Another important thing to remember: History records the unusual. The usual is taken for granted and often they don't bother writing it done, because they can't conceive of a time when these things would not be obvious to everyone. So if it's noteworthy for Gerald to tell this story it's probably because a thick oak door almost always stops arrows usually.
Not necessarily. Gerald of Wales was a bishop. He came to be in a place where there was combat, something he possibly never did. He might just have been astonished in finding out 3" oak planks are not as resilient as he had thought, just like Tod was. He being impressed by it is not evidence that the particular instance was an outlier. It would be different if he was a war chronicler and said something like "even after being in 30 recently sieged towns, I had never seen such savage arrows." or something like that. History records the unusual. But maybe to Gerald, seeing vestiges of war at all was unusual. Even if it would seem something mundane for a experienced soldier.
I think because of the nature of the experimental historical tests like this, its providing new information not just explaining old information like 99% of history content is, which I think attracts a lot of people who already know a lot about history like professional historians who wouldn't watch most history channels much because they often just summarise primary sources, but here there is new info. I think this is why your comments have so much good info. :D
I hope you are right, but for whatever reason I love the intelligent balanced information and discussion here - a rare commodity on the internet and I cherish you all for it
@@tods_workshop I prefer your channel to history shows as I know you're not full of shit! You don't sensationalise your content. This is why we're here...well that and the presentation and enthusiasm you put into the videos. :)
Agreed, and even better Tod reads and takes on board our collective thinking and often then makes the experiments. Which is great to see, and expands our collective understanding of how things would feel and how it probably worked in history.
@Tod's Workshop Hi Tod, is it possible that "an inch" meant something different to Gerald of Wales than it means to us? Measurements back then were far from standardized.
I was intrigued by how specific this account seems to be, and went to look up transcription of original latin text, and something is definitely wrong. Either the transcription or translation is wrong, and I suspect that the culprit is translation. This isn't the first time I found very creatively translated terms (where lorica cucualta - hooded armor - was translated as leather armor for some damned reason), it seems the historians sometimes like to spice up the accounts. Anyhow, here's the text and my translation, line breaks are where commas are. I transated the entire sentence, and if you know medieval sentences, you are already braced for a ride. in praetaxata castri proditione - In the capture of aforementioned castle militibus duobus in turrim - soldiers placed in the tower cumulato terrarum agere sitam - built on a mount of earth per pontem transfugientibus - were passing over a bridge Gualenses - the Welsh ut ipsos a tergo percuterent - taking them in the rear saggitas arcu mittentes - send arrows with their bows portam turris iliceam - over to the tower gate palmalis ferre spissitudinis - which was a palm thick transpenetrarunt - was penetrated ad tantorum ictuum vehementiae perpetuam memoriam - in the memory of so many strong blows saggitis in porta ferro reprecusso reservatis - arrows were perserved in iron gate So, to translate it properly: In the capture of said castle, soldiers were returning to their position in the tower on a mound of earth over a bridge, when the Welsh attacked them from the rear, and shot them with bows, arrows of which penetrated an iron door a palm thick, where they were then left in memory of such strong blows. Here's a translation I found floating on the internet, without naing the translator: In the last capture of the aforesaid castle, which happened in our days, two soldiers passing over a bridge to take refuge in a tower built on a mound of earth, the Welsh, taking them in the rear, penetrated with their arrows the oaken portal of the tower, which was four fingers thick; in memory of which circumstance, the arrows were preserved in the gate. As you can see, the translation takes some liberties there - some may be taken from previous or following sentences, but still. The most important bits are: - while translation states four inches, original indicates a palm, both of which amount to 10 cm, it was probably changed to be more understandable to modern UK and US readers - original refers to an iron door, porta ferro, not oak This means that the door in question was likely made from a strong wood and reinforced with iron bands, but the thing is we don't know if it really was oak, or what kind of oak. Oak is the most strategic choice, yes, but also pretty expensive, so we can't discount the possibility of this particular porta ferro being made with ash or something else entirely.
The Roman palm (Latin: palmus) or lesser palm (palmus minor) made up ¼ of the Roman foot (pes), which varied in practice between 29.2-29.7 cm (11.5-11.7 in) but is thought to have been officially 29.6 cm (11.7 in).[14] This would have given the palm a notional value of 7.4 cm (2.9 in) within a range of a few millimeters. The palm was divided into four digits (digitus) of about 1.85 cm (0.7 in) or three inches (uncia) of about 2.47 cm (1.0 in). Three made a span (palmus maior or "greater palm") of about 22.2 cm (9 in) four, a Roman foot; five, a hand-and-a-foot (palmipes) of about 37 cm (1 ft 3 in); six, a cubit (cubitus) of about 44.4 cm (1 ft 5.5 in). The conversion from Palm to fingers probably is because the translator wanted to use a unit that's more common and less ambiguos. In the medieval age, when you said "palm" you meant the span of the hand, which is three times the length.
ferre is also a verb with many meanings. "palmalis ferre spissitudinis" might be translatable somewhat like "wich brought a palm of thickness" my latin is rather rusted tho.
To me the last bit sounds like they made a new gate out of iron, into which they incorporated the arrowheads that stuck to the previous door, sort of like paying homage to the fate of the last door.
Working at Guedelon castle in france as a timber framer I spend some time doing some recherche on doors. the withs waries form door to door, but having 2 1"1/2 board naild together is comun, with a side were the boards are horizontal and the other vertical. ah note also is that a hand split and hewn borad has usualy less grain runout then sawn timber.witch I think would make it harder to split with an arrow that hit it on the side of the board. But I have to admit I would have never taught the arrows would go that deap ! great videos don't stop! (sorry my english is not perfect )
Good points so thank you. But also thanks for the work you and your colleagues are doing at Guidelon. I was there a couple of years back and it is fascinating and for any out there who wonder how can a building site be interesting? Go and find out!
Working at Guedelon castle in France as a timber framer, I spend some time doing some research on doors. The widths vary from door to door, but having 2x 1 1/2" boards doweled together is common, on a plane where the boards are horizontal and the other vertical. Note also is that a hand split and hewn board usually has less grain runout than sawn timber, which I think would make it harder to split with the arrow that hit it on the side of the board. But I have to admit I would have never thought the arrows would go that deep! great videos don't stop! (egg slant English weld on) France and Spain still has access to good oak. Britain stopped looking after its forests properly centuries ago, late 1700's if not earlier. And even then our ships had to be small as English oaks were limited to 11 foot trunks.
I am a wood workers so I am talking from that experience, I don't have any real archery experience and while I love history and learning about it I haven't formal education on that subject. Laminated boards cause a separation in between the grains. This is will stop any split dead in its tracks. Laminating or gluing multiple boards together is a much better way to make doors or just about everything else. By having conflicting grain patterns from the laminated boards you stopped a lot of the arrows energy from continuing. This is because it took the energy of the first split and transferred it to a large area on the board behind it. Energy over an area does less damage than energy at a point. I wouldn't doubt you would have gotten a lot deeper if your wood was one thickness of 3 inches. It is why I no longer make canes out of a single piece of wood. I laminate 3 pieces of wood together every time now. It prevents catastrophic failures in the wood.
I am a wood worker too and I definitely did not expect this result, but I think you are right, if the wood was one piece arrows might go in deeper, but wood workers at that time would most likely have the same knowledge as we have today and as someone else wrote in the comments at least some of the castle gates in the middle ages were laminated (don't know where or which period) Also as Tod said the door might have been made of green wood from 1.5 inch planks that would overlap so there would be no gaps when the wood shrinks.
@@telekevontoloko8247 Absolutely they would know that. Now that I think about it, didn't the Roman's laminate their shields? I can't imagine doors wouldn't have been.
@@WikiSnapper Timber doors are rarely laminated (unless you are talking plywood). Braced and bolted at the back maybe. You are talking about contract builders here - they haven’t changed techniques in a millennium, what takes the least effort to get paid...
@@elitetripod4188 they become the greatestier of politicians, just superb ... with all the bestest words, better than all the fake chroniclers who constantly loe about Gerald!
It's plausible for sure, a wooden door that's exposed to the elements won't be as dense and it'd almost certainly be getting hit by more than three arrows. Sooner or later the structure of the wood would be such that arrows would start getting through as they hit existing cracks, get that extra bit of penetration and open it up more.
In context the shots were taken early in that attack (which if I remember was a night attack unopposed over the walls by ladder) at a group of men fleeing to the keep/great tower, not shot at the door intentionally. So only a handful hitting seems likely.
Oak is one of the most resilient woods out there. It will definitely not become "less dense" It tannic acids which fungi and insects hate so it is really rot resistent. Builders from the old times also knew how to protect wood so the door will be most likely shielded for the worst of the elements. So the door would rather fail at the hinges than from decomposition of the wood.
@@SuperDeinVadda The door likely wasn't a full three inches thick. The original source actually speakings of a gate that is nearly as thick as a palm, meaning it might have been slightly thinner than what Todd tested.
When you’re that close to penetrating to oak, you have to wonder what kind of effect grain pattern and density as the precise location of the arrow impact would have on penetration. If it hit somewhere where the grain was less dense (or otherwise more favourable for penetration) through the thickness of the board, it might go further than if it happened to hit a portion where the grain is dense, or if it hit a portion where there was a buried knot, etc.
Wood that is seasoned outside while exposed to the elements tends to loose it's density much faster. It would be terrifying being on the other side of a three inch door watching arrow points pop out at you.
I'm not sure this is correct or that it is a problem. I recently found a study looking at longevity of different varieties of wood used for fence posts. After 30 years, the end of the study, the oak fence posts (north american red oak) were still structurally sound, despite having no protection from the elements. Also, there are exceptionally old oak framed buildings (Oak timbers exposed on the exterior) in the UK that are still standing and are structurally sound. The wood becomes extremely hard over time.
@@fredygump5578 yes but does the oak that is exposed to the elements age the same as the oak indoors? Also if it is seasoned indoors and then put outside it will fare better than if it is cut green and then left outside. We are comparing it to itself in different conditions. Not other woods.
@@tomeidt7057 That's a solid yah nah from me! You can speculate if you like, but given the evidence of ancient wood structures still standing today, the idea that the same oak gets soft and loses it's strength over a handful of years based on whether or not it was stored in a temperature controlled environment...that doesn't make any sense to me!
Hey Todd, I want to recognize how much better you're doing. Comparing the energy you display right now to your old videos is astounding. You seem happier, more focused, and more confident in your ability to test the myths we all want to see tested. You smile so much more, you're obviously enjoying what you're doing. Just wanted to point out that we all appreciate you and seriously think you're doing a right bang up job.
I think the two layers of wood will resist penetration more than a single plank. The arrowhead deforms in the direction the grain is running, and eventually splits those grains apart. The second board will have a different grain structure, and will resist penetration as the arrowhead is now deformed in a non-optimal direction for the second layer. What I learned from this: Laminated doors are good. I'd like to see the test again with a single 3 inch thick board!
@La Nausée There's also the fact that if he went out of his way to mention it then it was probably at least fairly notable to him, so you can probably assume it didn't happen every time
Interesting results. It would be more interesting with one piece of oak and perhaps doing a comparison between waxed arrows and non-waxed. Always looking forward to your videos!
Waxing the arrows and observing them going through the oak door will actually be a solid piece of evidence to Todd's hypothesis that in fact, medieval archers DID wax their arrows.
The first thing that went through my mind was "what condition was the door" in Gerald of Wales' account. It could have been an old tough gnarly door or half rotten. It might be possible to find out by going through the castle accounts to see if the door was replaced but that could take a month of Sundays and still give no result. Something makes me suspect there is more than meets the eye to this.
