Archery Leatherwork Gallery

Just back from holidays, so here’s a completely unrelated gallery of my pictures of medieval and early modern archery-related leatherwork from collections in Blighty. I’ll do posts on making copies of some of these later. I know ivory and tortise shell are cheating, although if challenged, I’ll claim they are still animal-derived materials.

English, early 16th C, British Museum MLA 1922,1-10,1

Tudor period archer’s bracer found in Worship Street, London. Museum of London.

Leather arrow spacer 1400-1500. Museum of London

Archer’s Bracer, Flemish, about 1620. Made from tortoiseshell and edged in silver. Royal Armouries, Leeds. XI.143

Flemish, about 1620. View from right side. XI.143

European, 17th century. Made of ivory, curved and tapered to the shape of the forearm. XI.94

Leather bracer embossed with the royal arms of Henry VIII. Mary Rose Museum, 1545.

Bracer, Mary Rose Museum 1545, similar to the MoL one

Two bracers, Mary Rose Museum 1545. The leather straps have torn away, probably at the rivet holes.

Bracer, Mary Rose Museum 1545

Ivory bracer with leather straps, Mary Rose Museum, 1545.

Arrow spacer, Mary Rose Museum 1545. I suspect this was for use with bodkin points.

Arrow spacer, Mary Rose Museum 1545

Left hand mitten, Mary Rose 1545. I’m going to be a bit contentious and suggest that as there were two, both left hand and bot associated with other archery equipment, these were to protect the bow hand when using fire-arrows.

Archer’s finger tab from Coventry c. 1500

A quick one today because the bucket took way too long. This is an easy project for anyone able to use a pair of scissors.

The original was found in Palmer Lane, Coventry in 1949 and appears to have been made from pig skin. It is designed and made for a right hander, but the string wear on the flesh rather than the skin side shows that it was used left handed. Judging from the size, it was for a youth although it is also likely to have been made to a more or less standard pattern.

Having some pig skin at home, I worked out what size the holes would have to be to fit my hand and scaled the rest accordingly. All the cutting was done using the naughty scissors (named in response to the repeated warning “Not with the good scissors”), mostly with the points.

Modern pig skin tends to be garment weight, making this tab just a little thin for my 60# longbow, so a light cow hide may be more appropriate for the heavier bows. The thickness probably should have been scaled up with the other dimensions.  

 

 

Reference:

Soar, H., The Crooked Stick — A History of the Longbow, Westholme, Pennsylvania, 2004. Pp128-9