The myth of arrow quivers on the back

My “Bayeux tapestry”-post wasn’t aimed at you directly. Battle gear has always been a matter of personal preference; look at (eg.) the number of different M4 carbine chest rigs and harnesses on today’s battlefield. And that’s only for the M4. The middle ages would have been no different, and in that light (and supported by the Bayeux tapestry) a back quiver in the middle ages is not a myth but a likely possibility.

In my region easier with this. We use cylindrical quivers from birch bark for reconstruction of the Middle Ages and flat leather quivers for 16-17th. But for the Czech, choosing the correct quiver turns into a problem. It is interesting how many arrows protagonist is fire during combat / hunting in the game. If not enough, then perhaps most simple option is to render arrows in his belt. And add the possibility of pick up arrows.
В моєму регіоні простіше з цим. Ми використовуємо циліндричні сагайдаки із берести для реконструкцій середніх віків та пласкі шкіряні сагайдаки для 16-17ст. А от для Чехії, вибір правильного сагайдака перетворюється у певну проблему. Цікаво, наскільки багато стріл головний герой має вистрілити під час бою/полюванні у грі. Якщо мало, то можливо самий простий варіант це промальовка стріл за поясом. Та додати можливість підбирати стріли.

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for that comparison to work, you need to find a primary or secondary source showing back quivers being used in the time period this game tapes place.

also, it doesn’t matter. why spend time making 2 quiver types at average quality, with two batches of animation, with accompanying programming variables, when you can make just one at top quality?. it’s about time and resource management.

medieval sources show hip carry being most popular by a large margin. spending extra time on something that is only rarely seen is a waste of time, from a qa standpoint.

Well, you seem to miss the point that quivers on the back are ALREADY implemented. So doing another version for the hip would be additional work and I would appreciate it. But there is no reason to skip quivers on the back after all IF you already have it (which is the case here)… :wink:

You could just bring some variety to the game. Maybe some archers wear them on the back, some on the hip. Or hunter on the back and soldiers on the hip. Or whatever.

It would be wasted time and assets to erase the quiver on the back from the game imo… :wink:

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Actually if I remember video correctly it was said there that the quivers are not final yet.

Sure, not final, but they are there. Optimization is something else than creating stuff from the scratch imo. :wink:

Try fighting with a sword or maneuvering at speed whilst carrying a hip quiver … good luck!

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yep, that is not a problem. Just need to get use to it. Just like you need to get use to carrying a sword hanging from your belt.

So what to learn from this topic?

  1. Archers in European medieval armies used an arrow bag on the hip in battle but they usually didn’t wear any quiver at all while travelling.
  2. Middle Eastern (and Eastern European?) mounted archers used more than one quiver and even a quiver for the bow to be able to fight with melee weapons if necessary.

Briefly going off topic, could anyone recomend a sword from the late 1400’s suitable for a short arse such as myself (5ft 1), if so please feel free to send a PM I did have a Falcshon but that was too heavy.

@LordCrash, yup I fell in love with a quiver I found on a site only to find it was for a hunting/horse bow/arrows; and it was not used in England and thus would be entirly wrong for me. I was quite disapointed

I am little bit surprised that we have so many archers among our fans and I am glad for that! So, let me clear this out. There are several reasons why we have quivers on the back.

  1. Technical/design reasons - every type of equipment has to have its place in our system and since the belt is already occupied by crossbow quiver, the bow quiver is on the back. They cant be on the same spot, and yes, we have different quivers for bows and crossbows.

  2. Archers wore quivers on the back - There is an archer on the Bayeux tapestry (somebody already posted picture above) with quiver on the back and there are several other sources that prove this as well. We can discuss which style was more common or preferred, but its not a myth or something impossible/unrealistic. Victor tells me, that its very likely, that during battles, archers preferred quivers on the belt - they were easier to reach and archer didn’t have to move that much, while during hunting or travel, they were on the back for better mobility.

Hope that explains our reasons :wink:

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Some people will rage out, but personally I’m very happy about what you have shown so far, I can’t understand why so much hate to back quivers nor the “This-is-not-historically-accurate” extremists.

Keep your efforts, you are doing a great, great job!

