Agincourt, Henry V's famous victory over the French on 25 October 1415, is a fascinating battle not just because of what happened but also because of how its myth has developed ever since. Without a river obstacle to defend, the French were hesitant to force a battle. Originally representing the erect phallus, the gesture conveyssimultaneously a sexual threat to the person to whom it is directed andapotropaicmeans of warding off unwanted elements of the more-than-human. ( here ). 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. Updates? Africa: Funny but Fanciful - Little Evidence for Origin of the F Word Its not known whether one displayed the digitus infamis in the same manner that we (well, you) flip the bird today. Many people who have seen the film question whether giving the finger was done around the time of the Titanic disaster, or was it a more recent gesture invented by some defiant seventh-grader. Dear Cecil: Can you confirm the following? Henry threatened to hang whoever did not obey his orders. Corrections? Before the battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French proposed cutting the middle finger off of captured English soldiers rendering them incapable of shooting longbows. 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. The situation in England, coupled with the fact that France was weakened by its own political crisisthe insanity of Charles VI had resulted in a fight for power among the nobilitymade it an ideal moment for Henry to press his claims. The French, who were overwhelmingly favored to win the battle, threatened to cut a certain body part off of all captured English soldiers so that they could never fight again. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. 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 . Battle of Agincourt, (October 25, 1415), decisive battle in the Hundred Years War (13371453) that resulted in the victory of the English over the French. Medieval warriors didn't take prisoners because by doing so they were observing a moral code that dictated opponents who had laid down their arms and ceased fighting must be treated humanely, but because they knew high-ranking captives were valuable property that could be ransomed for money. Bowman were not valuable prisoners, though: they stood outside the chivalric system and were considered the social inferiors of men-at-arms. After the initial wave, the French would have had to fight over and on the bodies of those who had fallen before them. For three hours after sunrise there was no fighting. Although the French initially pushed the English back, they became so closely packed that they were described as having trouble using their weapons properly. Although the victory had been militarily decisive, its impact was complex. Battle of Agincourt - The English Really Should Have Lost, But They Won It sounds rather fishy to me. 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. Your opponent is not going to pay you (or pay you much) for the return of mutilated soldiers, so now what do you do with them? [139] The museum lists the names of combatants of both sides who died in the battle. 1995 - 2023 by Snopes Media Group Inc. (Its taking longer than we thought.) Fighting ignorance since 1973. The French hoped to raise 9,000 troops, but the army was not ready in time to relieve Harfleur. Medieval Archers (Everything you Need to Know) - The Finer Times King Charles VI of France did not command the French army as he suffered from psychotic illnesses and associated mental incapacity. News of the contrivance circulated within Europe and was described in a book of tactics written in 1411 by. 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. Thinking it was an attack from the rear, Henry had the French nobles he was holding prisoner killed. [37], Henry made a speech emphasising the justness of his cause, and reminding his army of previous great defeats the kings of England had inflicted on the French. 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". Materials characterization, 29(2), 111117. Agincourt and the Middle Finger | First Floor Tarpley The battle occurred on Friday, 25 October 1415 ( Saint Crispin's Day ), near modern-day Azincourt, in northern France. [39] Curry, Rogers[118] and Mortimer[42] all agree the French had 4 to 5 thousand missile troops. [101] The bailiffs of nine major northern towns were killed, often along with their sons, relatives and supporters. It. [5] [b] Henry V 's victory at Agincourt, against a numerically superior French army. The Gesta Henrici places this after the English had overcome the onslaught of the French men-at-arms and the weary English troops were eyeing the French rearguard ("in incomparable number and still fresh"). [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 Roman gesturemadeby extending the third finger from a closed fist, thus made the same threat, by forming a similarly phallic shape. 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. David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994. Then they had to walk a few hundred yards (metres) through thick mud and a press of comrades while wearing armour weighing 5060 pounds (2327kg), gathering sticky clay all the way. PLUCK YEW!". This was an innovative technique that the English had not used in the Battles of Crcy and Poitiers. Julia Martinez was an Editorial Intern at Encyclopaedia Britannica. The metallography and relative effectiveness of arrowheads and armor during the Middle Ages. before a defensive battle was possible. This famous weapon was made of the native English yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as plucking the yew. Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French, saying, See, we can still pluck yew! Over the years some folk etymologies have grown up around this symbolic gesture. The Face of Battle. [49], The French vanguard and main battle numbered respectively 4,800 and 3,000 men-at-arms. [106] This lack of unity in France allowed Henry eighteen months to prepare militarily and politically for a renewed campaign. I admit that I bring this story up when I talk about the Hundred Years War only to debunk it. There is a modern museum in Agincourt village dedicated to the battle. 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! Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 ISBN 0-19-282916-5 (p. 454). When that campaign took place, it was made easier by the damage done to the political and military structures of Normandy by the battle. During this battle, the medieval archers started ahead of the army and commenced the action. 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. [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. 33-35). The effect of the victory on national morale was powerful. The Most Famous, Bloodiest Medieval Battle - AGINCOURT - Full - YouTube [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. The campaign season was coming to an end, and the English army had suffered many casualties through disease. False. This symbol of rocking out is formed by tucking the middle and index finger and holding them in place with the thumb. 