The Longbow
The History of the Weapon That Revolutionized Warfare in the Middle Ages
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Narrated by:
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Colin Fluxman
About this listen
In the time period between the fall of Rome and the spread of the Renaissance across the European continent, many of today’s European nations were formed, the Catholic Church rose to great prominence, some of history’s most famous wars occurred, and a social class system was instituted that lasted over 1,000 years. A lot of activity took place during a period frequently labeled derogatively as the “Dark Ages” and while that period of time is mostly referred to as the “Middle Ages” instead of the Dark Ages today, it has still retained the stigma of being a sort of lost period of time in which Western civilization made no worthwhile progress after the advances of the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome.
In reality, this oversimplification of the Middle Ages overlooks the progress made in the studies of sciences and philosophy especially during the High Middle Ages. It also ignores the fact that one of the most important inventions of the last millennium was created in Germany during the Late Middle Ages: the printing press which allowed the Renaissance to move across the continent and help position Western Europe as the wealthiest region in the world.
If anything, the one aspect of the Middle Ages that has been romanticized is medieval warfare. Indeed, the Middle Ages have long sparked people’s imaginations thanks to imagery of armored knights battling on horseback and armies of men trying to breach the walls of formidable castles. What is generally forgotten is that medieval warfare was constantly adapting to the times as leaders adopted new techniques and technology, and common infantry became increasingly important throughout the period. Starting around 1000 CE, there was a gradual consolidation of power in the region after the fragmentation of the Early Middle Ages, and it brought about the rise of more centralized states that could field large armies. The Normans, one of the first groups to do this, were notable for their discipline and organization and it’s little surprise that they were the last foreigners to successfully invade Britain under William the Conqueror in the mid-11th century.
Meanwhile, political and technological progress led to continuous change of tactics and equipment. Cavalry became ascendant but at the Hundred Years’ War’s most famous battle, the Battle of Agincourt, archers formed a special part of the English army beneath the men-at-arms but above the ordinary infantry. They wore leather body armor, sometimes with metal plates, and helmets or chainmail hoods. For close combat, they carried swords, mallets, and daggers--including the misericord, a special type of dagger designed to slip between the armor plates of a fallen enemy and finish him off. The glory days of the heavily armored mounted knight had long since passed, and at Agincourt English longbowmen and men-at-arms would decimate the flower of French chivalry rendering the medieval cavalry charge little more than a romantic folly.
While the bow was used throughout ancient times and the Middle Ages, on mainland Europe it was mostly replaced by the crossbow in the early 13th century. But that would change with the introduction of the longbow; a more powerful weapon than the traditional hunting bows. The original longbowmen were Welshmen recruited by King Edward I of England after he conquered Wales, and the weapon got its name from the fact that it was almost as tall as the man using it. This gave it a longer draw and therefore more force as longbows were generally made of yew, a strong and pliable wood. The longbow was cheap and easy to make, but they required extensive training to be used well, so in England commoners were encouraged and at times required to practice archery.
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I might be a niche market for this but I loved it
- By Jonathan on 12-17-18
By: Myke Cole
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The Great Commanders
- Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Horatio Nelson, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ulysses S. Grant, Georgi Zhukov
- By: Phil Grabsky
- Narrated by: Phil Grabsky
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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The Great Commanders is a masterly portrait of six men - Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Horatio Nelson, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ulysses S. Grant and Georgi Zhukov - whose military genius changed the course of world history.
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Broad, and High Level History
- By Mark on 11-20-14
By: Phil Grabsky
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The Accursed Tower
- The Fall of Acre and the End of the Crusades
- By: Roger Crowley
- Narrated by: Matt Kugler
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Accursed Tower, Roger Crowley delivers a lively narrative of the lead-up to the siege and a vivid, blow-by-blow account of the climactic battle. Drawing on extant Arabic sources as well as untranslated Latin documents, he argues that Acre is notable for technical advances in military planning and siege warfare, and extraordinary for its individual heroism and savage slaughter. A gripping depiction of the crusader era told through its dramatic last moments, The Accursed Tower offers an essential new view on a crucial turning point in world history.
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Another great book by Roger Crowley
- By tp on 03-13-20
By: Roger Crowley
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The Enemy at the Gate
- Habsburgs, Ottomans, and the Battle for Europe
- By: Andrew Wheatcroft
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The Great Siege of Vienna is the centerpiece for historian Andrew Wheatcroft's richly drawn portrait of the centuries-long rivalry between the Ottoman and Habsburg empires for control of the European continent. A gripping work by a master historian, The Enemy at the Gate offers a timely examination of an epic clash of civilizations.