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Thanks! I does help indeed.

Though I’m not fully convicted by the second reason. After all, the Bayeux Tapestry is from 11st century, England and even there it doesn’t seems common…

About the first one - does it mean that they can’t share same place to allow the player to wear both, or is there some other technical issue?

PS It is not big deal anyway, you are already beyond the level of historical accuracy I ever dare to expect :slight_smile:

There were no bow or crossbow quivers for infantry in medieval Europe… :wink:

European archers or crossbowmen on foot usually didn’t fight with other weapons. English longbows had a sharp head to be able to use it in melee fighting in case of emergency.

Only mounted archers with origins in the Middle East and Asia (Mongols, Ottomans, Magyars,…) used bow quivers and they fought with sabre/sword and shield in melee combat if necessary. But they also used different bows, a different technique to stretch the bowstring and they also used more than only one quiver for arrows… :wink:

There most certainly were quivers. Are you suggesting all archers carried their arrows in their hands? While feasible in some cases, I certainly wouldn’t want to go hunting that way for example. And what does fighting with other weapons have to do with it? Either I’m not understanding what you’re saying, or you’ve not understood what a quiver is, I’m not entirely sure which.

You didn’t understand me. I was talking about BOW quivers and not ARROW quivers. In one you put your arrows and the other you put your weapon, the bow. :wink:

Middle Eastern mounted archers used bow quivers to be able to fight with sword/shield on horseback in melee combat. They were multi-purpose troops, both able to fight with ranged weapons and melee weapons. European infantry archers and crossbowmen (often they used horses for travelling as well but not in combat) on the opposite were often pure specialist, only fighting with their ranged weapons. They tried to avoid melee combat so they didn’t need a bow quiver to store their ranged weapon during a possible melee encounter.

European medieval armies needed that many arrows that archers usually didn’t wear arrow quivers themselves. Arrows were transported by the baggage train on carts and in battle pages regularly delivered arrows to the archers who only had a limited number of arrow on hip quivers/bags.

Mounted archers used arrow quivers (more than one!) because their special tactics was the fast attack with arrows on horseback (fast attack, falling back and attacking again…) and there was simply no possiblity to give them new arrows during battle or during an attack. So they had to take as many arrows with them as possible. :wink:

It seems right ot me, but who is the soldier at [this picture][1] then? I doesn’t seems to me to be cavalry soldier nor from Middle East.

*Tryied t ofix the link but couldn’t edit it becouse it was “too similar” so wrote this text to solve that.
[1]: The myth of arrow quivers on the back

Well, Hungarian Magyars most likely had some influence on Bohemian army and weaponry with Hungary so closely connected to Bohemia at the time. The man on the right with the bow quiver also has a sword in a scabbard which was really uncommon for western and central European archers. And the bow itself with its more convex form at the end looks rather like a Magyarian or Mongolian bow for shooting from horseback than an English longbow for infantry. That indicates that the man on the right is possibly a mounted archer who is shown without his horse (for whatever reason), either inspired by Middle Eastern bow techniques or a Hungarian Magyar himself serving in the Bohemian/Hungarian forces.
We have to think about the fact as well that bow and arrow wasn’t a “weapon of honor” for the Bohemian nobility and they wouldn’t use it.
But then again, the picture could just show a “trend” in Bohemia at that time, with bow quivers being en vogue for a certain time. Who can know for sure? There are way too less sources from the time about that specific topic to make a really solid statement about that. We tend to make statements about that on actually very little information available, me of course included. In the end, many different interpretations are possible imo, which isn’t the worst thing because it actually gives Warhorse some (!!!) creative freedom for the weaponry desgin. :wink:

Not correct.
It is well documented that longbow men got into hand-to-hand combat and was equipped for it. Agincourt is naturally the best example. Where we have rather well armed archers killing frence men-at-arms.

In this case they simply dropped the bow on the ground.

Bow quivers is useful if you fight from horseback.

So longbowmen didn’t need bow quivers. Not because they didn’t get into hand-to-hand combat, but because they fought on foot.

Also maybe becouse of their longbows, which were about lenght of the archer… quivers for that large bows wouldn’t be effective or would be?

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