Long Fletchings on Medieval Warbow Arrows. Why?

Hey Vogues, Matt Easton here, Scholar Gladiatoria. So just a super quick video really to point out one thing about medieval European, and specifically English actually, longbow arrows or arrows in general. And something that's very conspicuously noticeable on medieval manuscripts, on original surviving arrows, is that they have very long fletchings. Some people might refer to these as flights, they're supposed to be called fletchings. A fletcher of course is someone who makes this part of the arrow, but more generally a fletcher can be someone who makes an entire arrow, because of course the word fleche means arrow in French. So if we look at medieval manuscript pictures of archers, specifically of, shall we say, English, Flemish, Burgundian and French archers, although you do find this is the case in a lot of Europe as well, we see that they have very very long fletchings. Much longer than is normal on, for example, modern target arrows, and is much not longer than is common on, for example, Turkish or Persian arrows. So other cultures which had big archery cultures. And just to mention the fletchings are glued and bound on, I'll talk a bit more about that in more detail in a future video. I should also give a shout out to Will Sherman who made this fantastic arrow, and another arrow as well, and sent it to me. I'll put a link to Will Sherman's stuff below, but he's an excellent arrow and bow maker, and I highly recommend his stuff. I have two of his bows now myself. But the point is, why did the medieval English and lots of other Europeans use such long fletchings? And I think it's a very important point, and something which doesn't get enough attention. I have my own pet theory. My own pet theory is this, I will state it shortly without too much explanation, I think it's to do with getting the arrow straight as quickly as possible on its flight path. So when you shoot an arrow it has to go around the bow, and this means that if you look at an arrow being shot in slow motion, there's an oscillation to the arrow. Now if there's an oscillation to the arrow at the point that it hits the target, then a lot of the force will be diverted sideways when it hits the target, or indeed the shaft will snap. If the arrow is going perfectly straight into the target, then a lot more energy will be transferred to that target, aiding penetration. So you will get deeper penetration with a direct straight shot, and it takes a little bit of time for arrows to straighten out in flight. And I have a very long held for many years, if you look on the Scholar Forum you can see I've been banging on about this theory for probably about 10 years now. I have a very strongly held theory that I know is shared I think by Mike Lodes, that English longbow archery, and particularly medieval European archery, a lot of it was about very close range shooting, shooting into a melee, shooting into the flanks and in some cases backs of the opposing force whilst they were engaged with your own force in the front line. I've talked about this in my Agincourt documentary as well, which I'll also link below. So to cut to the chase, I believe that long fletchings are to straighten out the arrow in flight as quickly as possible after it leaves the bow to make the arrow more effective at point-blank range or very close range shooting to aid penetration of resistant materials such as certain types of armour, gambeson mail, things like this. So there we go, that's my theory, but I am very interested, particularly if you're an archer or you're researching medieval archery or medieval bows and medieval arrows, if you're a warbow archer for example, I am very interested to hear your theories. I'm not saying that I'm right, this is just my theory, it might be wrong, it might be right, who knows, but I'd be fascinated to hear your theories about why the fletchings on particularly medieval English but also lots of other medieval Western European, Northern European arrows are so long compared to other cultures and other periods because it definitely adds drag, probably slows the arrow down quicker, it's not so good for flight archery, things like this, but it must have some purpose, there must be some reason that they made the fletchings so long. So fascinated to hear your responses and even if you just think that my theory might be right, but anyway I'll see you in the comments below and if you haven't subscribed please click the subscribe button and give me a like please. Cheers folks!