I received a comment telling me that some unnamed experts had provided Andersen's with pictographical evidence of back quivers used in Medieval Europe. Andersen himself showed in his video some pictures of quivers hanging at the hip belt of archers, and he does not deny the existence of back quivers altogether.
But I have never seen a proof of medieval or modern period European archers using back quivers. In the manner of proper scientific method I am always open for corrections, so I ask you to provide me a medieval, or modern period (or whatever period), picture, drawing, painting, fresco, graffito, relief, statue, miniature, mosaic, glass painting, etc. pictographical evidence of European (or from anywhere) archer or crossbowman using a back quiver.
So...
WANTED: A historical illustration of archer wearing a quiver on his back.
In the meantime, I will provide my own evidence. I tried to find any image of back quivers, but mostly couldn't find any. Here are a collection of pictures I found of archers and crossbowmen, and almost all of them are using hip quivers. Some had tuck their arrows inside their belts, some carried them by hand and some didn't have spare arrows at all (artists mistake?), but not much back quivers.
There are one dubious example of a back quiver I could find. It's on the famous Bayeux tapestry, which tells the story of William the Conqueror conquering England roughly one thousand years ago. The picture is not of highest quality, because of it's age and the method of making. Anatomy, perspective and several other things are incorrect in this tapestry, so I don't know if this counts as firm proof. And the belt/baldric of that one quiver is depicted wrong, I am not sure if they have tried to depict a back quiver or a hip quiver, since the quiver is at shoulder level, but the belt looks like a hip belt and not like a shoulder baldric. Even if that would be a proper back quiver, it is only one picture, the only one I've seen so far. All the three other bowmen in that same scene of the Bayeux tapestry have ordinary hip quivers.
I will show the Bayeux tapestry example last. First, pictures of archers with hip quivers:
From medieval Roman 'Alexander manuscript'.
Death of Saint Edmund, the King of Essex.
Depiction of Burgundian archers in the battle of Grandson (1476) in Lucerne Chronicle.
Mythical man-animal creature.
Shooting of St. Sebastian.
Archer Drawing a Bow by Pietro Vannucci Perugino.
Looks like Leonardo DaVinci's style to me.
Asiatic horse archer.
Horse archer.
Shooting of St. Sebastian, once more.
Early modern period Hungarian.
Knight on horseback with a bow.
Polish king Jagiello, 1418.
Some pictures from Islamic books too.
And horse archers.
And now the Bayeux tapestry picture, which has three archers with hip quivers and one with something which looks like a hip quiver but not worn properly:
Since this post is quite long already, I will continue with pictures of bowmen without a quiver in the next post, later.
So far: 39 different pictures with hip quivers, only one which may be a back quiver.
