The English finally crossed the Somme south of Pronne, at Bthencourt and Voyennes[28][29] and resumed marching north. The Battle of Agincourt is well documented by at least seven contemporary accounts, three from eyewitnesses. A BBCNews Magazinereportsimilarlytracesthe gesture back toAncient Greek philosophers ( here ). New York: Penguin Books, 1978 ISBN 0-140-04897-9 (pp. In pursuit of his claim to the French throne, Henry V invaded Normandy with an army of 11,000 men in August 1415. Im even more suspicious of the alleged transformation of p to f. 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. ), 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? On the morning of 25 October, the French were still waiting for additional troops to arrive. [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. This famous weapon was made of the native English yew tree, and so the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking yew". 138). 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? He told his men that he would rather die in the coming battle than be captured and ransomed. Details the English victory over the French at the Battle of Agincourt. Although the victory had been militarily decisive, its impact was complex. 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. The English army, led by King Henry V, famously achieved victory in spite of the numerical superiority of its opponent. The one-finger salute, or at any rate sexual gestures involving the middle finger, are thousands of years old. 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. 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. . How different cultures perceive emojis in workplace communication The Battle of Agincourt was another famous battle where longbowmen had a particularly important . A widely shared image on social media purportedly explains the historic origins of the middle finger, considered an offensive gesture in Western culture. Although the French initially pushed the English back, they became so closely packed that they were described as having trouble using their weapons properly. Opie, Iona and Moira Tatem. The archers were commanded by Sir Thomas Erpingham, another elderly veteran. [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]. The image makes the claim that the gesture derives from English soldiers at the Battle of Agincourt, France in 1415. When the archers ran out of arrows, they dropped their bows and, using hatchets, swords, and the mallets they had used to drive their stakes in, attacked the now disordered, fatigued and wounded French men-at-arms massed in front of them. The battlefield was a freshly plowed field, and at the time of the battle, it had been raining continuously for several days. But frankly, I suspect that the French would have done a lot worse to any captured English archers than chopping off their fingers. (Indeed, Henry V was heavily criticized for supposedly having ordered the execution of French prisoners at Agincourt. Maybe it means five and was a symbol of support for Henry V? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). [72], The French cavalry, despite being disorganised and not at full numbers, charged towards the longbowmen. 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. ", "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. Updates? Despite the numerical disadvantage, the battle ended in an overwhelming victory for the English. The French nobility, weakened by the defeat and divided among themselves, were unable to meet new attacks with effective resistance. 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. 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. French chroniclers agree that when the mounted charge did come, it did not contain as many men as it should have; Gilles le Bouvier states that some had wandered off to warm themselves and others were walking or feeding their horses. [27], During the siege, the French had raised an army which assembled around Rouen. [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. 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. Battle of Agincourt, (October 25, 1415), decisive battle in the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) that resulted in the victory of the English over the French. Battle of Agincourt: English victory over the French | Britannica A Dictionary of Superstitions.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 ISBN 0-19-282916-5 (p. 454). One final observation: any time some appeal begins with heres something that intelligent people will find edifying you should be suspicious. 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. 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? [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. [62] David Mikkelson Published Sep 29, 1999. Medieval Archers (Everything you Need to Know) - The Finer Times It seems clear, however, that the English were at a decided numerical disadvantage. - 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 . Materials characterization, 29(2), 111117. However, the lack of archaeological evidence at this traditional site has led to suggestions it was fought to the west of Azincourt. 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 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. 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. This head-lowered position restricted their breathing and their vision. [56] Some 200 mounted men-at-arms would attack the English rear. [citation needed], The French responded with what they considered the generous terms of marriage with Catherine, a dowry of 600,000 crowns, and an enlarged Aquitaine. Keegan, John. The main part of the speech begins "This day is called the feast of . David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994. 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. (Its taking longer than we thought.) Osprey Publishing. [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. As the English were collecting prisoners, a band of French peasants led by local noblemen began plundering Henrys baggage behind the lines. 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). The Battle Of Agincourt: What Really Happened? | HistoryExtra Longbowmen and "The Finger" - (on 'TheBeckoning') When that campaign took place, it was made easier by the damage done to the political and military structures of Normandy by the battle. The French 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. 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. 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. [76] Modern historians are divided on how effective the longbows would have been against plate armour of the time. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 ISBN 0-19-282916-5 (p. 454). 