I doubt that the door was rotten. If Gerald apparently saw the door in 1188 and the battle occurred in 1182, then the door would seem to have maintained enough structural integrity to be left as it was.
...Westminster abbey has an Oak Door that is 900 years old, oak doors are often reclaimed and sold again and again as they last so long - if looked after they rarely rot
@@davidioanhedges Yes but in a castle depending on the particular castle there is a hell of a lot of damp on the ground floor especially if it's the river type moat.
The big question is, "How can anyone thumb down a video that gives us real answers to centuries old questions?" This is content we will not find anywhere else.
Possibly it got recommended to some weirdo who's not interested in how wooden gates stand up to arrows... so they disliked it to avoid getting similar videos recommended again. But this brilliant content. I dunno why they wouldn't want to see more! 🤔
Gerald talks in the same bit of text about the bows: _Yet the bows used by this people are not made of horn, ivory, or yew, but of wild elm; unpolished, rude, and uncouth, but stout; not calculated to shoot an arrow to a great distance, but to inflict very severe wounds in close fight._
Interesting! So, much like the Oberflacht bows, the reconstructions of which were deemed "a short range distance weapon for very high impact at limited range"? Also, elm makes for very good bow wood, second only to yew (if the yew is treated properly), it´s very elastic, so the bows shoot fast for their weight. They wouldn´t last very long, though, but as it says "crudely made", they were probably done to last only one campaign, and then discarded and replaced once they showed stringfollow and lost their Oomph. Supply of elm saplings wouldn´t be a problem in medieval woods.
In astrophysics we would call this sort of result an "order of magnitude estimate". We don't have all the details, we can't make a totally accurate prediction of what's going on, but we can get *some idea* of how this works. If you'd shot your arrows and they had barely scratched the surface (like stuck in 5~10 mm) you could say "Assuming Gerald is right, we're missing some pretty crucial information. Either that or Gerald is wrong." If on the other hand you'd blown clean through (unlikely given last video) you could say "Gerald is more likely right than wrong, but we can't say for 100%." Either way, interesting result. I'm sure you're already aware of many of the flaws of this test (double-layer will absorb kinetic energy better than single-layer; screws binding the layers likely limited splitting; having something behind the "door" rather than having it freehanging may also be absorbing kinetic energy, etc etc etc) but very cool. Love your channel!
A 3" thick oak door would be extremely heavy, on the order of 400 pounds without iron furniture. Such a door would have to be supported by three or more substantial iron hinges, which would extend across most of the width of the door to spread the load. These hinges would be fastened to the door either by heavy nails or by iron bolts peened against the hinge. The mere existence of the bolted or nailed iron hinges across the door would have the secondary effect of holding the wood so that it could not be split easily. The iron furniture would prevent expansion around the arrow head, limiting cracking to little or none at all. A door that would split as dramatically as your test sample when struck by a few needle pointed arrows would be useless as a defensive barrier, and I very much doubt that an unreinforced wooden door would be used in a castle where it was intended for that purpose.
I was just about to say much the same thing. Something I would like to add is that it would also be harder to split if the board was the full length of the door. Also I acknowledge that it is unreasonable to build an entire historically accurate door just for the purposes of destruction.
@@ulrichkalber9039 Braose was new money, but also a kings favourite, and had a number of castles around the border, of which I believe Abergavenny had the largest great hall. I'm not sure he would be skimping too much.
I pretty much agree with both Boyd Grandy and Malcolm P.L.; in a fortification you use just enough material to do the job whether it is an earth bund or a wooden door. An avenue to investigate (prolly someone other than Tod) is the construction of castle exterior doors. They would only be opened and closed once per day, usually, so weight is not an issue regarding use. Yes, they would need iron furniture to hold it fast to the walls which would increase its strength against arrows (and rams!). I wonder if they would have used only one depth of plank, since by having a second layer of wood running at 90degrees it would reinforce the outer layer by having two grains at tension to the other. Not only would this effect arrowheads, but the force of a ram would be resisted in two different planes. The builders of castle did not come into existence in only a few years, but would have come from decades and more likely centuries of craft and experience. They would know what would work, and the materials they would need.
Iron was really expensive, so I´d think they used just enough to get by. Maybe three hinges spread over a door no less than 7 foot high, so there´d be plenty wood to split between them. Plus the holes for the furniture would likely make splitting easier. You can split a plank with one nail in the wrong place, e.g., if there is already one in the same grain.
Another brilliant video. 2 things: I shot an arrow from a target now through my front door 30 years ago. Oops! Stopped by the flights, but hit the glass and punched a hole. Secondly, doors, especially old castle doors, were crossed plank design. You can see plenty of them to this day across the UK. So, the two planks would've been clinch nailed extensively, with crossed grain. This was done to minimise wood splitting under the axes of attackers. So, nail two together and bang the ends over, then it'll be more realistic. As for a rotten door? Unlikely in a castle!
Even if you see old castle doors today made of a crossed plank design, it doesn't mean they had castle doors and/or gates made out of a crossed plank design in 1182. Very few, if any of them would survive to this day. Mostly likely did they all rot away or get destroyed by attackers many centuries ago. Making planks, and specially oak planks, back in 1182 and earlier was a very hard, difficult and labor intensive job. Making 1 75-100mm plank instead of 2 of the half thickness, would be both at least double the job, but also a larger margin for errors making them. Having a door/gate that was 75-100mm thick back in 1182 would in most cases be enough, and making it much stronger, would most likely not result in stopping a well equipped and manned army from entering the castle anyway. There is also no need to have 2 layers of planks to make the job very hard for attackers with axes to get through. It is plenty enough to lay the thick planks horizontally when making the door/gate, and it would take much longer time for the axe wielders to get through the door.
@@The_Judge300 True, except it is far, far easier and better to use the type of door that has been used since long before the 1100s than to suddenly decide to use some giant planks that you still have to figure out how to stick together. Literally, you use a second board to hold the first layer of boards together. We can see doors older than this to this day - Google "doors of Pompeii" and take a look at the far more advanced designs from a thousand years earlier. Further, contemporary images and works show plank made, nailed doors, and, further still, you can actually go and see old castles that have very old doors made this way.
Great test and very interesting results. This is why you get a lot of viewers in my opinion. You go out there and do tests and shoot arrows on all kind of stuff with an open mind and challenge yourself and accepted opinions. As you probably have realized, the devil is in the details. If you change one variable just slightly, you might get a completely different result. I have to say, your pronunciation of my surname was really good. Spot on in fact. Here is small piece of advice on my first name. "Ei" in Eirik can be pronounced as "I", as in "I am". So it's basically "I rick", just drawn together as one word. But Erik is fine, it's very close. In my dialect "Ei" is a diphthong.
Thanks for the lead and glad I got you half right; apologies. I do think the secret with this is to undertake a test, explain the parameters and factors and show the results all as unbiased as possible and then we can all take from that what we will and as long as the mistakes are not hidden, then we can work with the good parts and to be fair what you see as something wrong, others might see as right, so still none of this will ever get 'agreed' upon, but maybe it gets us talking about it.
Now grease them up and see if they go through. You might be able to get some solid evidence for waxing arrows if it works as it will match medieval evidence.
@@JakobKaiserCreative - What he's doing already simulates about the heaviest bow that it would have been reasonable to carry around if you planned to do any volume of shooting. It's possible to pull heavier bows, but it would tire you out after a handful of shots, so it wouldn't be practical in battle.
Am I right in thinking that having two thinner pieces of wood layered together would make the door harder to penetrate, compared to a single, thick piece of wood? My thinking is that would be the case as their grains wouldn't line up and create more resistance for the arrow the work through? In which case, that makes this legend that much more plausible! Another consideration is the state of the wood. Would exposure to the elements and moisture across a prolonged period of time cause wood to rot and therefore soften? How common was it for wooden doors, etc to be infested with insects, etc? Could the incident described by Gerald of Wales be explained by the wood having been unusually soft?
A tower door, I'd expect to be maintained in reasonable condition. Everyone knew the door had to be good enough to stop a charging Welshman. Otherwise, why have a door? I'd expect it'd be as good a door as they can make using local materials and available tools. Whatever that might have been.
videos like this are what brought me to this channel in the first place, the Agincourt armour test was my introduction and yeah it is great fun watching reproductions of historical myths and urban legends. With that said I would love to see this tested again with different samples of door construction, I presume that we don't know exactly how this door was constructed but I imagine that even in the 11th century carpenters and woodworkers understood how wood behaves in certain environments and had their own ideas for how to make something like a door (specifically a gate, given the translations) to continue being a door for many years without needing to be replaced or repaired every year.
I like your mix of knowledge and humility. You are a scholar who likes to do it instead of read about it. You have the knowledge and skills in applied physics to do this...and you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty. BTW, I really love your trebuchet…I’ve always wanted one!
its quite possible, not sure of the probability, that the doors were treated with linseed oil, or pine pitch or something, woodworking and carpentry are some of the oldest skill crafts in the world, one would think they knew what they were doing, but you're not entirely wrong so ...
Your humble attitude and your honest search to sate your curiosity inspire me to be better. Thank you for what you do! Your study on arrows vs armor of various types is influencing my novel. We already have an archer intentionally breaking/skipping arrows to get under the joints of a giant’s heavy plate. In another place his friend uses goose feathers to remove a goblin’s barbed arrow from his leg. Again, thank you!
One of the many good things about this channel is the way you are open to admitting you might have been wrong and redoing tests to get closer to the truth. Keep it up :)
But you look at castle doors in Germany, the ones with the chevron pattern, that's so axe blows don't split them - and there's another layer in a different direction behind. It's more than likely that the door in question was formed similarly and "laminated" for strength.
@@andyleighton6969 Interesting , I never knew that was the reason they were made that way . But no, castles doors were not made that way in England . How do we know ? Believe it or not some of the original doors are still in use today . One in the Tower of London.
I’m trying to write a fantasy story that has special fantasy wood that’s stronger than average wood by a considerable amount & used as armour on occasion. This video has given me a better sense of how much tougher it’d have to be to be actually useful as armour in comparison to iron & steel. Also it’s just plain fascinating as a historical experiment. Great work dude. Love your channel. P.S. I own two of your Tod Cutler daggers & an eating knife & I’m in love with them.
I doubt Gerald of Wales had a ruler on him at the time. It's entirely possible that the door in question was two and a half inches thick, but he eyeballed it as three.
I can imagine reading it as "It was a really sturdy door, like, you know, properly made, not a flimsy thing, you know, like a real castle door, you know what I mean".
Thanks to Tod, i've been keeping my bowie knives constantly oiled. Getting very good cutting, penetration results from oiled clip points and blades.. Kinda like the waxed arrow heads...
The longbows on the Mary Rose went up to 200lbs pull weight. Arrows from your 160lb longbow equivalent almost went through. Gerald of Wales is looking quite believable to me.
The Mary Rose bows were from past 1500s, this is the year 1188 we're talking about, you have no reasons to use 160+lbs bows with the levels of armour present
@@samarkand1585 Valid point. The archers of the time would be up against mail mainly, even a brigandine or coat of plates would be rare. I wouldn't exclude the possibility of a very heavy bow though. It was about the time the "arms race" between longbows / crossbows and armour got going. And there will always be macho types who need a bigger & better bow than everyone else.
@@samarkand1585 you have plenty of reason to use a more powerful bow. More power = more range. Do you have any historical source saying 200lb bows were not used it never used prior to the 1500's?
