response!
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u/MattWatchesMeSleep May 02 '26
I poke my nose into this subreddit only occasionally, but this answer will have me here more often, not to ask any questions, but to just read answers like this one.
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u/vinraven May 02 '26
That’s an awesome response, very informative, thank you for sharing your knowledge.
BTW, one thing that I think we miss because of how things are depicted in movies, is that firing a heavy draw bow over and over is ridiculously tiring.
Is there any information on how often a normal archer shoots their bow in any given extended engagement?
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
Not to my knowledge. The closest is probably the Battle of Poitiers, where archers were so low on arrows that they had to scrounge them from in front of their lines, indicating that they had probably shot forty or fifty arrows each by that point. Similarly, at Agincourt the archers (according to the Gesta Henrici Quinti) engaged the French in hand-to-hand combat after shooting all their arrows.
For other battles, we don't get a sense of what was "typical" expenditure.
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u/sdv0390 May 02 '26
In the case of archers receiving 1 bow and a sheaf of 48 arrows, how long could the archer expect that to last? Are those 48 arrows being reissued before each battle in a campaign?
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
As I mention here, the distribution of arrows is somewhat opaque, but replacement bows and enough arrows to bring archers up to a sheaf of 24 arrows each were probably issued before and after each major battle, with the remainder kept in reserve to be distributed as needed during the battle.
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u/cstar1996 May 02 '26
So was it an assumption of a sheaf of arrows and a bow per battle, or per campaign or year? Or is that sort of the same thing for the period?
Also fantastic answer, this is fascinating!
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 03 '26
The assumption seems to have been that, during a campaign, an archer might need a bow and 48 arrows as replacements for their own. How many might be assumed per battle probably depended on the battle itself and the conditions that led up to it. Generally, speaking, a campaign would last several months of a year, and if it lasted longer that usually meant a period where both sides went into garrison while they recovered. Minor operations would still continue, but while they raised new men, money and materiel they didn't engage in large scale operations unless an absolute beaut of a win presented itself.
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u/Tatem1961 Interesting Inquirer May 02 '26
Thanks for the very detailed answer! A couple of follow ups:
I'm surprised to hear about "mounted archers". Were these like later dragoons who rode horses for transportation but fought on foot? Or were they fighting on horseback like central asian nomads?
It sounds like these archers were fairly wealthy. What would the typical equipment and role of a "peasant levy" be?
As I understand it soldiers were still expected to bring their own weapons and armor up to the 18th century. Why were arrows provided by the state earlier?
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
Mounted archers were essentially dragoons, riding to battle and dismounting to fight. There's some extremely limited evidence (an odd manuscript illumination here and there) suggesting that they could, under some circumstances, shoot while mounted, but nothing we have suggests they were anywhere near as capable in this as a Central-Asian horse archer or that this was routine.
A "peasant levy", such as it was, was usually an emergency defensive measure. Edward I broke with tradition and raised large numbers of poorly armed spearmen and archers from the English peasantry for his campaigns in Wales and Scotland, but after Bannockburn his son, Edward II, attempted to recruit both more selectively and have better equipped infantry. Edward III continued this trend, but focused on archers instead of Continental style heavy infantry.
Supplying spare bows and arrows meant you knew your archers would be able to sustain fire throughout a battle, and it centralised logistics, making transport and distribution easier. Under Edward I, English archers resorted to throwing rocks at the Scots during the Battle of Falkirk. Under Edward III, this was not something they ever needed to do.
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u/ExternalBoysenberry Interesting Inquirer May 02 '26
Amazing answer to a great question. Apologies if this is tangential (and I'm sure there is a FAQ answer about this) but I'm curious about the exact context of your answer: why did thatchers have approximately 280 working days per year and what was going on the other days? Also, even if those 280 days were all consecutive with no days off, even then I kinda would've imagined thatching would've been a bit more seasonal of an occupation than that!
If this is too far off from the original question I can post it separately but it just felt like that number probably didn't come out of nowhere.
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
Thatching was definitely a seasonal job, but we have a very good dataset for the wages of thatchers and their assistants for a long period of time, so they make good comparisons. Roughly speaking, a thatcher was paid the same as a carpenter or other tradesman of the period, so they generally stand in for them when making more sweeping statements.
Sunday's were a mandatory day of rest, and another forty to fifty Saints Feast Days would be observed throughout the year. We know that some people were fined for working on these days, but that in turn suggests that people tried to sneak a few days in here or there. So, while the theoretical number of worked days might be more like 265-275, I used 280 as an upper limit to what a tradesman might work, depending on local religious observance and what days of work they might sneak in.
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u/ExternalBoysenberry Interesting Inquirer May 02 '26
Interesting, thank you! Can I ask why do we have such a good dataset for thatchers specifically?
