Matt, your head is brighter than my future.

As to military archery being a numbers game, this seems also to be reflected by contemporary military view. The historian and diplomat Philippe de Commines of Burgundy, who has seen a lot of English military archery in action (many Englishmen serving as mercenaries of the Dukes of Burgundy) wrote in 1475 that: "In my opinion archers are the most necessary things in the world for an army, though they should be counted in thousands, for in small numbers they are almost useless."

Can we just take this opportunity to applaud Matt for managing to say the phrase "long, thick shaft" without subsequently getting *very* phallic?

Tobias has a way of making an already interesting subject sound even more interesting!

On the arms and armor of the longbowmen themselves: The Sire de St Remy, a participant on the English side at the Battle of Agincourt (1415), describes the English archers on that occasion as: "For the most part without armour except their pourpoints; their stockings rolled down to the knees, and having hatchets (probably mauls) and battle-axes hanging at their waists, or long swords, some barefooted and bareheaded, others with huvettes or capelinas (helmets) of cuir-bouilli, and others of osier, strengthened with a cross-band of iron." In 1440 James Skidmore’s indenture stated that archers should have: “good jakks of defence, salades [sallets], swerds [swords] and sheves of xl arwes atte lest.” In 1449 Jean Chartier described English Mounted Archers as: “mostly armed with brigandines, leg armour and sallets, of whom the majority at least had good jacks and haubergeons”. The best description is by Dominic Mancini of King Richard III’s archers in 1483: “There are hardly any without a sallet and none without bows and arrows…there hangs by the side of each a sword no less long than ours, but thick and heavy as well. The sword is always accompanied by an iron buckler…They do not wear any metal armor on their breast or or any other parts of the body except for the better sort…the common soldiery have more comfortable tunics [jacks] that reach down below the loins and are stuffed with tow or some other soft material.”

Woah, Toby's pretty badass.

This series of videos are amazing. You even managed to speak a little about social mobility.

Great part two, keep it up. In general, I really like this format of having you and another expert talk on a subject. Maybe this could become a thing in future videos?

Can't believe it took a recent video of Dr Capwell reacting to 40k for me to find him. I could listen to these two forever.

I wish I lived close enough to see the exhibit.

Even time itself stopped to listen to this!

Watched a ton of your content and just finding this series. Made my day!

these videos with Tobias are awesome! I always like hearing you talk with other experts.

If a video includes Dr. Capwell, I’m watching and “liking”.

Really interesting and educational! Really happy you are expanding your KZfaq to these kinds of historical interviews :)

Great interview/discussion. Glad there are more to come.

Loving the series Matt, looking forward to part 3!

I love this kind of talk! Please, more of them!

This is a fantastic series! I have enjoyed watching this channel for a long while, even prior to subscribing. Furthermore, I have been a great of Tobias Capwell and his work for many years, so this is a great pleasure to watch. Thank you for doing this.

These two videos (part 1 and part 2) have given me very much to imagine and think of. I particularly enjoyed listening to the both of you for so long. You both have knowledge, and know how to spread such a fascinating topic even to the point of speaking of psychological effects of a horde of archers upon knights and men-at-arms. And for this I thank you both for giving all the community your time and devotion to such an hobby and interest.

Waiting for the second part of this felt like an eternity... glad it's finally here.

Thanks for these videos. These are very interesting things about this famous battle. Can't wait for the next one.

Tobias seems like such a cool guy. Equipment of the archers were mentioned... Will we be able to see something about that in the future?

FANTASTIC!! Thanks Matt.

Matt, this channel is incredible.

What an excellent series. Thanks for making this happen.

these videos with Tobias are ace mat, thank you..

Your Agincourt talks are excellent.You can't cover every aspect but so far I am delighted with these two and your other talks. Pity you don't go mainstream as you have a great deal to offer. It's also good that we can acknowledge our own martial heritage without screaming around trying to pummel someone wearing a dressing gown !

An American named Tobias, he was destined to be a History major in college from birth.

These videos have been fantastic, thanks for doing them!

This series is amazing, thanks for doing it Matt :). You should put it into a wider series and shop it to UK TV. Love your work.

I like this series; informative, interesting and (relatively) concise.

