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. Made just prior to the invasion of Normandy, Olivier's rendition gives the battle what Sarah Hatchuel has termed an "exhilarating and heroic" tone, with an artificial, cinematic look to the battle scenes. Modern test and contemporary accounts conclude that arrows could not penetrate the better quality steel armour, which became available to knights and men-at-arms of fairly modest means by the middle of the 14th century, but could penetrate the poorer quality wrought iron armour. She graduated from the University of Chicago in 2019 with bachelor's degrees in English Language and Literature and Medieval Studies. David Mikkelson Published Sep 29, 1999. 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 ). [21] On 19 April 1415, Henry again asked the Great Council to sanction war with France, and this time they agreed. [45] A second, smaller mounted force was to attack the rear of the English army, along with its baggage and servants. Tudor re-invention, leading to the quintessential Shakespearean portrayal of "we happy few", has been the most influential, but every century has made its own accretions. Rogers, Mortimer[117] and Sumption[41] all give more or less 10,000 men-at-arms for the French, using as a source the herald of the Duke of Berry, an eyewitness. False. 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. 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). The main part of the speech begins "This day is called the feast of . During World War II the symbol was adopted as a V for victory. Despite the numerical disadvantage, the battle ended in an overwhelming victory for the English. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 ISBN 0-19-282916-5 (p. 454). In pursuit of his claim to the French throne, Henry V invaded Normandy with an army of 11,000 men in August 1415. [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. This symbol of rocking out is formed by tucking the middle and index finger and holding them in place with the thumb. 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. But lets not quibble. Pluck yew - onlysky.media By most contemporary accounts, the French army was also significantly larger than the English, though the exact degree of their numerical superiority is disputed. Recent heavy rain made the battle field very muddy, proving very tiring to walk through in full plate armour. Keegan, John. The city capitulated within six weeks, but the siege was costly. The image makes the further claim that the English soldiers chanted pluck yew, ostensibly in reference to the drawing of the longbow. 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. [52] The dukes of Alenon and Bar led the main battle. Clip from the 1944 movie "Henry V" (137 min). The battle probably lasted no longer than three hours and was perhaps as short as half an hour, according to some estimates. 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). 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 . Why is showing the middle finger offensive? When, how, and - Quora 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. In March 2010, a mock trial of Henry V for the crimes associated with the slaughter of the prisoners was held in Washington, D.C., drawing from both the historical record and Shakespeare's play. Why is the missionary position called that? Do you return these prisoners to your opponents in exchange for nothing, thereby providing them with trained soldiers who can fight against you another day? 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. 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. 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. Send questions to Cecil via cecil@straightdope.com. [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. With Toby Merrell, Ian Brooker, Philip Rosch, Brian Blessed. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts here . [48] On account of the lack of space, the French drew up a third battle, the rearguard, which was on horseback and mainly comprised the varlets mounted on the horses belonging to the men fighting on foot ahead. [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. [88], Regardless of when the baggage assault happened, at some point after the initial English victory, Henry became alarmed that the French were regrouping for another attack. By 24 October, both armies faced each other for battle, but the French declined, hoping for the arrival of more troops. The Hundred Years' War. In the ensuing negotiations Henry said that he would give up his claim to the French throne if the French would pay the 1.6million crowns outstanding from the ransom of John II (who had been captured at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356), and concede English ownership of the lands of Anjou, Brittany, Flanders, Normandy, and Touraine, as well as Aquitaine. 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. If the two-fingered salute comes from Agincourt, then at what point was it reduced to one finger in North America? One final observation: any time some appeal begins with heres something that intelligent people will find edifying you should be suspicious. Subject: Truth About the Finger In the film Titanic the character Rose is shown giving the finger to Jack, another character. 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. [70]), The tightness of the terrain also seems to have restricted the planned deployment of the French forces. In Gestures: Their Origins and Distribution, Desmond Morris and colleagues note that the digitus infamis or digitus impudicus (infamous or indecent finger) is mentioned several times in the literature of ancient Rome. [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. The play focuses on the pressures of kingship, the tensions between how a king should appear chivalric, honest, and just and how a king must sometimes act Machiavellian and ruthless. 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. [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. Winston Churchhill can be seen using the V as a rallying call. This would prevent maneuvers that might overwhelm the English ranks. [86], The only French success was an attack on the lightly protected English baggage train, with Ysembart d'Azincourt (leading a small number of men-at-arms and varlets plus about 600 peasants) seizing some of Henry's personal treasures, including a crown. [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. When did the middle finger become offensive? - BBC News The Battle of Agincourt - The European Middle Ages [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. 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 '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. After the initial wave, the French would have had to fight over and on the bodies of those who had fallen before them. Maybe it means five and was a symbol of support for Henry V? But frankly, I suspect that the French would have done a lot worse to any captured English archers than chopping off their fingers. The one-finger salute, or at any rate sexual gestures involving the middle finger, are thousands of years old. . The traditional view of the years 131821 is one of domination by The French hoped to raise 9,000 troops, but the army was not ready in time to relieve Harfleur. Africa: Funny but Fanciful - Little Evidence for Origin of the F Word The French, who were overwhelmingly favored to win the battle, Continue Reading 41 2 7 Alexander L According to most chroniclers, Henry's fear was that the prisoners (who, in an unusual turn of events, actually outnumbered their captors) would realise their advantage in numbers, rearm themselves with the weapons strewn about the field and overwhelm the exhausted English forces. Despite the lack of motion pictures and television way back in the 15th century, the details of medieval battles such as the one at Agincourt in 1415 did not go unrecorded. .). There is a modern museum in Agincourt village dedicated to the battle. Participating as judges were Justices Samuel Alito and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The f-word itself is Germanic with early-medieval roots; the earliest attested use in English in an unambiguous sexual context is in a document from 1310. Battle of Agincourt - HISTORY The English Gesta Henrici described three great heaps of the slain around the three main English standards. 