You may or may not be aware of this but they made a door at guedelon castle. For construction the boards are rabbited at 1.5in, 37mm thick for about 2 in or so for additional strength and have a support frame board high and low running inside the planks. The door is loosely assembled and then left to season for a year. They then take the seasoned door, tighten the boards in and staple them in with giant 6in 15cm nails that go through the plank are bent and nailed into the adjoining plank. The iron staples combined with the pre seasoned oak makes for a very sturdy door.
Even if glue was used, the fact that it's different planks on top of eachother probably causes a penetration difference because it splits differently. Yet, a "3 inch oak door" is most likely not carved from a solid oak block anyways, so since this test doesn't claim to be exact science it's definitely good enough for the purpose.
@@Olav_Hansen I would out of principle use three layers to prevent splitting. I think that this would be even historical as I do know quite a few castle and church doors that seem to be that way.
Is pausible that combination of planks is thougher than a single plank in this test? As the arrow is not able to penetrate via a single grain, as it would be with a single plank arrangement.
Tod, one important thing to consider is that oak is a ring-porous wood, and the density, hardness, and strength of ring-porous wood can vary widely dending on the growth rate of the tree it came from. Old growth, slow-grown oak can be much less dense and strong compared to much of the oak that is available today. The ease of penetration will also depend on the direction that the growth rings are oriented relative to the surface that is being impacted. If you shoot at a quartersawn face of ring-porous wood, whose growth rings are perpendicular to the face of the board, it will penetrate more easily due to the fact that it is easier to split in this direction.
Having grown up in Wales I can attest to it being quite damp, and 3 inches sounds like an exterior door. Any moisture would probably open up the grain quite a bit/ lubricate the passage of the arrow. A shorter stubbier bodkin might actually penetrate further also- split the wood without binding in it, like an axe, the profile is so much wider. Would be stronger too
@@kovona They knew how to protect wood, used Oak because it lasted longer, and properly treated thick oak doors last a lifetime (or longer Westminster abbey has one that is over 900 years old)
@@kovona "www.wood-database.com › English Oak | The Wood Database - Lumber Identification (Hardwood) Rot Resistance: English Oak has been rated as having very good resistance to decay, and is commonly used in boatbuilding applications." I would say this is a more common view of the rot resistance properties of Quercus Robur.
My immediate reaction to this (aside from STOP BREAKING MY ARROWS) is that the crossbow is calibrated to equal Joe's 160lb bow. Joe used bows of that weight in our original tests because it was the average weight of the Mary Rose bows, as that's our only benchmark. If Gerald was writing in the 1100s, it's highly unlikely the bows being used at that time were also 160lb. They simply wouldn't need to be - armour of the time wasn't effective enough to require bows to be 160lb, and the arrowheads found from that period are not 1/2" socketed, but 8, 9 and 10mm socketed which means the bows were much lighter. This means that the test done with what is essentially a 160lb bow is possibly quite overpowered for the myth itself - I'd imagine bows from the 1100s to be in the 95-115lb range, which would result in far less penetration of the oak. That combined with softer iron heads (I did water-quench these Type 7s which although only mild steel does make a difference to their toughness) will give a very different reading, I think.
Please could you shoot a 3 inch thick piece of wood mounted to something rigid (rather than an archery target which must absorb some of the momentum), a door is mounted on a stone castle. Also, carpenters slightly round off the points of nails to avoid wood splitting, could you try this with a bodkin too, perhaps it would go further through?
Another interesting factor: Range. Gerald says the arrow penetrated a 3" door. OK, from what range? You're shooting a crossbow of equivalent force to a Welsh longbow, but at a range of... 20 meters? It would certainly have more power if shot from 10 or 5 meters, though how much more I don't know. So perhaps the combination of old wood, shorter range, and the right angle would get you an arrow that pokes through a half inch or so on the other side, easily. Given the test, it certainly seems plausible.
It should also be noted that Gerald apparently wasn't talking in inches to begin with. He spoke of a door that is nearly as thick as a palm, which might not be as thick as what Tod tested.
Doors are always perfect vertical (especially the heavy ones). You shot an angled plank which result in an even greater thickness (probably a minimum of 85 mm). Of course we expect another video on this matter.:)
i thought the same, but hitting a 75mm door at 15 degrees from the vertical only gives an effective thickness of 77.6mm, to get 85mm you need to hit it at 28 degrees, and Tod wasnt that much off the angle. I agree that if we get another test (other people suggest wood in lesser condition, or single plank), the wood should be vertical, but in this case, i dont think the ~15 degree angle did all that much
The arrows in story are shot from distance meaning the arrows would have struck the door on a downward angle so tods crooked set up should be closer to reality than a vertical target :)
Super interesting. Please take into consideration that gluing up the boards adds resistance, the glue is a strong connection and stops the splitting effect of the needle point. Keep it up please! 😃
I watched the lead up to this, and I like the way you always handle things with honesty... Now, leading up to this, you have done a few interesting things ... so why not try this test again,. with waxed tips? That may be quite interesting. Also, getting hold of a 3" piece of oak might not be so easy, but try clamping the two pieces together ... I think you understand what I mean ... Anyway, enough armchair advise from me, you know what to do, better than me anyway :) Thanks for the knowledge and entertainment.
It definitely looked like they were getting further and further each time they hit. Likely due to the splitting weakening the door as a whole. Perhaps a fourth or fifth arrow would have done the trick?
So this has gone from ludicrous to plausible. Fantastic! You tested against modern kiln-dried straight-grain oak, that even if 10 years old does not look to have seen ten years in the rain and sun. - Love the science!
You have to consider too the bowmen of the day were probably pretty strong men who could overdraw their bows too. Very interesting video and pretty amazing results. I certainly enjoy your channel for sure Tod.
@@samarkand1585 Not really? It could be possible that these bowmen were using longer shafted bows, or were indeed overdrawing to the very end of the arrow. On top of that, they could be using a bow that's more powerful than normal on top of it being already overdrawn. The video is simply going by the translations of the author and the testing could have many differences to the actual event
@@tandemcharge5114 that's not how it works. You don't draw a bow back and then discover you have an extra foot to draw back farther for extra power. Physiology alone prevents that from happening.
@@dimesonhiseyes9134 This is not correct at all. Of course you can overdraw a longbow. Not by a foot, but easily with a few inches if you have the strength to do it. All depending on what poundage that bow is made at already. A longbow is not static with a solid wall or stop as most modern compound bows are today. You can both under- and overdraw a longbow. If you overdraw, you get more power and if you underdraw, you get less. I have done this for 35+ years. For maximum accuracy, you would want to draw the bow to the exact same anchor point, but battlefield archery is very often not about pinpoint accuracy.
Outstanding video and I really enjoy reading the comments from people who appear to be more knowledgeable of these facts than I. Please keep up the good work and I look forward to more videos.
I think some people are going too far! Tod has "busted" a presumed impossible account to ... an "It could have happened" one! I call that a result! For those calling for retests .... I am sure that if you donated some of the arrows needed Tod would give it a fair go ;0)
Wow this test is so cool, it really shows how your expectations can be misleading. Apart from all the differences in the door, the wood etc. you are shooting a 160 lb lockdown longbow. Maybe the door was shot with a 200 lb longbow and that would have penetrated deeper. All we can say is that this "myth" is definitely plausible. You make history so exciting to watch Tod. If you ever have the chance to let Joe Gibbs shoot in your video's again, letting him shoot 1 arrow with his 200 lb longbow at this thickness of wood would be so interesting.
Great video as always! When William Marshal became Earl of Pembroke in 1189, he expanded upon the keep and gave it a new door - that door (which I believe is oak) is still on display in the hall there. I live in Denmark so I cannot check it out - but would be interesting to take a look at, to give some context to your test?
Correct me if I’m wrong but the inch wasn’t standard size up until recently (in terms of history, it’s been standardized for at least 100 yrs) so it’s possible that the door’s thickness could have been more or less than what we would measure as 3in. It’s likely that the door’s thickness was less than modern 3in as the inch was commonly measured by the size of your thumb (I think not 100% sure). So if the guy telling the story had small hands and measured the door it’s actual thickness could have been closer to 2.25-2.5in giving more truth to the myth
I read the original comment where this story was relayed. It actually said the door was a handspan thick. Or something like that. Not that the door was 3 inches thick
Weren't inches also a larger measurement back then? I remember someone telling me the Napoleon short myth came from different measurement standards on inches.
Maybe, but the quote in question doesn't mention inches, it says "almost the width of a palm". Which admittedly still leaves a lot of room for interpretation
That's an interesting point. I learned that he was actually above average height for the time, but overall heights were much shorter than modern standards due to malnutrition and disease. I noticed first hand when exploring Whitby Abbey as a young boy as the stone graves that had been carved out in the shape of the monks body were tiny.
For the Romans the width of a palm/palmus minor is 4 digits and also 3 inches. The height reduced from the renaissance on until 1800 (during the little ice age). The English used both roman and traditional inches and then settled for an in between measure later on
I believe the myth of Napoleon's height stems a combination of factors. I remember the primary cause being what Daniel pointed out: the difference between French and British inches, combined with British propaganda intentionally abusing this unfortunate factor to make Napoleon sound short. For reference, I recall him being 5'2" in French measurements and 5'6" in British, but of course the British of the time had no issue pointing out the fact he was 5'2" while conveniently leaving out the part that it was in a slightly different measurement (also some people might just not have realized that he used a different measurement and genuinely believed he was only 5'2"). Replete's point is also correct, and by today's standard most people from Napoleon's time were a bit short, with Napoleon's 5'6" (in English inches) or roughly 167cm being above average for a male of his time. That said, I don't know how much the inch has changed over time, but I think the British inch of early 19th century is pretty close to, if not the same as, modern inches.
weathering would also play a huge part in how difficult it would be to penetrate the wood, i replaced a door to a church steeple once, the frame was totally solid because it was shielded from the elements by the stone work of the church itself, the door (admittedly a thin ledge and brace door) was shot to pieces, faded, splitting along the grain too which i can only assume was due to the swelling and drying with the rain and season change. and to give context this door and frame went in during the early part of the 1900's so close to 100 years old when it needed replacing, but as i said. frame was completely sound
Although this article relates mainly to 17th & 18th Century doors it may be of some use (Mainly because practical people don't fix what isn't broken). The door construction that really caught my eye was the 'double plank' construction - vertical planks backed by horizontal ones. www.buildingconservation.com/articles/early-timber-doors/early-timber-doors.htm
There is a lesson here for all historians and archaeologists, modern academia has a bad habit of poo pooing historical accounts and myths. Troy was a myth till they found it, we still do it today with aboriginal oral history, we think we know better because we're modern. Great video, the more videos you do about long bows, the more impressive they become!
Thank you for your very interesting contend, Tod. I apreciate your videos very much. The arrows penetrated deeper than I expected. We must bear in mind that measuring units from different towns and areas were not the same in the Middle Ages. There was a big variation of different palm measurements. That means that the penetration depth you have reached might be a palm in certain areas.
@@samarkand1585 well that’s a different topic. Maybe there was a siege of a castle, and poor fore was just a victim of many archers. Mb that was a deliberate test. As would Tod say: “We simply don’t know”
Awesome video and very interesting results :) Two notes: 1) You angled the boards so the depth is more than 3 inches + you don't shoot perpendicular to the grains. 2) Glued wood is much stronger than a single piece. Think glue-beams and ply-wood. I would love to see you do the same experiment with a 3 inch thick vertical board.
Absolutely fascinating! Multiple hits on the door could cause splitting as we saw allowing follow up shots to penetrate further. Also we know what we call an inch is different from the mid evil inch. So the oak door may have indeed be 2 or 2 1/2 inches thick.
