Keegan, John. The cavalry force, which could have devastated the English line if it had attacked while they moved their stakes, charged only after the initial volley of arrows from the English. The key word for describing the battle of Agincourt is mud . [43], The French were organized into two main groups (or battles), a vanguard up front and a main battle behind, both composed principally of men-at-arms fighting on foot and flanked by more of the same in each wing. [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. There is a modern museum in Agincourt village dedicated to the battle. After the initial wave, the French would have had to fight over and on the bodies of those who had fallen before them. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. The French monk of St. Denis says: "Their vanguard, composed of about 5,000 men, found itself at first so tightly packed that those who were in the third rank could scarcely use their swords,"[63] and the Burgundian sources have a similar passage. This was an innovative technique that the English had not used in the Battles of Crcy and Poitiers. I suppose that the two-fingered salute could still come from medieval archery, even if it didnt come specifically from the Battle of Agincourt, although the example that Wikipedia links to (the fourteenth-century Luttrell Psalter) is ambiguous. The puzzler was: What was this body part? [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. In Gestures: Their Origins and Distribution, Desmond Morris and colleagues note that the digitus infamis or digitus impudicus (infamous or indecent finger) is mentioned several times in the literature of ancient Rome. Wikipedia. Whether this was true is open to question and continues to be debated to this day; however, it seems likely that death was the normal fate of any soldier who could not be ransomed. [53] A further 600 dismounted men-at-arms stood in each wing, with the left under the Count of Vendme and the right under the Count of Richemont. What is Mudra, ancient times to modern classic and controversial 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. Despite the numerical disadvantage, the battle ended in an overwhelming victory for the English. Loades, M. (2013). The Battle of Agincourt (Pt 1) - YouTube Opie, Iona and Moira Tatem. Battle of Agincourt - The English Really Should Have Lost, But They Won The play focuses on the pressures of kingship, the tensions between how a king should appear chivalric, honest, and just and how a king must sometimes act Machiavellian and ruthless. A Short History of "Flipping the Bird" - OddFeed David Mikkelson Published Sep 29, 1999. [121] Mortimer notes the presence of noncombatant pages only, indicating that they would ride the spare horses during the battle and be mistakenly thought of as combatants by the English.[122]. [81] In any case, to protect themselves as much as possible from the arrows, the French had to lower their visors and bend their helmeted heads to avoid being shot in the face, as the eye- and air-holes in their helmets were among the weakest points in the armour. It forms the backdrop to events in William Shakespeare's play Henry V, written in 1599. Many folkloric or etymological myths have sprung up about its origin, especially the widely quoted one about the interplay between the French and English soldiery at the battle of Agincourt 1415, where the French threatened to amputate the middle fingers of the English archers to prevent them from drawing their bows, which of course is absolute It established the legitimacy of the Lancastrian monarchy and the future campaigns of Henry to pursue his "rights and privileges" in France. Common estimates place the English army at about 6,000, while the French army probably consisted of 20,000 to 30,000 men. The Battle of Agincourt was a major English victory in the Hundred Years' War.The battle took place on Friday, 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin's Day) in the County of Saint-Pol, Artois, some. PLUCK YEW!". The city capitulated within six weeks, but the siege was costly. This head-lowered position restricted their breathing and their vision. The Battle of Agincourt is one of England's most celebrated victories and was one of the most important English triumphs in the Hundred Years' War, along with the Battle of Crcy (1346) and Battle of Poitiers (1356). There had even been a suggestion that the English would run away rather than give battle when they saw that they would be fighting so many French princes. Henry would marry Catherine, Charles VI's young daughter, and receive a dowry of 2million crowns. The English eyewitness account comes from the anonymous author of the Gesta Henrici Quinti, believed to have been written by a chaplain in the King's household who would have been in the baggage train at the battle. [72], The French cavalry, despite being disorganised and not at full numbers, charged towards the longbowmen. The English were not in an ideal condition to fight a battle. The impact of thousands of arrows, combined with the slog in heavy armour through the mud, the heat and difficulty breathing in plate armour with the visor down,[83] and the crush of their numbers, meant the French men-at-arms could "scarcely lift their weapons" when they finally engaged the English line. When the French rejected Henrys substantial territorial demands, he arrived in Normandy in August 1415 with a force of about 12,000 men and laid siege to the city of Harfleur. 