Battle of Agincourt

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Battle of Agincourt
Part of the Hundred Years' War
The Battle of Agincourt, 15th century miniature
Date 25 October (Saint Crispin's Day) 1415 Location Agincourt, France Result Decisive English victory
Belligerents
Kingdom of England	Kingdom of France
Commanders
Henry V of England	Charles d'Albret
Strength
About 5,900 (but see Modern re-assessment). 5/6 archers, 1/6 dismounted men-at-arms.	Between 20,000 and 30,000 (but see Modern re-assessment). Estimated to be 1/6 crossbowmen and archers, 1/2 dismounted men-at-arms, 1/3 mounted knights.
Casualties and losses
At least 112 dead, unknown wounded [1]	7,000-10,000 (mostly killed) and about 1,500 noble prisoners [1]

v • d • e Hundred Years' War
Edwardian – Breton Succession – Castilian – Two Peters – Caroline – Lancastrian

v • d • e Hundred Years' War (1415–1429)
Agincourt – Rouen – Baugé – Meaux – Cravant – La Brossinière – Verneuil – Orléans – Jargeau – Meung-sur-Loire – Beaugency – Patay – Compiègne – Gerbevoy – Formigny – Castillon

The Battle of Agincourt (pronounced a zhin cor, or /ˈeʤənˌkɔrt/) was fought on 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin's Day), in northern France as part of the Hundred Years' War.

The armies involved were those of the English King Henry V and Charles VI of France. Charles did not command his army himself, as he was incapacitated. The French were commanded by the Constable Charles d'Albret and various prominent French noblemen of the Armagnac party. The battle is notable for the use of the English longbow, which the English used in very large numbers, with longbowmen forming the vast majority of their army. The battle was also immortalised by William Shakespeare as the centrepiece of his play Henry V.

Contents 1 Campaign 2 Battle 2.1 Situation 2.2 Terrain 2.3 Fighting 2.4 Aftermath 2.5 Notable casualties 2.6 Sir Peers Legh 3 Modern re-assessment of Agincourt 3.1 Were the English as outnumbered as traditionally thought? 4 Discussion of the primary sources 4.1 The English Army 4.2 The French Army 4.3 Analysis of the sources 5 Fingering a popular myth 6 See also 7 Notes 8 Bibliography 9 External links

[edit] Campaign

Henry V invaded France for several reasons. He hoped that by fighting a popular foreign war, he would strengthen his position at home. He wanted to improve his finances by gaining revenue-producing lands, lands he believed had been stolen from him by the King of France. As was the international custom at the time, nobles taken prisoner would be ransomed by the relatives of the loser in exchange for their return. Evidence also suggests that several lords in the region of Normandy promised Henry their lands when they died, but the King of France took their lands and described it as 'confiscating'.

Henry's army landed in northern France on 13 August 1415 and besieged the port of Harfleur with an army of about 12,000. The siege took longer than expected. The town surrendered on 22 September, and the English army did not leave until 8 October. The campaign season was coming to an end, and the English army had suffered many casualties through disease. Henry decided to move most of his army (roughly 7,000) to the port of Calais, the English stronghold in northern France, where they could re-equip over the winter.

During the siege, the French had raised an army which assembled around Rouen. This was not a feudal army, as sometimes has been said, but an army paid through a system very similar to the English. The French hoped to raise 9,000 troops, but the army was not ready in time to relieve Harfleur. Then after Henry V marched to the north, the French moved to blockade them along the Somme river. They were successful for a time, forcing Henry to move south, away from Calais, to find a ford. The English finally crossed the Somme south of Péronne, at Béthencourt and Voyennes, (Wylie & Waugh 1919:118)^[2] (Seward 1999:162 ^[3] and resumed marching north. Without the river protection, the French were hesitant to force a battle. They shadowed Henry's army while calling a semonce des nobles, calling on local nobles to join the army. By October 24 both armies faced each other for battle, but the French declined, hoping for the arrival of more troops. The next day the French initiated negotiations as a delaying tactic, but Henry ordered his army to advance and to start a battle that, given the state of his army, he would have preferred to avoid. The English had very little food, had marched 260 miles in two-and-a-half weeks, were suffering from sickness such as dysentery, and faced much larger numbers of well equipped French men at arms. However Henry needed to get to the safety of Calais, and knew if he waited the French would get more reinforcements.

