Toxophilus
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''Toxophilus'' is a book about longbow
archery Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a Bow and arrow, bow to shooting, shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting ...
by Roger Ascham, first published in London in 1545. Dedicated to King Henry VIII, it is the first book on archery written in English. Ascham was a keen archer and a lecturer at
St John's College, Cambridge St John's College, formally the College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge, is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch L ...
, and wrote ''Toxophilus or the Schole or Partitions of Shooting'' to defend archery against claims that it was a sport unbefitting a scholar. ''Toxophilus'' is written in the form of a dialogue between two characters, Philologus ("a lover of study") and Toxophilus ("a lover of the bow"), who is also a scholar and defends archery as a noble pastime. Ascham prefixed his work with an elaborate dedication to Henry VIII, who approved of the book and granted Ascham a pension of £10 a year, which was confirmed and augmented by Edward VI.


Influence on English

As well as being the earliest printed book in English about archery, ''Toxophilus'' is also important as a model for how books of instruction could be written in English (rather than Latin) and how English could be written in a clear style, for as he remarks in his preface "To All Gentle Men and Yeomen of England": "Many English writers have not done so, but using strange words, as Latin, French, and Italian, do make all things dark and hard." So, unlike other scholars writing in English at the time, such as Thomas Elyot and John Cheke, he avoided neologisms and flowery classical terms, and "succeeded in making his English work as a vehicle of wide communication ... Some of the passages describing the environment (for example, the way in which the wind could interfere with the aim of an expert archer) were vivid and at the time unparalleled in English writing." The word "Toxophilus" was invented by Ascham. The noun "toxophilite", meaning "a lover or devotee of archery, an archer", is derived from it.


History of archery

The next major work on archery in English was ''The Art of Archerie'' by Gervase Markham, published in London in 1634. ''Toxophilus'' has served as a source book for many subsequent works on the history of archery, for example '' The Archer's Craft'' by A. E. Hodgkin.


Editions

* Ascham, Roger; ed. Arber, Edward (1868). ''English Reprints: Toxophilus, 1545''. London: Murray. * Ascham, Roger; ed. Wright, William Aldis (1904). ''English Works: Toxophilus, Report of the Affaires and State of Germany, The Scholemaster''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


See also

* 16th century in literature


References


Further reading

* Hardy, Robert (2006). ''Longbow: A Social and Military History''. Patrick Stephens Ltd. . * Ryan, L. V. (1963). ''Roger Ascham''. Stanford University Press. .


External links


''Toxophilus'' - online text at the Archery Library
* {{librivox book , title=Toxophilus 1545 books Books about sports English-language non-fiction books History of archery