Moderator: Glen K
I've also been looking for more "period" targets instead of the standard Olympic style White/Black/Blue/Red/Gold modern targets that everyone seems to use. In looking at the braided straw targets that very much have the look and feel of a medieval target such as theseThis is an age-old shooting tradition used to improve the aim of the longbow men over a variety of distances. The butt was originally a wooden cask, later a wedge-shaped mound of earth covered with grass. Height at the target front was some 7 feet (2.1m) high and 4 feet wide (1.2m) at the bottom and 1 foot 4” at the top (0.4m), with a length of 9 feet (2.7m) behind the front, tapering off into the ground. The target face used to be a small piece of cloth or a disk made out of pasteboard about 4 inches (10cm) in diameter.
Go for it, Gerhard. As long as you screen our the rocks, you can't go too wrong.Gerhard von Liebau wrote:Thanks for the information, folks! I've decided that I'm going to build an English style butte, using a mound of earth some 4' tall and covered in grass (eventually) and having handmade grape vine wreaths for center targets. I can do all of this from my yard, as of this moment, so it should be a relatively quick and fulfilling project.
-Gerhard
Medium,MediumAevum wrote:Gerhard, if your going to take that much time you should really do a lot more research then just whats been done here, cause otherwise you'll spend hours and hours building it and someone like me will take an hour or two and come up with a bunch of evidence that what you did doesn't fit the evidence.
We'll be building one too now. We have official permission from a member of our Canton to build it on her farm. We'll research ours over the winter and hopefully start building it in the spring. There's just not enough time to get going on it now with autumn settling in quickly here. However, with the field she's letting us use, we could eventually build probably five or six on both sides of the field and have shoots that go back and forth. I'd think it's a good 100 yards or so if I remember it right. So not the 220 yard Church Green but that's fine. Most of us can't shoot much over 100 yards with our bows anyways.Gerhard von Liebau wrote:Thanks for the information, folks! I've decided that I'm going to build an English style butte, using a mound of earth some 4' tall and covered in grass (eventually) and having handmade grape vine wreaths for center targets. I can do all of this from my yard, as of this moment, so it should be a relatively quick and fulfilling projec
-Gerhard
Griff,Griffin de Stockport wrote:
We'll be building one too now. We have official permission from a member of our Canton to build it on her farm. We'll research ours over the winter and hopefully start building it in the spring. There's just not enough time to get going on it now with autumn settling in quickly here. However, with the field she's letting us use, we could eventually build probably five or six on both sides of the field and have shoots that go back and forth. I'd think it's a good 100 yards or so if I remember it right. So not the 220 yard Church Green but that's fine. Most of us can't shoot much over 100 yards with our bows anyways.
Grif
Sorry, that made me laugh... I suppose this is rather ground breaking.Mac wrote:He is doing ground breaking stuff...
I try to chose my words carefully, and sometimes it even works.Gerhard von Liebau wrote:Sorry, that made me laugh... I suppose this is rather ground breaking.Mac wrote:He is doing ground breaking stuff...
I'm not discouraged by the idea that my mound might not be perfectly accurate - I doubt it's possible for us to be sure of any recreation of a butte with what information is available to us. I read an essay on targets and shooting competition styles over at the SCA Archery page, and it seems reasonable enough that a mound of soft earth with a wreath, painted white on its face, should be appropriate enough for my purposes.
I'm actually headed outside to build up the mound, now. In fact, I hope to do the whole damn thing today, including a wreath. I'll post pictures later.
-Gerhard
You read a page on targets on the SCA archery page and you feel you can make any sort of comment on the information available to us?Gerhard von Liebau wrote:I'm not discouraged by the idea that my mound might not be perfectly accurate - I doubt it's possible for us to be sure of any recreation of a butte with what information is available to us. I read an essay on targets and shooting competition styles over at the SCA Archery page, and it seems reasonable enough that a mound of soft earth with a wreath, painted white on its face, should be appropriate enough for my purposes.Mac wrote:He is doing ground breaking stuff...
