Archery World

Back then, it was its own thing.

Later bows were replaced with muskets, but you still had pikemen and other infantry armed with melee weapons.

Later they developed the bayonette making all muskets infantry and eliminated the need for pikemen.

Artillery and engineers were a seperate part of the army that focused mainly on siege warfare and not on the battlefield fights because they took too long to set up.

As artillery got lighter, they seperated from the seige engineers and became part of the battlefied fight.

You had infantry (light, heavy, pikes), cavalry (light, heavy, later dragoons also), archers and slings (different types of bows, crossbows, slings and javalins), seige engineers (catapaults, trebuches, towers, rams, tunnelers and later cannons).

Archers were neither infantry, nor artillery — at least not as we know the terms today. Back then, there were Knights, men-at-arms, fighters and archers. To believe that the use of archers in battle was thought to be “cowardly” is also a mistake…in battle, there is no “cowardly” method of fighting if that method preserves your life and the lives of your comrades.

At the battles of Crecy and Agincourt, to name only two, the archers ended up mixed in with the “regular” infantry towards the end of the fighting. Since they could move about rather freely — whereas the “seige engines” could not — they were actually infantry **and** artillery; many carried swords, and not only knew how to use them, but did use them whenever necessary.

Think of it this way, if it helps: A modern military sniper still needs to know how to defend himself in hand-to-hand combat, even though he’s “just a sniper” — and the infantry-man needs to know how to shoot accurately, even though he rarely has the opportunity to shoot under (semi)controlled conditions.