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. 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. The original usage of this mudra can be traced back as far as the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. [105] Other benefits to the English were longer term. 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. The decorative use of the image of Priapusmatched the Roman use ofimages of male genitalia for warding off evil. [51] Albret, Boucicaut and almost all the leading noblemen were assigned stations in the vanguard. [72], The French cavalry, despite being disorganised and not at full numbers, charged towards the longbowmen. [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). Historians disagree less about the French numbers. News of the contrivance circulated within Europe and was described in a book of tactics written in 1411 by. 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. Battle of Agincourt, 1415 (ALL PARTS) England vs France Hundred To meet and beat him was a triumph, the highest form which self-expression could take in the medieval nobleman's way of life." [56] Some 200 mounted men-at-arms would attack the English rear. This use of stakes could have been inspired by the Battle of Nicopolis of 1396, where forces of the Ottoman Empire used the tactic against French cavalry. 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. They had been weakened by the siege at Harfleur and had marched over 200 miles (more than 320 km), and many among them were suffering from dysentery. 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 . Nonetheless, so many readers have forwarded it to us accompanied by an "Is this true?" (Indeed, Henry V was heavily criticized for supposedly having ordered the execution of French prisoners at Agincourt. This was an innovative technique that the English had not used in the Battles of Crcy and Poitiers. 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]. [5] [b] Henry V 's victory at Agincourt, against a numerically superior French army. 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. Materials characterization, 29(2), 111117. Agincourt 1415: The Triumph of the Longbow: Directed by Graham Holloway. Corrections? [88] In some accounts the attack happened towards the end of the battle, and led the English to think they were being attacked from the rear. 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! Julia Martinez was an Editorial Intern at Encyclopaedia Britannica. 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". 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. On February 1, 1328, King Charles IV of France died without an heir. The Battle Of Agincourt: What Really Happened? | HistoryExtra The military aspects of this account are similarly specious. These heralds were not part of the participating armies, but were, as military expert John Keegan describes, members of an "international corporation of experts who regulated civilized warfare." [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). [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. There had even been a suggestion that the English would run away rather than give battle when they saw that they would be fighting so many French princes. Barker states that some knights, encumbered by their armour, actually drowned in their helmets.[64]. 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. What does DO NOT HUMP mean on the side of railroad cars? Whether this was true is open to question and continues to be debated to this day; however, it seems likely that death was the normal fate of any soldier who could not be ransomed. Henry V's victory in the mud of Picardy remains the . Shakespeare's version of the battle of Agincourt has been turned into several minor and two major films. Thinking it was an attack from the rear, Henry had the French nobles he was holding prisoner killed. . 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. Some historians trace its origins to ancient Rome. 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. ), And even if killing prisoners of war did not violate the moral code of the times, what would be the purpose of taking archers captive, cutting off their fingers, and then executing them? Jones, P. N. (1992). Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. [citation needed]. 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. [114][115] Curry and Mortimer questioned the reliability of the Gesta, as there have been doubts as to how much it was written as propaganda for Henry V. Both note that the Gesta vastly overestimates the number of French in the battle; its proportions of English archers to men-at-arms at the battle are also different from those of the English army before the siege of Harfleur. 138). 030223 - Musings From Leroy [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. - The English eyewitness account comes from the anonymous author of the Gesta Henrici Quinti, believed to have been written by a chaplain in the King's household who would have been in the baggage train at the battle. [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. [94][10][11] The list of casualties, one historian has noted, "read like a roll call of the military and political leaders of the past generation". [113] Barker opined that "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".[110]. Theodore Beck also suggests that among Henry's army was "the king's physician and a little band of surgeons". [96] Of the great royal office holders, France lost its constable (Albret), an admiral (the lord of Dampierre), the Master of Crossbowmen (David de Rambures, dead along with three sons), Master of the Royal Household (Guichard Dauphin) and prvt of the marshals. [62] [59], The field of battle was arguably the most significant factor in deciding the outcome. 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. Band of Brothers: Henry V and the Battle of Agincourt (Its taking longer than we thought.) 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. 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. By 1415, negotiations had ground to a halt, with the English claiming that the French had mocked their claims and ridiculed Henry himself. Details the English victory over the French at the Battle of Agincourt. Jean de Wavrin, a knight on the French side wrote that English fatalities were 1,600 men of all ranks. The fact that Winston Churchill sometimes made his V-for-victory gesture rudely suggests that it is of much more recent vintage. 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. When Henry V acceded to the English throne in 1413, there had been a long hiatus in the fighting. Soon after the battle started, it had thousands of English and French soldiers and horses running through it. [c], The English made their confessions before the battle, as was customary. 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. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. The battle remains an important symbol in popular culture. The body part which the French proposed to cut off of the English after defeating them was, of course, the middle finger, without which it is impossible to draw the renowned English longbow. 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".
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