battle of agincourt middle finger

A widely shared image on social media purportedly explains the historic origins of the middle finger, considered an offensive gesture in Western culture. [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. 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. 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. Despite the numerical disadvantage, the battle ended in an overwhelming victory for the English. 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. 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. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore 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. [92], The French had suffered a catastrophic defeat. England had been fraught with political discord since Henry IV of the house of Lancaster (father of Henry V) had usurped the throne from Richard II in 1399. 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. [54] To disperse the enemy archers, a cavalry force of 8001,200 picked men-at-arms,[55] led by Clignet de Brban and Louis de Bosredon, was distributed evenly between both flanks of the vanguard (standing slightly forward, like horns). 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". After Henry V marched to the north, the French moved to block them along the River Somme. While the precise number of casualties is unknown, it is estimated that English losses amounted to about 400 and French losses to about 6,000, many of whom were noblemen. Agincourt 1415: The Triumph of the Longbow: Directed by Graham Holloway. The battlefield was a freshly plowed field, and at the time of the battle, it had been raining continuously for several days. Rather than retire directly to England for the winter, with his costly expedition resulting in the capture of only one town, Henry decided to march most of his army (roughly 9,000) through Normandy to the port of Calais, the English stronghold in northern France, to demonstrate by his presence in the territory at the head of an army that his right to rule in the duchy was more than a mere abstract legal and historical claim. Common estimates place the English army at about 6,000, while the French army probably consisted of 20,000 to 30,000 men. [39] Curry, Rogers[118] and Mortimer[42] all agree the French had 4 to 5 thousand missile troops. Upon hearing that his youngest brother Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester had been wounded in the groin, Henry took his household guard and stood over his brother, in the front rank of the fighting, until Humphrey could be dragged to safety. 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. [citation needed]. The Battle of Agincourt was another famous battle where longbowmen had a particularly important . [52] The dukes of Alenon and Bar led the main battle. The Face of Battle. Without a river obstacle to defend, the French were hesitant to force a battle. [93] Entire noble families were wiped out in the male line, and in some regions an entire generation of landed nobility was annihilated. [130][131] Partially as a result, the battle was used as a metaphor at the beginning of the First World War, when the British Expeditionary Force's attempts to stop the German advances were widely likened to it.[132]. 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. By 24 October, both armies faced each other for battle, but the French declined, hoping for the arrival of more troops. [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. The English King Henry V and his troops were marching to Calais to embark for England when he was intercepted by forces which outnumbered his. 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? It continued as a series of battles, sieges, and disputes throughout the 14th century, with both the French and the English variously taking advantage. [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 it is supposed to represent I have no idea. 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. The battle probably lasted no longer than three hours and was perhaps as short as half an hour, according to some estimates. Increasingly, they had to walk around or over fallen comrades. Sumption, thus, concludes that the French had 14,000 men, basing himself on the monk of St. Denis;[119] Mortimer gives 14 or 15 thousand fighting men. Contents. A list of English archers killed at Agincourt, as recorded in the village's museum, The story of the battle has been retold many times in English, from the 15th-century, Dates in the fifteenth century are difficult to reconcile with modern calendars: see, The first known use of angled stakes to thwart a mounted charge was at the Battle of Nicopolis, an engagement between European states and Turkish forces in 1396, twenty years before Agincourt. It sounds rather fishy to me. Didn't it originate at Agincourt? Image source The Battle of Agincourt forms a key part of Shakespeare's Henry V. Photo by Nick Ansell / POOL / AFP) Myth: During the Hundred Years War, the French cut off the first and second fingers of any. There is a modern museum in Agincourt village dedicated to the battle. (Storyline based on the play by William Shakespeare "The Cronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Batt. Recent heavy rain made the battle field very muddy, proving 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 had a hard time getting back up to fight in the mle. 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? 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. He claimed the title of King of France through his great-grandfather Edward III of England, although in practice the English kings were generally prepared to renounce this claim if the French would acknowledge the English claim on Aquitaine and other French lands (the terms of the Treaty of Brtigny). Battle of Agincourt. Participating as judges were Justices Samuel Alito and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In pursuit of his claim to the French throne, Henry V invaded Normandy with an army of 11,000 men in August 1415. The king received an axe blow to the head, which knocked off a piece of the crown that formed part of his helmet. [c], The English made their confessions before the battle, as was customary. [135] The battle also forms a central component of the 2019 Netflix film The King. This famous weapon was made of the . 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. The Face of Battle.New York: Penguin Books, 1978 ISBN 0-140-04897-9 (pp. 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. A labiodental fricative was no less "difficult" for Middle English speakers to pronounce than the aspirated bilabial stop/voiceless lateral combination of 'pl' that the fricative supposedly changed into, nor are there any other examples of such a pronunciation shift occurring in English. [27], During the siege, the French had raised an army which assembled around Rouen. [62] [130] Critic David Margolies describes how it "oozes honour, military glory, love of country and self-sacrifice", and forms one of the first instances of English literature linking solidarity and comradeship to success in battle. One final observation: any time some appeal begins with heres something that intelligent people will find edifying you should be suspicious. 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. For three hours after sunrise there was no fighting. [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. In such a "press" of thousands of men, Rogers suggested that many could have suffocated in their armour, as was described by several sources, and which was also known to have happened in other battles. T he battle of Agincourt, whose 600th anniversary falls on St Crispin's Day, 25 October, is still tabloid gold, Gotcha! One of the most renowned. Departing from Harfleur on October 8, Henry marched northward toward the English-held port of Calais, where he would disembark for England, with a force of 1,000 knights and men-at-arms and 5,000 archers. 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. The number is supported by many other contemporary accounts. Bloomsbury Publishing. 