The battle probably lasted no longer than three hours and was perhaps as short as half an hour, according to some estimates. [49], The French vanguard and main battle numbered respectively 4,800 and 3,000 men-at-arms. 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. David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994. Soon after the victory at Agincourt, a number of popular folk songs were created about the battle, the most famous being the "Agincourt Carol", produced in the first half of the 15th century. [104] Henry returned a conquering hero, seen as blessed by God in the eyes of his subjects and European powers outside France. Humble English archers defeated the armoured elite of French chivalry, enshrining both the longbow and the battle in English national legend. 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! The key word for describing the battle of Agincourt is mud . It supposedly describes the origin of the middle-finger hand gesture and, by implication, the insult "fuck you". Historians disagree less about the French numbers. 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. The battle remains an important symbol in popular culture. [25] The siege took longer than expected. A BBCNews Magazinereportsimilarlytracesthe gesture back toAncient Greek philosophers ( here ). 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. On the morning of 25 October, the French were still waiting for additional troops to arrive. 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). Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured soldiers. The English won in a major upset and waved the body part in question at the French in defiance. Maybe it means five and was a symbol of support for Henry V? 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. 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. In the other reference Martial writes that a certain party points a finger, an indecent one, at some other people. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1991 ISBN 0-471-53672-5 (pp. There is no evidence that, when captured in any scenario,archers had their finger cut off by the enemy( bit.ly/3dP2PhP ). In the song Hotel California, what does colitas mean? [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. [68], Henry's men were already very weary from hunger, illness and retreat. Early in the morning on October 25 (the feast day of St. Crispin), 1415, Henry positioned his army for battle on a recently plowed field bounded by woods. However, the lack of archaeological evidence at this traditional site has led to suggestions it was fought to the west of Azincourt. 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. 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. Juliet Barker quotes a contemporary account by a monk from St. Denis who reports how the wounded and panicking horses galloped through the advancing infantry, scattering them and trampling them down in their headlong flight from the battlefield. [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. . 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. Shakespeare's version of the battle of Agincourt has been turned into several minor and two major films. 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. It was often reported to comprise 1,500 ships, but was probably far smaller. John Keegan argues that the longbows' main influence on the battle at this point was injuries to horses: armoured only on the head, many horses would have become dangerously out of control when struck in the back or flank from the high-elevation, long-range shots used as the charge started. And where does the distinction between one and two fingers come from? 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 fact that Winston Churchill sometimes made his V-for-victory gesture rudely suggests that it is of much more recent vintage. 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. 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. 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 . [36] Henry, worried about the enemy launching surprise raids, and wanting his troops to remain focused, ordered all his men to spend the night before the battle in silence, on pain of having an ear cut off. [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. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future. 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 . 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. [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. 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. Osprey Publishing. The battle repeated other English successes in the Hundred Years War, such as the Battle of Crcy (1346) and the Battle of Poitiers (1356), and made possible Englands subsequent conquest of Normandy and the Treaty of Troyes (1420), which named Henry V heir to the French crown. It continued as a series of battles, sieges, and disputes throughout the 14th century, with both the French and the English variously taking advantage. However, a need to reassert his authority at home (as well as his own ambition and a sense of justice) led Henry V to renew English claims in France. 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. [c], The English made their confessions before the battle, as was customary. . One final observation: any time some appeal begins with heres something that intelligent people will find edifying you should be suspicious. The historian Suetonius, writing about Augustus Caesar, says the emperor expelled [the entertainer] Pylades . There is a modern museum in Agincourt village dedicated to the battle. 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". [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]. Common estimates place the English army at about 6,000, while the French army probably consisted of 20,000 to 30,000 men. Jean de Wavrin, a knight on the French side wrote that English fatalities were 1,600 men of all ranks. Thepostalleges that the Frenchhad planned to cut offthe middle fingers ofall captured English soldiers,to inhibit them fromdrawingtheir longbowsin futurebattles. [124], The most famous cultural depiction of the battle today is in Act IV of William Shakespeare's Henry V, written in 1599. Why do some people have that one extra-long fingernail on the pinkie finger. Details the English victory over the French at the Battle of Agincourt. After a difficult siege, the English forces found themselves assaulted by a massive French force. The deep, soft mud particularly favoured the English force because, once knocked to the ground, the heavily armoured French knights had a hard time getting back up to fight in the mle. 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. [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. The latter, each titled Henry V, star Laurence Olivier in 1944 and Kenneth Branagh in 1989. 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. It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird". The French knights were unable to outflank the longbowmen (because of the encroaching woodland) and unable to charge through the array of sharpened stakes that protected the archers. [citation needed], The French responded with what they considered the generous terms of marriage with Catherine, a dowry of 600,000 crowns, and an enlarged Aquitaine. 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. 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. By 24 October, both armies faced each other for battle, but the French declined, hoping for the arrival of more troops. When Henry V acceded to the English throne in 1413, there had been a long hiatus in the fighting. It lasted longer than Henry had anticipated, and his numbers were significantly diminished as a result of casualties, desertions, and disease. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. 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. Moreover, if archers could be ransomed, then cutting off their middle fingers would be a senseless move. 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. [92], The French had suffered a catastrophic defeat. Clip from the 1944 movie "Henry V" (137 min). 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. [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. 