2 August 2021
When visiting English and Welsh parish churches there are a number of commonly repeated stories which fall into the category of received wisdom. Such tales are believed so profoundly that they are rarely ever questioned. One such story is that there are shallow grooves cut into stones which were created by mediaeval archers, honing their arrows, during practice sessions prior to fighting in the Hundred Years War.
Around the western doorway of St Alphege Solihull, constructed in 1535, is an impressive collection of 144 gouges and 102 grooves. The circular gouges are variously a few millimetres to 5-6cm in diameter and the vertical grooves range in width from a narrow slit to 7-8cm. The grooves taper at their tops and bottoms and can be either a stubby 6-8cm in length or a more gracile 15-20cm. The church guide states that: ‘The stones on either side of the door are deeply incised and are known as arrow stones. The incisions are arrow sharpening marks. To maintain a trained body of archers Edward III commanded, in 1363, that every man should practise at the butts on Sundays and holidays, all other sports being forbidden. The long marks have been made by Broadheads, the round by Bodkins – types of arrowheads used with the long bows of the time.’ (Patterson 2019, 5).
We might imagine a mediaeval archer huddled against the masonry, drawing the steel tip of an arrow up and down the stonework to create a sharp edge on the projectile, before heading off to practice his art at the town butts.
Military Matters
The story is repeated across the land and can be found at churches including St Mary’s Walsgrave, St John’s Glastonbury and St Peter’s Newborough. Sometimes the tale is varied to refer to the sharpening of other blades, such as agricultural tools, at St James’ Aslackby and All Saints Lambley. However, the vast majority of examples have a martial context. Grooves on a window cill at St Margaret’s Stoke Golding are explained as having been created by soldiers preparing their weapons prior to the battle of Bosworth Field (Collett 2001, 52). Most popular of all are the traditions which link stones to English victories in France such as Crécy in 1346 (St Wilfrid’s Wilford) or Azincourt in 1415 (St Edburgha’s Yardley, St Edmund’s Fenny Bentley and Brecon Cathedral).
The Solihull church guidebook refers to Edward III’s 1363 legislation that every man of Kent ‘if he be able-bodied, shall, upon holidays, make use, in his games, of bows and arrows…and so learn and practise archery’ (Morgan 1923, 150). The king later went on to insist, in 1369, that the men of London who were ‘strong in body, at leisure times on holidays, use in their recreations bows and arrows… and learn and exercise the art of shooting’ (Hardy 1986, 97). During the Hundred Years War, the English relied on the astonishing power of massed ranks of archers shooting war bows which, in capable hands, could launch at least six near-metre long arrows per minute (Roth 2012, 160).
Boys would train from as early as 6 years of age and men aged between 15 and 60 could be conscripted. The Venetian traveller Dominic Mancini visited England in the early 1480s and noted that youths ‘go out into the fields with bows and arrows’. His near-contemporary Hugh Latimer recalled his own training during the 1490s: ‘…my father was so diligent to teach me to Shoote as to learn any other thynge; and so I thynke other men dyd theyr children. He taught me how to draw, how to lay my bodye in my bowe, and not to draw with strength of armes as other nacions do but with strength of bodye’ (Roth 2012, 124-26).
Documented Archery Practices
It is often stated that archers used the stonework of churches to sharpen their arrows because training at the butts took place in the churchyard (Friar 1996, 23). However, various prohibitions were enforced against archery within churchyards. In 1354-55 John Thoresby, Archbishop of York, commanded that ‘no one in church, or porch, or cemetery, on Sundays & holy days, keep market or place of selling; let wrestlings, archery meetings, and games be forbidden therein’ (Mackenzie 1879, 114).
Whilst it is admitted that the imposition of laws could indicate that the newly banned activities were possibly taking place, the majority of churchyards were simply too small for archery. By the 1540s, Henry VIII legislated that archers over the age of 24 must not shoot from less than 220 yards (201.17 metres) from the target (Tomlins & Taunton 1817, 838). In 1590, Sir Roger Williams stated that an archer would routinely hit a target from 240-280 yards (219.46 – 256.03 metres) distant. His contemporary, Sir John Smythe, put a maximum range for the war bow at 480 yards (438.91 metres). Modern experiments have tended to back up these figures and indicate ranges of 350-450 yards (320.04 – 411.48 metres) (Roth 2012, 66-67, 160).
