Any reason that Longbows must be made from yew?

[Border Patrol]

What exactly is it about yew wood that longbows require it to be effective? Surely if longbows could be made from any old wood the Scandinavians and especially the French would have been all over producing bows in mass quantities and steamrolling Europe. So what's so special about England/Wales?

[Niles Crane]

I guess it's more sturdy and won't break under continual strain? I don't know.

[M D]

England and Wales have a lot of yew trees, Yew is a flexible hardwood making it durable but also perfect for bows.

[Double A]

England and Wales have a lot of yew trees, Yew is a flexible hardwood making it durable but also perfect for bows.

Pretty much that. Yew was good for the job, and it was abundant. You can use other woods for them, although I'm not too sure how they'd preform.

[LSJ]

Longbows can be made from many types of wood. Yew is just preferred due to desirable qualities. Many types of bows had similar range and power. Bows used by armies just east of Italy and Germany had a range that almost met that of a quality yew longbow (especially recurves). They were superior to their hunting bows, and made out of available tree species, yet armies of central Europe did not adopt them. One reason is that longbows were used for hunting in England and Wales. They were part of the culture and a well-known weapon, making them easy to integrate into English armies. Whereas for French armies to adopt a longbow, they would be creating something new and foreign, and would require more training. As well, the feudal system of medieval armies prevented it from being practical. There wasn't a centralized military machine that equipped standing armies with standard equipment and training. It was the responsibility of local lords to arm their forces.

[Stavroforos]

The French used longbows too, just not as much as the English.

[Dave Strider]

Outer part of the wood resisted stretching, inside of it resisted compression. Perfect bow material.

[Voodo chile]

You can make longbows from most hardwoods. It is recognise that the best woods for making bows are yew and osage orange and i think osage is a bit better but it didnt grow in europe and by the time Europeans arrived in America bows were considered as obsolete for war. As some people have said, the longbow was an English and Walsh way of life sort of thing and had used them for a long time and as i've learnt, the quality of the bow plays a massive role in how effective it will be. Anyone can learn to fire a bow in a day or two but to be able to make one (quickly aswell i might add) you need a few years experience

[Thanatos]

Moved to the Athenaeum.

[Tacitursa]

Anyone can learn to fire a bow in a day or two

It takes years to become a good archer. Most people here couldnt even use an english longbow, You need alot of strength especially for the higher end 130-160 pound warbows.

Thats why xbows were so popular all u had to do was point and shoot, Archers needed a good 5+ years to be effective in the military

[Sphere]

As mentioned before, yew is rather unique in that its heartwood and sapwood have quite different properties. The heartwood is strong and compressible, while the sapwood is stretchy and elastic. In this way if you cut the stave so the front of the bow is sapwood (tension fiber) and inside of the bow (compression fiber) is heartwood, you can create naturally "composite" bow without the need for a complex lamination process.

Other woods have differences between their heartwood and sapwood, but usually not to this extreme. You can actually see in this picture of an authentic longbow the distinct line between the sapwood (a lighter cream color) and the heartwood (the browner color). Ignore the bow on top, its just a modern laminated bow.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Helm]

I'm assuming it's flexible yet strong.

[Rowdytavern]

I heard a quote somewhere that said: "If you want to train a good long bowman you must start with his grandfather".

[Tiwaz]

What exactly is it about yew wood that longbows require it to be effective? Surely if longbows could be made from any old wood the Scandinavians and especially the French would have been all over producing bows in mass quantities and steamrolling Europe. So what's so special about England/Wales?

There was very little "uniqueness" in actual longbow. It is just big, damn bow. Everyone knew how to make one.
It is just English, or more Welsh, unique habit to have much of them in an army. Other nations saw less use for unwieldy (it is very big stick which you have to transport everywhere with you) and extremely time consuming weapon (your arm has to produce the force to pull the string so to be used for anything warfare you require years of practice to build up muscle and technique) weapon as tool of warfare.

Benefits of yew in longbow have been thoroughly handled earlier.

