On 29 April 1429, Joan of Arc entered a besieged Orléans, leading the vanguard of a French relief army. She encouraged the defenders and in a little over a week completely defeated the English army which had encircled the city. This marked the turning point of the Hundred Years War; the English invasion was halted and France began recovering its lost territories.

In his famous Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World (1851), Sir Edward Creasy described this as the culminating moment of the war, securing victory for France. No one expected this turn of events, because England was Europe’s military superpower, a reputation the kingdom owed to its superior yeomen. The English archers, shooting over ten arrows a minute with their longbows, could absolutely mow down the French knights whenever they charged to attack. Before Orléans, English armies defeated the French at Crécy (1346), Poitiers (1356), and Agincourt (1415) this way.

Benjamin Franklin considered both Orléans and the Hundred Years War as a whole. In early 1776, he corresponded with General Charles Lee and actually suggested that the colonial military pick the longbow up! The idea may sound preposterous, but it was arguably the ideal course of action. Franklin argued that the longbow was as lethal and accurate as a musket. Furthermore, it could shoot four times faster, and it was easy to mass produce its ammunition – arrows. The American Revolution would have been very different if the Americans did not have to retreat at Bunker Hill (1775) because they ran out of ammunition.

General Lee’s reply is lost. The easiest explanation as to why the longbow was not adapted is the amount of training it required. England’s archers were skilled because the government mandated that all males aged 16 to 60 practice shooting weekly. Even in archery’s heyday, the government struggled to ensure that archers stayed practiced, sometimes offering tax incentives or prizes. The Colonial government had neither the time nor power to implement this policy. It came to the same conclusion England had: it’s easier to just hand a soldier an easy-to-use-but-inferior musket in times of crisis.

–Zachary Marano
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Photo Caption: Joan Arc, miniature oil painting, c. 1450-1500.

Meet the Author

I am a freshman at Schoolcraft College. My interest and past research in military history and archery contributed greatly to this article. I am currently studying the command and control of archers in the medieval period.