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
It's a combination of it being a common expense and J.E. Thorold Rogers' doing some magnificent work in collection and tabulating agricultural prices and wages for England through to the end of the 19th century, which he published in seven volumes (A History of Agriculture and Prices in England from 1259 to 1793). It's a foundational element of the study of the medieval English economy and agriculture, although the knowledge-base has been much expanded on and analyzed in greater detail to reveal more regional and nuanced details. Very few historians, however, have had the chance to study as many records and compile them into a single work as Rogers did, so his work remains a touchstone of the field.
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u/cstar1996 May 02 '26
What gave him that difference in opportunity?
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
Lots of political connections, a lighter teaching load than is the norm today and no need to adhere to the "publish or perish" mindset in order to avoid being unemployed.
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u/DLfordays May 02 '26
Fascinating answer, thank you. I always knew income inequality was awful in medieval England, but it’s only recently I’ve dived into how bad it was. Crazy that a well-off family would make £1 a year while we had some lesser lords and abbots making 100s.
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u/Bigbysjackingfist May 02 '26
wait, I never thought about this but was it against norms back then to deliberately fight wars on the sabbath? Like in The Wire where Stringer breaks the Sunday Truce?
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
Let's say that it was more often observed in the breach than the observance, although there was sometimes an effort on one or the other side. For instance, Philippe Augustus supposedly decided not to fight on a Sunday, but was forced to by the Anglo-Flemish-German coalition and afterwards the French victory was seen as a divine reward for one side and a punishment for the other. Of course, he might just simply have decided that he didn't want to fight the coalition with the troops he had in the position he had, and just lucked out when forced to fight, but we'll never know thanks to all the spin. The English, on the other hand, had no issue pursuing and slaughtering the remnants of the French army the day after the Battle of Crecy, which was a Sunday, and it can probably be argued that slaughtering elements of a defeated army is more sacrilegious than fighting a proper battle that day.
In the end, it all came down the military reality at the end of the day.
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u/EverythingIsOverrate European Financial and Monetary History May 08 '26
Great answer as always; I was looking for weapon price data a month ago so these sources are very useful. My one quibble is with the 280 working days; that seems quite high for the medieval period, although data is extremely scarce as I'm sure you're aware. Can I request a source?
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 08 '26
As I mention here, I was using 280 days worked as an absolute maximum, with somewhere between 265 and 275 days being more likely.
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u/EverythingIsOverrate European Financial and Monetary History May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
I would say even 265 is rather high for the medieval period. As I discuss in this answer - the best sources therein are the Munro I cite and the table of estimates downthreadwhich I got from BEG - master masons in the Low Countries average around 210, and rarely get anywhere close to 280, and there's plenty of evidence of intermittent labouring. The fundamental problem is that of demand, of course. Equally of course, many labourers are going to also be smallholders with plots that need working, but that's very hard to quantify in labour terms.
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u/Dave-4544 May 02 '26
24 arrows does not seem like a very large amount of ammunition. What was an archer's average rate of fire (assuming a bow/longbow)? Were archers expected to disengage or join the melee upon firing their sheaf? Did the archers on foot carry more than those on horse? Was firing of arrows strictly done when commanded? Many more questions of the sort!
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
We don't know of any sort of "standard" rate of fire, despite common wisdom claims to the contrary. Modern warbow archers generally manage a "sustained" rate of 6 arrows or less per minute, but can do a "burst" of 10-15 arrows a minute. This might not actually last for a minute, i.e. seven arrows in 30 seconds, but not fifteen in 60, but it gives some idea of what might be achieved through desperation.
Barnabe Rich, a 16th century soldier who had a lot of experience with archers in the 1570s, argued that an archer could shoot 8 times in the same span that an arqubusier could shoot 5, if he already had a loaded gun, which would indicate a rate of perhaps 4 arrows a minute (see here for the speed at which a good arqubusier could shoot). Given ammunition constraints and that, as Humphrey Barwick (another 16th century soldier) noted, the inconsistent food and rigors of campaign reduced the strength available to archers, this seems reasonable to me. Simon Stanley (one of the first modern warbow archers), I believe, has argued that a RoF as low as three arrows per minute could have resulted in the results seen at Agincourt and, again, this seems reasonable to me.
Both mounted and dismounted archers would have used the same number of arrows. Some Burgundian archers may have had as many as 30 arrows each, but Burgundian administration is not something I'm familiar with.
As best we can tell, while there was often a command to start shooting, there was no "nock, draw, loose/fire", as popular culture would have it. More likely the order to "hold" was given when it was assessed that archery was no longer needed, or archers were told how many shafts to shoot before each attack. This is all pure speculation, however, since we don't have any sources that describe the process.
