Re:Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?
by barry-cotter on Monday November 09, 2020 @10:00PM
(#25042451)
Serfdom was on its last legs in England by this stage. I believe there were plenty of landowners who practiced the longbow but a majority would have been yeomen who were tenants of big solid farms, not themselves landowners. England was almost the first place to get rid of serfdom and a peasantry both, though the Netherlands may have it beat. Remember we’re on the verge of the Reformation. These are quite urbanized bourgeois societies by the 1400s.
Re:Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?
by bashmelek on Monday November 09, 2020 @09:55PM
(#25042422)
"If you want to train a longbowman, start with his grandfather."
Being a longbowman took extensive training and practice.
Re:Could a Peasant Defeat a Knight in Battle?
by jaggederest on Monday November 09, 2020 @10:01PM
(#25042454)
As far as I am aware, most longbowmen at the time were yeomen, a sort of middle class between the landed gentry and the serf class, where they owned their land and thus had the free time and energy to practice and hunt with a longbow.
Can you elaborate. I thought serfdom was still around in 1415 in England.