If oak that thick is splitting what would it do to ships planking? Suddenly long bows on a warship might be a risk to the ship rather than just the crew.
I just remembered something that might have some bearing on this story . Abergavenny is surrounded with hills . One is called the Derry . Derry in Welsh , meaning oak, oak grove or oak trees . Theses trees, that still grow there , are the original ancient forest . They are not at all like the stately oaks that are found in the grounds of large manor houses in Britain today . But much smaller about 15 to 25 feet tall . I'm no expert on trees , but I very much doubt they would be able to be make planks long enough to be used as a door to a castle . By the way the name of the city in northern Ireland called Derry comes from the same root .
I am angry at myself for having heard of this channel but never checking it out or subscribing until now. Bad on me, absolutely good on you Tod for such fine work both on your craft & this channel.
Hi Todd, great ideas as usual. My observation is that laminating the oak may have made it tougher than a single board, i.e. the split would probably have been right through. Constraining the board within a frame or with studs could have made splitting less likely however studs to hold doors together could introduce a weakness in the door allowing arrows to penetrate more. On a final note did you grease your arrows? You have shown before the difference this makes. I can tell you that when i use tools on oak a bit of candle wax makes a huge difference on screws for example. Thanks again for the great content. Ian
I’m curious about the effect of having the oak backed by a large, energy-absorbing archery butt. Does a plank in a frame, without any backing, splinter and crack more, or less? Awesome video...really love this channel. Thanks Tod for so much thought provoking material and thanks to the community for such great discussion.
I believe the two boards actually made it stronger. It's splitting down a grain only to hit another board with a different grain would stop it faster. There's also the question about what kind of weather the door was in. You have to also consider what he meant by sticking through. Does he mean is stuck through the door, or the board of the door? If you just met the door, there could be arrows that went into the gaps. You can see how the wood got damaged as you shop more. Perhaps some arrows got through that damaged part and stuck through further. You also need to wonder how he measured. Was it from the outside of the door, or the inside? Was it finger to wrist, pinky to thumb, or front to back? It's coming for people to say something that is not very impressive in a way that makes it sound a lot more impressive. I have some raptors that hang out outside my house. They even follow us around. Roadrunners are raptors.
Brilliant series! Surprising results, I imagine that with a monolithic chunk of wood the penetration would be easier, as the splitting would propagate rather than being interrupted at the glue layer/next grain pattern. With the bit of ambiguity on the exact measurement, plus the variability of the strength and density of wood, this account looks like it was plausible. Edit - found a reply to a comment indicating no glue was used, but the differently oriented grain would still be present. Also upon re-watching, if one arrow had landed just vertically above a previous strike, a split could have been spread further by the second strike.
@Tod's Workshop can you do a video about a possible alternate interpretation of wax arrowheads? I have seen your previous videos about the improved penetration of waxed arrowheads, which was very cool. But I was always told that English longbowmen's "waxed arrowheads" referred to how the arrowheads were attached to the arrows. Folks claimed that the arrowheads were attached with wax, which only held the arrowhead on long enough for a single shot. So the longbowman could shoot an arrow at an enemy, then the arrowhead would fall off and couldn't be shot back at him during the battle. Afterwards, they would go around the battlefield and collect all the arrow-shafts and heads again, and wax them together again. Could you test if this is a plausible alternative interpretation, or just total baloney?
A nice piece & a good one for demonstrating the strength of Oak! One thought though & apologies if mentioned already. It comes from seeing sloped armour on WWII tanks. If the board measures 75mm thick when vertical, as it is mounted on the target for testing, the slight angle that it is set at will theoretically ‘thicken’ the board. Would the arrow have penetrated if the board was vertical? Only a thought, to be pernickety!!
Great content, as always. The angle of the target means that the “effective thickness” of the target (vs. the actual thickness) is greater (assuming a 10 degree angle, effective thickness of the target presented to the arrow is 76.16mm).
There are a few variables I wonder if would make a difference. 1. If the oak was a single 3" slab, would the grain be more likely to give an easier path? (The grain from the second plank here might be lined up in a way that makes the arrow more likely to bend?) 2. Would the outermost layers of the oak be any softer as it has been left out to the elements, especially rain and snow? (If water soaks through just a few millimeters of the oak before freezing, would that weaken it slightly? Probably insignificant if it even happens) 3. Does lighter but faster arrows penetrate better in a similar way lighter but faster bullets penetrate more than slower and heavier? (I don't know if the speed difference between different arrows with the same energy is enough to make a difference in actual penetration.) Either way, even if it is incredibly speculative, it seems plausible that at least in the best case scenario arrows could penetrate enough through 3" of white oak to poke out the other side. I still don't know if it would be enough to be a serious risk to people behind the door. Maybe if they were leaning right up against the door without any protective gear on, but I adsume people would have more than enough common sense to not do that. Interesting video nonetheless!
As others have said, a single 3 inch plank would likely by easier to penetrate. The discontinuity between the planks changes the grain of the wood halfway through the door. This prevents crack propagation from one plank into the next. Since the arrows are also following the grain structure of the first board, that grain basically stops in the second or abruptly changes direction. This makes the second board much more difficult to penetrate.
Now do Anna Komnene's claim about 12th century crossbows: "Such an arrow has been known to pierce a bronze statue, and if it hits the wall of a very large town, the point of the arrow either protrudes on the inner side or it buries itself in the middle of the wall and is lost."
Hi tod I think I remember watching a programme about the Guedelon castle build who made their doors from vertical planks rebated together with something like 8'' x 1'' horizontal through 'loose' tenon's, but I don't recall them mentioning where they found the inspiration for that design? If a door was made in this fashion as I think was suggested by the programme there would be no 'framing effect' to the plank at each edge of the door only the middle couple of boards would be 'framed'. Does anyone know of any sources which describe 'castle door construction'? I am stunned that the arrows penetrated as deep as they have.
I wonder if perhaps a plate cutter night be better? If love to see the effects of different piles on the door. Also what if the arrows hit the joint in the door ? Maybe they would prise open the joint depending on different ones. Perhaps one to try?
That is really interesting. I believe that having seen this now that if you were to repeat the test with a single piece of 3 inch oak you may in fact get the penetrating result. Oak having such long straight grain is rather prone to longitudinal splitting . It is a very strong timber but yeah it splits easily along the grain. There is every chance of getting that hands breadths penetration. I think the secondary impact of the second board making up the 3 inch thickness added extra resistance. Think of it as if the initial impact was enough to start the split and from then the friction and resistance lessens allowing the point to push further into the split. Then the second board repeating the initial impact forcing the arrow to attempt to open up another split robbing valuable inertia.
I doubt in the 13th century they differentiated between terms, but in modern terminology, there is a distinction between when a projectile embeds itself into a target but doesn't go all the way through (called "penetration") and when it makes a hole all the way through and out the rear face so you can see daylight through the hole (called "perforation"). The 2 terms just help distinguish if it's made it through in any capacity, or been fully stopped by the door. Though maybe we need a third term for passed through and kept on going. Also on a note about your "door" sample, if, as it appears on video, you've glued those planks together, it is probably more resistant to splitting than a single 3" plank. Also, I suspect (from splitting wood for firewood) that green timber might be more resistant to splitting, even if it is softer and overall weaker, might be worth a try.
Just a heads up a hand is a unit of measurement for measuring horses. A hand was 4 inches and an inch was 3 barleycorns So the solution is to find 12 barleycorns line them up and measure how long that is in modern inches or cms and see if it matches or is close to your distance. Also the layering effect provided by the two 1.5 inch plans will have effected penetration even if they're flush.
Similar to other comments here, you do need to remember that Gerald likely didn't even measure the door, and since the doors were all handmade, they wouldn't have measured to some exact standard anyway. The arrow could have hit a join between two boards, or the door could easily have been thinner than a full three inches. I agree with Tod on this one: the arrows got close enough that any other factor contributing likely would have let an arrow at least poke through.
Another important thing to remember: History records the unusual. The usual is taken for granted and often they don't bother writing it done, because they can't conceive of a time when these things would not be obvious to everyone. So if it's noteworthy for Gerald to tell this story it's probably because a thick oak door almost always stops arrows usually.
A good point
Not necessarily. Gerald of Wales was a bishop. He came to be in a place where there was combat, something he possibly never did. He might just have been astonished in finding out 3" oak planks are not as resilient as he had thought, just like Tod was.
He being impressed by it is not evidence that the particular instance was an outlier.
It would be different if he was a war chronicler and said something like "even after being in 30 recently sieged towns, I had never seen such savage arrows." or something like that.
History records the unusual. But maybe to Gerald, seeing vestiges of war at all was unusual. Even if it would seem something mundane for a experienced soldier.
I think because of the nature of the experimental historical tests like this, its providing new information not just explaining old information like 99% of history content is, which I think attracts a lot of people who already know a lot about history like professional historians who wouldn't watch most history channels much because they often just summarise primary sources, but here there is new info. I think this is why your comments have so much good info. :D
I hope you are right, but for whatever reason I love the intelligent balanced information and discussion here - a rare commodity on the internet and I cherish you all for it
@@tods_workshop I prefer your channel to history shows as I know you're not full of shit! You don't sensationalise your content. This is why we're here...well that and the presentation and enthusiasm you put into the videos. :)
Agreed, and even better Tod reads and takes on board our collective thinking and often then makes the experiments. Which is great to see, and expands our collective understanding of how things would feel and how it probably worked in history.
Cheers pal. Fair comment : )
@Tod's Workshop Hi Tod, is it possible that "an inch" meant something different to Gerald of Wales than it means to us? Measurements back then were far from standardized.
I was intrigued by how specific this account seems to be, and went to look up transcription of original latin text, and something is definitely wrong. Either the transcription or translation is wrong, and I suspect that the culprit is translation. This isn't the first time I found very creatively translated terms (where lorica cucualta - hooded armor - was translated as leather armor for some damned reason), it seems the historians sometimes like to spice up the accounts. Anyhow, here's the text and my translation, line breaks are where commas are. I transated the entire sentence, and if you know medieval sentences, you are already braced for a ride.
in praetaxata castri proditione - In the capture of aforementioned castle
militibus duobus in turrim - soldiers placed in the tower
cumulato terrarum agere sitam - built on a mount of earth
per pontem transfugientibus - were passing over a bridge
Gualenses - the Welsh
ut ipsos a tergo percuterent - taking them in the rear
saggitas arcu mittentes - send arrows with their bows
portam turris iliceam - over to the tower gate
palmalis ferre spissitudinis - which was a palm thick
transpenetrarunt - was penetrated
ad tantorum ictuum vehementiae perpetuam memoriam - in the memory of so many strong blows
saggitis in porta ferro reprecusso reservatis - arrows were perserved in iron gate
So, to translate it properly: In the capture of said castle, soldiers were returning to their position in the tower on a mound of earth over a bridge, when the Welsh attacked them from the rear, and shot them with bows, arrows of which penetrated an iron door a palm thick, where they were then left in memory of such strong blows.
Here's a translation I found floating on the internet, without naing the translator: In the last capture of the aforesaid castle, which happened in our days, two soldiers passing over a bridge to take refuge in a tower built on a mound of earth, the Welsh, taking them in the rear, penetrated with their arrows the oaken portal of the tower, which was four fingers thick; in memory of which circumstance, the arrows were preserved in the gate.
As you can see, the translation takes some liberties there - some may be taken from previous or following sentences, but still.
