Yew Longbow of Wallonia
Channel: Historical Weapons
Date: 2021-11-22

During the Hundred Years War, did non-English longbows exist in continental Europe? French archers? Burgundian archers, German longbowmen, or Flemish archers, etc? 
Since this bow is made in Belgium, it sparked my interest in researching this topic about continental European longbows of the 14th to 15th century, for this video. 
There is plenty of content regarding English longbowmen, such as when talking about famous battles like Agincourt, Crecy, and the battle of Poitiers etc. 
But let's take a moment to look at continental Europe during the Hundred Years War, specifically in Belgium. (Other topics such as German archers or French Franc Archers deserve their own videos)

Now Belgium was not a country during this time, but divided among various factions and the territory did change depending on the time period, divided with the holy roman empire, the french + allies, and the English + allies.

We know the English were famous for their use of the longbow, and we know that the French did use longbow as well such as the Franc archers, and of course, this deserves their own videos. 

Note that the HRE controlled most of modern-day Wallonia, which is southern Belgium today.
Interestingly, even the Holy Roman Empire used the longbow. Now I wasn't able to find if the longbow was specifically used in the Wallonia region, however, resources of yew could have been extracted in this region to supply bow staves for the french or holy roman empire.
We know the English mostly relied on importing northern Europe and baltic states, so they unlikely imported yew from this region.
 
So we are left with northern Belgium which is mostly flemish, which also had direct contact with English longbowmen. however, most of the flemish militia were melee infantry and would not have used longbows in any significant quantity.
they did however provide important textile products for the English during the war.

So that is basically a quick summary of the longbow in the region that is known today as Belgium,
of course, Belgium didn't become a country until the 19th century, but the people of Belgium did preserve archery traditions, and the sport popinjay, for example, is still occasionally being practiced today in Belgium as a recreational sport, along with other countries.

At 70lb@30", this specific bow is good training and hunting weight but unlikely a warbow during the hundred years war.  

This yew longbow is made by French Belgian bowyer Jean. I finished the bow with beeswax for a more historical finish and hemp flemish twist string. 
The bowyer's Etsy store (check out his Mary Rose Warbows too)
https://www.etsy.com/fr/shop/LongbowBelgique

"Teller of the Tales" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

00:00. Intro
00:24. Brief Archery History of Belgium
03:15. Showcasing this specific bow
06:31. Shooting this longbow
08:09. Chronograph
08:54. My review

#archery #belgian