The French suffered a catastrophic defeat, not just in terms of the sheer numbers killed, but because of the number of high-ranking nobles lost. Henry was able to fulfil all his objectives. He was recognised by the French in the Treaty of Troyes (1420) as the regent and heir to the French throne. This was cemented by his marriage to Catherine of Valois, the daughter of King Charles VI.

[edit] Battle

[edit] Situation

Henry and his troops were marching to Calais to embark for England when he was intercepted by French forces which outnumbered his. English effectiveness and readiness was questionable as a result of their prior maneuvers consisting of an 18 day march across 250 miles of hostile territory under constant harassment. They suffered from dysentery, exhaustion and were further harried by inclement weather.

The lack of reliable and consistent sources makes it very difficult to accurately estimate the numbers on both sides. Estimates used by recent historians vary from 6,000 to 9,000 for the English, and from about 12,000 to about 36,000 for the French. Some modern research has questioned whether the English were as outnumbered as traditionally thought (see below). The English were probably not outnumbered as badly as the legend would have it; many modern British historians (for example, Juliet Barker, Christopher Hibbert) would accept that they were outnumbered by three to one or more, although Anne Curry estimates the odds were much more even than that.

The battle was fought in the narrow strip of open land formed between the woods of Tramecourt and Agincourt (close to the modern village of Azincourt). The French army was positioned by d'Albret at the northern exit so as to bar the way to Calais. The night of 24 October was spent by the two armies on open ground, and the English had little shelter from the heavy rain.

Early on the 25th, Henry deployed his army (approximately 900 men-at-arms and 5,000 longbowmen) across a 750 yard part of the defile. It is likely that the English adopted their usual battle line of longbowmen on either flank, men-at-arms and knights in the centre, and at the very centre roughly 200 archers. The English men-at-arms in plate and mail were placed shoulder to shoulder four deep. The English archers on the flanks drove pointed wooden stakes called palings into the ground at an angle to force cavalry to veer off. It has been argued that fresh men were brought in after the siege of Harfleur; however, other historians argue that this is wrong, and that although 9,200 English left Harfleur, after more sickness set in, they were down to roughly 5,900 by the time of the battle.

The English must have feared that they wouldn't get out alive. In fact, an English account describes the day before the battle as a day of remorse in which all soldiers cleaned themselves of their sins to avoid hell. The English nobles were lucky to be able to ransom themselves back if they were captured. French accounts state that, prior to the battle, Henry V gave a speech reassuring his nobles that if the French prevailed, the English nobles would be spared, to be captured and ransomed instead. However, the common soldier would have no such luck and therefore he told them they had better fight for their lives.

The French, on the other hand, were confident that they would prevail and eager to fight. The French believed they would triumph over the English not only because their force was considerably larger, because they were fresh and better equipped, but also because the large number of noble men-at-arms would have considered themselves superior to the large number of commoners (such as the longbowmen) in the English army. Another reason for impatience was that many had fathers and grandfathers who had been humiliated in previous battles such as Crecy and Poitiers, and the French nobility were determined to get revenge.

The French were arrayed in three lines called "battles". The two primary sources which give detailed numbers do not agree on the size of these "battles". Waurin says there were about 13,500 in each of the first two lines (8,000 men-at-arms, 4,000 archers and 1,500 crossbowmen), with the remainder in the third line. The Herald of Berry says that there were 4,800 in the first line, with 3,000 in the second line, joined by some hundreds of late arriving men-at-arms. (He does not mention a third line.) Situated on each flank were "wings" of mounted men-at-arms and French Nobles (1,200 or 1,400 depending on the source), while the centre contained dismounted men-at-arms, many of whom were French scions, including twelve princes of royal blood. The rear was made up of late arriving men-at-arms and armed servants known as "gros varlets". Waurin says that this line contained the remainder of the French army, which with the numbers he uses would imply it was larger than the first and second lines. These troops played little part in the battle however.