Early maps contain fieldnames which help us to precisely identify where archers used to train – John Walker’s 1591 map of Chelmsford included a large enclosure to the north-west of the town known as Bvtt Fyelde. The word frequently survives as a street name – Butt Lane at Normanton-on-Soar (Nottinghamshire), The Hempbutts in Stone (Staffordshire) and Butt Hole Road at Conisbrough (South Yorkshire). These locations were separate to churchyards meaning that the archers would not be in close proximity to the buildings they are alleged to have used to sharpen their arrows on.
Roger Ascham’s detailed archery manual of 1545 – Toxophilius – stated that standard elements of an archer’s equipment included portable whetstones and files for sharpening broadhead arrows – primarily used in hunting (Arber 1868, 160). However, as broadheads would have damaged the hempen butts, and bodkins were designed to detach on impact, archers trained with rounded steel piles or blunts made from horn, antler and wood (Roth 2012, 43-47; Hardy 1986, 201). There was simply no need to repeatedly scrape the heads of arrows up and down the walls of a church as practice arrows did not need to be sharpened.
Furthermore, it was impractical to try and hone a sharp edge against many stones. For example, soft Triassic sandstones found in association with grooves at St Mary Magdalene Keyworth and Holy Trinity Wysall would have had a blunting rather than sharpening effect on an edge. The petrology of very few churches would have been suitable as a glorified whetstone.
The distances required between archer and targets, the prohibition on using churchyards for practice, the fact that training arrows did not need to be sharpened and the impracticality of using certain types of stones in sharpening all combine to raise serious questions about the conventional “arrow stones” story. If there doubt about the tale, is there evidence which can offer alternative explanations?
European Traditions
When assessing the folklore of “arrow stones” the vast majority of English and Welsh renditions relate to archers. However, gouged and grooved stonework is a wider European phenomeon and sharpening is not the usual folkloric explanation given. Examples at French sites, such as St Arthemy Blanzac-Porcheresse and the Chapelle des Templiers at Cressac-St_Genis, have tales of pilgrims ritualistically rubbing their hands over the stonework to create pitting (Source: La Giraudière). In Scotland (Lady, Sanday) and Italy (San Pietro Somaldi, Lucca) the marks are considered to be the Devil’s claw marks. Similarly hellish are the traditions, recorded at Poznań (Poland), relating to the souls of the damned scratching at the buildings (Andrews 1889, 156).
Elsewhere in Poland alternative narratives have been suggested. These include theories that the marks could be linked to the insertion of bow-drills into the walls of churches to create a flame to light the Pashcal candle, a type of penitence in which holes were ground in the walls to expiate sins or the use of dust from churches to use in curative potions. The latter resonates with anthropological data collected by Charles Rau (1881, 88-89). He recorded that grooves were still being cut into the stonework of churches at Voanas (France), Valais (Switzerland) and Greifswald (Germany). The local communities reported to Rau that the stone-dust was then used in potions intended to cure fevers. The practice was also current in Ireland during the early twentieth century. The historian James O’Connor (1991, 5-7) recorded oral traditions of childless women who scraped a specific stone in the churchyard at Kiltinan (Tipperary) to use in folk medicines.
Mediaeval Accounts
Alongside the relatively late anthropological data, there are documented accounts of the use of stone, dust and earth, taken from holy places, to be used in mediaeval folk practices. The earliest reference comes from the seventh century when Bede described the removal of matter, by pilgrims, from the place where the sainted king Oswald of Northumbria died. He first calls it pulverem (dust) and then terra (earth). Elsewhere, Bede referred to the removal of dust from the pavement at Bardney Abbey – where Oswald’s bones were washed – and of earth from the places where St Alban and Bishop Haeddi died (Sherley-Price & Latham 1968, 61, 156, 159-60, 304). The locations and structures related to holy individuals appear to have venerated and were considered to have important physical properties.
