At least looking at artwork from the time, quivers are quite rare: arrow bags or no quiver at all is the norm, at least so far as contemporary illuminations show.Daerir wrote:I am no historian by any means so take what I say lightly but, if I'm not mistaken most quivers were used by archers in warfare. Archers would use ground quivers so they could shoot more than a dozen or two dozen arrows. I'm sure they also used hip quivers but at the same time archers more than likely didn't pursue at high speeds. Retreat maybe but hopefully by the time they have to fall back they are out of arrows and the enemy is nearly gone lol. When I see a back quiver I think of it as more tactical.
Now.... note all the qualifiers in "high medieval European context."
Later medieval period, looking at contemporary illuminations, we see arrows carried in two contexts:
A. hunting parties (typically high-born recreational hunting at that).
B. line military archers in a set-piece battle.
What do we NOT see in high medieval illuminations?
Guerilla-ish combatants enagaging in combat on patrols in the wilderness. i.e..... Rangers.
The only true quivers I recall in (post-Classical) art are those of the Bayeux tapestry, which are pretty universally represented as hip quivers (with one arguable case).
My PERSONAL opinion is that the arrow bags of the high medieval era are an artifact of their context: levied or professional soldiery in a setpiece mostly centrally supplied battle. I think it's perfectly possible to trek the wilderness for weeks at a time with a high medieval arrow bag: I simply don't think it's the ideal solution for that context. Because English yeomen weren't Dunedain Rangers, didn't have the same constraints, and had different ends in mind.
("Put as many arrows as possible into those 2000 charging Frenchmen in the next 90 seconds" is an entirely different challenge than "keep these 50 square miles clear of unpredictable, scattered orc patrols for the next month.")
I do think the semi-pliable leathern back quiver is a better solution than 14th c. arrowbags for the forest-dwelling guerrilla who'll be scouting more than shooting - and far better than a few arrows shoved through a belt. I'm not convinced it's the best solution.
... but it worked for 18th-19th c. Aboriginal Americans in a similar context, so.... it clearly is an adequate solution for the task.