> What you're saying is that a hypothetical archer-commander might be less likely to be mentioned than cavalry due to being lower status. Potentially, yes, but what matters here is that they're more likely to be mentioned than archers, who are even lower-status. Wherever archers are mentioned, this archer-commander ought to be mentioned too.
I don't think this follows in practice, particularly since what's missing here is not names of archer captains but descriptions of the mechanics of volley firing (which may have been routine in certain circumstances, or not). Seems like attribution of the outcome to the excellence of the calvalry captains' flank attacks and valor of the Lord's retinue in holding the centre whilst merely noting that a grouping of archers were present without attributing anything to any decisions made by any individual archers at any level is pretty consistent with their low prestige (apart from Agincourt and a possibly apocryphal story about Harold Godwinson, archers don't seem to get much credit at all for being decisive, despite archery being important enough for peasants who wielded blunt instruments and blades in their day job to get compulsory longbow training).
Brett's argument that longbow volley firing would be difficult to time and probably not beneficial (especially compared with musket volleys) is compelling, but the argument that battle narratives don't really describe volleys, except in translations of words that may not have meant volley, isn't really in a context where archers rarely get much credit for anything .
I don't think this follows in practice, particularly since what's missing here is not names of archer captains but descriptions of the mechanics of volley firing (which may have been routine in certain circumstances, or not). Seems like attribution of the outcome to the excellence of the calvalry captains' flank attacks and valor of the Lord's retinue in holding the centre whilst merely noting that a grouping of archers were present without attributing anything to any decisions made by any individual archers at any level is pretty consistent with their low prestige (apart from Agincourt and a possibly apocryphal story about Harold Godwinson, archers don't seem to get much credit at all for being decisive, despite archery being important enough for peasants who wielded blunt instruments and blades in their day job to get compulsory longbow training).
Brett's argument that longbow volley firing would be difficult to time and probably not beneficial (especially compared with musket volleys) is compelling, but the argument that battle narratives don't really describe volleys, except in translations of words that may not have meant volley, isn't really in a context where archers rarely get much credit for anything .