In the mid-twelfth century, Thomas of Monmouth’s Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich states that pilgrims would scrape stone from the saint’s tomb, mix it with holy water and drink the potion in the hope of cures for ailments including fever, dysentery and various infirmities (Jessopp & James 1896, 162). A similar tradition was reported by, the late thirteenth to early fourteenth century the chronicler, William Rishanger who recorded that folk visiting the burial site of Simon de Montfort at Evesham Abbey would harvest dust from his tomb (Maddicott 1994, 649; Halliwell 1840, 73, 107). The practice was also noted at the tomb of St Hugh of Lincoln and the fourteenth century traveller John Mandeville recorded that pilgrims had been scraping or breaking away pieces of stone from the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (Morrison 2019, 16-17).
In a paper on the ritual use of holy dust, Susan Morrison of Texas State University has pointed towards the gathering of dust, earth and stone scrapings from mediaeval structures which were then mixed with holy water or wine and consumed as a curative potion. Alongside numerous English examples, Morrison also notes the practice at the shrines of St Verena (Bad Zurzach, Switzerland) and St Martin (Tours, France) and of earth from around the tomb of St Isabelle (Longchamps, France) (Morrison 2019, 16-17). The behaviour may possibly derive from late tenth and early eleventh century Arab-Islamic medicine – which went on to have a significant impact within Christian Europe. In this tradition, stone dust was incorporated in mineral poultices which were applied in attempted cures for various cancers (Zaid et al 2012, 2). This may account for grooves found at Egyptian sites including Luxor and Dakka.
The historian Keith Thomas (1971, 29-31, 35-36) has pointed out that all ecclesiastical structures, not limited to churches and shrines, were considered to have special powers due to their ritual consecration. This might account for grooves and gouges found on structures such as the Edgar Tower at Worcester Cathedral and the base of the preaching cross at Suckley (Worcestershire). The latter is intriguing because the grooves can be found on the interior of the socket which once held the shaft of the mediaeval cross. The shaft was presumably removed after the Reformation. This archaeological observation, which indicates that the practice of making grooves was potentially current in the post-mediaeval period, sits well with Rau and O’Connor’s anthropological data.
Secular Buildings
Curiously, the marks can also be found on a small number of mediaeval secular buildings including the castles of Sterling, Doune, Dirleton and Caernarfon. Often, the given explanation at such sites is that they were the result of soldiers or kitchen servants sharpening their blades. However, recently I have been in communication with a number of blacksmiths who have expressed extreme scepticism that the marks could be the result of sharpening. They have concluded that running a blade through such grooves would be more likely to dull it.
Domestic buildings were also venues for ritualised practices (for more on this look no further than our recent blog post on burn marks in historic buildings). Castle specialists including Oliver Creighton (2002, 110-132), Sarah Speight (2004, 271-80) and Abigail Wheatley (2004, 78-111) have written extensively about the religious and spiritual aspects of mediaeval castles. We should not be too quick to assume that, in the mediaeval period, the line between the sacred and secular worlds was drawn as sharply as it is in the modern world.
Finally, grooves can also be found on post-mediaeval secular buildings including 5 Coleshill Street, Sutton Coldfield (West Midlands) and Stanhope House, Bromborough (Merseyside). Given that the phenomena could be found in mediaeval secular contexts and is known to have survived well into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in European folk traditions, the Reformation did not necessarily end all practices which began during the mediaeval Catholic era and many people apparently continued their beliefs quietly and privately.
Conclusions
The mediaeval evidence seems to indicate that archers did not use arrows which required sharpening whilst at practice. Meanwhile, broadhead hunting arrows were sharpened with a whetstone. Contemporary records point towards the harvesting of holy stone-dust for use in folk medicine. Later anthropological data hints at a widespread post-mediaeval continuity of the practice across Europe. Grooves are primarily found in ecclesiastical contexts but can also appear on secular structures as well – the lines of division between these two outlooks were not necessarily as sharp in the past as they are today.
The practice seems to have been widespread across Europe but, on the mainland, other explanations are given. However, in English folklore, the arrow-sharpening theory seems to have taken a firm hold. This may be related to a nationalistic pride in the military actions of the Hundred Years War. In particular, the victory at Azincourt, in 1415, by a force including 5-6000 archers against an overwhelming French army, has, to a great extent, been fetishized as part of a version English national identity. It is this deep-rooted national pride that may have led to such widespread association between mediaeval archers and so-called “arrow stones”.