The most important bits are:
- while translation states four inches, original indicates a palm, both of which amount to 10 cm, it was probably changed to be more understandable to modern UK and US readers
- original refers to an iron door, porta ferro, not oak
This means that the door in question was likely made from a strong wood and reinforced with iron bands, but the thing is we don't know if it really was oak, or what kind of oak. Oak is the most strategic choice, yes, but also pretty expensive, so we can't discount the possibility of this particular porta ferro being made with ash or something else entirely.
MartinGreywolf Appreciation for the legwork, sir!
The Roman palm (Latin: palmus) or lesser palm (palmus minor) made up ¼ of the Roman foot (pes), which varied in practice between 29.2-29.7 cm (11.5-11.7 in) but is thought to have been officially 29.6 cm (11.7 in).[14] This would have given the palm a notional value of 7.4 cm (2.9 in) within a range of a few millimeters.
The palm was divided into four digits (digitus) of about 1.85 cm (0.7 in) or three inches (uncia) of about 2.47 cm (1.0 in). Three made a span (palmus maior or "greater palm") of about 22.2 cm (9 in) four, a Roman foot; five, a hand-and-a-foot (palmipes) of about 37 cm (1 ft 3 in); six, a cubit (cubitus) of about 44.4 cm (1 ft 5.5 in).
The conversion from Palm to fingers probably is because the translator wanted to use a unit that's more common and less ambiguos.
In the medieval age, when you said "palm" you meant the span of the hand, which is three times the length.
ferre is also a verb with many meanings.
"palmalis ferre spissitudinis" might be translatable somewhat like "wich brought a palm of thickness"
my latin is rather rusted tho.
To me the last bit sounds like they made a new gate out of iron, into which they incorporated the arrowheads that stuck to the previous door, sort of like paying homage to the fate of the last door.
Thank you so much for going to the effort for us - really appreciated
Working at Guedelon castle in france as a timber framer I spend some time doing some recherche on doors. the withs waries form door to door, but having 2 1"1/2 board naild together is comun, with a side were the boards are horizontal and the other vertical. ah note also is that a hand split and hewn borad has usualy less grain runout then sawn timber.witch I think would make it harder to split with an arrow that hit it on the side of the board.
But I have to admit I would have never taught the arrows would go that deap !
great videos don't stop!
(sorry my english is not perfect )
Your English is great, and thank you for that information!
this is great! the work you're doing at Guedelon is fascinating too, thanks for your contribution to our knowledge
You guys rebuilding the castle are amazing, thanks for sharing.
Good points so thank you. But also thanks for the work you and your colleagues are doing at Guidelon. I was there a couple of years back and it is fascinating and for any out there who wonder how can a building site be interesting? Go and find out!
Working at Guedelon castle in France as a timber framer, I spend some time doing some research on doors. The widths vary from door to door, but having 2x 1 1/2" boards doweled together is common, on a plane where the boards are horizontal and the other vertical. Note also is that a hand split and hewn board usually has less grain runout than sawn timber, which I think would make it harder to split with the arrow that hit it on the side of the board.
But I have to admit I would have never thought the arrows would go that deep!
great videos don't stop!
(egg slant English weld on)
France and Spain still has access to good oak. Britain stopped looking after its forests properly centuries ago, late 1700's if not earlier. And even then our ships had to be small as English oaks were limited to 11 foot trunks.
In the next video, Tod goes around England shooting castle doors. "We'll get to the bottom of this!" as he legs it from security guards.
Seconded! Tod should definitely do this!
Now I want to see Tod, Lloyd and Matt running about castles shooting doors and generally Scooby-Dooing about them.
SilverSidedSquirrel I would pay actual money for that.
It's this sort of get-to-the-bottom attitude that I come to this channel for!
They don't guard the rear portal of Caerphilly Castle as the hinges are broken, shoot before they open up.
I am a wood workers so I am talking from that experience, I don't have any real archery experience and while I love history and learning about it I haven't formal education on that subject.
Laminated boards cause a separation in between the grains. This is will stop any split dead in its tracks. Laminating or gluing multiple boards together is a much better way to make doors or just about everything else. By having conflicting grain patterns from the laminated boards you stopped a lot of the arrows energy from continuing. This is because it took the energy of the first split and transferred it to a large area on the board behind it. Energy over an area does less damage than energy at a point.
I wouldn't doubt you would have gotten a lot deeper if your wood was one thickness of 3 inches. It is why I no longer make canes out of a single piece of wood. I laminate 3 pieces of wood together every time now. It prevents catastrophic failures in the wood.
I am a wood worker too and I definitely did not expect this result, but I think you are right, if the wood was one piece arrows might go in deeper, but wood workers at that time would most likely have the same knowledge as we have today and as someone else wrote in the comments at least some of the castle gates in the middle ages were laminated (don't know where or which period)
Also as Tod said the door might have been made of green wood from 1.5 inch planks that would overlap so there would be no gaps when the wood shrinks.
@@telekevontoloko8247 Absolutely they would know that. Now that I think about it, didn't the Roman's laminate their shields? I can't imagine doors wouldn't have been.
@@WikiSnapper Timber doors are rarely laminated (unless you are talking plywood). Braced and bolted at the back maybe. You are talking about contract builders here - they haven’t changed techniques in a millennium, what takes the least effort to get paid...
@@telekevontoloko8247 it is roughly the same period i think only around 40 years later
Hmm that's probably why the best bows are laminated too
Maybe Gerald just had small hands. "Gerald of Wales" sounds much better than "Small Hands Gerald"
"Small Hands Gerald"
Just found my new DnD character.
@@carltonbauheimer just make a halfling rogue with terrible pickpocketing skills and you're all set lol
And you know what they say about small hands...
@@elitetripod4188 they become the greatestier of politicians, just superb ... with all the bestest words, better than all the fake chroniclers who constantly loe about Gerald!
@@elitetripod4188 They wear small gloves?
It's plausible for sure, a wooden door that's exposed to the elements won't be as dense and it'd almost certainly be getting hit by more than three arrows.
Sooner or later the structure of the wood would be such that arrows would start getting through as they hit existing cracks, get that extra bit of penetration and open it up more.
In context the shots were taken early in that attack (which if I remember was a night attack unopposed over the walls by ladder) at a group of men fleeing to the keep/great tower, not shot at the door intentionally. So only a handful hitting seems likely.
Oak is one of the most resilient woods out there. It will definitely not become "less dense"
It tannic acids which fungi and insects hate so it is really rot resistent.
Builders from the old times also knew how to protect wood so the door will be most likely shielded for the worst of the elements. So the door would rather fail at the hinges than from decomposition of the wood.
@@SuperDeinVadda The door likely wasn't a full three inches thick. The original source actually speakings of a gate that is nearly as thick as a palm, meaning it might have been slightly thinner than what Todd tested.
When you’re that close to penetrating to oak, you have to wonder what kind of effect grain pattern and density as the precise location of the arrow impact would have on penetration. If it hit somewhere where the grain was less dense (or otherwise more favourable for penetration) through the thickness of the board, it might go further than if it happened to hit a portion where the grain is dense, or if it hit a portion where there was a buried knot, etc.
I think that is what got me; it didn't do it, but it was close and change the variables a bit....
Wood that is seasoned outside while exposed to the elements tends to loose it's density much faster. It would be terrifying being on the other side of a three inch door watching arrow points pop out at you.
Indeed it would!
I wonder how this oak would compare to old growth timber that a medieval door might have been made of.
I'm not sure this is correct or that it is a problem. I recently found a study looking at longevity of different varieties of wood used for fence posts. After 30 years, the end of the study, the oak fence posts (north american red oak) were still structurally sound, despite having no protection from the elements. Also, there are exceptionally old oak framed buildings (Oak timbers exposed on the exterior) in the UK that are still standing and are structurally sound. The wood becomes extremely hard over time.
@@fredygump5578 yes but does the oak that is exposed to the elements age the same as the oak indoors? Also if it is seasoned indoors and then put outside it will fare better than if it is cut green and then left outside. We are comparing it to itself in different conditions. Not other woods.
@@tomeidt7057 That's a solid yah nah from me! You can speculate if you like, but given the evidence of ancient wood structures still standing today, the idea that the same oak gets soft and loses it's strength over a handful of years based on whether or not it was stored in a temperature controlled environment...that doesn't make any sense to me!
Hey Todd, I want to recognize how much better you're doing. Comparing the energy you display right now to your old videos is astounding. You seem happier, more focused, and more confident in your ability to test the myths we all want to see tested. You smile so much more, you're obviously enjoying what you're doing. Just wanted to point out that we all appreciate you and seriously think you're doing a right bang up job.
It's this sort of get-to-the-bottom attitude that I come to this channel for!
So, you're testing how arrows perform when shot at oak doors and classify the arrows accordingly.
You could call it... the Oakeshott typology.
*insert family guy austrich laugh here*
*slow clap*
DerTypDa Dad?
Nice! But surely it should be Oakshot typology?
@@tods_workshop But don't call him Shirley . . .
I think the two layers of wood will resist penetration more than a single plank. The arrowhead deforms in the direction the grain is running, and eventually splits those grains apart. The second board will have a different grain structure, and will resist penetration as the arrowhead is now deformed in a non-optimal direction for the second layer. What I learned from this: Laminated doors are good. I'd like to see the test again with a single 3 inch thick board!
perhaps a old slightly rotten door, with the grain lined just in the right way could be pierced with ease
or a newly replaced one with young unseasoned oak
or a slightly stronger bowman/heavier arrow, I'm sure they varied quite a lot
@La Nausée Exactly, couldn't put it better myself
@La Nausée There's also the fact that if he went out of his way to mention it then it was probably at least fairly notable to him, so you can probably assume it didn't happen every time
The two planks is stronger than a single plank due to differences in the wood grain. Basically a 2 layer plywood.
Interesting results. It would be more interesting with one piece of oak and perhaps doing a comparison between waxed arrows and non-waxed.
Always looking forward to your videos!
Waxing the arrows and observing them going through the oak door will actually be a solid piece of evidence to Todd's hypothesis that in fact, medieval archers DID wax their arrows.
The first thing that went through my mind was "what condition was the door" in Gerald of Wales' account. It could have been an old tough gnarly door or half rotten. It might be possible to find out by going through the castle accounts to see if the door was replaced but that could take a month of Sundays and still give no result. Something makes me suspect there is more than meets the eye to this.
Gordon Lawrence Like transformers?
I doubt that the door was rotten. If Gerald apparently saw the door in 1188 and the battle occurred in 1182, then the door would seem to have maintained enough structural integrity to be left as it was.
...Westminster abbey has an Oak Door that is 900 years old, oak doors are often reclaimed and sold again and again as they last so long - if looked after they rarely rot
@@davidioanhedges Yes but in a castle depending on the particular castle there is a hell of a lot of damp on the ground floor especially if it's the river type moat.
@@gordonlawrence1448 Most castle moats were dry ...
The big question is, "How can anyone thumb down a video that gives us real answers to centuries old questions?" This is content we will not find anywhere else.
I think there are people who troll around disliking videos just because they're a**holes and want to see the world burn.
27 people just got three-inch thick doors installed in their towers. =)
Possibly it got recommended to some weirdo who's not interested in how wooden gates stand up to arrows... so they disliked it to avoid getting similar videos recommended again.
But this brilliant content. I dunno why they wouldn't want to see more! 🤔
It’s the people that still believe that the composite mongol/turkish bowtype is FAAAAAAR “stronger” than the welsh/english warbow...
@@giannapple Many do believe that.
