Humble English archers defeated the armoured elite of French chivalry, enshrining both the longbow and the battle in English national legend. The battle remains an important symbol in popular culture. The military aspects of this account are similarly specious. Henry managed to subjugate Normandy in 1419, a victory that was followed by the Treaty of Troyes in 1420, which betrothed Henry to King Charles VIs daughter Catherine and named him heir to the French crown. [69] (The use of stakes was an innovation for the English: during the Battle of Crcy, for example, the archers had been instead protected by pits and other obstacles. The Burgundian sources have him concluding the speech by telling his men that the French had boasted that they would cut off two fingers from the right hand of every archer, so that he could never draw a longbow again. Mortimer also considers that the Gesta vastly inflates the English casualties 5,000 at Harfleur, and that "despite the trials of the march, Henry had lost very few men to illness or death; and we have independent testimony that no more than 160 had been captured on the way". [54] To disperse the enemy archers, a cavalry force of 8001,200 picked men-at-arms,[55] led by Clignet de Brban and Louis de Bosredon, was distributed evenly between both flanks of the vanguard (standing slightly forward, like horns). The Battle of Agincourt was dramatised by William Shakespeare in Henry V featuring the battle in which Henry inspired his much-outnumbered English forces to fight the French through a St Crispin's Day Speech, saying "the fewer men, the greater share of honour". The ransoming of prisoners was the only way for medieval soldiers to make a quick fortune, and so they seized every available opportunity to capture opponents who could be exchanged for handsome prices. But frankly, I suspect that the French would have done a lot worse to any captured English archers than chopping off their fingers. Jones, P. N. (1992). However, the lack of archaeological evidence at this traditional site has led to suggestions it was fought to the west of Azincourt. The image makes the further claim that the English soldiers chanted pluck yew, ostensibly in reference to the drawing of the longbow. The pl sound, the story goes, gradually changed into an f, giving the gesture its present meaning. It was a disastrous attempt. [26] He also intended the manoeuvre as a deliberate provocation to battle aimed at the dauphin, who had failed to respond to Henry's personal challenge to combat at Harfleur. This claim is false. It took place on 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin's Day) near Azincourt, in northern France. Departing from Harfleur on October 8, Henry marched northward toward the English-held port of Calais, where he would disembark for England, with a force of 1,000 knights and men-at-arms and 5,000 archers. This famous weapon was made of the native English yew tree, and so the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking yew". [56] Some 200 mounted men-at-arms would attack the English rear. Contents. Since the French had many more men-at-arms than the English, they would accordingly be accompanied by a far greater number of servants. The terrain favoured Henrys army and disadvantaged its opponent, as it reduced the numerical advantage of the French army by narrowing the front. The English had very little food, had marched 260 miles (420km) in two and a half weeks, were suffering from sickness such as dysentery, and were greatly outnumbered by well-equipped French men-at-arms. When the first French line reached the English front, the cavalry were unable to overwhelm the archers, who had driven sharpened stakes into the ground at an angle before themselves. . "[67] On top of this, the French were expecting thousands of men to join them if they waited. Probably each man-at-arms would be accompanied by a gros valet (or varlet), an armed servant, adding up to another 10,000 potential fighting men,[7] though some historians omit them from the number of combatants. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. But lets not quibble. [77][78][79][80] Rogers suggested that the longbow could penetrate a wrought iron breastplate at short range and penetrate the thinner armour on the limbs even at 220 yards (200m). The idea being that you need two fingers to draw a bow, which makes more sense, and thus links up a national custom with a triumphant moment in national history! [19], Henry V invaded France following the failure of negotiations with the French. The French could not cope with the thousands of lightly armoured longbowmen assailants (who were much less hindered by the mud and weight of their armour) combined with the English men-at-arms. [70]), The tightness of the terrain also seems to have restricted the planned deployment of the French forces. [82], The surviving French men-at-arms reached the front of the English line and pushed it back, with the longbowmen on the flanks continuing to shoot at point-blank range. According to research, heres the true story: Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured English soldiers. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore they would be incapable of fighting in the future. The historian Suetonius, writing about Augustus Caesar, says the emperor expelled [the entertainer] Pylades . [127], Shakespeare's play presented Henry as leading a truly English force into battle, playing on the importance of the link between the monarch and the common soldiers in the fight. [c], The English made their confessions before the battle, as was customary. "Guardian newspaper:French correction: Henry V's Agincourt fleet was half as big, historian claims, 28 July 2015", "Living Dictionary of the French Language", "Limitations imposed by wearing armour on Medieval soldiers' locomotor performance", "High Court Rules for French at Agincourt", "High Court Justices, Legal Luminaries Debate Shakespeare's 'Henry V', "The Development of Battle Tactics in the Hundred Years War", "Historians Reassess Battle of Agincourt", The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, "Henry V's Greatest Victory is Besieged by Academia", The Little Grey Horse Henry V's Speech at Agincourt and the Battle Exhortation in Ancient Historiography, "The Battle of Agincourt: An Alternative location? The Battle of Agincourt took place during the the Hundred Years' War, a conflict which, despite its name, was neither one single war nor did it last one hundred years. Poitiers 1356: The capture of a king (Vol. T he battle of Agincourt, whose 600th anniversary falls on St Crispin's Day, 25 October, is still tabloid gold, Gotcha! Clip from the 1944 movie "Henry V" (137 min). What it is supposed to represent I have no idea. He claimed the title of King of France through his great-grandfather Edward III of England, although in practice the English kings were generally prepared to renounce this claim if the French would acknowledge the English claim on Aquitaine and other French lands (the terms of the Treaty of Brtigny). By most contemporary accounts, the French army was also significantly larger than the English, though the exact degree of their numerical superiority is disputed. [90] In his study of the battle John Keegan argued that the main aim was not to actually kill the French knights but rather to terrorise them into submission and quell any possibility they might resume the fight, which would probably have caused the uncommitted French reserve forces to join the fray, as well. The French monk of St. Denis describes the French troops as "marching through the middle of the mud where they sank up to their knees. Shakespeare's portrayal of the casualty loss is ahistorical in that the French are stated to have lost 10,000 and the English 'less than' thirty men, prompting Henry's remark, "O God, thy arm was here". [130] Critic David Margolies describes how it "oozes honour, military glory, love of country and self-sacrifice", and forms one of the first instances of English literature linking solidarity and comradeship to success in battle. The one-finger salute, or at any rate sexual gestures involving the middle finger, are thousands of years old. Rogers suggested that the French at the back of their deep formation would have been attempting to literally add their weight to the advance, without realising that they were hindering the ability of those at the front to manoeuvre and fight by pushing them into the English formation of lancepoints. Winston Churchhill can be seen using the V as a rallying call. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1991 ISBN 0-471-53672-5 (pp. The English King Henry V and his troops were marching to Calais to embark for England when he was intercepted by forces which outnumbered his. Its origins can be traced back to 1066 . [23] Thomas Morstede, Henry V's royal surgeon,[24] had previously been contracted by the king to supply a team of surgeons and makers of surgical instruments to take part in the Agincourt campaign. While numerous English sources give the English casualties in double figures,[8] record evidence identifies at least 112 Englishmen killed in the fighting,[103] while Monstrelet reported 600 English dead. Fixed formatting. The Battle of Agincourt (/dnkr(t)/ AJ-in-kor(t);[a] French: Azincourt [azku]) was an English victory in the Hundred Years' War. The metallography and relative effectiveness of arrowheads and armor during the Middle Ages. Course Hero uses AI to attempt to automatically extract content from documents to surface to you and others so you can study better, e.g., in search results, to enrich docs, and more. It may be in the narrow strip of open land formed between the woods of Tramecourt and Azincourt (close to the modern village of Azincourt). Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. (Indeed, Henry V was heavily criticized for supposedly having ordered the execution of French prisoners at Agincourt. The field that the French had to cross to meet their enemy was muddy after a week of rain and slowed their progress, during which time they endured casualties from English arrows. [34] It is likely that the English adopted their usual battle line of longbowmen on either flank, with men-at-arms and knights in the centre. This battle concluded with King Harold of England dying at the hands of the Norman King William, which marked the beginning of a new era in England. .). [116] One particular cause of confusion may have been the number of servants on both sides, or whether they should at all be counted as combatants. Agincourt came on the back of half a century of military failure and gave the English a success that repeated victories such as Crcy and Poitiers. Upon his death, a French assembly formed to appoint a male successor. The Battle of Agincourt was immortalized by William Shakespeare in his play Henry V. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Although an audience vote was "too close to call", Henry was unanimously found guilty by the court on the basis of "evolving standards of civil society".[136][137][138]. In such a "press" of thousands of men, Rogers suggested that many could have suffocated in their armour, as was described by several sources, and which was also known to have happened in other battles. The battlefield was a freshly plowed field, and at the time of the battle, it had been raining continuously for several days. The fact that Winston Churchill sometimes made his V-for-victory gesture rudely suggests that it is of much more recent vintage. Its up there with heres something that they dont want you to know.. Nicolle, D. (2004). After the victory, Henry continued his march to Calais and arrived back in England in November to an outpouring of nationalistic sentiment. The French, who were overwhelmingly favored to win the battle, Continue Reading 41 2 7 Alexander L This use of stakes could have been inspired by the Battle of Nicopolis of 1396, where forces of the Ottoman Empire used the tactic against French cavalry. And where does the distinction between one and two fingers come from? Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future. Common estimates place the English army at about 6,000, while the French army probably consisted of 20,000 to 30,000 men. Several heralds, both French and English, were present at the battle of Agincourt, and not one of them (or any later chroniclers of Agincourt) mentioned anything about the French having cut off the fingers of captured English bowman. The latter, each titled Henry V, star Laurence Olivier in 1944 and Kenneth Branagh in 1989. Battle of Agincourt. . The approximate location of the battle has never been disputed, and the site remains relatively unaltered after 600 years. [89] A slaughter of the French prisoners ensued. To meet and beat him was a triumph, the highest form which self-expression could take in the medieval nobleman's way of life." They were successful for a time, forcing Henry to move south, away from Calais, to find a ford. [108] While not necessarily agreeing with the exact numbers Curry uses, Bertrand Schnerb, a professor of medieval history at the University of Lille, states the French probably had 12,00015,000 troops. [110][111][112] Ian Mortimer endorsed Curry's methodology, though applied it more liberally, noting how she "minimises French numbers (by limiting her figures to those in the basic army and a few specific additional companies) and maximises English numbers (by assuming the numbers sent home from Harfleur were no greater than sick lists)", and concluded that "the most extreme imbalance which is credible" is 15,000 French against 8,0009,000 English. Barker states that some knights, encumbered by their armour, actually drowned in their helmets.[64]. Over the years some 'folk etymologies' have grown up around this symbolic gesture. [18] A recent re-appraisal of Henry's strategy of the Agincourt campaign incorporates these three accounts and argues that war was seen as a legal due process for solving the disagreement over claims to the French throne. Archers were not the "similarly equipped" opponents that armored soldiers triumphed in defeating -- if the two clashed in combat, the armored soldier would either kill an archer outright or leave him to bleed to death rather than go to the wasteful effort of taking him prisoner. [135] The battle also forms a central component of the 2019 Netflix film The King. The origins of the sign aren't confirmed, but popular folklore suggests that its original meaning, packed with insult and ridicule, first appeared in the 20th century in the battle of Agincourt. Participating as judges were Justices Samuel Alito and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It seems it was purely a decision of Henry, since the English knights found it contrary to chivalry, and contrary to their interests, to kill valuable hostages for whom it was commonplace to ask ransom. Take on the burden and expense of caring for them? There is no evidence that, when captured in any scenario,archers had their finger cut off by the enemy( bit.ly/3dP2PhP ). The effect of the victory on national morale was powerful. [21] On 19 April 1415, Henry again asked the Great Council to sanction war with France, and this time they agreed. [62] Le Fvre and Wavrin similarly say that it was signs of the French rearguard regrouping and "marching forward in battle order" which made the English think they were still in danger. The 'middle finger salute' did not derive from the defiant gestures of English archers whose fingers had been severed at the Battle of Agincourt. His men-at-arms were stationed in the centre, flanked by wedges of archers who carried longbows that had an effective range of 250 yards (229 metres). [62] In the ensuing campaign, many soldiers died from disease, and the English numbers dwindled; they tried to withdraw to English-held Calais but found their path blocked by a considerably larger French army.
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