[edit] Terrain

Arguably, the deciding factor for the outcome was the terrain. The narrow field of battle, recently ploughed land hemmed in by dense woodland, favoured the English.^[4][5] Recent analysis (see Battlefield Detectives link) has looked at the crowd dynamics of the battlefield. The 900 English men-at-arms are described as shoulder to shoulder and four deep, which implies a tight line about 225 men long (perhaps split in two by a central group of archers). The remainder of the field would have been filled with the longbowmen behind their palings. The French first line contained between four and eight thousand men-at-arms, outnumbering the English men-at-arms at least four to one, but they had no way to outflank the English line. The French, divided into the three battles, one behind the other at their initial starting position, could not bring all their forces to bear: the initial engagement was between the English army and the first battle line of the French. When the second French battle line started their advance, the soldiers were pushed closer together and their effectiveness was reduced. Casualties in the front line from longbow fire would also have increased the congestion, as following men would have to walk around the fallen. The Battlefield Detectives state that when the density reached four men per square metre, soldiers would not even be able to take full steps forward, lowering the speed of the advance by 70%. Accounts of the battle describe the French engaging the English men-at-arms before being rushed from the sides by the longbowmen as the melee developed. Although the French initially pushed the English back, they became so closely packed that they are described as having trouble using their weapons properly. In practice there was not enough room for all these men to fight, and they were unable to respond effectively when the English longbowmen joined the hand-to-hand fighting. By the time the second French line arrived, for a total of perhaps 8,000 men (depending on the source), the crush would have been even worse. The press of men arriving from behind actually hindered those fighting at the front.

As the battle was fought on a recently ploughed field, and there had recently been heavy rain leaving it very muddy, it proved very tiring to walk through in full plate armour. The deep, soft mud particularly favoured the English force because, once knocked to the ground, the heavily armoured French knights struggled to get back up to fight in the melee. Barker (2005) states that several knights, encumbered by their armour, actually drowned in it. Their limited mobility made them easy targets for the volleys from the English archers. The mud also increased the ability of the much more lightly armoured English archers to join in hand-to-hand fighting against the heavily armed French men-at-arms.

[edit] Fighting

On the morning of the 25th the French were still waiting for additional troops to arrive. The Duke of Brabant, the Duke of Anjou and the Duke of Brittany, each commanding 1,000–2,000 fighting men, were all marching to join the army. This left the French with a question of whether or not to advance towards the English.

For three hours after sunrise there was no fighting. The French, knowing that the English were trapped, and perhaps aware of their previous failures attacking English prepared positions, would not attack. Henry would have known as well as the French did that his army would perform better in a defensive battle, but he was eventually forced to take a calculated risk, and move his army further forward. This entailed pulling out the palings (long stakes pointed outwards toward the enemy) which protected the longbowmen, and abandoning his chosen position. (The use of palings was an innovation: during the battles of Crécy and Poitiers, two similar engagements between the French and the English, the archers did not use them.) If the French cavalry had charged before the palings had been hammered back in, the result would probably have been disastrous for the English, as it was at the Battle of Patay. However the French seem to have been caught off guard by the English advance. The tightness of the terrain also seems to have restricted the planned deployment of their forces. A battle plan had originally been drawn up which had archers and crossbowmen in front of the men-at-arms, with a cavalry force at the rear specifically designed to "fall upon the archers, and use their force to break them" (Barker, 2005, p.273). However in the event the archers and crossbowmen were deployed behind and to the sides of the men-at-arms, where they seem to have played almost no part in the battle. The cavalry force, which could have devastated the English line if it had attacked while they moved their position, only seems to have charged after the initial volley of arrows from the English. It is unclear if this is because the French were still hoping the English would launch a frontal assault themselves, or because they simply did not expect the English to advance at the exact moment they did. French chroniclers agree that when the mounted charge did come, it did not contain as many men as it should; Gilles le Bouvier states that some had wandered off to warm themselves and others were walking or feeding their horses (Barker, 2005, p.291).

In any case, within extreme bowshot from the French line (approximately 300 yards), the longbowmen dug in their palings, and then opened the engagement with a barrage of arrows.

The French cavalry, despite being somewhat disorganised and not at full numbers, made their way through the lines of infantry in front of them and charged the longbowmen, but it was a disaster, with the French knights unable to outflank the longbowmen (because of the encroaching woodland) and unable to charge through the palings that protected the archers. Keegan (1976) argues that the longbows' main influence on the battle was at this point: only armoured on the head, many horses would have become dangerously out of control when struck in the back or flank from the high-elevation shots used as the charge started. The effect of the mounted charge and then retreat was to further churn up the mud the French had to cross to reach the English. Barker (2005) quotes a contemporary account by a monk of St. Denis who reports how the panicking horses also galloped back through the advancing infantry, scattering them and trampling them down in their headlong flight.