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". New York: Penguin Books, 1978 ISBN 0-140-04897-9 (pp. Henry V's victory in the mud of Picardy remains the . .). The "middle finger" gesture does not derive from the mutilation of English archers at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Agincourt. The Battle of Agincourt took place on October 25, 1415. The battle occurred on Friday, 25 October 1415 ( Saint Crispin's Day ), near modern-day Azincourt, in northern France. The terrain favoured Henrys army and disadvantaged its opponent, as it reduced the numerical advantage of the French army by narrowing the front. This famous English longbow was . The Roman gesturemadeby extending the third finger from a closed fist, thus made the same threat, by forming a similarly phallic shape. [31] This entailed abandoning his chosen position and pulling out, advancing, and then re-installing the long sharpened wooden stakes pointed outwards toward the enemy, which helped protect the longbowmen from cavalry charges. [33], Early on the 25th, Henry deployed his army (approximately 1,500 men-at-arms and 7,000 longbowmen) across a 750-yard (690m) part of the defile. 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. According to most chroniclers, Henry's fear was that the prisoners (who, in an unusual turn of events, actually outnumbered their captors) would realise their advantage in numbers, rearm themselves with the weapons strewn about the field and overwhelm the exhausted English forces. [105] Other benefits to the English were longer term. [93] Entire noble families were wiped out in the male line, and in some regions an entire generation of landed nobility was annihilated. Another verse begins: You love to be sodomized, Papylus . 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". [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. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. 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 for the English soldiers to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore incapable of fighting in the future. Recent heavy rain made the battle field very muddy, proving very tiring to walk through in full plate armour. 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. The Battle Of Agincourt: What Really Happened? | HistoryExtra T he battle of Agincourt, whose 600th anniversary falls on St Crispin's Day, 25 October, is still tabloid gold, Gotcha! 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". [c], The English made their confessions before the battle, as was customary. [94][10][11] The list of casualties, one historian has noted, "read like a roll call of the military and political leaders of the past generation". Battle of Agincourt, (October 25, 1415), decisive battle in the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) that resulted in the victory of the English over the French. In a book on the battle of Agincourt, Anne Curry, Professor Emeritus of Medieval History at the University of Southampton, addressed a similar claim prescribed to the V-sign, also considered an offensive gesture: No chronicle or sixteenth-centuryhistory says that English archers made any gesture to the French after the battle in order to show they still had their fingers. It took place on 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin's Day) near Azincourt, in northern France. During this battle, the medieval archers started ahead of the army and commenced the action. 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. The Most Famous, Bloodiest Medieval Battle - AGINCOURT - Full - YouTube When Henry V acceded to the English throne in 1413, there had been a long hiatus in the fighting. Eventually the archers abandoned their longbows and began fighting hand-to-hand with swords and axes alongside the men-at-arms. The next line of French knights that poured in found themselves so tightly packed (the field narrowed at the English end) that they were unable to use their weapons effectively, and the tide of the battle began to turn toward the English. This is the answer submitted by a listener: Dear Click and Clack, Thank you for the Agincourt 'Puzzler', which clears up some profound questions of etymology, folklore and emotional symbolism. [47] Although it had been planned for the archers and crossbowmen to be placed with the infantry wings, they were now regarded as unnecessary and placed behind them instead. [73] The mounted charge and subsequent retreat churned up the already muddy terrain between the French and the English. Battle of Agincourt | Facts, Summary, & Significance | Britannica Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore [soldiers would] be incapable of fighting in the future. 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. 