Editing English longbow (section)

==== Contemporary accounts ====
[[File:Battle-poitiers(1356).jpg|right|thumb|Archers at the [[Battle of Poitiers]], 1356]]
Against massed men in armour, massed longbows were murderously effective on many battlefields.<ref name="academia.edu">[https://www.academia.edu/13146838/_The_Efficacy_of_the_Medieval_Longbow_A_Reply_to_Kelly_DeVries_War_in_History_5_no._2_1998_233-42 "The Efficacy of the Medieval Longbow: A Reply to Kelly DeVries"], ''War in History'' 5, no. 2 (1998): 233–42; idem, "The Battle of Agincourt", ''The Hundred Years War (Part II): Different Vistas'', ed. L. J. Andrew Villalon and Donald J. Kagay (Leiden: Brill, 2008): 37–132.</ref>

Strickland and Hardy suggest that "even at a range of {{convert|240|yd|m}}, heavy war arrows shot from bows of poundages in the mid- to upper range possessed by the ''Mary Rose'' bows would have been capable of killing or severely wounding men equipped with armour of wrought iron. Higher-quality armour of steel would have given considerably greater protection, which accords well with the experience of Oxford's men against the elite French vanguard at Poitiers in 1356, and des Ursin's statement that the French knights of the first ranks at Agincourt, which included some of the most important (and thus best-equipped) nobles, remained comparatively unhurt by the English arrows".{{sfn|Strickland|Hardy|2005|pp=272–278}}

Archery was described by contemporaries as ineffective against steel [[plate armour]] in the [[Battle of Neville's Cross]] (1346), the siege of [[Battle of Bergerac|Bergerac]] (1345), and the [[Battle of Poitiers]] (1356); such armour became available to European knights and men at arms of fairly modest means by the middle of the 14th century, although never to all soldiers in any army. Longbowmen were, however, effective at Poitiers, and this success stimulated changes in armour manufacture partly intended to make armoured men less vulnerable to archery. Nevertheless, at the battle of Agincourt in 1415 and for some decades thereafter, English longbowmen continued to be an effective battlefield force.<ref name="academia.edu"/>