I really like these recent two videos but I would like to say you shouldn't interrupt your guest, especially just to say what they are saying. He is an expert in his field, you have him on the channel for a reason

This video is so AWESOME! I want to go to the exhibit but I live in the U.S. Keep these coming! And more interviews with other curators and prominent historians would be great as well. You guys gave a really down-to-earth and practical impression of the whole arrows vs armor debate, which I appreciate. I totally agree on your views concerning the studies on this matter, as most have a bias towards the bow and hardly any use cloth protection under the plate anyway. It's amazing how effective armor really was against arrows from such powerful bows.

These talks are so important I'm going to download them so I can share them with new recruits to my Household. We are 14thC archers, but what is being said here is still very relevant.

Funny these videos coming out now. A couple of weeks ago I put up my modern made, but rather historically accurate in shape, German plate armour up against a 100 lb longbow firing historically accurate arrows, much like the one you have with Toby here. The bodkin however wasn't iron like those at Crecy and Agincourt, but steel. It was fired at my armour twice at less than 20 feet (we fired at my tassets, something I didn't mind if it was pierced). Both times, the arrow just bounced off leaving little more than a small divot in the armour and some scrapes. Nothing more than that. Now yes, this is modern steel, but still THIN steel and it had no issues at all stopping a longbow and steel bodkin. None at all. And my tassets were very rough, more or less just a flat piece of steel, lightly bent and bucked as I needed them quickly rather than pretty.

Great interview. Capwell is a very knowledgeable and interesting speaker. Looking forward to the next video.

This curator is really awesome, great idea to make videos with him!

Excellent show. Hope you do some more and also talk more about the armour that Bowmen had and their weapons other than the longbow.

This video held up well through time

This series is great!

i'm really enjoying this interview, thank you

John Hawkwood is my direct ancestor I love hearing about him

Great video, Matt! :D Keep up the good work!

Can't wait for part 3. Cheers from Turkey,

Excellent Video. Thank you for providing it.

But: What about the horses? Horses were armored too, but a horse is very difficult to fully protect and I imagine that it is quite easy to kill the horse with less arrows from a greater distance than the rider. And when a horse fell down, the rider was at least momentarily out of action and depending on how close together /after another they were riding and how fast they were going, other horses surely stumbled over their comrade then. In the first video you explained that the knights bowed their heads because of the arrows. But if the vision slits are tilted slightly upwards, isn´t it a REALLY bad idea to open them up to arrows coming from the front? Awesome videos by the way. I learned so much about weapons and armor from your channel, its unbelievable. The only downside is I also know now how little my favourite author knows about medieval combat. (Guys running around in armor constantly, speaking through visors, delivering messages hundrets of miles away in full armor while riding alone).

It still amazes me that we can, quite precisely, depict battles that happened thousands of years ago (The battle against the Egyptians and Hittites at Kadesh is one example.) And we can nail down what happened at the battle of Agincourt to astonishing accuracy. I haven't watched this video yet, but +scholagladiatoria, I know it's going to be a good one.

You guys are great together.

I don't have anything to ask, or anything particularly insightful to say on these topics, but I feel the need to let you know; these videos are great and I hope there's more like it coming.

Very interesting discussion. I learned a lot. Makes me want to visit the exhibition. :)

Toby Capwell poking Matt Easton with a livery arrow. This is gold :D someone should make a gif. *hint hint* :D

Great discussion, might visit the exhibition sometime in October if I get the chance.

This guy is gold!

Great series, Matt.

Thanks, very informative and revises the way I learnt the battle.

Fascinating!

Great stuff Matt, Toby's video with Tod was fascinating.

Great video. Thanks.

There's point that I haven't heard or might of miss about the use of longbowmen at Agincourt. It not only succeeded at dismounting the french knight and isolating them from the rest of the common infantry (since they weren't as well armored), but it also might have isolated the french noble from each other. I remember in one of the video it is mentioned that the knight/noble kept there face down while advancing to avoid receiving an arrow through the slit. I wonder if it might have distort there lines since they couldn't keep proper track of where everyone was. Also, if I remember well, the french chain of command wasn't well made in this battle. I wonder if it had as consequence that the french knight ended up facing 2 english knight at the same time despite outnumbering overall since he might have inadvertently isolated himself.