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. There is no evidence that, when captured in any scenario,archers had their finger cut off by the enemy( bit.ly/3dP2PhP ). An account purporting to offer the historical origins of the obscene middle-finger extended hand gesture (varously known as "flipping the bird," "flipping someone off," or the "one-finger salute") is silly, and so obviously a joke that shouldn't need any debunking. 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). On October 25, 1415, during the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) between England and France, Henry V (1386-1422), the young king of England, led his forces to victory at the Battle of . The French hoped to raise 9,000 troops, but the army was not ready in time to relieve Harfleur. 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. In the words of Juliet Barker, the battle "cut a great swath through the natural leaders of French society in Artois, Ponthieu, Normandy, Picardy. Its not known whether one displayed the digitus infamis in the same manner that we (well, you) flip the bird today. [citation needed], Immediately after the battle, Henry summoned the heralds of the two armies who had watched the battle together with principal French herald Montjoie, and they settled on the name of the battle as Azincourt, after the nearest fortified place. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1991 ISBN 0-471-53672-5 (pp. There was no monetary reward to be obtained by capturing them, nor was there any glory to be won by defeating them in battle. [85], The French men-at-arms were taken prisoner or killed in the thousands. The French were commanded by Constable Charles d'Albret and various prominent French noblemen of the Armagnac party. Some historians trace its origins to ancient Rome. 33-35). The Battle of Agincourt is well documented by at least seven contemporary accounts, three from eyewitnesses. The third line of the French army, recoiling at the pile of corpses before them and unable to make an effective charge, was then massacred swiftly. 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. In pursuit of his claim to the French throne, Henry V invaded Normandy with an army of 11,000 men in August 1415. [68], Henry's men were already very weary from hunger, illness and retreat. Bloomsbury Publishing. It goes on to state thatafter an unexpected victory, the English soldiersmocked thedefeatedFrenchtroopsbywavingtheir middle fingers( here ). In his 2007 film adaptation, director Peter Babakitis uses digital effects to exaggerate realist features during the battle scenes, producing a more avant-garde interpretation of the fighting at Agincourt. It sounds rather fishy to me. . Fixed formatting. Historians disagree less about the French numbers. The English army, led by King Henry V, famously achieved victory in spite of the numerical superiority of its opponent. Details the English victory over the French at the Battle of Agincourt. The brunt of the battle had fallen on the Armagnacs and it was they who suffered the majority of senior casualties and carried the blame for the defeat. What does DO NOT HUMP mean on the side of railroad cars? Most importantly, the battle was a significant military blow to France and paved the way for further English conquests and successes. The English account in the Gesta Henrici says: "For when some of them, killed when battle was first joined, fall at the front, so great was the undisciplined violence and pressure of the mass of men behind them that the living fell on top of the dead, and others falling on top of the living were killed as well."[62]. Idiom Origins - Middle finger - History of Middle finger Moreover, with this outcome Henry V strengthened his position in his own kingdom; it legitimized his claim to the crown, which had been under threat after his accession. [86], The only French success was an attack on the lightly protected English baggage train, with Ysembart d'Azincourt (leading a small number of men-at-arms and varlets plus about 600 peasants) seizing some of Henry's personal treasures, including a crown. It was often reported to comprise 1,500 ships, but was probably far smaller. The town surrendered on 22 September, and the English army did not leave until 8 October. Im even more suspicious of the alleged transformation of p to f. King Charles VI of France did not command the French army as he suffered from psychotic illnesses and associated mental incapacity. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. One popular "origin story" for the middle finger has to do with the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. In the song Hotel California, what does colitas mean? At least one scholar puts the French army at no more than 12,000, indicating that the English were outnumbered 2 to 1. [93] In all, around 6,000 of their fighting men lay dead on the ground. Since pluck yew is rather difficult to say, like pheasant mother plucker, which is who you had to go to for the feathers used on the arrows for the longbow, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodental fricative f, and thus the words often used in conjunction with the one-finger salute are mistakenly thought to have something to do with an intimate encounter. [23] The army of about 12,000 men and up to 20,000 horses besieged the port of