Would yew believe it!
QUESTION In the years when the longbow was a major weapon were trees planted for their production? Which woods were considered the best?
BECAUSE of its slow growth and tight wood grain, the English yew is very strong and resilient, perfect for the manufacture of longbows and arrows.
The Clacton spear, a spear point found in that seaside town in 1911, was made of English yew and is more than 400,000 years old. The earliest longbow known from England, found at Ashcott Heath, Somerset, is dated to 2665 BC.
There are few examples of bows from the Middle Ages, partly because good bows were passed down through families until they were worn out or broken.
Longbow manufacture was a serious business, its traditional construction required drying the yew wood for one to two years. It was then painstakingly worked into shape, with the entire process taking up to four years.
Not all bows were yew; ash and elm were sometimes used. Gerald of Wales, speaking of the bows used by the Welshmen of Gwent, says: ‘They are made neither of horn, ash nor yew, but of elm; ugly unfinished-looking weapons, but astonishingly stiff, large and strong, and equally capable of use for long or short shooting.’
The use of the English longbow reached its zenith during the Hundred Years War and was instrumental in the victories at Crecy (1346) and Agincourt (1415).
By the time of Agincourt, however, the English yew had practically been wiped out. There was little evidence of planting, which would have required impressive forward planning as a yew tree takes more than 100 years to mature to the condition required to make good bows.
Henry V realised there wouldn’t be enough yew trees to meet demand and imported huge quantities of yew staves from Spain and Northern Europe.
At one stage all ships bringing cargo to Britain had to pay an import toll, not in cash, but in the form of ten bow staves. The yew tree was saved in Britain in large part because of its long association with places of worship. There is evidence that some yew trees were deliberately planted for this purpose. Charles Evans, Much Wenlock, Shropshire.
QUESTION Why was Robert Hooke paid in copies of a book called Historia Piscium when he was clerk of the Royal Society?
IT WASN’T Robert Hooke (1635-1703), but Edmund Halley (1656-1742) (of comet fame) who was paid in copies of Historia Piscum.
In 1684, Halley, Hooke and Christopher Wren (an astronomer as well as an architect) met in a coffee house to discuss the unresolved proof of Kepler’s first law, which states that the planets move in elliptical paths with the sun at one of the focal points. Hooke had claimed to have a proof that the paths were ellipses, but never provided it.
Against this background, Halley paid a visit to Isaac Newton, the brilliant Cambridge scholar, who told Abraham De Moivre about the fateful meeting.
Mathematician De Moivre said: ‘In 1684 Dr Halley came to visit him at Cambridge. After they had been some time together, the Dr asked him what he thought the curve would be that would be described by the planets supposing the force of attraction towards the sun to be reciprocal to the square of their distance from it.
‘Sir Isaac replied immediately that it would be an ellipse. The Doctor, struck with joy and amazement, asked him how he knew it. Why, saith he, I have calculated it. Whereupon Dr Halley asked him for his calculation without any farther delay. Sir Isaac looked among his papers but could not find it, but he promised him to renew it and then to send it him.’ Halley’s question prompted Newton to formulate his ideas about mechanics and universal gravitation.
The answer became progressively more comprehensive until, in about 18 months, Newton had composed a three-volume work entitled The Mathematical Principles Of Natural Philosophy, usually known as Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, or Principi.
At this time the Royal Society was in financial trouble, having ploughed money into the lavishly illustrated De Historia Piscium, or History Of Fishes, by John Ray and Francis Willughby, which sold poorly. Consequently, it was unable to fund the salary of new clerk Edmund Halley, set at £50, or publish the most important scientific work of the age.
In 1687, it agreed to pay Halley the money in copies of the book which they gave a nominal value of £1 each. Halley then personally funded the publication of Newton’s Principia in the same year.
Nicholas Hodgson, Birmingham.
QUESTION What is so ‘good’ about Good Friday? When was it named as such?
ACCORDING to the Bible, Jesus was flogged, ordered to carry the Cross on which he would be crucified and then put to death on ‘Good Friday’.
The recognition of this day is known from the third century AD. The Didascalia Apostolorum, dated to AD 230, prescribed activities during Holy Week, including a fast on Friday:
‘Therefore you shall fast in the days of the Pascha (Passover) from the tenth, which is the second day of the week; and you shall sustain yourselves with bread and salt and water only, at the ninth hour, until the fifth day of the week. But on the Friday and on the Sabbath fast wholly, and taste nothing.’
The term was not found until 1290, in The South English Legendary as ‘guode Friday’. Why is uncertain. Some sources suggest it is ‘good’ as in holy, or that the phrase is a corruption of ‘God’s Friday’.
Others point to ‘good’ designating a day or a season on which religious observance is held, hence the greeting ‘good tide’ at Christmas or on Shrove Tuesday. In addition to Good Friday, there is also a less well-known Good Wednesday, namely the Wednesday before Easter.
Good Friday was called Long Friday by the Anglo-Saxons and still is in modern Danish. The day is known as ‘the Holy and Great Friday’ in the Greek liturgy, ‘Holy Friday’ in Spain and Italy and Karfreitag (Sorrowful Friday) in German.
Ellen Stuart, Inverness.