Gerald talks in the same bit of text about the bows:
_Yet the bows used by this people are not made of horn,
ivory, or yew, but of wild elm; unpolished, rude, and uncouth, but stout; not calculated to shoot an arrow to a great distance, but to inflict very severe wounds in close fight._
Interesting! So, much like the Oberflacht bows, the reconstructions of which were deemed "a short range distance weapon for very high impact at limited range"? Also, elm makes for very good bow wood, second only to yew (if the yew is treated properly), it´s very elastic, so the bows shoot fast for their weight. They wouldn´t last very long, though, but as it says "crudely made", they were probably done to last only one campaign, and then discarded and replaced once they showed stringfollow and lost their Oomph. Supply of elm saplings wouldn´t be a problem in medieval woods.
In astrophysics we would call this sort of result an "order of magnitude estimate". We don't have all the details, we can't make a totally accurate prediction of what's going on, but we can get *some idea* of how this works. If you'd shot your arrows and they had barely scratched the surface (like stuck in 5~10 mm) you could say "Assuming Gerald is right, we're missing some pretty crucial information. Either that or Gerald is wrong." If on the other hand you'd blown clean through (unlikely given last video) you could say "Gerald is more likely right than wrong, but we can't say for 100%."
Either way, interesting result. I'm sure you're already aware of many of the flaws of this test (double-layer will absorb kinetic energy better than single-layer; screws binding the layers likely limited splitting; having something behind the "door" rather than having it freehanging may also be absorbing kinetic energy, etc etc etc) but very cool. Love your channel!
A 3" thick oak door would be extremely heavy, on the order of 400 pounds without iron furniture. Such a door would have to be supported by three or more substantial iron hinges, which would extend across most of the width of the door to spread the load. These hinges would be fastened to the door either by heavy nails or by iron bolts peened against the hinge. The mere existence of the bolted or nailed iron hinges across the door would have the secondary effect of holding the wood so that it could not be split easily. The iron furniture would prevent expansion around the arrow head, limiting cracking to little or none at all.
A door that would split as dramatically as your test sample when struck by a few needle pointed arrows would be useless as a defensive barrier, and I very much doubt that an unreinforced wooden door would be used in a castle where it was intended for that purpose.
I was just about to say much the same thing.
Something I would like to add is that it would also be harder to split if the board was the full length of the door.
Also I acknowledge that it is unreasonable to build an entire historically accurate door just for the purposes of destruction.
it was a motte castle, so of the simpler type, wich would be owned by a less wealthy person.
you can only afford as much protection as you can afford.
@@ulrichkalber9039 Braose was new money, but also a kings favourite, and had a number of castles around the border, of which I believe Abergavenny had the largest great hall. I'm not sure he would be skimping too much.
I pretty much agree with both Boyd Grandy and Malcolm P.L.; in a fortification you use just enough material to do the job whether it is an earth bund or a wooden door. An avenue to investigate (prolly someone other than Tod) is the construction of castle exterior doors. They would only be opened and closed once per day, usually, so weight is not an issue regarding use. Yes, they would need iron furniture to hold it fast to the walls which would increase its strength against arrows (and rams!). I wonder if they would have used only one depth of plank, since by having a second layer of wood running at 90degrees it would reinforce the outer layer by having two grains at tension to the other. Not only would this effect arrowheads, but the force of a ram would be resisted in two different planes. The builders of castle did not come into existence in only a few years, but would have come from decades and more likely centuries of craft and experience. They would know what would work, and the materials they would need.
Iron was really expensive, so I´d think they used just enough to get by. Maybe three hinges spread over a door no less than 7 foot high, so there´d be plenty wood to split between them. Plus the holes for the furniture would likely make splitting easier. You can split a plank with one nail in the wrong place, e.g., if there is already one in the same grain.
"I'm an oak man myself, that's what I've got in my bedroom. What about you, Jimmy? You an oak man?"
"Oak...oak is nice."
Another brilliant video.
2 things: I shot an arrow from a target now through my front door 30 years ago. Oops! Stopped by the flights, but hit the glass and punched a hole.
Secondly, doors, especially old castle doors, were crossed plank design. You can see plenty of them to this day across the UK. So, the two planks would've been clinch nailed extensively, with crossed grain. This was done to minimise wood splitting under the axes of attackers. So, nail two together and bang the ends over, then it'll be more realistic.
As for a rotten door? Unlikely in a castle!
Even if you see old castle doors today made of a crossed plank design, it doesn't mean they had castle doors and/or gates made out of a crossed plank design in 1182.
Very few, if any of them would survive to this day. Mostly likely did they all rot away or get destroyed by attackers many centuries ago.
Making planks, and specially oak planks, back in 1182 and earlier was a very hard, difficult and labor intensive job.
Making 1 75-100mm plank instead of 2 of the half thickness, would be both at least double the job, but also a larger margin for errors making them.
Having a door/gate that was 75-100mm thick back in 1182 would in most cases be enough, and making it much stronger, would most likely not result in stopping a well equipped and manned army from entering the castle anyway.
There is also no need to have 2 layers of planks to make the job very hard for attackers with axes to get through.
It is plenty enough to lay the thick planks horizontally when making the door/gate, and it would take much longer time for the axe wielders to get through the door.
@@The_Judge300 True, except it is far, far easier and better to use the type of door that has been used since long before the 1100s than to suddenly decide to use some giant planks that you still have to figure out how to stick together. Literally, you use a second board to hold the first layer of boards together.
We can see doors older than this to this day - Google "doors of Pompeii" and take a look at the far more advanced designs from a thousand years earlier.
Further, contemporary images and works show plank made, nailed doors, and, further still, you can actually go and see old castles that have very old doors made this way.
I wish more youtubers were as Transparent and honest as you. Quality Channel
Great test and very interesting results. This is why you get a lot of viewers in my opinion. You go out there and do tests and shoot arrows on all kind of stuff with an open mind and challenge yourself and accepted opinions. As you probably have realized, the devil is in the details. If you change one variable just slightly, you might get a completely different result.
I have to say, your pronunciation of my surname was really good. Spot on in fact. Here is small piece of advice on my first name. "Ei" in Eirik can be pronounced as "I", as in "I am". So it's basically "I rick", just drawn together as one word. But Erik is fine, it's very close. In my dialect "Ei" is a diphthong.
Thanks for the lead and glad I got you half right; apologies. I do think the secret with this is to undertake a test, explain the parameters and factors and show the results all as unbiased as possible and then we can all take from that what we will and as long as the mistakes are not hidden, then we can work with the good parts and to be fair what you see as something wrong, others might see as right, so still none of this will ever get 'agreed' upon, but maybe it gets us talking about it.
Now grease them up and see if they go through. You might be able to get some solid evidence for waxing arrows if it works as it will match medieval evidence.
This would be interesting to see indeed. Perhaps also whether or not a heavier bow would've made a difference.
@@JakobKaiserCreative - What he's doing already simulates about the heaviest bow that it would have been reasonable to carry around if you planned to do any volume of shooting. It's possible to pull heavier bows, but it would tire you out after a handful of shots, so it wouldn't be practical in battle.
What about heavier arrows = more energy.
@@JCPRuckus Aye, I can totally see the point. Would still be interesting.
Try standing closer to the door. Within 4 or 5 feet i bet that would do it.
Am I right in thinking that having two thinner pieces of wood layered together would make the door harder to penetrate, compared to a single, thick piece of wood? My thinking is that would be the case as their grains wouldn't line up and create more resistance for the arrow the work through? In which case, that makes this legend that much more plausible!
Another consideration is the state of the wood. Would exposure to the elements and moisture across a prolonged period of time cause wood to rot and therefore soften? How common was it for wooden doors, etc to be infested with insects, etc? Could the incident described by Gerald of Wales be explained by the wood having been unusually soft?
A tower door, I'd expect to be maintained in reasonable condition. Everyone knew the door had to be good enough to stop a charging Welshman. Otherwise, why have a door? I'd expect it'd be as good a door as they can make using local materials and available tools. Whatever that might have been.
videos like this are what brought me to this channel in the first place, the Agincourt armour test was my introduction and yeah it is great fun watching reproductions of historical myths and urban legends. With that said I would love to see this tested again with different samples of door construction, I presume that we don't know exactly how this door was constructed but I imagine that even in the 11th century carpenters and woodworkers understood how wood behaves in certain environments and had their own ideas for how to make something like a door (specifically a gate, given the translations) to continue being a door for many years without needing to be replaced or repaired every year.
"Toss a coin to your Witc-..." No? Wrong Geralt?
"oh, valley of plenty, oh valley of plenty, oh ohohohohh!"
Gerallt in Welsh. I don't think ours had long silver hair or killed monsters though.
*About that coin...*
@@TurinTuramber bout fucking died, I even read as Geralts voice before I read the name. 😂
I like your mix of knowledge and humility. You are a scholar who likes to do it instead of read about it. You have the knowledge and skills in applied physics to do this...and you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty. BTW, I really love your trebuchet…I’ve always wanted one!
Roses are red
Violets are blue;
If you don't paint your door;
Wood will rot & arrows go through 🤓
A rotten wood test sounds interesting, mind
Testing it against untreated wood exposed to the elements and has rotten in the end sounds like a way better test tbh.
Was thinking the same. Those doors at that time could have been a little rotten.
Violins are blue lol Well they can be I guess
its quite possible, not sure of the probability, that the doors were treated with linseed oil, or pine pitch or something, woodworking and carpentry are some of the oldest skill crafts in the world, one would think they knew what they were doing, but you're not entirely wrong so ...
Your humble attitude and your honest search to sate your curiosity inspire me to be better. Thank you for what you do! Your study on arrows vs armor of various types is influencing my novel. We already have an archer intentionally breaking/skipping arrows to get under the joints of a giant’s heavy plate. In another place his friend uses goose feathers to remove a goblin’s barbed arrow from his leg. Again, thank you!
Arrows go through lots of things! That's why historically oak doors were covered in silk shirts. >_>
Yet more fantastic content, thank you for all the effort you put in!
Two boards glued together is stronger so the arrow might even have gone trough a single board.
With the differing grain of two separate boards, I would have to agree. A single 3 inch board may split where this glue up did not.
@@act.13.41 These are both very good points!
Commenting to increase the chances of tod seeing this.
@@501Magnum Next, question; does anyone in the audience have a spare 3" thick oak door they can donate?
Nevin Scanlan explained it exactly how I thought.
One of the many good things about this channel is the way you are open to admitting you might have been wrong and redoing tests to get closer to the truth. Keep it up :)
Maybe it was the grain in the 2 pieces of Oak not matching up perfect that slowed the arrow down just enough :O lol
But you look at castle doors in Germany, the ones with the chevron pattern, that's so axe blows don't split them - and there's another layer in a different direction behind.
It's more than likely that the door in question was formed similarly and "laminated" for strength.
@@andyleighton6969 Interesting , I never knew that was the reason they were made that way . But no, castles doors were not made that way in England . How do we know ? Believe it or not some of the original doors are still in use today . One in the Tower of London.
I’m trying to write a fantasy story that has special fantasy wood that’s stronger than average wood by a considerable amount & used as armour on occasion. This video has given me a better sense of how much tougher it’d have to be to be actually useful as armour in comparison to iron & steel. Also it’s just plain fascinating as a historical experiment. Great work dude. Love your channel.
P.S. I own two of your Tod Cutler daggers & an eating knife & I’m in love with them.
I doubt Gerald of Wales had a ruler on him at the time. It's entirely possible that the door in question was two and a half inches thick, but he eyeballed it as three.
I can imagine reading it as "It was a really sturdy door, like, you know, properly made, not a flimsy thing, you know, like a real castle door, you know what I mean".
I expect his scribe would have a rule.
