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There were no English-speaking places that used bows extensively. The closest would've been Early Modern English, which is still drastically different to Modern

There were no English-speaking places that used bows extensively. The closest would've been Early Modern English, which is still drastically different to Modern English. If the actors were actually speaking Shakespearean English then sure, it would be wrong for them to say "fire"/"fyr", but if they did that then you wouldn't understand half of what they're saying. I'm sure there's a few actual examples of this though, for scenes depicting battles in England after 1800 or so that use bows. I would still say it's debatable whether you could consider this truly modern English but it's close enough.

IAmBroom 1y ago
All of which is extraneous to the question, "Did armies use volleys of arrows?". If the French-speaking English commanders at Agincourt told their archer captains to "Laissez-y" instead of "Fire!", what difference does that make? (For context, King Henry V of Agincourt fame is considered to probably have been the first English monarch who spoke English as a mother tongue, and may have been the first who was remotely proficient in it.)
- Asraelite 1y ago
  ...Yeah? I'm not disagreeing with the rest of the article, just specifically the part about criticising media's use of the word "fire" instead of "loose".