An unlikely suicide?

The Eyre of Gloucester of 1287 was given a report by the hundred of Berkeley of the death of Thomas le Utlaghe.[JUST 1/278, m. 60]  He was said to have killed himself. So much, so familiar – eyre rolls and coroners’ rolls of the period have many reports of suicide. The method was, however, unusual. Thomas had, so the jurors said, not drowned, hanged or stabbed himself, the usual medieval methods. He had, rather, killed himself with an arrow. Now, I am no expert on medieval weaponry, but if this means that he shot himself, that does strike me as just a bit, well, difficult. Unless Thomas had rigged up some clever remotely triggered arrangement, it seems likely that somebody else might have been involved. The surname ‘le Utlaghe’ suggests that Thomas might have been something of a reprobate. Perhaps the good denizens of Berkeley were less than enthusiastic about having him for a neighbour.  Perhaps the idea is that he stabbed himself with the arrow, not using a bow. It would seem difficult to exert suifficient force, though.