FRENCH ARCHERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 August 1939, Page 7

FRENCH ARCHERS

ANCIENT ASSOCIATIONS. SECRET RITES & CEREMONIES. Fontainebleau has just been the scene of a great gathering of archers of the region around Paris, when more than fifty companies of archers took part in a competition and festivities in the magnificent park of the famous chateau. 36 miles from Paris.

The companies of archers trace their history back to the year 840. the date of the first charter between a King of France. Charles the Bald. and the Grand Masters of the Archers of the Kingdom.

Until the thirteenth century, few other documents are found concerning archers, but Saint Louis. Louis IX published a decree counselling the ■‘practice of the noble art of the bow rather than other less interesting sports,” and he himself had his name put on the scroll of a company of archers of Paris.

Charles V. in 1360. suppressed all sports that did not fit men to carry arms and ordered his subjects to practice with the. bow and crossbow on all open spaces. This order remained in force under the successors of Charles V, and a special permission had to be obtain for the practice of any other sport. In spite of the crossbow, the bow remained in honour long after the fourteenth century in the north of France, as in Belgium and England. Traces are found of the existence of the old Companies of Archers, even as late as the eighteenth century’ in the principal towns of France, notably at Fontainebleau, whose company possesses the original act' of its foundation, dated July 12, 1698. The minutes of its meetings are complete from 1733. Companies of Archers today arc found for the most part in France in the region of the Ile-de-France, the Oise, the Somme. Picardy, and the Aisne, and in all the principal towns of these regions there are regular archery butts. The Federation of Companies of Archers today numbers more than 4.000 members.

Every new member of a Company of Archers receives the title of Chevalier, or Knight. Above him are the Constable, the King, the Emperor, the Captain, the Lieutenant, the Ensign and the Provost.

The King of a company of archers is a much envied title and can be gained only by skill, and the post is competed for each year. If an archer wins the title of King three years in succession then he becomes Emperor, which is very rare, and he keeps the title for life.

The archers have their secret rites, and an article of their rules declares "Any Knight who shall reveal the secret of the oath will be guilty of falsehood before God and before his fellow men, and will be expelled from his Company and be declared unworthy to draw a bow.” Besides aiming at targets on the ground, the French archers aim at "birds,” a few feathers strung together hung on a high pole. The archers ainr almost vertically. One of them, asked recently whether the skill of the archers such as depicted in “Ivanhoe” could be equalled today, replied by taking the inquirer into a part of the field whore trees protected him from the wind. There he shot off an arrow into the air, and before it could fall hit it with a second arrow.