Longbow

[2] In the Middle Ages the English and Welsh[3] were famous for their very powerful longbows, used en masse to great effect against the French in the Hundred Years' War, with notable success at the battles of Crécy (1346), Poitiers (1356), and Agincourt (1415).

[4] During the reign of Edward III of England, laws were passed allowing fletchers and bowyers to be impressed into the army and enjoining them to practice archery.

[9] The earliest known book on European longbow archery is the anonymous L'Art D'Archerie, produced in France in the late 15th or early 16th century.

[10] The first book in English about longbow archery was Toxophilus by Roger Ascham, first published in London in 1545 and dedicated to King Henry VIII.

Although firearms supplanted bows in warfare, wooden or fibreglass laminated longbows continue to be used by traditional archers and some tribal societies for recreation and hunting.

[13] A similar, more inclusive, definition was created by the International Longbow Archers Association (ILAA) which defined the bow as fitting within a rectangular template of the proportions 1:0.625.

In Europe the last approach was used, with yew being the wood of choice, because of its high compressive strength, light weight, and elasticity.

More common and cheaper hard woods, including elm, oak, hickory, ash, hazel and maple, are good for flatbows.

Examples include hickory and lemonwood, or bamboo and yew longbows: hickory or bamboo is used on the back of the bow (the part facing away from the archer when shooting) and so is in tension, while the belly (the part facing the archer when shooting) is made of lemonwood or yew and undergoes compression (see bending for a further explanation of stresses in a bending beam).