Harfleur. [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. The image makes the further claim that the English soldiers chanted pluck yew, ostensibly in reference to the drawing of the longbow. They had been weakened by the siege at Harfleur and had marched over 200 miles (more than 320 km), and many among them were suffering from dysentery. I thought the French threatened to cut off the primary finger of the English longbowmen (the middle finger was neeed the most to pull the bowstring). [97] According to the heralds, 3,069 knights and squires were killed,[e] while at least 2,600 more corpses were found without coats of arms to identify them. The body part which the French proposed to cut off of the English after defeating them was, of course, the middle finger, without which it is impossible to draw the renowned English longbow. I admit that I bring this story up when I talk about the Hundred Years War only to debunk it. The image makes the claim that the gesture derives from English soldiers at the Battle of Agincourt, France in 1415. Contemporary accounts describe the triumphal pageantry with which the king was received in London on November 23, with elaborate displays and choirs attending his passage to St. Pauls Cathedral. The two candidates with the strongest claims were Edward III of England, who was the son of Charles's sister, and Philip, Charles's paternal . [32] In 2019, the historian Michael Livingston also made the case for a site west of Azincourt, based on a review of sources and early maps. This famous weapon was made of the native English yew tree, and so the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking yew". The Hundred Years War was a discontinuous conflict between England and France that spanned two centuries. 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. 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. [104] Henry returned a conquering hero, seen as blessed by God in the eyes of his subjects and European powers outside France. 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. PDF THE ENGLISH VS FRENCH - Carolina Traditional Archers The fighting lasted about three hours, but eventually the leaders of the second line were killed or captured, as those of the first line had been. With 4,800 men-at-arms in the vanguard, 3,000 in the main battle, and 1,200 in the infantry wings. [49], The French vanguard and main battle numbered respectively 4,800 and 3,000 men-at-arms. Modern test and contemporary accounts conclude that arrows could not penetrate the better quality steel armour, which became available to knights and men-at-arms of fairly modest means by the middle of the 14th century, but could penetrate the poorer quality wrought iron armour. Some notable examples are listed below. Legend says that the British archers were so formidable that the ones captured by the French had their index and middle fingers cut off so that they . To meet and beat him was a triumph, the highest form which self-expression could take in the medieval nobleman's way of life." These numbers are based on the Gesta Henrici Quinti and the chronicle of Jean Le Fvre, the only two eyewitness accounts on the English camp. (Its taking longer than we thought.) The point is, the middle-finger/phallus equation goes back way before the Titanic, the Battle of Agincourt, or probably even that time Sextillus cut off Pylades with his chariot. So they were already overcome with fatigue even before they advanced against the enemy". Longbowmen and "The Finger" - (on 'TheBeckoning') Take on the burden and expense of caring for them? Contemporary chroniclers did not criticise him for it. When 5,000 British Archers Defeated Over 30,000 French Knights (Indeed, Henry V was heavily criticized for supposedly having ordered the execution of French prisoners at Agincourt. It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows that the gesture is known as giving the bird. And yew all thought yew knew everything! [39] Curry, Rogers[118] and Mortimer[42] all agree the French had 4 to 5 thousand missile troops. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. The army was divided into three groups, with the right wing led by Edward, Duke of York, the centre led by the king himself, and the left wing under the old and experienced Baron Thomas Camoys. [48] On account of the lack of space, the French drew up a third battle, the rearguard, which was on horseback and mainly comprised the varlets mounted on the horses belonging to the men fighting on foot ahead. Subject: Truth About the Finger In the film Titanic the character Rose is shown giving the finger to Jack, another character. [citation needed]. [38], The French army had 10,000 men-at arms[39][40][41] plus some 4,0005,000 miscellaneous footmen (gens de trait) including archers, crossbowmen[42] (arbaltriers) and shield-bearers (pavisiers), totaling 14,00015,000 men. This battle is notable for the use of the English longbow in very large numbers, with the English and Welsh archers comprising nearly 80 percent of Henry's army. Omissions? On 25 October 1415, an army of English raiders under Henry V faced the French outside an obscure village on the road to Calais. In Nature Embodied: Gesture in Ancient Rome, Anthony Corbeill, Professor of Classics at the University of Kansas wrote: The most familiar example of the coexistence of a human and transhuman elementis the extended middle finger. This suggests that the French could have outnumbered the English 5 to 1. [20] He initially called a Great Council in the spring of 1414 to discuss going to war with France, but the lords insisted that he should negotiate further and moderate his claims. (There is an Indo-European connection between the p-sound and f-sound see the distinction between the Latin pater and the Germanic Vater/father but that split occurred a long time ago.