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). This suggests that the French could have outnumbered the English 5 to 1. [21] On 19 April 1415, Henry again asked the Great Council to sanction war with France, and this time they agreed. Thepostalleges that the Frenchhad planned to cut offthe middle fingers ofall captured English soldiers,to inhibit them fromdrawingtheir longbowsin futurebattles. [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. (Its taking longer than we thought.) New York: Penguin Books, 1978 ISBN 0-140-04897-9 (pp. Winston Churchhill can be seen using the V as a rallying call. 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. On February 1, 1328, King Charles IV of France died without an heir. Take on the burden and expense of caring for them? 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. [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. 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 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). Jones, P. N. (1992). The archers were commanded by Sir Thomas Erpingham, another elderly veteran. 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. 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. 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. [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). A BBCNews Magazinereportsimilarlytracesthe gesture back toAncient Greek philosophers ( here ). 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. 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. As the English were collecting prisoners, a band of French peasants led by local noblemen began plundering Henrys baggage behind the lines. [84] The exhausted French men-at-arms were unable to get up after being knocked to the ground by the English. To meet and beat him was a triumph, the highest form which self-expression could take in the medieval nobleman's way of life." Jean de Wavrin, a knight on the French side wrote that English fatalities were 1,600 men of all ranks. After several decades of relative peace, the English had resumed the war in 1415 amid the failure of negotiations with the French. The 'middle finger salute' is derived from the defiant gestures of English archers whose fingers had been severed by the French at the Battle of Agincourt. "[102], Estimates of the number of prisoners vary between 700 and 2,200, amongst them the dukes of Orlans and Bourbon, the counts of Eu, Vendme, Richemont (brother of the Duke of Brittany and stepbrother of Henry V) and Harcourt, and marshal Jean Le Maingre.[12]. The Battle of Agincourt (720p) Watch on This claim is false. Its not known whether one displayed the digitus infamis in the same manner that we (well, you) flip the bird today. Battle of Agincourt, (October 25, 1415)Battle resulting in the decisive victory of the English over the French in the Hundred Years' War. Since the French had many more men-at-arms than the English, they would accordingly be accompanied by a far greater number of servants. [104] Henry returned a conquering hero, seen as blessed by God in the eyes of his subjects and European powers outside France. Course Hero uses AI to attempt to automatically extract content from documents to surface to you and others so you can study better, e.g., in search results, to enrich docs, and more. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts here . 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]. Upon his death, a French assembly formed to appoint a male successor. What does DO NOT HUMP mean on the side of railroad cars? [110][111][112] Ian Mortimer endorsed Curry's methodology, though applied it more liberally, noting how she "minimises French numbers (by limiting her figures to those in the basic army and a few specific additional companies) and maximises English numbers (by assuming the numbers sent home from Harfleur were no greater than sick lists)", and concluded that "the most extreme imbalance which is credible" is 15,000 French against 8,0009,000 English. This battle concluded with King Harold of England dying at the hands of the Norman King William, which marked the beginning of a new era in England. The decorative use of the image of Priapusmatched the Roman use ofimages of male genitalia for warding off evil. The Duke of Brabant (about 2,000 men),[65] the Duke of Anjou (about 600 men),[65] and the Duke of Brittany (6,000 men, according to Monstrelet),[66] were all marching to join the army. [49], The French vanguard and main battle numbered respectively 4,800 and 3,000 men-at-arms. Opie, Iona and Moira Tatem. 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. This article was. 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 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). Corrections? 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 . Humble English archers defeated the armoured elite of French chivalry, enshrining both the longbow and the battle in English national legend. 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. 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). [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. Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com. [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. After a difficult siege, the English forces found themselves assaulted by a massive French force. Barker, following the Gesta Henrici, believed to have been written by an English chaplain who was actually in the baggage train, concluded that the attack happened at the start of the battle. She graduated from the University of Chicago in 2019 with bachelor's degrees in English Language and Literature and Medieval Studies. The Battle of Agincourt was dramatised by William Shakespeare in Henry V featuring the battle in which Henry inspired his much-outnumbered English forces to fight the French through a St Crispin's Day Speech, saying "the fewer men, the greater share of honour". The 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. During this battle, the medieval archers started ahead of the army and commenced the action. Inthe book,Corbeillpoints to Priapus, a minor deityhedatesto 400 BC, whichlater alsoappears in Rome as the guardian of gardens,according to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Greece and Rome( here ). People who killed their social betters from a distance werent very well liked, and would likely have paid with their lives as did all the French prisoners, archers or otherwise, whom Henry V had executed at Agincourt, in what some historians consider a war crime. [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. 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. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 ISBN 0-19-282916-5 (p. 454). 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. 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. The main part of the speech begins "This day is called the feast of . PLUCK YEW!". [60][61], Accounts of the battle describe the French engaging the English men-at-arms before being rushed from the sides by the longbowmen as the mle developed. The insulting gesture of extending one's middle finger (referred to as digitus impudicus in Latin) originated long before the Battle of Agincourt. So they were already overcome with fatigue even before they advanced against the enemy". With 4,800 men-at-arms in the vanguard, 3,000 in the main battle, and 1,200 in the infantry wings. [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]. [107], Most primary sources which describe the battle have English outnumbered by several times. Barker states that some knights, encumbered by their armour, actually drowned in their helmets.[64]. 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. 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. When the English won the battle the soldiers waved their middle fingers at the French in defiance, thus flipping the bird was born [72], The French cavalry, despite being disorganised and not at full numbers, charged towards the longbowmen. This famous English longbow was . The latter, each titled Henry V, star Laurence Olivier in 1944 and Kenneth Branagh in 1989. The image makes the further claim that the English soldiers chanted pluck yew, ostensibly in reference to the drawing of the longbow.

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