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 French monk of St. Denis describes the French troops as "marching through the middle of the mud where they sank up to their knees. The French army blocked Henry's way to the safety of Calais, and delaying battle would only further weaken his tired army and allow more French troops to arrive. Im even more suspicious of the alleged transformation of p to f. Why not simply kill them outright in the first place? [34] The rearguard, leaderless, would serve as a "dumping ground" for the surplus troops. The Battle of Agincourt (October 25, 1415) was a pivotal battle in the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453), resulting in an English victory over the French. Keegan also speculated that due to the relatively low number of archers actually involved in killing the French knights (roughly 200 by his estimate), together with the refusal of the English knights to assist in a duty they saw as distastefully unchivalrous, and combined with the sheer difficulty of killing such a large number of prisoners in such a short space of time, the actual number of French prisoners put to death may not have been substantial before the French reserves fled the field and Henry rescinded the order. This article was. 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. According to contemporary English accounts, Henry fought hand to hand. [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. Keegan, John. It supposedly describes the origin of the middle-finger hand gesture and, by implication, the insult "fuck you". Last, but certainly not least, wouldn't these insolent archers have been bragging about plucking a bow's string, and not the wood of the bow itself? And where does the distinction between one and two fingers come from? [50] Both lines were arrayed in tight, dense formations of about 16 ranks each, and were positioned a bowshot length from each other. [105] Other benefits to the English were longer term. David Mikkelson Published Sep 29, 1999. One popular "origin story" for the middle finger has to do with the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. The Battle of Agincourt (/dnkr(t)/ AJ-in-kor(t);[a] French: Azincourt [azku]) was an English victory in the Hundred Years' War. Nicolle, D. (2004). (Indeed, Henry V was heavily criticized for supposedly having ordered the execution of French prisoners at Agincourt. because when a spectator started to hiss, he called the attention of the whole audience to him with an obscene movement of his middle finger. Morris also claims that the mad emperor Caligula, as an insult, would extend his middle finger for supplicants to kiss. It forms the backdrop to events in William Shakespeare 's play Henry V, written in 1599. Increasingly, they had to walk around or over fallen comrades. [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. One final observation: any time some appeal begins with heres something that intelligent people will find edifying you should be suspicious. As John Keegan wrote in his history of warfare: "To meet a similarly equipped opponent was the occasion for which the armoured soldier trained perhaps every day of his life from the onset of manhood. 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. On 25 October 1415, an army of English raiders under Henry V faced the French outside an obscure village on the road to Calais. French chroniclers agree that when the mounted charge did come, it did not contain as many men as it should have; Gilles le Bouvier states that some had wandered off to warm themselves and others were walking or feeding their horses. When 5,000 British Archers Defeated Over 30,000 French Knights And for a variety of reasons, it made no military sense whatsoever for the French to capture English archers, then mutilate them by cutting off their fingers. [116] Rogers, on the other hand, finds the number 5,000 plausible, giving several analogous historical events to support his case,[112] and Barker considers that the fragmentary pay records which Curry relies on actually support the lower estimates. Giving the Finger - 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 French had originally drawn up a battle plan that had archers and crossbowmen in front of their men-at-arms, with a cavalry force at the rear specifically designed to "fall upon the archers, and use their force to break them,"[71] but in the event, the French archers and crossbowmen were deployed behind and to the sides of the men-at-arms (where they seem to have played almost no part, except possibly for an initial volley of arrows at the start of the battle). 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. However, the lack of archaeological evidence at this traditional site has led to suggestions it was fought to the west of Azincourt. Saint Crispin's Day - Wikipedia [109] Juliet Barker, Jonathan Sumption and Clifford J. Rogers criticized Curry's reliance on administrative records, arguing that they are incomplete and that several of the available primary sources already offer a credible assessment of the numbers involved. But frankly, I suspect that the French would have done a lot worse to any captured English archers than chopping off their fingers. 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! The version that I tell explains the specific British custom of elevating two fingers as a rude gesture. By 1415, negotiations had ground to a halt, with the English claiming that the French had mocked their claims and ridiculed Henry himself. [128] The original play does not, however, feature any scenes of the actual battle itself, leading critic Rose Zimbardo to characterise it as "full of warfare, yet empty of conflict. [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. 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. [8] These included the Duke of York, the young Earl of Suffolk and the Welsh esquire Dafydd ("Davy") Gam. [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. [85], The French men-at-arms were taken prisoner or killed in the thousands. Since then there had been tension between the nobility and the royal house, widespread lawlessness throughout the kingdom, and several attempts on Henry Vs life. 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. 138). [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. Rogers says each of the 10,000 men-at-arms would be accompanied by a gros valet (an armed, armoured and mounted military servant) and a noncombatant page, counts the former as fighting men, and concludes thus that the French in fact numbered 24,000. 33-35). 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. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts here . Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future.

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