Following the knights' charge, the constable himself then led the attack by the line of dismounted men-at-arms. They outnumbered the English men-at-arms by several times, but weighed down by armour and sinking deep into the mud with every step, they struggled to close the distance and reach their enemies. The mud was knee-deep or worse in places, and the French men-at-arms would have been very slow, and easy targets for the English bowmen. Armour technology at this stage in history had become more advanced than in the earlier medieval period though. Of the mounted knights' charge, three of the leaders had their horses brought down by the stakes and were then killed on the ground, but Barker records twelve French nobles in the charge who escaped. The longbow could still penetrate the plate visors of the French and similar weak points, especially at close range. ^[6] However longbowmen carried approximately 72 arrows in a battle, which they could fire off in minutes at their maximum rate of fire. Despite this, at Agincourt the French first line reached the English line and actually pushed it back, with the longbowmen dropping their bows and joining the melee (which lasted about three hours), implying that the French men-at-arms were able to walk through the fire of tens of thousands of arrows while taking comparatively few casualties. The physical pounding even from non-penetrating arrows, combined with the slog in heavy armour through the mud, and the heat and lack of oxygen in plate armour with the visor down, meant they would already have been fatigued when they finally reached the English line however.

The thin line of English men-at-arms was pushed back and Henry himself was almost beaten to the ground. However, because of the number of men they had brought into the battlefield, and the fact that the battlefield narrowed towards the English end, the French found themselves far too closely packed, and had trouble using their weapons properly (Keegan 1976). At this moment, the archers, using hatchets, swords and other weapons, attacked the now disordered and fatigued French, who could not cope with their unarmoured assailants (who were much less hindered by the mud), and were slaughtered or taken prisoner. By this time the second line of the French had already attacked, only to be engulfed in the mêlée. The fighting lasted about three hours, but the leaders of the second line were killed or captured as those of the first line had been. The commanders of the third line sought and found their death in the battle, while their men rode off to safety.

One of the best anecdotes of the battle involves Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, Henry V's youngest brother. According to the story, Henry, upon hearing that his brother had been wounded in the abdomen, took his household guard and cut a path through the French, standing over his brother and beating back waves of soldiers until Humphrey could be dragged to safety.

The only French success was a sally from Agincourt Castle behind the lines attacking the unprotected English baggage train. Ysambart D'Agincourt with 1,000 peasants seized the King's personal belongings and killed the unarmed attendants and 'page boys' (usually children). Thinking his rear was under attack and worried that the prisoners would rearm themselves with the weapons strewn upon the field, Henry ordered the slaughter of his French prisoners. The nobles and senior officers, wishing to ransom the captives (and perhaps from a sense of honour, having received the surrender ['passeport'] of the prisoners), refused. The task fell to the common soldiers.

[edit] Aftermath

The next morning, Henry returned to the battlefield and ordered the coup de grâce of any wounded Frenchmen which was de rigueur and considered merciful at the time^{[citation needed]}. All of the nobility had already been taken away. It is likely that most commoners left on the field were too badly injured to survive without medical care.

Due to a lack of reliable sources it is impossible to give a precise figure for the French and English casualties. However, it is clear that though the English were considerably outnumbered, their losses were much lower than those of the French.

Barker identifies from the available records "at least" 112 Englishmen who died in the fighting (including Edward of Norwich, 2nd Duke of York, a grandson of Edward III), but this excludes the wounded. One fairly widely used estimate puts the English casualties at 450, not an insignificant number in an army of 6,000, but far less than the thousands the French lost, nearly all of whom were killed or captured.

The French suffered heavily. Thousands died, including the constable, three dukes, five counts and 90 barons. Estimates of the number of prisoners vary between 700 and 2,200, amongst them the Duke of Orléans (the famous poet Charles d'Orléans) and Jean Le Maingre, Marshal of France.^[7] Almost all these prisoners would have been nobles, as the less valuable prisoners were slaughtered.