[Elfdude]

The long bows effectiveness on the battlefield had more to do with luck and blunders than really anything else. They didn't have the greatest range, they didn't have the greatest durability, they didn't have the best mechanical design. Really, there wasn't anything that set the english longbows apart from the rest of the world except that the english liked to use them for whatever reason (hunting, availability, cultural tradition). They were heavy but no more so than most culture's heavy bows. For example had they been designed with a recurve (a somewhat lost roman era technology) in mind they could be made significantly more effective.

What made the english's use of the longbow so deadly was their focus on indirect and volley fire. By continuously streaming arrows into the enemy they forced the enemy to play defensively greatly reducing their maneuverability. They were also very light and very manueverable themselves. This allowed the english army to maintain a quick movement speed which is all the more essential in the terrain of northern europe. Many, many, many, (it gets ridiculous how many times generals make this blunder in european history) troops are engaged in battle before their battle lines are properly drawn. This prevented the pavise crossbowmen who wore enormous pavise tower shields on their backs from unloading their heavy armor which was a perfect counter to english long bow men. Try as they might the pavise made french crossbowmen and infantry all but immune to english long bows. The only issue is that the french never could seem to get them unloaded and in use before either charging into battle or getting charged themselves.

On the other hand the technology was used fabulously by eastern and southern europe almost completely negating the bow's use in europe. As Sphere stated yew was a favorite would because of the differeneces in its natural structure which avoided the need for complex lamination (another somewhat lost technology). The best bows ever used for war were the recurved composite bows of the steppes. Insane durability, insane range, small, compact, and easy to use. The difference in bow making technology made crossbows obsolete durring the roman's time but ironically not durring the middle ages. Old age composite bow technology wasn't even surpassed by firearms until the 1800's.

[G-Megas-Doux]

With the dismantling of the Feudal system in England the use of firearms grew because it was quicker to train men to use a firearm adequatly then to teach archery from scratch. The Yew Longbow is constructed so that the Outer edge is from the inner more springy fiberous part of the wood and the strong part which springs back into place following release from the compression is the older outer part of the wood which is the inner part of the bow. Yew has both qualities that most woods do not have. It was also a more common tree in England and Wales then on the continent.

Other Longbows were made from two woods for the inner and outer part of the bow but a single wood is more effective and that is why the Yew is the preferred material to use because it had both important qualities.

[Ciabhán]

Yew has both qualities that most woods do not have. It was also a more common tree in England and Wales then on the continent.

Actually the best longbows were made from staves imported to England from the continent.

[Vizsla]

Aren’t there issues with the glue in composite bows in a cold, wet and generally crappy northern climate? It would have been better to use just one material.

[Ciabhán]

Aren’t there issues with the glue in composite bows in a cold, wet and generally crappy northern climate? It would have been better to use just one material.

Glues made from animal collagen do weaken or even dissolve in water and a humid climate wouldn't be ideal for weapons made using them. However waxing the bow or rubbing it with something like lanolin would prevent this.

[vopohame]

I think just about all of the above statements on yew are pretty accurate and of osage orange as well. Weather certainly affects bow performance and rapid temperature changes can have disastorous effects on bows depending on quality and manufacture of the bow...

Becoming a moderate archer is relatively easy and takes only a few weeks of practice... becoming an expert archer whether one is mounted or not can take generations. You certainly need an archer culture to become truly effective at being a high quality archer... Quite a bit of early archery involves instinct shooting which essentially you are relying on your experience of archery to make the shot rather than measurements and mathematics that so many modern archers use.

My father was an instinct shooter and used an osage orange bow which he made...He was a much better archer than I am but he came from a good line of mounted archery and also studied european and asian archery traditions... You can reduce the strength needed to pull back an arrow of a 130 lb bow by technique and while you have to be stronger than most people on this board you dont have to be an athletic marvel.

As far as accuracy he could hit a match at 50 paces at full gallop(not 100% of the time). He could also put 3 arrows into an apple in under 10 seconds as well. Im sure that could be matched my most horse archer peoples as well as quality english longbowmen...however one cant really split another arrow down the middle, the nature of the wood and the physics of an arrow pretty much prevent that but Ive destroyed a number of arrows by hitting them with other arrows...

There is too much movie drama about archery these days that seriously underplays the skillset of a superb archer...If archery really was like the movie Braveheart than european archer tactics are superbly idiotic.