Thanks to Tod, i've been keeping my bowie knives constantly oiled. Getting very good cutting, penetration results from oiled clip points and blades.. Kinda like the waxed arrow heads...
The longbows on the Mary Rose went up to 200lbs pull weight. Arrows from your 160lb longbow equivalent almost went through.
Gerald of Wales is looking quite believable to me.
The Mary Rose bows were from past 1500s, this is the year 1188 we're talking about, you have no reasons to use 160+lbs bows with the levels of armour present
But this was in 1188, high middle ages not early renaissance.
@@samarkand1585 Valid point. The archers of the time would be up against mail mainly, even a brigandine or coat of plates would be rare.
I wouldn't exclude the possibility of a very heavy bow though. It was about the time the "arms race" between longbows / crossbows and armour got going. And there will always be macho types who need a bigger & better bow than everyone else.
I suppose my take away from this was that correct or not and we will never know, he was in the ball park of plausible
@@samarkand1585 you have plenty of reason to use a more powerful bow. More power = more range. Do you have any historical source saying 200lb bows were not used it never used prior to the 1500's?
You may or may not be aware of this but they made a door at guedelon castle. For construction the boards are rabbited at 1.5in, 37mm thick for about 2 in or so for additional strength and have a support frame board high and low running inside the planks. The door is loosely assembled and then left to season for a year. They then take the seasoned door, tighten the boards in and staple them in with giant 6in 15cm nails that go through the plank are bent and nailed into the adjoining plank. The iron staples combined with the pre seasoned oak makes for a very sturdy door.
The glue adds a good amount of compressive strength. Good test, just letting you know.
No glue, just a screw in each corner
@@tods_workshop Not sure how I missed that. You're a craftsman, couldn't even let your test block be ugly. Carry on.
Even if glue was used, the fact that it's different planks on top of eachother probably causes a penetration difference because it splits differently. Yet, a "3 inch oak door" is most likely not carved from a solid oak block anyways, so since this test doesn't claim to be exact science it's definitely good enough for the purpose.
@@Olav_Hansen I would out of principle use three layers to prevent splitting. I think that this would be even historical as I do know quite a few castle and church doors that seem to be that way.
Is pausible that combination of planks is thougher than a single plank in this test? As the arrow is not able to penetrate via a single grain, as it would be with a single plank arrangement.
Tod, one important thing to consider is that oak is a ring-porous wood, and the density, hardness, and strength of ring-porous wood can vary widely dending on the growth rate of the tree it came from. Old growth, slow-grown oak can be much less dense and strong compared to much of the oak that is available today. The ease of penetration will also depend on the direction that the growth rings are oriented relative to the surface that is being impacted. If you shoot at a quartersawn face of ring-porous wood, whose growth rings are perpendicular to the face of the board, it will penetrate more easily due to the fact that it is easier to split in this direction.
Having grown up in Wales I can attest to it being quite damp, and 3 inches sounds like an exterior door. Any moisture would probably open up the grain quite a bit/ lubricate the passage of the arrow.
A shorter stubbier bodkin might actually penetrate further also- split the wood without binding in it, like an axe, the profile is so much wider. Would be stronger too
Having worked with oak, I will agree. It also rots rather quickly if unprotected from the elements.
@@kovona They knew how to protect wood, used Oak because it lasted longer, and properly treated thick oak doors last a lifetime (or longer Westminster abbey has one that is over 900 years old)
@@kovona "www.wood-database.com ›
English Oak | The Wood Database - Lumber Identification (Hardwood)
Rot Resistance: English Oak has been rated as having very good resistance to decay, and is commonly used in boatbuilding applications."
I would say this is a more common view of the rot resistance properties of Quercus Robur.
Quite damp...
Been here for twenty years and I've only seen the sun twice!
I cannot believe I've been watching your channel all this time and failed to subscribe. Problem corrected, your work is outstanding.
My immediate reaction to this (aside from STOP BREAKING MY ARROWS) is that the crossbow is calibrated to equal Joe's 160lb bow. Joe used bows of that weight in our original tests because it was the average weight of the Mary Rose bows, as that's our only benchmark.
If Gerald was writing in the 1100s, it's highly unlikely the bows being used at that time were also 160lb. They simply wouldn't need to be - armour of the time wasn't effective enough to require bows to be 160lb, and the arrowheads found from that period are not 1/2" socketed, but 8, 9 and 10mm socketed which means the bows were much lighter.
This means that the test done with what is essentially a 160lb bow is possibly quite overpowered for the myth itself - I'd imagine bows from the 1100s to be in the 95-115lb range, which would result in far less penetration of the oak. That combined with softer iron heads (I did water-quench these Type 7s which although only mild steel does make a difference to their toughness) will give a very different reading, I think.
Please could you shoot a 3 inch thick piece of wood mounted to something rigid (rather than an archery target which must absorb some of the momentum), a door is mounted on a stone castle. Also, carpenters slightly round off the points of nails to avoid wood splitting, could you try this with a bodkin too, perhaps it would go further through?
Another interesting factor: Range. Gerald says the arrow penetrated a 3" door. OK, from what range? You're shooting a crossbow of equivalent force to a Welsh longbow, but at a range of... 20 meters? It would certainly have more power if shot from 10 or 5 meters, though how much more I don't know.
So perhaps the combination of old wood, shorter range, and the right angle would get you an arrow that pokes through a half inch or so on the other side, easily. Given the test, it certainly seems plausible.
It should also be noted that Gerald apparently wasn't talking in inches to begin with. He spoke of a door that is nearly as thick as a palm, which might not be as thick as what Tod tested.
I work at a pallet recycler factory and that is alot of wood. My bandsaw would take a minute to get through that
Doors are always perfect vertical (especially the heavy ones). You shot an angled plank which result in an even greater thickness (probably a minimum of 85 mm). Of course we expect another video on this matter.:)
i thought the same, but hitting a 75mm door at 15 degrees from the vertical only gives an effective thickness of 77.6mm, to get 85mm you need to hit it at 28 degrees, and Tod wasnt that much off the angle.
I agree that if we get another test (other people suggest wood in lesser condition, or single plank), the wood should be vertical, but in this case, i dont think the ~15 degree angle did all that much
@@Verhagenvictor For 85 mm you'll need a 62° angle.
@@torpilo Like he said. One is from horizontal and the other from vertical. 28 + 62 = 90°
The arrows in story are shot from distance meaning the arrows would have struck the door on a downward angle so tods crooked set up should be closer to reality than a vertical target :)
Super interesting. Please take into consideration that gluing up the boards adds resistance, the glue is a strong connection and stops the splitting effect of the needle point. Keep it up please! 😃
I thought Gerald of Wales was going to be another RUclipsr. I was expecting some channel vs channel drama.
I watched the lead up to this, and I like the way you always handle things with honesty... Now, leading up to this, you have done a few interesting things ... so why not try this test again,. with waxed tips? That may be quite interesting. Also, getting hold of a 3" piece of oak might not be so easy, but try clamping the two pieces together ... I think you understand what I mean ... Anyway, enough armchair advise from me, you know what to do, better than me anyway :)
Thanks for the knowledge and entertainment.
It definitely looked like they were getting further and further each time they hit. Likely due to the splitting weakening the door as a whole.
Perhaps a fourth or fifth arrow would have done the trick?
So this has gone from ludicrous to plausible. Fantastic! You tested against modern kiln-dried straight-grain oak, that even if 10 years old does not look to have seen ten years in the rain and sun.
-
Love the science!
You have to consider too the bowmen of the day were probably pretty strong men who could overdraw their bows too. Very interesting video and pretty amazing results. I certainly enjoy your channel for sure Tod.
'overdraw', this isn't a video game, you draw up to where the bow is meant to be drawn at, no more, and usually no less
@@samarkand1585 Not really? It could be possible that these bowmen were using longer shafted bows, or were indeed overdrawing to the very end of the arrow. On top of that, they could be using a bow that's more powerful than normal on top of it being already overdrawn.
The video is simply going by the translations of the author and the testing could have many differences to the actual event
@@tandemcharge5114 that's not how it works. You don't draw a bow back and then discover you have an extra foot to draw back farther for extra power. Physiology alone prevents that from happening.
@@dimesonhiseyes9134 This is not correct at all.
Of course you can overdraw a longbow.
Not by a foot, but easily with a few inches if you have the strength to do it.
All depending on what poundage that bow is made at already.
A longbow is not static with a solid wall or stop as most modern compound bows are today.
You can both under- and overdraw a longbow.
If you overdraw, you get more power and if you underdraw, you get less.
I have done this for 35+ years.
For maximum accuracy, you would want to draw the bow to the exact same anchor point, but battlefield archery is very often not about pinpoint accuracy.
@@The_Judge300 but then again, your arm is only that long, and a fully drawn longbow is already 7/8 broken.
Outstanding video and I really enjoy reading the comments from people who appear to be more knowledgeable of these facts than I. Please keep up the good work and I look forward to more videos.
I think some people are going too far!
Tod has "busted" a presumed impossible account to ... an "It could have happened" one! I call that a result!
For those calling for retests .... I am sure that if you donated some of the arrows needed Tod would give it a fair go ;0)
Wow this test is so cool, it really shows how your expectations can be misleading. Apart from all the differences in the door, the wood etc. you are shooting a 160 lb lockdown longbow. Maybe the door was shot with a 200 lb longbow and that would have penetrated deeper. All we can say is that this "myth" is definitely plausible. You make history so exciting to watch Tod. If you ever have the chance to let Joe Gibbs shoot in your video's again, letting him shoot 1 arrow with his 200 lb longbow at this thickness of wood would be so interesting.
Perhaps the arrows hit between panels? Technically, that is still going through a 3 inch door.
Genuinely some of the most interesting content I’ve ever watched, love these videos Tod 🤙
And then if you pepper that "door" with 30-40 arrows some will go through a 75mm door
was gonna comment something like this, numerous arrows would weaken the structural integrity of the door.
30-40 arrows did you say? Enter Jörg Sprave. Hahaha.
@@Machinationstudio let him show you the features...ha ha HA!
Great video as always! When William Marshal became Earl of Pembroke in 1189, he expanded upon the keep and gave it a new door - that door (which I believe is oak) is still on display in the hall there. I live in Denmark so I cannot check it out - but would be interesting to take a look at, to give some context to your test?
You need to grease the shaft ;"D
That's what she doth proclaim!
Spectacular. I wouldn´t have thought. Thank you very much for carrying through with this. Things that make you go "hmmmm..."........
Correct me if I’m wrong but the inch wasn’t standard size up until recently (in terms of history, it’s been standardized for at least 100 yrs) so it’s possible that the door’s thickness could have been more or less than what we would measure as 3in.
It’s likely that the door’s thickness was less than modern 3in as the inch was commonly measured by the size of your thumb (I think not 100% sure). So if the guy telling the story had small hands and measured the door it’s actual thickness could have been closer to 2.25-2.5in giving more truth to the myth
I read the original comment where this story was relayed. It actually said the door was a handspan thick. Or something like that. Not that the door was 3 inches thick
I just love these experiments and the interest they generate.
Weren't inches also a larger measurement back then? I remember someone telling me the Napoleon short myth came from different measurement standards on inches.
Maybe, but the quote in question doesn't mention inches, it says "almost the width of a palm". Which admittedly still leaves a lot of room for interpretation
That's an interesting point. I learned that he was actually above average height for the time, but overall heights were much shorter than modern standards due to malnutrition and disease. I noticed first hand when exploring Whitby Abbey as a young boy as the stone graves that had been carved out in the shape of the monks body were tiny.