Great discussion.

Fantastic and informative video. Thank you:)

Great information as always, thank you

Don't make us wait too long for part 3 please :)

I really enjoy the grail quest series by bernard cornwell. Does a great job fictionalizing the life of an archer. I haven't read Azincourt yet.

Tremendous!

Very interesting series. Thx.

Great insight, thanks.

On the subject of arrow volleys and not being to find your footing with certain helmets on, one would think that thousands of arrows stuck into the ground would make the terrain fairly tricky to walk across. Especially if you're wearing a bassinet and can't see your feet, I suspect many an advancing knight would be tripping over arrow shafts. So while launching volleys of arrows at advancing knights in full plate armour might not necessarily kill or even injure them, it will certainly slow them down and tire them out for when they get into melee range.

Going Medieval! That's where I remember him from. That was a good show, should have been a series.

Great posts!

This is a relly interesting series. I just recently visited French Army museum in Paris and they have a lot of examples of plate that stopped musket balls. I saw one that looked like it stopped 5 shots. Maybe you can talk about it in the future, if you have not been to that museum go so much awesome stuff there I spent whole day and only managed to make it to the Napoleonic wars

The discussion of concentrating arrow barrages in a particular manner on hardened targets reminds me of the Allied method of targeting German Me-262 Schwalbe/Swallow jet fighter-bombers on takeoff and landing. During normal flight operations the Schwalbe was nearly invincible because of its speed. But Allied forces learned to exploit the fleeting moments of weakness in the Nazi jets' flight profile, and concentrated their efforts there.

Is Tobias going to show off his personal suit of armour?

The thickness/stiffness of the shaft of an arrow is determined by the draw weight of the bow. With modern materials it is obviously possible to create greater stiffness but keeping the thickness about the same. With wood there is little such option. Btw. I'm pretty sure that even these thick arrows were shot ballistically and not just at flat trajactory. Cloud shooting is still a popular archery disciplin in Britain today.

Fantastic video! I think it makes sense that one of the biggest advantages of the longbow was that it allowed you to take your run-of-the-mill light infantry and give them an effective ranged attack.One question though - how does a large group of archers all shoot flat at once? Do they all deploy in a huge line?

Yeah I have heard that a lot of long bow shooting was done direct at quite short range. Great vid. Thanks for the upload.

Good stuff mate keep it up :)

very cool video

Could you do a video/videos of the other interesting battles of the hundred years war, such as the battle of Crecy where Genoese crossbowmen fled before they loosed a bolt in the face of the English bowmen or the battle of Verneuil where mounted Milanese knights charged at the English through archer fire and smashed into the English ranks and how the role armour had in this? I think Agincourt is extremely interesting, but that its discussion branches into that of other battles of the hundreds years war which can be equally interesting.

This guy is Ron Swansons brother or something

I remember watching a documentary featuring Mike they made the armour and then tried to shoot holes in it. If I remember correctly it was 160 lb draw at 15 yards

In every armour v arrow vid on Utube there is not one single mention of men at arms advancing behind their metal clad Pavis's (shields) which cover from throat to knee. For example, at the Battle of Poitiers (1356), the French men-at-arms formed a shield wall with which Geoffrey le Baker recounts "protecting their bodies with joined shields, [and] turned their faces away from the missiles. So the archers emptied their quivers in vain"....

Maybe the intent was not only to kill but at least cause some kind of wound as even a small scratch would be a source for an infection in These times. I heard a theory on armor which said the reason to wear armor is not only to reduce possible injuries but to prvent any wound at all, same theory also stated arrows were most dedly weapon at times not by instant killing but by causing wound infections which lead to death lateron.

Is there video of Tobias Capwell's arrow tests?

So, how many arrows would you guess a random knight got hit by at Agincourt? And how many of them actualy did something? 5% of arrows did wound someone? And a random knight got hit about 50 times? That would be my guess... but only a guess.

I love the point you bring up about lances. If a lance can't pierce it, what can? (gunpowder excluded) Also, as a Total War player it was amusing to hear about the importance of army composition.