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Look elsewhere
- By Ben H. on 09-20-21
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A History of War in 100 Battles
- By: Richard Overy
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 16 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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The object of this audiobook is to introduce listeners to a whole range of military history which has all the drama, dangers, horrors and excitement that we associate with Stalingrad or the Somme. Battles are acute moments of history whenever and wherever they have been fought. Through them we can understand how warfare and world history have evolved. Choosing just 100 battles from recorded human history is a challenge.
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Fascinating perspective o war
- By Roscoe's Masked Avenger on 12-22-16
By: Richard Overy
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The Cambridge History of Warfare
- By: Geoffrey Parker
- Narrated by: Andrew Cullum
- Length: 21 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The new edition of The Cambridge History of Warfare, written and updated by a team of eight distinguished military historians, examines how war was waged by Western powers across a sweeping timeframe beginning with classical Greece and Rome, moving through the Middle Ages and the early modern period, down to the wars of the 21st century in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.
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Too anglocentric
- By A. Siegel on 10-27-22
By: Geoffrey Parker
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The Greco-Persian Wars
- A Captivating Guide to the Conflicts Between the Achaemenid Empire and the Greek City-States, Including the Battle of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea, and More
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Richard L. Walton
- Length: 3 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The Greco-Persian Wars are often portrayed as a battle between good and evil. This is simultaneously an exaggeration and an oversimplification, but there is no doubt that this war, or series of wars, fought between some of the most powerful civilizations of the ancient era helped to plot the course of human history that we have been following up until this very day.
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Wonderful book on Ancient Greek history
- By Day-2-Day (Melissa) on 10-12-19
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The Allure of Battle
- A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost
- By: Cathal J. Nolan
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 25 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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History has tended to measure war's winners and losers in terms of its major engagements, battles in which the result was so clear-cut that they could be considered "decisive". Cannae, Konigsberg, Austerlitz, Midway, Agincourt - all resonate in the literature of war and in our imaginations as tide-turning. But these legendary battles may or may not have determined the final outcome of the wars in which they were fought. Cathal J. Nolan's The Allure of Battle systematically and engrossingly examines the great battles, tracing what he calls "short-war thinking".
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Missing important facts and not well researched
- By Andrew on 02-24-18
By: Cathal J. Nolan
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The Fall of Carthage
- The Punic Wars 265-146BC
- By: Adrian Goldsworthy
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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The struggle between Rome and Carthage in the Punic Wars was arguably the greatest and most desperate conflict of antiquity. The forces involved and the casualties suffered by both sides were far greater than in any wars fought before the modern era, while the eventual outcome had far-reaching consequences for the history of the Western World, namely the ascendancy of Rome. An epic of war and battle, this is also the story of famous generals and leaders: Hannibal, Fabius Maximus, Scipio Africanus, and his grandson Scipio Aemilianus, who would finally bring down the walls of Carthage.
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Captivating
- By Jean on 03-25-19
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The Pursuit of Power
- Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000
- By: William H. McNeill
- Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla
- Length: 15 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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In this magnificent synthesis of military, technological, and social history, William H. McNeill explores a whole millennium of human upheaval and traces the path by which we have arrived at the frightening dilemmas that now confront us. McNeill moves with equal mastery from the crossbow - banned by the Church in 1139 as too lethal for Christians to use against one another - to the nuclear missile, from the sociological consequences of drill in the 17th century to the emergence of the military-industrial complex in the 20th.
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Brilliant, lucid history
- By Ariel on 07-04-22
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Moment of Battle
- The Twenty Clashes That Changed the World
- By: James Lacey, Williamson Murray
- Narrated by: Kevin Foley
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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From the great clashes of antiquity to the high-tech wars of the twenty-first century, here are the stories of the twenty most consequential battles ever fought, including Marathon, where Greece's "greatest generation" repelled Persian forces three times their numbers-and saved Western civilization in its infancy.
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In Depth
- By L. Sands on 09-26-16
By: James Lacey, and others
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In the Name of Rome
- The Men Who Won the Roman Empire
- By: Adrian Goldsworthy
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 17 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Adrian Goldsworthy has received wide acclaim for his exceptional writing on the Roman Empire - including high praise from the acclaimed military historian and author John Keegan - and here he offers a new perspective on the empire by focusing on its greatest generals, including Scipio Africanus, Marius, Pompey, Caesar, and Titus.
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This pie was all crust, no filling
- By JLB on 04-11-17
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The Battle of Thermopylae
- A Captivating Guide to One of the Greatest Battles in Ancient History Between the Spartans and Persians
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Colin Fluxman
- Length: 1 hr and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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The Battle of Thermopylae is one of the most famous battles in human history. It featured two of the ancient world’s most prominent cultures, the Achaemenid-led Persian Empire and the fragmented yet culturally advanced Greeks. It also included some of history’s most famous leaders, such as the Persian king Xerxes and the Spartan king and military general Leonidas.
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It's a good book!
- By Mack Zonee on 11-28-19