Value of the Bow in English Wars 1 17 



French knights there were two thousand spears, as 

 fresh and well-ordered men as could be devised ; 

 and as soon as they saw their enemies, they joined 

 together like men of war, and approached in good 

 order until they came within a bow-shot ; and at 

 their first coming there was a hard encounter, for 

 such as desired to assail, to win grace and praise, 

 entered into the straight way, where the English- 

 men by their policy had fortified them. And be- 

 cause the entry was so narrow, there was great 

 press and great mischief to the assailants ; for such 

 English archers as were there, shot so wholly 

 together that their arrows pierced men and horses, 

 and when the horses were full of arrows they fell 

 upon one another. . . , There were many of the 

 lords and knights of France and Beam taken and 

 slain. . . .' 



In besieging a fortress, bows and arrows were 

 used from a wooden tower called a berfreid^ beffroi, 

 or belfry, which was brought near to the walls. 

 Froissart thus describes one : ^ ' The English had 

 constructed two large towers of great beams of 

 wood, three stories high ; each tower was placed 

 on wheels, and covered over with prepared leather, 

 to shelter those within from fire and from the 

 arrows ; in each story were one hundred archers.' 



Among the records in the Tower of London, - 



^ Vol. i. c. 108 ; Meyrick, vol. i. p. 76. 



- Rot. Walliae in Turr. Lond. m. 10 in dorso. 



