What did a medieval archer take on campaign?

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Hi, my name is Kevin Hicks and welcome  to my YouTube channel the History Squad.   Now what we're looking at today is basically what  a medieval bowman would have carried in his pouch,   in his bag yeah, as well as his longbow and his  arrows so let's have a look shall we? First of all   my bow, this is nearly seven foot long it's uh,  it's so much part of me yeah? And I can imagine   in medieval times you would become attached to  your bow, but once it was snapped it's firewood   yeah, so you have to get used to that I've always  got a bow in waiting just to let you know that and   of course a sheaf of arrows yeah, that’s 24. Now  there are varying accounts that when you turned up   at your um rendezvous point in England you had  to have 20 uh 24 arrows, one sheaf of arrows,   and then you were issued with the second one when  you're on campaign, so you carried 48 arrows.   So let's have a look, now because my bow was  uh out of the bag I would have a linen bow bag   yeah, keeps it nice, stops it from drying out.  A vital piece of equipment. Now on my hands,   shooting glove on my left. I had a fletching  from an arrow, the feather from an arrow,   go through the back of my knuckle and  as you can see by the wearing here,   these left hand gloves don't last very long, and  then I always have a shooting glove yeah, nice   leather shooting glove. When I show you this one,  this is my bracer but I'm going to take it off.   And in fact I'm going to take these  off so that I can show you closely,   because the bracer is actually a piece of  ox horn and I copied this from an original and engraved in it is a little soldier's prayer, Ich Helpe it says. People go,  'what does Ich Helpe mean?'   It means Jesus help and that  leads me to another thing   these people were superstitious, they were  religious and this was made for me by a nun. And she says the soldiers had shortened rosary.  She wasn't a real nun, she was religious   and still is Della Rebours, I think that's her  name hello Della. And she says you had to have a   shorter rosary because you'd have quicker prayers.  And I've got that image in my mind of the enemy   are coming and you're going to be getting Holy  Mary…mother god blah ble. So a soldier's rosary,   religious. I've got a bit of superstition  here, is this going back to the pagan   times or this is a trophy from a  boar that I killed? Robin Hood cross Don't tell anybody they don't actually realize  that I am Robin Hood. A nd here, this is a   talisman an ampoule. It's filled with something  that is religious to us bowman, um a friend   of mine Mark Stretton gave me this, and it's  soil from Agincourt so it's special to me, hey then let's have a look, let's peel  this off one at a time. A costral.   You've got to have water but this, from Jim the  Pot, years ago. I've had this for years it keeps   the water cool it's nothing but a wooden plug a  costral for water. Now you can have the more up,   up up market piece yeah, the more expensive  piece which is made from leather yeah and these   very expensive right very expensive and uh let's  have a look in my bag see what I've actually got. So looped in keeping it waterproof some  spare clothing simply that it's my hood   yeah and what's inside here? This  is amazing stuff oh my goodness me Entertainment it was homemade  in those days wasn't it yeah?   So this bowman can play a flute or as some people  would say he has a flute but he can't play it. Eating knife. You have your own, and a pricker.  They didn't have forks yeah, so you had a pricker   to hold the meat, stab it, cut it, lift it  up take it off in your mouth careful not to   catch your mouth because uh mouth infection,  quite serious in those days. So in my purse, coins. Now these are all original  and I've just dropped one   yeah. So you'd have a handful of  coins i'll pick that one up later. Interestingly, spare bow strings and of course  when it rains, put them in your hat keep them dry.   A long bowman can change his string in seconds a  crossbowman his string goes, he's out of action. Some of this is quite boring   but I've got a bowl and I've got a spoon and it's  mine, nobody else’s. I'm also very lucky because   I have a cup, a beaker but I also have one that I,  shall we say found this is a little bit of booty.   This is a horned cup and it's lined with silver.  Just an aside, I'm very lucky to have this.   I was bought this as a Christmas present  many many years ago by my wife it's lovely. And then most important, now I'm quite  annoyed because I've had to get a new tin   because my other one believe it or not somebody  pinched it. Inside the tin I have some tinder.   Normally you would keep this inside your your  shirt or against your body keep it nice and warm,   nice and dry and here is my flint and steel.  You've got to have this otherwise you can't make   a fire yeah. Just very simple, there it is yeah, a  flint. This flint isn't very good yeah, I'm having   trouble getting English flint. English flint,  the best you know. Ah can you imagine there it's   raining and you're trying to get, ah there we go,  a decent flint so domestic things, bit of food, some of your own personal belongings  all there and my hunting horn. I used to love sounding this from the battlements  at the back of Chepstow Castle across the   River Wye it was excellent right so that's  pretty much what a bowman would have carried   according to Kevin. Of course there'll be extra  things yeah, but in my long years working as the   bowman at Warwick and various other castles I've  learned what they would have carried yeah, so   we've got everything I think. I haven't missed  anything, except what you need to kill with and   that's coming next. Well I hope you enjoyed our  film. If you did thumbs up and if you can share   the films, I’d really appreciate it. If you are  a subscriber, hey thanks a bunch if not, why   not subscribe, press that button yeah? If you'd  like to support our channel further we now have   a Patreon account, the link for which is in the  description. So for now thank you very much, bye.
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Channel: thehistorysquad
Views: 248,323
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Keywords: What did a bowman carry, personal items, What did a medieval archer take on campaign, What did a medieval bowman take on campaign, history channel, what did an archer use, what did a bowman use, what did a medieval archer take on campaign, what did a medieval bowman take on campaign, medieval bowman, medieval archer, archer, medieval history, medieval warfare, history, medieval, middle ages, medieval weapons, medieval army, medieval bowmen
Id: C6vJt4CCAvY
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Length: 8min 37sec (517 seconds)
Published: Tue May 10 2022
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