[edit] Notable casualties

• Antoine of Burgundy, Duke of Brabant and Limburg (b. 1384)
• Philip of Burgundy, Count of Nevers and Rethel (b. 1389)
• Charles I d'Albret, Count of Dreux, the Constable of France
• John II, Count of Bethune (b. 1359)
• John I, Duke of Alençon (b. 1385)
• Frederick of Lorraine, Count of Vaudemont (b. 1371)
• Robert, Count of Marles and Soissons
• Edward III, Duke of Bar (the Duchy of Bar lost its independence as a consequence of his death)
• John VI, Count of Roucy
• Edward of Norwich, 2nd Duke of York (b. 1373)
• Earl of Suffolk

[edit] Sir Peers Legh

When Sir Peers Legh was wounded, his mastiff stood over him and protected him for many hours through the battle. Although Legh later died, the mastiff returned to Legh's home and became the forefather of the Lyme Park mastiffs. Five centuries later, this pedigree figured prominently in founding the modern English Mastiff breed.

[edit] Modern re-assessment of Agincourt

[edit] Were the English as outnumbered as traditionally thought?

Until recently, Agincourt has been feted as one of the greatest victories in English military history. But, in Agincourt, A New History (2005), [2] Anne Curry contradicts what previous historians have argued, and other contemporary Agincourt historians continue to argue; in Curry's view, the scale of the English triumph at Agincourt has been overstated for almost six centuries.

According to her research, the French still outnumbered the English and Welsh but at worst only by a factor of three to two (12,000 Frenchmen against 7,000 to 9,000 Englishmen). According to Curry, the Battle of Agincourt was a "myth constructed around Henry to build up his reputation as a king". The legend of the English as underdogs at Agincourt was given credence in popular English culture with William Shakespeare's Henry V in 1599. In the speech before the battle, Shakespeare puts in the mouth of Henry V the famous words, "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers," immediately after numbering English troops at twelve thousand, versus sixty thousand Frenchman. (Westmoreland: "Of fighting men they have full three-score thousand." Exeter: "There's five to one ..." (Act IV, scene 3). Shakespeare equally overstated the French and understated the English casualties as well; at the end (Act IV, Scene 8), when Henry's herald delivers the death toll, the numbers are 10,000 French dead and just "five and twenty" English. (The well known Olivier film version of 1944 has this as "five and twenty score" i.e. 500, which is closer to the modern estimate of casualties.)

The primary sources themselves generally do not agree on the numbers of the combatants involved. They range from 6,000 to 12,000 for the English and from 5,000 to 100,000 for the French.

Juliet Barker in Agincourt: The King, the Campaign, the Battle (published slightly after A New History) argues the English and Welsh were outnumbered "at least four to one and possibly as much as six to one". She prefers the figures given by Jehan Waurin (a Burgundian in the French army) who is relatively detailed about the French army, and suggests figures of about 6,000 for the English and 36,000 for the French, "based on {Waurin's} suggestion that the French were six times more numerous than the English". Curry's book was published too late to significantly influence Barker's work. In the Acknowledgments, however, while paying tribute to Curry's scholarship, Barker says: "Surviving administrative records on both sides, but especially the French, are simply too incomplete to support her assertion that nine thousand English were pitted against an army only twelve thousand strong. And if the differential really was as low as three to four then this makes a nonsense of the course of the battle as described by eyewitnesses and contemporaries."

Many documentaries about the Battle of Agincourt use the figures of about 6,000 English and 36,000 French, with a French superiority in numbers of 6–1. The 1911 Encylopædia Britannica puts the English at 6,000 archers, 1,000 men-at-arms and "a few thousands of other foot", with the French outnumbering them by "at least four times". Other historians put the English numbers at 6,000 and the French numbers at 20,000–30,000, which would also be consistent with the English being outnumbered 4–1. Curry is currently alone among English scholars in putting the odds at significantly less than this, although she is also the only one to have used French documentary sources. From those sources she estimates the English army c. 9,000 and the French army c.12,000. Curry's figures for the French are consistent with other documentary evidence from the period about the size of French armies, before and after the battle of Agincourt.^{[citation needed]} However, Curry does not include the numbers of armed french locals who answered the call to arms (for which there is little good documentary evidence to provide a precise figure).