Archers probably did shoot arrows at high launch angles at their enemies during this period at least sometimes. This would explain the ancient sport of clout shooting. Shooting arrows at high launch angles at targets a substantial fraction of the maximum arrow shot range away would have been a sensible thing to do, especially against mounted charging knights.

It's mentioned that the archers were well trained in hand-to-hand combat such as sword and buckler use, which makes me wonder how exactly a sword and buckler is used effectively against knights in heavy armor. Isn't it more of a civilian weapon set for use against lightly or unarmored opponents?

I think the English arrows at Agincourt probably created more of a mele/shock and awe effect, more so than it wounded armored French nights.

Hanging gauntlets on the buckler? do you have a source for that? I'm interested!

Beautiful armor

He mentions that when the arrow gets through the plate that it hits "Mail and then padded textile." I thought that they didn't wear full chain under plate (IE under the breastplate), since it wouldn't make much sense to wear chain under something that will protect you from what chain would , seems like a lot of added extra weight for nothing (since full chain is actually quite heavy on your shoulders, even more so then full plate). From what I've heard they had goussets, which is where the chain was actually attached to the arming doublet and only in the "weak" points where the plate armor wouldn't really protect (Like the arm pits, groin, etc) where the plate didn't cover as well. This made much more sense as it kept weight down as much as possible while providing protection to the areas that needed it.

Do we have any descriptions of how men at arms in full plate fought in formation? Would it have been more fluid than say a shield wall?

And Henry V lived to become king…amazing..able not to get infection, and was able to get that arrow head out and healed..

Also add in the sound of horses screaming in agony. That is not a sound you can easily ignore.

I’d like to see a discussion about how hand to hand combat was conducted en mass. I’m thinking a riot would be a comparison?

What about places where the plates were supposed to be thinner ans liter, like the arms and legs?

very nice Videos, highly interesting Information! what I don't like is the Setting: don't you have a more representative room at the wallace for doing such Videos?

