Archery under Henry the VIII

Henry the VIIIth, the King of Britain from 1509 to 1547, loved archery so much he made the sport mandatory for every male over the age of seven. The requirement was that every man between 7 and 60 practice archery at least once per week.

It was an interesting time during the 1500s. War. Disease. Famine. Religious conflicts.

Guns were horribly inaccurate. Archery was by far the best option if you wanted to shoot something accurately.

Thus it made very good sense to make archery mandatory for all Brits - so that they could defend themselves from invasion from those dastardly French, that sort of thing.

However not everyone was cut out to be an archer. One of the trials of the time was a repetitive strain injury known as "archer's elbow", which is the same thing as tennis elbow by modern standards.

Thus 5 centuries ago an entire generation of men were suffering with an epidemic of achy elbows.

And for those that used the English warbows of the time period they also suffered from sore backs and sore shoulders due to the oppressive weights of the elite bows of the time period (some of which have been recovered from the sunken warship the Mary Rose which sank in 1545 and is now preserved in Plymouth.

Professional archers during the time period could fire 12 arrows a minute – and some of these epic archers were pulling weights the equivalent of up to 200 lbs (or about 90 kg). That is why their backs and shoulders became warped and injured with time. (In contrast Olympic archers in the present only pull bows around 48 lbs.) Researchers have found archers from the time period to have skeletal damage from the strain caused to their backbones and shoulder bones.

Henry the VIII was a talented archer in his younger days, and he had an impressive collection of archery equipment both from England and foreign bows. In his later years he also collected hand guns.