[edit] Discussion of the primary sources

This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (November 2007)

The narrative sources can be grouped into three fields:

1) The English writers, all of them favourable to Henry V, of whom the anonymous writer of the Gesta Henrici Quinti is the most important source, as the only English account written by an eyewitness and the basis for many of the other English sources.

2) The Burgundians, who provide a less favourable picture of the English, but the main targets of their criticism are the Armagnac lords, who are portrayed as incompetent and cowardly; their heroes are the Burgundian noblemen that fought and died in the battle. Jean LeFevre de Saint Remy and Jehan de Wavrin are the main sources, both eyewitnesses, while Enguerrand de Monstrelet follows closely Wavrin. In total they provide a more detailed narrative of the battle.

3) Finally, the French sources. There is no eyewitness among them. Jean Juvenal des Ursins, secretary of King Charles VI and later Chancellor of King Charles VII is the best source for the campaign, but heavily biased in favour of the Armagnacs, while Jacques le Bouvier, Herald of Berri, provides the most detailed account of the French forces in the battle that we have.

[edit] The English Army

The numbers given in the English sources for Agincourt range from 5,900 (Gesta Henrici Quinti) to 10,000 (The Great Chronicle of London). The Burgundians all give numbers over 10,000, and the French even higher (Des Ursins gives the English army leaving Harfleur as 38,000 strong).

The muster roll for the English army to be embarked to France on July 1st show a total of 11,791 soldiers, with 2,316 men-at arms and 9,475 archers. A total of 320 retinues had been indented, including 26 Peers and 57 Knights Bannerets and Bachelors. There is no additional muster roll for the campaign, however there is documentary evidence for the losses in the siege of Harfleur, that amounted to 38 dead and 1,330 invalided home sick by sea. Also, 1,200 men were detached to garrison Harfleur, a number given in the Gesta and confirmed by a muster roll of the garrison in 1416, so at most, the English army at Agincourt could be 9,223 strong. However there is no muster roll for the army immediately preceding the battle, so it is possible that at Agincourt disease and desertion had reduced the troop total to the 5,900 given by the Gesta Henrici Quinti.

The documentary evidence also provides a good insight into the composition of the English army. The Retinues of the Peers were the largest in the army, and were composed of the household plus smaller retinues provided by knights and squires. For instance, the Duke of Clarence assembled a retinue of 960 men, of which he provided 149 men directly, with the remainder provided in the retinues of 11 knights and 59 squires.

Another important question is that, while it is clear that a man-at-arms was a warrior of high social status that fought with heavy armour, it is not so clear what an archer was. Basically, an archer was someone of lesser social status that received the pay of an archer (half of that of a man-at-arms). Servants are many times included in the retinues as archers, especially those of the household of Peers, for instance in the retinue of Lord Scrope his steward, his baker and even his barber were listed as archers. Even those that were real warriors would not necessarily armed with a bow, but instead were billmen or armed with any other polearm^[8] Another feature of archers is that unless specified they mustered with a horse. Men-at arms regularly mustered with at least two horses, while higher noblemen are listed with many more horses, the Earl Marshal for instance is listed with 24 horses. Men-at-arms are also accompanied by at least one page each.

A special case was the recruitment in Wales, Lancashire and Cheshire. In Cheshire 247 archers were raised from the hundreds and paid by local taxes. From Lancashire 500 archers were recruited, divided in companies 50 strong under command of a local knight or squire. In Wales archers were recruited only in the South, as the loyalty of North Wales was suspect, the total number was 500, of them 473 foot archers. The muster roll also list 560 independent support men, including 120 miners, 124 carpenters, 150 stonemasons, 40 smiths, 60 waggoners and 120 labourers. 30 German gunners are also listed, although the number of guns is not given.

[edit] The French Army

The English sources give a range of numbers from 60,000 (Gesta Henrici Quinti) to 140,000 (Thomas Walsingham) and no detail about its composition. The Burgundians all claim a French army of 50,000. Waurin says that there were 8,000 men at arms, 4,000 archers and 1,500 crossbowmen in the vanguard, a similar number in the second line (the main battle), two mounted wings of 800 and 600 mounted men-at-arms, (a total of approximately 28,400), with the remainder in the rearguard. Wavrin and Monstrelet say the French outnumbered the English 6 to 1, while LeFevre says 3 to 1. (Juliet Barker derives her 36,000 figure from Waurin's statement that the French outnumbered the English by six times.) Neither 3-1 nor 6-1 corresponds exactly with the actual numbers given by the Burgundians (50,000 French and 10,000+ for the English).