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. The king received an axe blow to the head, which knocked off a piece of the crown that formed part of his helmet. It goes on to state thatafter an unexpected victory, the English soldiersmocked thedefeatedFrenchtroopsbywavingtheir middle fingers( here ). Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. The English were not in an ideal condition to fight a battle. Battle of Agincourt. 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. 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. 78-116). Although the victory had been militarily decisive, its impact was complex. 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). [23] The army of about 12,000 men and up to 20,000 horses besieged the port of Harfleur. 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. The basic premise that the origins of the one-finger gesture and its association with the profane word "fuck" were an outgrowth of the 1415 battle between French and English forces at Agincourt is simple enough to debunk. The 'middle finger salute' did not derive from the defiant gestures of English archers whose fingers had been severed at the Battle of Agincourt. It. First of all, the word pluck begins with the blend pl, which would logically become fl if the voiceless bilabial plosive p has actually transformed into the labiodentalfricative f, which is by no means certain. Apparently Henry believed his fleeing army would perform better on the defensive, but had to halt the retreat and somehow engage the French [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. This was not strictly a feudal army, but an army paid through a system similar to that of the English. Materials characterization, 29(2), 111117. [citation needed], In any event, Henry ordered the slaughter of what were perhaps several thousand French prisoners, sparing only the highest ranked (presumably those most likely to fetch a large ransom under the chivalric system of warfare). The number is supported by many other contemporary accounts. Military textbooks of the time stated: "Everywhere and on all occasions that foot soldiers march against their enemy face to face, those who march lose and those who remain standing still and holding firm win. [50] Both lines were arrayed in tight, dense formations of about 16 ranks each, and were positioned a bowshot length from each other. [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. 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. [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. [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. They were blocking Henry's retreat, and were perfectly happy to wait for as long as it took. 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 . Since the French had many more men-at-arms than the English, they would accordingly be accompanied by a far greater number of servants. Dear Cecil: Can you confirm the following? [126], Shakespeare's depiction of the battle also plays on the theme of modernity. Update [June 20, 2022]: Updated SEO/social. 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. [7] Barker, who believes the English were outnumbered by at least four to one,[120] says that the armed servants formed the rearguard in the battle. 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. [8] These included the Duke of York, the young Earl of Suffolk and the Welsh esquire Dafydd ("Davy") Gam. 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. 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 they would be incapable of fighting in the future. The middle finger gesture does not derive from the mutilation of English archers at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. 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. The puzzler was: What was this body part? You would think that anything English predating 1607, such as the language, Protestantism, or the Common Law, would have been a part of Americas patrimony. 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. 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. Henry threatened to hang whoever did not obey his orders. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future. 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". Recent heavy rain made the battle field very muddy, proving very tiring to walk through in full plate armour. This famous weapon was made of the . It seems clear, however, that the English were at a decided numerical disadvantage. Henry would marry Catherine, Charles VI's young daughter, and receive a dowry of 2million crowns. Thus, when the victorious English waved their middle fingers at the defeated French, they said, "See, we can still pluck yew! The Hundred Years' War. [51] Albret, Boucicaut and almost all the leading noblemen were assigned stations in the vanguard. Wikipedia. Battle of Agincourt, (October 25, 1415)Battle resulting in the decisive victory of the English over the French in the Hundred Years' War. In the words of Juliet Barker, the battle "cut a great swath through the natural leaders of French society in Artois, Ponthieu, Normandy, Picardy. The Battle of Agincourt (720p) Watch on Battles were observed and chronicled by heralds who were present at the scene and recorded what they saw, judged who won, and fixed names for the battles. [34] The rearguard, leaderless, would serve as a "dumping ground" for the surplus troops. [93] Among them were 90120 great lords and bannerets killed, including[95] three dukes (Alenon, Bar and Brabant), nine counts (Blmont, Dreux, Fauquembergue, Grandpr, Marle, Nevers, Roucy, Vaucourt, Vaudmont) and one viscount (Puisaye), also an archbishop. This famous weapon was made of the native English yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew." Certainly, d'Azincourt was a local knight but he might have been chosen to lead the attack because of his local knowledge and the lack of availability of a more senior soldier. Its not known whether one displayed the digitus infamis in the same manner that we (well, you) flip the bird today. The trial ranged widely over whether there was just cause for war and not simply the prisoner issue. 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. With 4,800 men-at-arms in the vanguard, 3,000 in the main battle, and 1,200 in the infantry wings. When that campaign took place, it was made easier by the damage done to the political and military structures of Normandy by the battle. 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. 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 main part of the speech begins "This day is called the feast of . It took place on 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin's Day) near Azincourt, in northern France. The town surrendered on 22 September, and the English army did not leave until 8 October. The delay allowed a large French force, led by the constable Charles dAlbret and the marshal Jean II le Meingre (called Boucicaut), to intercept him near the village of Agincourt on October 24. A widely shared image on social media purportedly explains the historic origins of the middle finger, considered an offensive gesture in Western culture. In the Battle of Agincourt, the French threatened the English Soldiers that they would cut off their fingers and when they failed the Englishmen mocked them by showing their fingers. 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. As the English were collecting prisoners, a band of French peasants led by local noblemen began plundering Henrys baggage behind the lines. As the story goes, the French were fighting with the English and had a diabolical (and greatly advertised) plan of cutting off the middle fingers of any captured English archers so they could never taunt the French with arrows plucked in their . This article was. 42 Share 3.9K views 4 years ago There is an old story that allegedly gives the background of how we came to use the middle finger as an insult along with the alleged origin of the "F-word". Im even more suspicious of the alleged transformation of p to f. [46] Many lords and gentlemen demanded and got places in the front lines, where they would have a higher chance to acquire glory and valuable ransoms; this resulted in the bulk of the men-at-arms being massed in the front lines and the other troops, for which there was no remaining space, to be placed behind. After the victory, Henry continued his march to Calais and arrived back in England in November to an outpouring of nationalistic sentiment.
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