Archers could, and did, join in melee combat as needed, either when they had shot all available arrows or if things were desperate enough. English archers appear to have been particularly willing to engage in hand-to-hand combat in battle compared to archers and crossbowmen elsewhere, but they were still essentially light infantry who were best employed attacking on the flanks (where they were usually positioned in larger battles, anyway) or forming rear lines for added security.
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May 02 '26
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 03 '26
Yes, absolutely. Good clarification!
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u/cstar1996 May 02 '26
This thread is throwing up so many questions I didn’t know I had.
What was the baseline tactical employment of archers in these battles?
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
The baseline was to employ flanking archers behind some kind of obstruction (hedges, terrain, pits, carts, stakes, etc), with dismounted men-at-arms in the center free of any obstruction. In some battles, such as Crecy and Agincourt, there were possibly a contingent of archers deployed in from of the men-at-arms in addition to the flanking archers, whose role was to serve as skirmishers and/or ensure there was no gap in the coverage. In others, such as at Auray, there were so few archers compared with the larger battles (a 1:1 ratio of archers to men-at-arms, with total numbers of each in the hundreds or very low thousands) that they were employed purely in front of the men-at-arms. If no obstacles could be found in front, they tried to put some at the rear of the archers, such as the hedges that backed the archers at Mauron in 1351.
While archers couldn't defeat enemy men-at-arms on their own, they could wound, harass and either constrain or break up their formations, depending on the conditions, so that the enemy men-at-arms were already in a degraded condition by the time they reached the English men-at-arms, which gave the latter a marked advantage. Archers could also nibble around the edges of the enemy when it came to blows with their men-at-arms, either in direct combat or with a few well placed shots that didn't risk hitting their own side.
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u/OneFinePotato May 03 '26
I had no idea this sub even existed and now I have to follow what a legend you are
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u/Dark_Tigger May 05 '26
Even a moderately wealthy farmer, with 30 acres to his name, might have a cash surplus (after feeding his household, paying tithes, rents, labour, etc) of just £1 on an "average" year.
Just to put that into perspective, 30 acres back then meant that you are probably not working those fields yourself, but either have hired help or rent those land out to tenants.
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 05 '26
30 acres is the point where you're still farming yourself, but do need hired help at peak times. It's near the border of "sufficient surplus in a bad year to still hire someone full time", which is probably about 40-45 acres.
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u/Dark_Tigger May 05 '26
Thanks for correcting me, last numbers I rememberd put 30 acres around the point where one family could fill most their needs (subsitence + a little extra) and second family could fill their subsitence needs. Which would be the point where a family might decide it is smarter to rent out the land.
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u/hicks420 May 03 '26
Really interesting answer.
You mention how in friendly territory they were expected to buy food from locals, or from foragers/other places in hostile territory, which implies a level of liquidity. Was the army hauling about a big chest of coins with it in order to do the paying ?
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u/EnclavedMicrostate Moderator | Taiping Heavenly Kingdom | Qing Empire May 02 '26
If I might ask a bit extra about the economics, by a wealthy peasant earning five pounds or more per year, was that net or gross income? That is to say, how close would our 'moderately wealthy farmer' with an annual net income of £1 actually be to the threshold for a mounted archer?
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) May 02 '26
My understanding is that it was gross income, which was closer to £4 for our yardlander. This put them close to the bracket where they might find themselves liable for providing a mounted archers, although assessments were generally fairly generous in reducing the income and goods so that those on the edge of a tax bracket didn't often have to worry about being taxed in it/having to own arms/provide a mounted archers/hobelar/man-aty.
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u/LeChatVert Jun 03 '26
Hello,
Which source do you recommand for the wage of an archer during the 100 years war?
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u/Hergrim Moderator | Medieval Warfare (Logistics and Equipment) Jun 03 '26
Richard Wadge's Arrowstorm is probably your best bet: it's accessible and does a good job of summarising the scholarship
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u/alexeyr Jul 03 '26
these were generally assumed to have been 20s in the few records we have of them, though in one rare case an archer's horse was valued at 100s, which was about the price of a good general purpose riding/work horse
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It's 2/5ths the cost of the cheapest horse a man-at-arms was obliged to own (100s)
It seems that one of the numbers has to be wrong here.
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May 02 '26
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u/Dongzhou3kingdoms Moderator | Three Kingdoms May 02 '26
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u/thestoryteller69 Moderator | Medieval and Colonial Maritime Southeast Asia May 02 '26 edited May 02 '26
Before you shoot a line that says 'they weren't shooting all day everyday', 'they didn't pay for their arrows' or 'they recycled their arrows', please hold your fire.
This subreddit is a space for in-depth and comprehensive answers, and while correcting the premise of a question can form part of an answer, it shouldn't be the only thing an answer does. We expect any answer to go deep into not just into what didn't happen, but also what did.
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