By far the most detailed account of the French order of battle that we have is that of the Herald of Berry (writing 38 years after the battle). He was interested in who was in command of which forces, and his account is the closest to an order of battle of the French army that we have. His figures are noticeably lower than those given in other sources.

According to the Herald of Berry:

Van Battle: 4,800

• Constable d’Albret (3,000)
• Duke of Bourbon (1,200)
• Duke of Orleans (600)

Main Battle: 3,000 (plus some hundreds of late arrivals)

• Count of Nevers: (1,200)
• Duke of Bar (600)
• Count of Marle (400)
• Count of Eu (300)
• Count of Vaudemont (300)
• The Count of Roucy (200)
• The Duke of Brabant and the barons of Hainault with some hundreds.

Right Wing: 600

• Richemont (600)

Left wing: 600

• Count of Vendôme (600).

That gives a grand total of c.10,000. (He does not give any figure for the third line described by Waurin.)

The documentary evidence for the French army is much less detailed. Anne Curry^[9] has found evidence for 230 retinues in the pay of the French Chambre des Comptes (French equivalent of the Exchequer). Detailed numbers of the men in each one are not given, but assuming a similar size to the English retinues, it would mean at least 6,000 men^[10]. Curry adds that in a meeting of the Royal Council on August 31 it was decided to levy 24,000 livres tournois in order to raise an army of 6,000 escuiers and 3,000 gens de trait^[11]. The French army that moved from Rouen to block the pass of Henry of the river Somme is numbered by the Burgundian sources at 6,000, while there is evidence for some troops remaining at Rouen with the king and the Dauphin. Some modern historians have argued that the 6,000 French were only an advance force, to be later joined by the main army with a much larger force, however Anne Curry argues that there is nothing in the sources to support that, only the Duke of Orleans and the Duke of Bourbon are said to have arrived later from Rouen, with a maximum of around 2,500 men ^[12]. The King issued a royal decree on 20th September to call as many troops as possible to the army, blaming the local nobility's "negligence and delays" for the loss of Harfleur ^[13], but it is unclear how many additional forces joined the French army over the following month before the battle.

The documentary sources also provide some additional details about the French army. The retinues were paid individually, differently from the English system in which the Peers received the pay for the entire company, and then paid the captains of the individual retinues. From the French retinues in which composition is given we see that, unlike the English, some are composed totally by escuiers (the French equivalent of men-at-arms). As the English archers, the French gens de trait are a mixed group, including some archers (in the sense of bowmen), crossbowmen, but overall a large proportion of servants (valets) with a military role, they would serve as a sort of lightly armoured men-at-arms. The documentary sources show that the French army was then composed mainly of men-at-arms style soldiers, with a small provision of archers and crossbowmen, which fits with the very limited role they play in all the narrative accounts.

[edit] Analysis of the sources

The numbers which the documentary sources provide for the size of the professional armies is very consistent, and some (Curry, also see Phillippe Contamine, La Guerre au moyen âge (Paris 1980)), have argued that they are more reliable than narrative accounts. For instance, the army of Henry V could be compared to that raised by Henry IV in 1400 against Scotland, that numbered 13,085 men. Equally, the army raised by Charles VI against Burgundy in 1414, that numbered 14,500, could be compared to the forces raised in 1415 (it should be noted here the financial difficulties the French experienced in 1415 as a result of the previous campaign that hindered their efforts to raise a new army). However other historians have preferred the eyewitness accounts, none of which put the odds at less than 3:1; Juliet Barker has argued that the documentary sources are too incomplete to be able to conclude (as Curry does) that the odds were only 4:3.

