Sunday, March 04, 2012

Christine de Pizan and the Archers of England

There's a passage in Charity Cannon Willard's translation of Christine de Pizan's The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry that's been bothering me since I first read it. In part 1, chapter 10, p.3, Willard translates the passage with: "In this art young Englishmen are still instructed from early youth, and for this reason they commonly surpass other archers. They can hit a barge aimed at from a distance of six hundred feet." Which seems a strange target for archery practice.

Through the wonder of Gallica, I went back to the original French, where they shot at buttes, which has the same meaning as the butts used as archery targets in English.

That was like scratching an itch.

There are some lesser differences as well. I read it as:
In this art young Englishmen are still instructed from early youth, and for this reason they continually surpass other archers. They shoot at the butts from a distance of six hundred feet.

4 comments:

SM said...

"Continually" what?

That seems like another source that English archers didn't use a unique weapon, they just had more and stronger archers than most countries did. I've always read that Italian merchant from the 1480s who everyone likes to quote as comparing longbows to crossbows and Turkish bows.

Will McLean said...

Continually surpass. Fixed now, thanks for catching that.

Anonymous said...

Ooh! Do you have a link to the French text on Gallica? I'd like to read that.

Ariella

Will McLean said...

Linked to Gallica now, Ariella.