Were they any french longbowmen ? It just seems weird that Europe never tried to copy the English Archery system if it was so efficient.
>>1152336
The longbow is a meme weapon who's importance is exaggerated by the English national mythology.
>>1152336
The French began to employ archers in the later stages of the Hundred Years War but they were not that useful and were coming in at the same time as gunpowder weapons were starting to take over so were quickly overshadowed.
Other peoples like Burgundy just hired English mercenaries and saved themselves the trouble.
>>1152336
there were bowmen, but the english at one point made it mandatory for men to train with the bow...
>>1152336
There probably were indeed french longbowmen. But they were surely just archers part of the retinue of a nobleman, or mercenaries. They had no real organization all over the country, so the French King didn't have access to thousands of french longbowmen.
Isint there also something to do with the type if wood available in Britan that they used for their longbows or is that a meme?
>>1152427
The longbow had a special type of wood, but there were so much english longbowmen that it was overused in Britain. So they had to buy the wood from Spain, nothern Italy, and... France.
There were no french longbowmen because the French system wasn't built like that. It was very feudal, with plenty of knights. While the King of England had access to thousands of yeoman archers, the King of France had access to thousands of noble knights.
>>1152336
They all died in link related
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Patay
In 1445, the French king created the compagnies d'ordonnance, that constituted a professional army. These compagnies were made of 100 units called lances, and each lance comprised 6 men : 1 lancer, 1 coutillier, 3 archers and 1 page who didn't fight.
But apparently, by the time of the Italian wars, the archers had become mounted and armored lancer too.
>>1152336
Yeah like 8000-10.000 of them during the later 15th century.
They had like 4000 at Agincourt but never deployed them on the field of battle.
Pic related, French archers.
>>1152374
Burgundy had a 50/50 thing with around 8000 total of which half were English. The other half was chiefly drawn from Flanders and Picardy.
A Burgundian commander was noted for saying to a bunch of English archer that planned on leaving for England that they might as well stay, since they would just end up killing each other in England (war of the roses)
>>1152427
Italian high Alpine Yew was preferred, closely packed growth rings and all that jazz.