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 ISBN 0-19-282916-5 (p. 454). The Agincourt Carol, dating from around this time and possibly written for Henrys reception in London, is a rousing celebration of the might of the English. 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. [19], Henry V invaded France following the failure of negotiations with the French. Opie, Iona and Moira Tatem. A complete coat of plate was considered such good protection that shields were generally not used,[75] although the Burgundian contemporary sources distinguish between Frenchmen who used shields and those who did not, and Rogers has suggested that the front elements of the French force used axes and shields. By contrast, Anne Curry in her 2005 book Agincourt: A New History, argued, based on research into the surviving administrative records, that the French army was 12,000 strong, and the English army 9,000, proportions of four to three. [91] Such an event would have posed a risk to the still-outnumbered English and could have easily turned a stunning victory into a mutually destructive defeat, as the English forces were now largely intermingled with the French and would have suffered grievously from the arrows of their own longbowmen had they needed to resume shooting. Henry V and the resumption of the Hundred Years War, That fought with us upon Saint Crispins day, https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Agincourt, World History Encyclopedia - Battle of Agincourt, Warfare History Network - Miracle in the Mud: The Hundred Years' War's Battle of Agincourt, Battle of Agincourt - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). [8] These included the Duke of York, the young Earl of Suffolk and the Welsh esquire Dafydd ("Davy") Gam. October 25, 1415. [17] Two of the most frequently cited accounts come from Burgundian sources, one from Jean Le Fvre de Saint-Remy who was present at the battle, and the other from Enguerrand de Monstrelet. The English men-at-arms in plate and mail were placed shoulder to shoulder four deep. How different cultures perceive emojis in workplace communication However, the lack of archaeological evidence at this traditional site has led to suggestions it was fought to the west of Azincourt. Shakespeare's version of the battle of Agincourt has been turned into several minor and two major films. In another of his books Morris describes a variety of sexual insults involving the middle finger, such as the middle-finger down prod, the middle-finger erect, etc., all of which are different from the classic middle-finger jerk. - Apparently Henry believed his fleeing army would perform better on the defensive, but had to halt the retreat and somehow engage the French Upon his death, a French assembly formed to appoint a male successor. Contents. The metallography and relative effectiveness of arrowheads and armor during the Middle Ages. [123] Other ballads followed, including "King Henry Fifth's Conquest of France", raising the popular prominence of particular events mentioned only in passing by the original chroniclers, such as the gift of tennis balls before the campaign. [125] Shakespeare illustrates these tensions by depicting Henry's decision to kill some of the French prisoners, whilst attempting to justify it and distance himself from the event. News of the contrivance circulated within Europe and was described in a book of tactics written in 1411 by. But frankly, I suspect that the French would have done a lot worse to any captured English archers than chopping off their fingers. This moment of the battle is portrayed both as a break with the traditions of chivalry and as a key example of the paradox of kingship. Unable to cross the Somme River because of French defenses, he was forced to take a detour inland and cross farther upstream. 138). The king received an axe blow to the head, which knocked off a piece of the crown that formed part of his helmet. It lasted longer than Henry had anticipated, and his numbers were significantly diminished as a result of casualties, desertions, and disease. In December 1414, the English parliament was persuaded to grant Henry a "double subsidy", a tax at twice the traditional rate, to recover his inheritance from the French. Its up there with heres something that they dont want you to know.. Nonetheless, so many readers have forwarded it to us accompanied by an "Is this true?" . Materials characterization, 29(2), 111117. This was not strictly a feudal army, but an army paid through a system similar to that of the English.

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