That's to do with a difference between French and English inches though I may be mistaken with that
For the Romans the width of a palm/palmus minor is 4 digits and also 3 inches. The height reduced from the renaissance on until 1800 (during the little ice age). The English used both roman and traditional inches and then settled for an in between measure later on
I believe the myth of Napoleon's height stems a combination of factors. I remember the primary cause being what Daniel pointed out: the difference between French and British inches, combined with British propaganda intentionally abusing this unfortunate factor to make Napoleon sound short. For reference, I recall him being 5'2" in French measurements and 5'6" in British, but of course the British of the time had no issue pointing out the fact he was 5'2" while conveniently leaving out the part that it was in a slightly different measurement (also some people might just not have realized that he used a different measurement and genuinely believed he was only 5'2").
Replete's point is also correct, and by today's standard most people from Napoleon's time were a bit short, with Napoleon's 5'6" (in English inches) or roughly 167cm being above average for a male of his time.
That said, I don't know how much the inch has changed over time, but I think the British inch of early 19th century is pretty close to, if not the same as, modern inches.
weathering would also play a huge part in how difficult it would be to penetrate the wood, i replaced a door to a church steeple once, the frame was totally solid because it was shielded from the elements by the stone work of the church itself, the door (admittedly a thin ledge and brace door) was shot to pieces, faded, splitting along the grain too which i can only assume was due to the swelling and drying with the rain and season change. and to give context this door and frame went in during the early part of the 1900's so close to 100 years old when it needed replacing, but as i said. frame was completely sound
All these door references and not a single Hodor comment? GoT didn't end well but that scene was crushing.
Edit: you may have hit your car door, Tod.
The hodoor of a Willis jeep
Although this article relates mainly to 17th & 18th Century doors it may be of some use (Mainly because practical people don't fix what isn't broken). The door construction that really caught my eye was the 'double plank' construction - vertical planks backed by horizontal ones. www.buildingconservation.com/articles/early-timber-doors/early-timber-doors.htm
There is a lesson here for all historians and archaeologists, modern academia has a bad habit of poo pooing historical accounts and myths. Troy was a myth till they found it, we still do it today with aboriginal oral history, we think we know better because we're modern. Great video, the more videos you do about long bows, the more impressive they become!
Thank you for your very interesting contend, Tod. I apreciate your videos very much. The arrows penetrated deeper than I expected. We must bear in mind that measuring units from different towns and areas were not the same in the Middle Ages. There was a big variation of different palm measurements. That means that the penetration depth you have reached might be a palm in certain areas.
I have an idea-what about a 20-30 arrows already in a door. That have weakened it so the arrow 31 would penetrate it enough
Why would they obsess so much over shooting at a solid oak door?
@@samarkand1585 well that’s a different topic. Maybe there was a siege of a castle, and poor fore was just a victim of many archers. Mb that was a deliberate test. As would Tod say: “We simply don’t know”
Awesome video and very interesting results :) Two notes: 1) You angled the boards so the depth is more than 3 inches + you don't shoot perpendicular to the grains. 2) Glued wood is much stronger than a single piece. Think glue-beams and ply-wood.
I would love to see you do the same experiment with a 3 inch thick vertical board.
Absolutely fascinating! Multiple hits on the door could cause splitting as we saw allowing follow up shots to penetrate further. Also we know what we call an inch is different from the mid evil inch. So the oak door may have indeed be 2 or 2 1/2 inches thick.
If oak that thick is splitting what would it do to ships planking? Suddenly long bows on a warship might be a risk to the ship rather than just the crew.
I hadn't considered that - interesting
I just remembered something that might have some bearing on this story . Abergavenny is surrounded with hills . One is called the Derry . Derry in Welsh , meaning oak, oak grove or oak trees . Theses trees, that still grow there , are the original ancient forest . They are not at all like the stately oaks that are found in the grounds of large manor houses in Britain today . But much smaller about 15 to 25 feet tall . I'm no expert on trees , but I very much doubt they would be able to be make planks long enough to be used as a door to a castle .
By the way the name of the city in northern Ireland called Derry comes from the same root .
I am angry at myself for having heard of this channel but never checking it out or subscribing until now. Bad on me, absolutely good on you Tod for such fine work both on your craft & this channel.
Hi Todd, great ideas as usual. My observation is that laminating the oak may have made it tougher than a single board, i.e. the split would probably have been right through. Constraining the board within a frame or with studs could have made splitting less likely however studs to hold doors together could introduce a weakness in the door allowing arrows to penetrate more. On a final note did you grease your arrows? You have shown before the difference this makes. I can tell you that when i use tools on oak a bit of candle wax makes a huge difference on screws for example.
Thanks again for the great content.
Ian
I’m curious about the effect of having the oak backed by a large, energy-absorbing archery butt. Does a plank in a frame, without any backing, splinter and crack more, or less?
Awesome video...really love this channel. Thanks Tod for so much thought provoking material and thanks to the community for such great discussion.
I believe the two boards actually made it stronger. It's splitting down a grain only to hit another board with a different grain would stop it faster.
There's also the question about what kind of weather the door was in.
You have to also consider what he meant by sticking through. Does he mean is stuck through the door, or the board of the door? If you just met the door, there could be arrows that went into the gaps.
You can see how the wood got damaged as you shop more. Perhaps some arrows got through that damaged part and stuck through further.
You also need to wonder how he measured. Was it from the outside of the door, or the inside? Was it finger to wrist, pinky to thumb, or front to back?
It's coming for people to say something that is not very impressive in a way that makes it sound a lot more impressive. I have some raptors that hang out outside my house. They even follow us around. Roadrunners are raptors.
Brilliant series! Surprising results, I imagine that with a monolithic chunk of wood the penetration would be easier, as the splitting would propagate rather than being interrupted at the glue layer/next grain pattern. With the bit of ambiguity on the exact measurement, plus the variability of the strength and density of wood, this account looks like it was plausible. Edit - found a reply to a comment indicating no glue was used, but the differently oriented grain would still be present. Also upon re-watching, if one arrow had landed just vertically above a previous strike, a split could have been spread further by the second strike.
I agree; it is plausible
@Tod's Workshop can you do a video about a possible alternate interpretation of wax arrowheads? I have seen your previous videos about the improved penetration of waxed arrowheads, which was very cool. But I was always told that English longbowmen's "waxed arrowheads" referred to how the arrowheads were attached to the arrows. Folks claimed that the arrowheads were attached with wax, which only held the arrowhead on long enough for a single shot. So the longbowman could shoot an arrow at an enemy, then the arrowhead would fall off and couldn't be shot back at him during the battle. Afterwards, they would go around the battlefield and collect all the arrow-shafts and heads again, and wax them together again. Could you test if this is a plausible alternative interpretation, or just total baloney?
A nice piece & a good one for demonstrating the strength of Oak! One thought though & apologies if mentioned already. It comes from seeing sloped armour on WWII tanks. If the board measures 75mm thick when vertical, as it is mounted on the target for testing, the slight angle that it is set at will theoretically ‘thicken’ the board. Would the arrow have penetrated if the board was vertical? Only a thought, to be pernickety!!
Great content, as always. The angle of the target means that the “effective thickness” of the target (vs. the actual thickness) is greater (assuming a 10 degree angle, effective thickness of the target presented to the arrow is 76.16mm).
There are a few variables I wonder if would make a difference.
1. If the oak was a single 3" slab, would the grain be more likely to give an easier path? (The grain from the second plank here might be lined up in a way that makes the arrow more likely to bend?)
2. Would the outermost layers of the oak be any softer as it has been left out to the elements, especially rain and snow? (If water soaks through just a few millimeters of the oak before freezing, would that weaken it slightly? Probably insignificant if it even happens)
3. Does lighter but faster arrows penetrate better in a similar way lighter but faster bullets penetrate more than slower and heavier? (I don't know if the speed difference between different arrows with the same energy is enough to make a difference in actual penetration.)
Either way, even if it is incredibly speculative, it seems plausible that at least in the best case scenario arrows could penetrate enough through 3" of white oak to poke out the other side. I still don't know if it would be enough to be a serious risk to people behind the door. Maybe if they were leaning right up against the door without any protective gear on, but I adsume people would have more than enough common sense to not do that.
Interesting video nonetheless!
As others have said, a single 3 inch plank would likely by easier to penetrate. The discontinuity between the planks changes the grain of the wood halfway through the door. This prevents crack propagation from one plank into the next. Since the arrows are also following the grain structure of the first board, that grain basically stops in the second or abruptly changes direction. This makes the second board much more difficult to penetrate.
I absolutely luv these tests.
Now do Anna Komnene's claim about 12th century crossbows: "Such an arrow has been known to pierce a bronze statue, and if it hits the wall of a very large town, the point of the arrow either protrudes on the inner side or it buries itself in the middle of the wall and is lost."
That I will choose to still disbelieve
I too have 10 year old oak- it's rotting in the woodpile in my backyard. Great video Tod!
Hi tod
I think I remember watching a programme about the Guedelon castle build who made their doors from vertical planks rebated together with something like 8'' x 1'' horizontal through 'loose' tenon's, but I don't recall them mentioning where they found the inspiration for that design?
If a door was made in this fashion as I think was suggested by the programme there would be no 'framing effect' to the plank at each edge of the door only the middle couple of boards would be 'framed'. Does anyone know of any sources which describe 'castle door construction'? I am stunned that the arrows penetrated as deep as they have.
I wonder if perhaps a plate cutter night be better? If love to see the effects of different piles on the door.
Also what if the arrows hit the joint in the door ? Maybe they would prise open the joint depending on different ones. Perhaps one to try?
That is really interesting. I believe that having seen this now that if you were to repeat the test with a single piece of 3 inch oak you may in fact get the penetrating result. Oak having such long straight grain is rather prone to longitudinal splitting . It is a very strong timber but yeah it splits easily along the grain. There is every chance of getting that hands breadths penetration. I think the secondary impact of the second board making up the 3 inch thickness added extra resistance. Think of it as if the initial impact was enough to start the split and from then the friction and resistance lessens allowing the point to push further into the split. Then the second board repeating the initial impact forcing the arrow to attempt to open up another split robbing valuable inertia.
I doubt in the 13th century they differentiated between terms, but in modern terminology, there is a distinction between when a projectile embeds itself into a target but doesn't go all the way through (called "penetration") and when it makes a hole all the way through and out the rear face so you can see daylight through the hole (called "perforation").
The 2 terms just help distinguish if it's made it through in any capacity, or been fully stopped by the door. Though maybe we need a third term for passed through and kept on going.
Also on a note about your "door" sample, if, as it appears on video, you've glued those planks together, it is probably more resistant to splitting than a single 3" plank. Also, I suspect (from splitting wood for firewood) that green timber might be more resistant to splitting, even if it is softer and overall weaker, might be worth a try.
Just a heads up a hand is a unit of measurement for measuring horses.
A hand was 4 inches and an inch was 3 barleycorns
So the solution is to find 12 barleycorns line them up and measure how long that is in modern inches or cms and see if it matches or is close to your distance.
Also the layering effect provided by the two 1.5 inch plans will have effected penetration even if they're flush.
Similar to other comments here, you do need to remember that Gerald likely didn't even measure the door, and since the doors were all handmade, they wouldn't have measured to some exact standard anyway. The arrow could have hit a join between two boards, or the door could easily have been thinner than a full three inches. I agree with Tod on this one: the arrows got close enough that any other factor contributing likely would have let an arrow at least poke through.
Very interesting, so many variable to go over and test. The premise certainly seems plausible under the right conditions.
Only half an inch from glory, not bad. I love how well-researched this community is, what an interesting theory to even dare hold a candle to.