I really like the videos you make on the longbow, keep 'em coming, but I have to weight in with some points if it's OK? We have historical accounts on plate armor being penetrated by arrows. Usually not through the breastplate to my knowledge, but arms, legs and visor are often mentioned. Most of the sources talk more in general and are not specific and only state that men died as a result of longbow arrows. I don't want to fill up this comment with quotes, so I'll just post 3. Here's one from Lydgate's Battle of Agincourt. "Our archers shot full heartily, and quickly made the Frenchmen bleed; their arrows went at great speed, and took down our enemies; through breastpate, haubergeon, and bascinet they went. Eleven thousand were slain there all in a row; you know right well that it was so. Then we have The Battle of St. Albans in 1455 where Henry Filongly, nephew of Sir John Fastolf 'faught manly, and was shet throwe the armys in iii or iiij places. 'Gregory', 198; Dijon Relation, in Armstrong, 'Politics and the Battle of St Albans' 64-5. Thomas Walsingham, describing a battle of 1383, says that English archers "surpassed all other... for they so struck the enemy with their flying arrows that of their armored men no more remained [unharmed? on the field?] than if they had been unarmored... Bodies were perforated, their armor [lorica] notwithstanding; breasts were wounded, the plates [lamina] not resisting; heads were shot trough [transfigebantur], the helmets not helping; hands holding lances or shafts were nailed to them, gauntlets being no protection. 'St Albans chronicle 680.' "Lamina" means specifically plate, and even if the men wore cote of plates, and not a white harness, the helmet is plate. Here we have 3 that explicitly state that arrows did penetrate plate armor, and we have many, many more stating it indirectly without explicitly writing about it in detail. In Clifford Rogers article on the subject: 'The Efficacy of the English Longbow: A Reply to Kelly De Vries' he lists 48 sources, although most of them is from the Scottish War of Independence and the beginning of the Hundred Years' War, he also mention plate armor. Especially The Great Warbow by Matthew Strickland and Robert Hardy have many references to sources talking about people being killed or wounded by arrows piercing armor. I am really be interested in the exact data from this test. If it was a 150 lbs bow and a livery arrow of about 64 gram the bow will only manage to make the arrow fly at about 60-61 m/s. That's 115-119 J point blank. That's not a lot. In my opinion the intent with these arrows were not as armor piercers except when striking legs and arms, the function was rather as iron fists. Plate-cutters also known as a type 9 (a) bodkin of no less than 114 gram leaving the bow at 50-54 m/s did the killing close up, not these type 8 bodkins. 114 gram at 50-54 m/s is 140-166 J point blank, enough to punch through and penetrate deep enough due to the length of the arrowhead as long as you get past the first part of the head. Another thing is the effect slag have on armor witch can't be replicated when we use modern steel. Mild steel is about 220 on the Vickers Plate Hardness scale. If it's slack quenched mild steel or low carbon steel you get anything from 200-250 VPH. I would really like to know what we are actually talking about here. I believe this arrow you have in your hand had a certain roll in battle and that these battles had different phases. The max distance phase where you would establish the first part of, to use Tobias' words, full spectrum dominance. That is, denying the enemy light troops and horses. In this phase anyone not good enough armored, archers would mow down or force to withdraw. It happened with the crossbowmen at Crécy and the jinetes and light troops at Nàjera and many times during the Scottish War of Independence. This is the 200-300 yard range. An arrow with a point like this type 8 achieved the best flight of all the arrowheads when tested, and as a side note it only takes 1/3 of the time to make one of these in comparison to a type 16 (b). In comparison to the type 16, few have hardened steel points too. The second phase of a battle would be the barrage at 220-80 yard where anyone with soft armor would be forced to retreat or take serious blunt impact to the body. Men in plate would take less blunt impact but it would still be unpleasant. Because arrows at this range didn't penetrate plate armor or gambeson + mail, and men with different quality and types of armor advanced together, there was no reason to use type 16 heads or type 9 (b) when type 8 did the job and were less expensive. It's completely unrealistic that they only started to lose arrows close up as it takes time to wear someone out with multiple hits to the body. You can't achieve this if you only lose arrows when the enemy starts to close up on you. And as you mentioned yourself in a post, they close up on you fast. The third phase would be the herding phase at 80-50 yards. Arrows would still not penetrate plate armor unless it was made of rough iron or low carbon steel (220 VPH,) or mail + gambeson. At this stage they probably started to pick off men with inadequate protection or horses with type 16 heads or needle bodkins, but most likely type 16 heads because they can be used against plate too and will achieve the same as a type 8 in terms of blunt force. Two in one. And it is specifically mentioned that they did use barbed arrows against horses at this range. In this phase the archers would extend and bend their flank and push the men-at-arms together with an intense barrage, and we know that this would impede the ability to fight in close combat when they reached the English center where the men-at-arms stood their ground. Wounded men would often be trampled by their comrades and others would retreat with serious injuries to arms and legs where the armor was at its thinnest. At this stage most of the vanguard at Agincourt had probably disintegrated. Anything else is completely unrealistic. If I am to guess I'll say about 2000 dead, 2250 seriously wounded in the mud and murdered by the archers as they advanced, and 2250 retreating with arrows through arms and legs etc. and the rest taken as POWs. The same with the second division apart from the POWs. The forth phase would be the killing phase when archers would lose arrows with type 9 (a) heads into the flanks at 50 yards to point blank, slaughtering them relentlessly while they at the same time would finish off wounded men in front of themselves as they advanced on the flanks. The English men-at-arms would kill anyone wounded with relatively ease and capture men of higher status with the best armor, able to withstand arrows. Because the French surrendered the killing saw an end until the execution started. People probably disagree with me, but the sources are clear about plate armor. Also, only point blank shooting is unrealistic. They would not be able to herd the French into the center if shooting only took place close up. The statement that the only time arrows did do some damage was when they found a gap in the armor, is also unrealistic. I believe they would have massacred the longbowmen if only arrows striking gaps had an impact. They did not have enough arrows for this to be likely. We are talking about 10 000 men-at-arms together with the best equipped valets, of which 6000-11000 died, engaging 5000 archers and 1500 men-at-arms, and this happened predominantly because arrows found gaps in their armor and injured them? I can't accept that. With 500 000 arrows that's not possible. This would not have injured them sufficient enough for them to stay in their place rather than retreat, when the archers advanced on the flanks. Unless you mean arms and legs in general when you say weak spots I'm not buying into this.