[edit] Fingering a popular myth

According to a popular myth the "two-fingers salute" (V sign) derives from the gestures of longbowmen fighting in the English army at the battle of Agincourt. The myth claims that the French cut off two fingers on the right hand of captured archers (or cut the tendon allowing them to draw a bow), and that the gesture was a sign of defiance by those who were not mutilated. (This false etymology has also given rise to an alternative name for the gesture, which can also be known as flicking an "Archers Salute" or just "Archers" as in "He just flicked me an Archers!") Juliet Barker quotes Jean Le Fevre (who fought on the English side at Agincourt) as saying that Henry V included a reference to the French cutting off longbowmen's fingers in his pre-battle speech (Barker, 2005, p. 284). If this is correct it shows that the story was around at the time of Agincourt, although it doesn't necessarily mean that the French practiced it (just that Henry found it useful for propaganda). The website Snopes ^[14], states that medieval warriors had no interest in capturing common archers that could not be held for ransom. Furthermore, mutilating a prisoner to stop them from using a bow would not make sense, as it would reduce their ransom value, and they could still use other weapons. There is also the fact that contemporary accounts of the battle make no references to the French mutilating their prisoners by cutting off fingers from their hands.^[15] (The first definitive known reference to the V sign is in the works of François Rabelais, a French satirist of the 1500s. ^[16])

The belief that the V sign originated among archers might have its origin in the work of the historian Jean Froissart (c. 1337–c. 1404), who died before the Battle of Agincourt took place. In his Chronicles, he recounts a story of the English waving their fingers at the French during a siege of a castle, however he makes no reference to which fingers were used meaning that this is not evidence of the origin of the V sign.

The "two-fingers salute" is certainly older than Agincourt. It appears in the Macclesfield Psalter MS 1-2005 Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, believed to be produced in about 1330, Folio 130 Recto, CDROM p261, being made by a glove on the extended nose of a marginalia depicting a human headed hybrid beast, ridden by a person playing the pipe and tabor. The Psalter marginalia have many absurdities and obscenities so the traditional meaning of this gesture would not be out of place here. As the gesture is made by a disembodied glove accidental positioning of the hand may be ruled out.

Another popular myth is that the Battle of Agincourt is the origin of the middle finger "giving the bird" gesture. This myth has been debunked by Barbara Mikkelson and published at snopes.com ^[17]

[edit] See also

• Dafydd Gam: Welsh hero who reputedly saved Henry V's life at Agincourt
• The Agincourt Carol: a well-known 15th century English folk song concerning the battle.
• Henry V
• Henry V (1944 film)
• Henry V (1989 film)

[edit] Notes

[edit] Bibliography

• Barker, Juliet (2005). Agincourt: The King, the Campaign, the Battle Pub: Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0-316-72648-1 (UK). ISBN 978-0-316-01503-5 (U.S.: Agincourt : Henry V and the Battle That Made England (2006)).
• Curry, Anne (2005). Agincourt: A New History. Pub: Tempus UK. ISBN 978-0-7524-2828-4
• "Battle of Agincourt" in Military Heritage, October 2005, Volume 7, No. 2, pp. 36 to 43). ISSN 1524-8666.
• Dupuy, Trevor N. (1993). Harper Encyclopedia of Military History. Pub: New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-270056-8
• Hibbert, Christopher (1971). Great Battles—Agincourt. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson. ISBN 1842127187. 
• Keegan, John (1976). The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme. Pub: Viking Adult. ISBN 978-0-14-004897-1 (Penguin Classics Reprint)
• The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge Macclesfield Psalter CD, e-mail fitzmuseum-enquiries@lists.cam.ac.uk

[edit] External links

• Battlefield Detectives - Agincourt. Crowd Dynamics Ltd Battlefield Detectives - Agincourt. Retrieved on September 9, 2005.
• Agincourt A fairly detailed treatment of the battle.
• The Battle of Agincourt Resource Site
• The Agincourt Honor Roll
• BBC - The Battle of Agincourt and English claims to the French Crown 1415 - 1422
• Agincourt with Anne Curry, Michael Jones and John Watts from In Our Time (BBC Radio 4)
• Agincourt 1415: Henry V, Sir Thomas Erpingham and the triumph of the English archers ed. Anne Curry, Pub: Tempus UK, 2000 ISBN 0752417800
• The Battle of Agincourt Bibliography
• The Azincourt Alliance, which arranges re-enactments of the battle in conjunction with the Azincourt Museum at modern-day Azincourt
• The Azincourt Museum, Azincourt, France
• The Battle of Agincourt by Steve Beck