At least one scholar puts the French army at no more than 12,000, indicating that the English were outnumbered 2 to 1. [19], Henry V invaded France following the failure of negotiations with the French. Send questions to Cecil via cecil@straightdope.com. . See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. It took place on 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin's Day) near Azincourt, in northern France. 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. A widely shared image on social media purportedly explains the historic origins of the middle finger, considered an offensive gesture in Western culture. Henry would marry Catherine, Charles VI's young daughter, and receive a dowry of 2million crowns. The battle remains an important symbol in popular culture. This famous weapon was made of the . They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future. 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. Soon after the battle started, it had thousands of English and French soldiers and horses running through it. [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. Recent heavy rain made the battle field very muddy, proving very tiring to walk through in full plate armour. 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! 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. After the battle, the English taunted the survivors by showing off what wasn't cut off. [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. But frankly, I suspect that the French would have done a lot worse to any captured English archers than chopping off their fingers. 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. Since the French had many more men-at-arms than the English, they would accordingly be accompanied by a far greater number of servants. Mortimer also considers that the Gesta vastly inflates the English casualties 5,000 at Harfleur, and that "despite the trials of the march, Henry had lost very few men to illness or death; and we have independent testimony that no more than 160 had been captured on the way". As the English were collecting prisoners, a band of French peasants led by local noblemen began plundering Henrys baggage behind the lines. [34] The rearguard, leaderless, would serve as a "dumping ground" for the surplus troops. Most importantly, the battle was a significant military blow to France and paved the way for further English conquests and successes. The one-finger salute, or at any rate sexual gestures involving the middle finger, are thousands of years old. And although the precise etymology of the English word fuck is still a matter of debate, it is linguistically nonsensical to maintain that that word entered the language because the "difficult consonant cluster at the beginning" of the phase 'pluck yew' has "gradually changed to a labiodental fricative 'f.'" 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). 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." [133] Branagh's version gives a longer, more realist portrayal of the battle itself, drawing on both historical sources and images from the Vietnam and Falkland Wars.[134]. 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. The Face of Battle.New York: Penguin Books, 1978 ISBN 0-140-04897-9 (pp. Turning to our vast classical library, we quickly turn up three references. Increasingly, they had to walk around or over fallen comrades. 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. This claim is false. Moreover, if archers could be ransomed, then cutting off their middle fingers would be a senseless move. Over the years some 'folk etymologies' have grown up around this symbolic gesture. When the English won the battle the soldiers waved their middle fingers at the French in defiance, thus flipping the bird was born 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. This symbol of rocking out is formed by tucking the middle and index finger and holding them in place with the thumb. 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. [b] The unexpected English victory against the numerically superior French army boosted English morale and prestige, crippled France, and started a new period of English dominance in the war that would last for 14 years until France defeated England in the Siege of Orlans in 1429. [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. It established the legitimacy of the Lancastrian monarchy and the future campaigns of Henry to pursue his "rights and privileges" in France. [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. Despite the numerical disadvantage, the battle ended in an overwhelming victory for the English. The original usage of this mudra can be traced back as far as the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Update [June 20, 2022]: Updated SEO/social. 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. 33-35). 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. 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. Contemporary accounts [ edit] [26] He also intended the manoeuvre as a deliberate provocation to battle aimed at the dauphin, who had failed to respond to Henry's personal challenge to combat at Harfleur. After Henry V marched to the north, the French moved to block them along the River Somme. [135] The battle also forms a central component of the 2019 Netflix film The King. The battle occurred on Friday, 25 October 1415 ( Saint Crispin's Day ), near modern-day Azincourt, in northern France. ", "Miracle in the Mud: The Hundred Years' War's Battle of Agincourt", The Agincourt Battlefield Archaeology Project, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Agincourt&oldid=1137126379, 6,000 killed (most of whom were of the French nobility), Hansen, Mogens Herman (Copenhagen Polis Centre), This page was last edited on 2 February 2023, at 23:13. 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). After the initial wave, the French would have had to fight over and on the bodies of those who had fallen before them. [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. 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 image makes the further claim that the English soldiers chanted pluck yew, ostensibly in reference to the drawing of the longbow. The town surrendered on 22 September, and the English army did not leave until 8 October. 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. . And where does the distinction between one and two fingers come from? [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. 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. The two armies spent the night of 24 October on open ground. PLUCK YEW!". 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"). This material may not be reproduced without permission. 33-35). As the mle developed, the French second line also joined the attack, but they too were swallowed up, with the narrow terrain meaning the extra numbers could not be used effectively. 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. This article was. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts here . This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. The Hundred Years War was a discontinuous conflict between England and France that spanned two centuries. 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. Historians disagree less about the French numbers. 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. 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. 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? The English were not in an ideal condition to fight a battle. Fixed formatting. Bowman were not valuable prisoners, though: they stood outside the chivalric system and were considered the social inferiors of men-at-arms. with chivalry. The "middle finger" gesture does not derive from the mutilation of English archers at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. On the morning of 25 October, the French were still waiting for additional troops to arrive. [77][78][79][80] Rogers suggested that the longbow could penetrate a wrought iron breastplate at short range and penetrate the thinner armour on the limbs even at 220 yards (200m). It did not lead to further English conquests immediately as Henry's priority was to return to England, which he did on 16 November, to be received in triumph in London on the 23rd. 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. 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. 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. During World War II the symbol was adopted as a V for victory. 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. 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. 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. Without a river obstacle to defend, the French were hesitant to force a battle. Take on the burden and expense of caring for them? David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994. 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 . She graduated from the University of Chicago in 2019 with bachelor's degrees in English Language and Literature and Medieval Studies. [51] Albret, Boucicaut and almost all the leading noblemen were assigned stations in the vanguard. 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. Some notable examples are listed below. Opie, Iona and Moira Tatem. For three hours after sunrise there was no fighting. 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. 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. 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. It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird". 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. [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. Materials characterization, 29(2), 111117. Battle of Agincourt. Thepostalleges that the Frenchhad planned to cut offthe middle fingers ofall captured English soldiers,to inhibit them fromdrawingtheir longbowsin futurebattles. [125] Shakespeare illustrates these tensions by depicting Henry's decision to kill some of the French prisoners, whilst attempting to justify it and distance himself from the event. Common estimates place the English army at about 6,000, while the French army probably consisted of 20,000 to 30,000 men. . The Battle of Agincourt took place on October 25, 1415. He contrasts the modern, English king and his army with the medieval, chivalric, older model of the French. The pl sound, the story goes, gradually changed into an f, giving the gesture its present meaning. [73] The mounted charge and subsequent retreat churned up the already muddy terrain between the French and the English. [Adam attaches the following memo, which has been floating around the Internet for some time.] giving someone the middle finger [39] Curry, Rogers[118] and Mortimer[42] all agree the French had 4 to 5 thousand missile troops. 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 ). The recently ploughed land hemmed in by dense woodland favoured the English, both because of its narrowness, and because of the thick mud through which the French knights had to walk. [101] The bailiffs of nine major northern towns were killed, often along with their sons, relatives and supporters. Jean de Wavrin, a knight on the French side wrote that English fatalities were 1,600 men of all ranks. Why do some people have that one extra-long fingernail on the pinkie finger. |. 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. 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. [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. 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. Supposedly, both originated at the 1415 Battle of Agincourt, . Some historians trace its origins to ancient Rome. The key word for describing the battle of Agincourt is mud . 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. It forms the backdrop to events in William Shakespeare 's play Henry V, written in 1599. [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. [93] Entire noble families were wiped out in the male line, and in some regions an entire generation of landed nobility was annihilated. [84] The exhausted French men-at-arms were unable to get up after being knocked to the ground by the English. 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. The English numbered roughly 5,000 knights, men-at-arms, and archers. Although the French initially pushed the English back, they became so closely packed that they were described as having trouble using their weapons properly. 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 English army, led by King Henry V, famously achieved victory in spite of the numerical superiority of its opponent. The Burgundian sources have him concluding the speech by telling his men that the French had boasted that they would cut off two fingers from the right hand of every archer, so that he could never draw a longbow again. 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. Moreover, with this outcome Henry V strengthened his position in his own kingdom; it legitimized his claim to the crown, which had been under threat after his accession. 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 ). The French hoped to raise 9,000 troops, but the army was not ready in time to relieve Harfleur. . 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". [104] Henry returned a conquering hero, seen as blessed by God in the eyes of his subjects and European powers outside France. The English men-at-arms in plate and mail were placed shoulder to shoulder four deep. [85], The French men-at-arms were taken prisoner or killed in the thousands. The Face of Battle. The archers were commanded by Sir Thomas Erpingham, another elderly veteran. The . The Battle of Agincourt is an iconic moment in English military history. 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. The Battle of Agincourt was another famous battle where longbowmen had a particularly important . (Indeed, Henry V was heavily criticized for supposedly having ordered the execution of French prisoners at Agincourt. 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? 1.3M views 4 months ago Medieval Battles - In chronological order The year 1415 was the first occasion since 1359 that an English king had invaded France in person. Theodore Beck also suggests that among Henry's army was "the king's physician and a little band of surgeons". After a difficult siege, the English forces found themselves assaulted by a massive French force. The king received an axe blow to the head, which knocked off a piece of the crown that formed part of his helmet. 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. In the other reference Martial writes that a certain party points a finger, an indecent one, at some other people. It goes on to state thatafter an unexpected victory, the English soldiersmocked thedefeatedFrenchtroopsbywavingtheir middle fingers( here ). 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. One of the most renowned. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. The longbow. 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 'middle finger salute' did not derive from the defiant gestures of English archers whose fingers had been severed at the Battle of Agincourt. 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. The Battle of Agincourt was a major English victory in the Hundred Years' War.The battle took place on Friday, 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin's Day) in the County of Saint-Pol, Artois, some. [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. Wikipedia. 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. 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. [106] This lack of unity in France allowed Henry eighteen months to prepare militarily and politically for a renewed campaign. Eventually the archers abandoned their longbows and began fighting hand-to-hand with swords and axes alongside the men-at-arms. [74], The plate armour of the French men-at-arms allowed them to close the 1,000 yards or so to the English lines while being under what the French monk of Saint Denis described as "a terrifying hail of arrow shot". [68], Henry's men were already very weary from hunger, illness and retreat. The historian Suetonius, writing about Augustus Caesar, says the emperor expelled [the entertainer] Pylades . Contemporary chroniclers did not criticise him for it. A Dictionary of Superstitions. The image makes the claim that the gesture derives from English soldiers at the Battle of Agincourt, France in 1415. The puzzler was: What was this body part? Many folkloric or etymological myths have sprung up about its origin, especially the widely quoted one about the interplay between the French and English soldiery at the battle of Agincourt 1415, where the French threatened to amputate the middle fingers of the English archers to prevent them from drawing their bows, which of course is absolute [23] The army of about 12,000 men and up to 20,000 horses besieged the port of Harfleur. Participating as judges were Justices Samuel Alito and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In 1999, Snopesdebunked more of the historical aspects of the claim, as well as thecomponent explaininghow the phrase pluck yew graduallychanged form to begin with an f( here ). Subject: Truth About the Finger In the film Titanic the character Rose is shown giving the finger to Jack, another character. Fighting commenced at 11:00 am, as the English brought their longbows within killing range and the first line of French knights advanced, led by cavalry. [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. [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. .). Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. (Even if archers whose middle fingers had been amputated could no longer effectively use their bows, they were still capable of wielding mallets, battleaxes, swords, lances, daggers, maces, and other weapons, as archers typically did when the opponents closed ranks with them and the fighting became hand-to-hand.).