Actually, I read an article discussing various original sources pertaining to historical tournaments and the targets that were used. I'm not at liberty to share the document directly here because it is not mine to share, but you're welcome to join free and instantly at the "SCA Archery" Yahoo! Group posted above by Ranif. If you go to the 'files' section and then to 'period targets & competitions" you'll be in the right place. A variety of contemporary documents were researched to put the article together, and I think it was an interesting read.MediumAevum wrote:You read a page on targets on the SCA archery page and you feel you can make any sort of comment on the information available to us?
If you want to shoot at a dirt pile find a pile of clean dirt and shoot at it. Its much less work with the same result.
While following 'traditional' methods doesn't make them right there is enough similarities to atleast start with them in this case. But I will also say there is enough time and difference to certainly look into sources for evidence as to how it was done in the Middle Ages.Butts are composed of turfs of earth, and are in form nearly square, though somewhat resembling a wedge. Those turfs which are dug from a common, where the grass is short, with roots of heath-plants matted in it, are preferred to all others. These are laid upon each other, and pressed tightly together. The length of each butt in front is generally somewhat more than nine feet, the height seven feet, four feet deep at the base, and one foot four inches broad at the top.
These are placed at various distances, generally in sets, and so disposed that they do not stand in the way of the archer when shooting at any of the lengths. Upon them is placed the mark, (about breast-high,) which is a circular piece of thin white pasteboard, of about four inches in diameter.
Other butts, which are now more approved of, are made of straw, laid first in trusses, and then pressed down as tightly as possible, the ends being afterwards cut smooth. Butts of this description, being kept under cover, are very durable, and, from their never injuring the arrow, must be pronounced preferable to those made of earth.
The great advantage of butts is, that they save the trouble of carrying targets and their stands to the ground; nothing more being necessary in butt-shooting than the small pasteboard target, of which we have before spoken, which may be conveyed without any inconvenience to the place of exercise, and easily fixed on the butt. Earthen butts, or mounds, for archers to practise at, were formerly erected by statute in every parish in England. 33 Henry VIII. cap. 9.
I was talking to another Archive member a few months ago about people who have or are good with information contributing here as they indicated it was not done as often and was once done, and here is the thing. You have to show that you have done enough looking and seeking to learn about it to make it worth me spending my time to contribute. You didn't do that, in fact you should have been the one who posted that description that I found on a simple search of the list you posted. The only reason I did that was because this was a topic I was looking into earlier this summer and I was wondering if there was anything in there I hadn't seen and if the article you were referring to was the same one I had already read.Gerhard von Liebau wrote: Sorry if I came off huffy towards you in the last post. I take much more kindly to criticism if it's mixed with contribution.
If that is your criteria you are still no where near it, even assuming the approach would work. Thus far the descriptions seem to indicate sod, now assuming the structural elements of sod aren't important then your ratio probably isn't right as what you will basically be doing is making something similar to daub. And that even assumes that your soil can create a decent bond as it looks pretty sandy cause we are talking about something made in NW Europe and not California.Gerhard von Liebau wrote: I want to make a mound that has a realistic ratio of dirt to matting.
Butts are composed of turfs of earth, and are in form nearly square, though somewhat resembling a wedge. Those turfs which are dug from a common, where the grass is short, with roots of heath-plants matted in it, are preferred to all others. These are laid upon each other, and pressed tightly together. The length of each butt in front is generally somewhat more than nine feet, the height seven feet, four feet deep at the base, and one foot four inches broad at the top.
These are placed at various distances, generally in sets, and so disposed that they do not stand in the way of the archer when shooting at any of the lengths. Upon them is placed the mark, (about breast-high,) which is a circular piece of thin white pasteboard, of about four inches in diameter.
Other butts, which are now more approved of, are made of straw, laid first in trusses, and then pressed down as tightly as possible, the ends being afterwards cut smooth. Butts of this description, being kept under cover, are very durable, and, from their never injuring the arrow, must be pronounced preferable to those made of earth.
The great advantage of butts is, that they save the trouble of carrying targets and their stands to the ground; nothing more being necessary in butt-shooting than the small pasteboard target, of which we have before spoken, which may be conveyed without any inconvenience to the place of exercise, and easily fixed on the butt. Earthen butts, or mounds, for archers to practise at, were formerly erected by statute in every parish in England. 33 Henry VIII. cap. 9.