For the communities of many villages and towns “arrow stones” represent a highly localised, physical manifestation of a nationalistic pride in former members of their communities who are supposed to have participated in famous English military victories. Unfortunately, the archaeological, anthropological and documentary evidence does not seem to substantiate such claims and, notwithstanding other folkloric explanations, the gouges and grooves in our churches may actually be the result of long-forgotten ritualised folk medicine.
References
Andrews, W., 1889, ‘Cup and circle markings on church walls in Warwickshire and the neighbourhood’ in The Archaeological Journal Vol. 46. Royal Archaeological Institute. London.
Arber, E., 1868, Roger Ascham: Toxophilius, 1545. Alex Murray. London.
Collett, A. J., 2001 (2nd edition), St Margaret’s Church, Stoke Golding. Jones-Sands Publishing. Coventry.
Creighton, O., 2002, Castles and Landscapes. Equinox. Sheffield.
Friar, S., 1996, A Companion to the English Parish Church. Sutton Publishing. Stroud.
Halliwell, J. O., 1840, The Chronicle of William Rishanger of the Barons Wars: The Miracles of Simon de Montfort. Camden Society. London.
Hardy, R., 1986, Longbow – A Social and Military History. Mary Rose Trust. Portsmouth.
Jessopp, A. & James, M. R. (ed.’s), 1896, The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.
Mackenzie, E. C. W., 1879, ‘Parish Churches Before the Reformation’ in Associated Architectural Societies Reports and Papers Volume 15. James Williamson. Lincoln.
Maddicott, J. R., 1994, ‘Follower, Leader, Pilgrim, Saint: Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, at the Shrine of Simon de Montfort, 1273’ in The English Historical Review Volume 109. Oxford University Press. Oxford.
Morgan, R. B., 1923, Readings in English Social History. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.
Morrison, S. S., 2019, ‘Dynamic Dirt: Medieval Holy Dust, Ritual Erosion, and Pilgrimage Ecopoetics’ in Open Library of Humanities, 5(1): 30.
O’Connor, J., 1991, Sheela Na Gig. Fethard Historical Society.
Patterson, D., 2019, The Parish Church of St Alphege, Solihull. Parish Communications Group. Solihull.
Rau, C., 1881, ‘Observations on cup-shaped and other lapidarian sculptures in the Old World and in America’ in North American Ethnology Volume 5. Government Printing Office. Washington.
Roth, E., 2012 (2017 edition), With A Bended Bow – Archery in Mediaeval and Renaissance Europe. Spellmount. Stroud.
Sherley-Price, L. & Latham, R. E. (ed.’s), 1968, Bede: A History of the English Church and People. Penguin. London.
Speight, S. J., 2004, ‘Religion in the Bailey: Charters, Chapels and the Clergy’ in Chateau Gaillard 21: Actes du colloque international de Maynooth. CRAHM.
Thomas, K., 1971 (1991 edition), Religion and the Decline of Magic. Penguin. London.
Tomlins, T. E. & Taunton, W. E., 1817, The Statutes of the Realm: Printed by Command of His Majesty King George the Third, in Pursuance of an Address of the House of Commons of Great Britain. From Original Records and Authentic Manuscripts, Volume 3. Dawsons. London.
Wheatley, A., 2004 (2015 edition), The Idea of the Castle in Medieval England. York Medieval Press. Woodbridge.
Zaid, H., Silbermann, M., Ben-Eyre, E. & Saad, B., 2012, ‘Greco-Arab and Islamic Herbal-Derived Anticancer Modalities: From Tradition to Molecular Mechanisms’ in Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Hindawi Publishing Corporation.
About the author
James Wright is an award-winning buildings archaeologist who runs Triskele Heritage. He has two decades professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens. He hopes to find meaningful truths about how ordinary and extraordinary folk lived their lives in the mediaeval period.
He welcomes contact through Twitter or email.
The Mediaeval Mythbusting Blog blog is the basis of a forthcoming book – Historic Building Mythbusting – Uncovering Folklore, History and Archaeology which will be released via The History Press on 6 June 2024. More information can be found here:
