The next day the French initiated negotiations as a delaying tactic, but Henry ordered his army to advance and to start a battle that, given the state of his army, he would have preferred to avoid, or to fight defensively: that was how Crcy and the other famous longbow victories had been won.
When 5,000 British Archers Defeated Over 30,000 French Knights [106] This lack of unity in France allowed Henry eighteen months to prepare militarily and politically for a renewed campaign. Some notable examples are listed below. What it is supposed to represent I have no idea. The pl sound, the story goes, gradually changed into an f, giving the gesture its present meaning. [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. [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 situation in England, coupled with the fact that France was weakened by its own political crisisthe insanity of Charles VI had resulted in a fight for power among the nobilitymade it an ideal moment for Henry to press his claims. Keegan, John. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future. 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.
Battle of Agincourt - English History And I aint kidding yew. 78-116). 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 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 famous English longbow was . David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994. It is unclear whether the delay occurred because the French were hoping the English would launch a frontal assault (and were surprised when the English instead started shooting from their new defensive position), or whether the French mounted knights instead did not react quickly enough to the English advance. 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. 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. In the other reference Martial writes that a certain party points a finger, an indecent one, at some other people. Barker states that some knights, encumbered by their armour, actually drowned in their helmets.[64]. The fact that Winston Churchill sometimes made his V-for-victory gesture rudely suggests that it is of much more recent vintage. 33-35). Common estimates place the English army at about 6,000, while the French army probably consisted of 20,000 to 30,000 men.
The traditional view of the years 131821 is one of domination by When Henry V acceded to the English throne in 1413, there had been a long hiatus in the fighting.
Legendinc.com Giving the Finger History I admit that I bring this story up when I talk about the Hundred Years War only to debunk it. 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. Supposedly, both originated at the 1415 Battle of Agincourt, . 33-35). [39] Curry, Rogers[118] and Mortimer[42] all agree the French had 4 to 5 thousand missile troops. Turning to our vast classical library, we quickly turn up three references. But frankly, I suspect that the French would have done a lot worse to any captured English archers than chopping off their fingers. [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. [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. 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. It lasted longer than Henry had anticipated, and his numbers were significantly diminished as a result of casualties, desertions, and disease. Adam Koford, Salt Lake City, Utah, Now for the facts. [56] Some 200 mounted men-at-arms would attack the English rear. Henry threatened to hang whoever did not obey his orders.
It seems clear, however, that the English were at a decided numerical disadvantage. During this battle, the medieval archers started ahead of the army and commenced the action. 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. Keegan, John. 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". Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 ISBN 0-19-282916-5 (p. 454). 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. It goes on to state thatafter an unexpected victory, the English soldiersmocked thedefeatedFrenchtroopsbywavingtheir middle fingers( here ). It took place on 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin's Day) near Azincourt, in northern France. This famous weapon was made of the native English yew tree, and so the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking yew". "[129], The play introduced the famous St Crispin's Day Speech, considered one of Shakespeare's most heroic speeches, which Henry delivers movingly to his soldiers just before the battle, urging his "band of brothers" to stand together in the forthcoming fight. [70]), The tightness of the terrain also seems to have restricted the planned deployment of the French forces. 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. . 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. And where does the distinction between one and two fingers come from?
This famous weapon was made of the native English yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew." Kill them outright and violate the medieval moral code of civilized warfare? The one-finger salute, or at any rate sexual gestures involving the middle finger, are thousands of years old. 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". 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. 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. .). French knights, charging uphill, were unseated from their horses, either because their mounts were injured on the stakes or because they dismounted to uproot the obstacles, and were overpowered. King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt, 1415 by Sir John Gilbert, Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport, Lancashire. The English finally crossed the Somme south of Pronne, at Bthencourt and Voyennes[28][29] and resumed marching north. This was not strictly a feudal army, but an army paid through a system similar to that of the English. It continued as a series of battles, sieges, and disputes throughout the 14th century, with both the French and the English variously taking advantage. Wikipedia. This article was. 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? There was no monetary reward to be obtained by capturing them, nor was there any glory to be won by defeating them in battle. The two armies spent the night of 24 October on open ground. 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.
Agincourt and the Middle Finger | First Floor Tarpley The longbow. At issue was the question of the legitimate succession to the French crown as well as the ownership of several French territories.
Battle of Agincourt | Facts, Summary, & Significance | Britannica 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. The English Gesta Henrici described three great heaps of the slain around the three main English standards. [c], The English made their confessions before the battle, as was customary. [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. 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"). 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. [52] The dukes of Alenon and Bar led the main battle. 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. Axtell, Roger E. Gestures: The Dos and Taboos of Body Language Around the World.New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1991 ISBN 0-471-53672-5 (pp. [82], The surviving French men-at-arms reached the front of the English line and pushed it back, with the longbowmen on the flanks continuing to shoot at point-blank range. The puzzler was: What was this body part? 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. If the one-fingered salute comes from Agincourt, as the graphic suggests, then at what point did it get transformed into two fingers in England?
The earliest known photograph of "the finger," given by Charles "Old (Storyline based on the play by William Shakespeare "The Cronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Batt. giving someone the middle finger
PDF THE ENGLISH VS FRENCH - Carolina Traditional Archers During World War II the symbol was adopted as a V for victory. [135] The battle also forms a central component of the 2019 Netflix film The King. 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. 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. Despite the numerical disadvantage, the battle ended in an overwhelming victory for the English. 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. Opie, Iona and Moira Tatem.
Battle of Agincourt - Wikipedia Very quickly after the battle, the fragile truce between the Armagnac and Burgundian factions broke down. It was a disastrous attempt. After the battle, the English taunted the survivors by showing off what wasn't cut off. 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). [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. [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. [34][d] The French apparently had no clear plan for deploying the rest of the army. [5] [b] Henry V 's victory at Agincourt, against a numerically superior French army. Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts here . 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. In another of his books Morris describes a variety of sexual insults involving the middle finger, such as the middle-finger down prod, the middle-finger erect, etc., all of which are different from the classic middle-finger jerk. [116] One particular cause of confusion may have been the number of servants on both sides, or whether they should at all be counted as combatants. Why not simply kill them outright in the first place? 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. This head-lowered position restricted their breathing and their vision. [38], The French army had 10,000 men-at arms[39][40][41] plus some 4,0005,000 miscellaneous footmen (gens de trait) including archers, crossbowmen[42] (arbaltriers) and shield-bearers (pavisiers), totaling 14,00015,000 men. 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. 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 ). Battle of Agincourt, (October 25, 1415)Battle resulting in the decisive victory of the English over the French in the Hundred Years' War. 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. 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?
Battle of Agincourt: English victory over the French | Britannica The metallography and relative effectiveness of arrowheads and armor during the Middle Ages. 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. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future. [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. 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. 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.
One Of The Oldest Insults: The Origin Of The Middle Finger - Storypick [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. 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. He contrasts the modern, English king and his army with the medieval, chivalric, older model of the French. It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird".
Agincourt 1415: The Triumph of the Longbow (Video 1993) - IMDb