The 1590s was a transitional period where old feudal values were giving way to innovations of the market economy and continental ideologies on socio-political governance. Land was giving way to money in social status; so was the sword and the bow giving way to firearms in warfare. Before and after the orders to convert bowmen into musketeers in 1595 (Cruickshank 114; Boynton 67, 171), the acceleration of the publication of military books provided valuable information on the material aspects of martial practices and the social repercussions of the clash between the ancient and the new. While military men and theorists like Smythe (1590), Knyvett (1596) and Silver (1599) ardently defended swords and long bows, Williams (1590), Garrard (1591), and Barret (1598) tried to justify the “new disciplines” of using pikes and firearms as the backbone of martial formation (Öğütcü 125-140).

Image of title page of Sir John Smythe’s Certain Discourses (1590) available via Wikipedia

As counterarguments against the use of firearms, Smythe and Knyvett argued against the impracticality of heavy firearms, which only produced noise and pollution that did not scare but rather encouraged the enemy by not hitting them all (Smythe 39-85; Knyvett 16-20).

What is more, the new disciplines were labelled by the defenders of the English long bow as foreign and alien concepts that threatened the national identity of the early modern English people. German, Dutch and French jargons were accused of taking over English military diction and the English tongue:

These our such men of warre before mentioned, in a manner, vtterlie ignorant of all our auncient dis∣cipline and proceedings in actions of Armes, haue so affected the Wallons, Flemings, and base Almanes discipline, (as some of them terme it) that they haue pro∣cured to innouate, or rather to subuert all our ancient proceedings in matters Militarie, and therefore haue left nothing in a manner vntouched, without seeking to alter and chaunge the same: as for example; They will not vouchsafe in their speaches or writings to vse our ancient termes belonging to matters of warre,^* but doo call a Campe by the Dutch name of Legar; nor will not afoord to say, that such a Towne, or such a Fort is besieged, but that it is belegard: […] The bodie of the watch also or standing watch (as we were wont to terme it) they now call after the French, or Wallons, Corps du gard, with manie other such Wallon and Dutch termes, as though our English Nation, which hath been so famous in all actions Militarie manie hundred yeres, were now but newlie crept into the world, or as though our language were so barren, that it were not able of it selfe, or by deriuation to affoord conuenient words to vtter our minds in matters of that qualitie. (Smythe 2-3)

Yet, interestingly enough, in order to prove their points about the necessity of using archery instead of firearms, most contemporary war literature praised Islamic regions for their use of multiple military techniques that incorporated the old and the new. For instance, Arabs, Persians, Turks, and Tatars are illustrated as being well trained in warfare because of their preference for the bow to other arms; and the Ottomans, although they used heavy artillery, too, were praised for still using bows primarily. That was why, for these early modern English theorists, the English people should still use conventional weapons rather than firearms:

And all those conquests, with many battailes and victories he and his Turkes atchieued chiefly with the wonderful effects of their Bowes, of which wea∣pon their milicia did principally consist. After whose time, the Soldans his successours, and Otoman the first Emperour of the Turkes, and his successours did win many battailes and victories against the Emperours of Constantinople, chiefly with the aduantage of that weapon. (Smythe 41)

While, of course, some of the details of the authors of these war manuals were manipulated to fit their agenda, it is notable that they saw the nations of Islamic regions as sources of inspiration and validity for their arguments to underscore the importance of the English long bow as part of a nationalistic agenda. Hierarchising racism, the pro-archery clique tried to prove their points by equating the historical military success of the English archers of the Late Middle Ages with that of their Islamic counterparts rather than with other European Protestant nations. Indicative of the clash of insular and continental nationalisms, war manuals of the time illustrate valuable sources of information about the utilitarian aspects of othering in early modern England, which should be further taken into consideration in contemporary studies.

Selected Bibliography

Boynton, L. The Elizabethan Militia 1558-1638. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967.

Cruickshank, Charles G. Elizabeth’s Army. Oxford: Clarendon, 1966.

Öğütcü, Murat. “Of Pistols and Pikes: Weapons of War in Shakespeare’s Henry V.” ‘Work, work your thoughts’: Henry V Revisited. Eds. Sophie Chiari and Sophie Lemercier-Goddard. Clermont-Ferrand: Presses universitaires Blaise Pascal, 2021. 125-140.

Smythe, John. Certain Discourses Military. Ed. J. R. Hale. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1964.