Archery: Thumbring?

[Sean Manning]

Sean Wrote:-

On the self-bow thing, the yew warbows from the Mary Rose have been proven to have had a draw weight averaging around 150 lbs when drawn to a length appropriate to the arrows found with them.

.....I don't think that is correct, Sean.There is much controversy over the 'real' pull-weight of the Mary Rose bows. Estimates, and their accuracy, vary considerably. I have seen calculations that give the 'average' Mary Rose bow as little as 60-75 lbs pull, with a few heavier. Others give a figure for some as high as an all but impossible 180 lbs ( but there is an ingenious theory that these were mounted on the bulwarks horizontally, thus making a type of crossbow).
Even allowing for constant practise, and the body deformation that goes with it, ( as an aside, the same phenomenon is seen in the assymetric arms of pro tennis players - Rod Laver has a normal right bicep, but his left/racquet hand bicep has a diameter the same as his thighs, which were abnormally large in any event ! ) these estimates are likely too high.
The five surviving mediaeval longbows work out between 60-80 lbs pull, and the most convincing estimates for Mary Rose bows gives 80-100 lbs for most, with one or two perhaps as high as 120lbs.
This is consistent with the pull of warbows throughout most reasonably advanced archery cultures, and the sort of figures discussed earlier in the thread.

See Hardy and Strickland, The Great Warbow, for the best and latest calculations that I know of. According to Kooi's mathematical model, the Mary Rose bows would have had draw weights between 100 and 180 lbs, mostly between 150 and 160 lbs. One mathematical model which gave a lower figure was withdrawn when the author realized he had made a mistake (H&S p. 15). This data is consistent with other evidence eg. the heavy weight of some arrows (up to 1/4 lb or 110 g).

Good medieval archers were scary dudes ...