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 ). Eventually the archers abandoned their longbows and began fighting hand-to-hand with swords and axes alongside the men-at-arms. [73] The mounted charge and subsequent retreat churned up the already muddy terrain between the French and the English. 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. In the words of Juliet Barker, the battle "cut a great swath through the natural leaders of French society in Artois, Ponthieu, Normandy, Picardy. Increasingly, they had to walk around or over fallen comrades. The number is supported by many other contemporary accounts. 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. There is no evidence that, when captured in any scenario,archers had their finger cut off by the enemy( bit.ly/3dP2PhP ). But lets not quibble. Send questions to Cecil via cecil@straightdope.com. Clip from the 1944 movie "Henry V" (137 min). An account purporting to offer the historical origins of the obscene middle-finger extended hand gesture (varously known as "flipping the bird," "flipping someone off," or the "one-finger salute") is silly, and so obviously a joke that shouldn't need any debunking. They might also have deployed some archers in the centre of the line. 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. They shadowed Henry's army while calling a semonce des nobles,[30] calling on local nobles to join the army. The version that I tell explains the specific British custom of elevating two fingers as a rude gesture. [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. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. 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 puzzler was: What was this body part? The longbow. 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. Recent heavy rain made the battle field very muddy, proving very tiring to walk through in full plate armour. 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." The pl sound, the story goes, gradually changed into an f, giving the gesture its present meaning. This moment of the battle is portrayed both as a break with the traditions of chivalry and as a key example of the paradox of kingship. 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. What Is the History of the Middle Finger? | Snopes.com This article was. It was a disastrous attempt. 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 ). In the other reference Martial writes that a certain party points a finger, an indecent one, at some other people. 78-116). [43], The French were organized into two main groups (or battles), a vanguard up front and a main battle behind, both composed principally of men-at-arms fighting on foot and flanked by more of the same in each wing. 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. Julia Martinez was an Editorial Intern at Encyclopaedia Britannica. A truce had been formally declared in 1396 that was meant to last 28 years, sealed by the marriage of the French king Charles VIs daughter to King Richard II of England. 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. [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. [105] Other benefits to the English were longer term. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future. The French were commanded by Constable Charles d'Albret and various prominent French noblemen of the Armagnac party. 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. Agincourt 1415: The Triumph of the Longbow (Video 1993) - IMDb The city capitulated within six weeks, but the siege was costly. After the victory, Henry continued his march to Calais and arrived back in England in November to an outpouring of nationalistic sentiment. [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. 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). 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. 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. Battle of Agincourt, (October 25, 1415), decisive battle in the Hundred Years War (13371453) that resulted in the victory of the English over the French. The Burgundians seized on the opportunity and within 10 days of the battle had mustered their armies and marched on Paris. 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. The Hundred Years' War. [126], Shakespeare's depiction of the battle also plays on the theme of modernity. Without a river obstacle to defend, the French were hesitant to force a battle. [50] Both lines were arrayed in tight, dense formations of about 16 ranks each, and were positioned a bowshot length from each other. Update [June 20, 2022]: Updated SEO/social. 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". 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. 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. 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). Jones, P. N. (1992). giving someone the middle finger This was not strictly a feudal army, but an army paid through a system similar to that of the English. [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. At least one scholar puts the French army at no more than 12,000, indicating that the English were outnumbered 2 to 1. . Unable to cross the Somme River because of French defenses, he was forced to take a detour inland and cross farther upstream. 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. 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". [70]), The tightness of the terrain also seems to have restricted the planned deployment of the French forces. The trial ranged widely over whether there was just cause for war and not simply the prisoner issue. The English were not in an ideal condition to fight a battle. It supposedly describes the origin of the middle-finger hand gesture and, by implication, the insult "fuck you". |. And I aint kidding yew. The effect of the victory on national morale was powerful. [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. [59], The field of battle was arguably the most significant factor in deciding the outcome. This famous English longbow was . 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. [62] Le Fvre and Wavrin similarly say that it was signs of the French rearguard regrouping and "marching forward in battle order" which made the English think they were still in danger. Although it could be intended as humorous, the image on social media is historically inaccurate. Winston Churchhill can be seen using the V as a rallying call. 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. It established the legitimacy of the Lancastrian monarchy and the future campaigns of Henry to pursue his "rights and privileges" in France. 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. 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. Axtell, Roger E. Gestures: The Do's and Taboos of Body Language Around the World. After a difficult siege, the English forces found themselves assaulted by a massive French force. 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.