It was a disastrous attempt. Barker, Sumption and Rogers all wrote that the English probably had 6,000 men, these being 5,000 archers and 9001,000 men-at-arms. There is a modern museum in Agincourt village dedicated to the battle. According to research, heres the true story: 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. [68], Henry's men were already very weary from hunger, illness and retreat. 78-116). The delay allowed a large French force, led by the constable Charles dAlbret and the marshal Jean II le Meingre (called Boucicaut), to intercept him near the village of Agincourt on October 24. 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. King Charles VI of France did not command the French army as he suffered from psychotic illnesses and associated mental incapacity. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. During this battle, the medieval archers started ahead of the army and commenced the action. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore [soldiers would] be incapable of fighting in the future. England had been fraught with political discord since Henry IV of the house of Lancaster (father of Henry V) had usurped the throne from Richard II in 1399. The archers were commanded by Sir Thomas Erpingham, another elderly veteran. Loades, M. (2013). This suggests that the French could have outnumbered the English 5 to 1. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). 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. 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. 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? [52] The dukes of Alenon and Bar led the main battle. In the song Hotel California, what does colitas mean? [Adam attaches the following memo, which has been floating around the Internet for some time.] Bowman were not valuable prisoners, though: they stood outside the chivalric system and were considered the social inferiors of men-at-arms. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future. The impact of thousands of arrows, combined with the slog in heavy armour through the mud, the heat and difficulty breathing in plate armour with the visor down,[83] and the crush of their numbers, meant the French men-at-arms could "scarcely lift their weapons" when they finally engaged the English line. [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". 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". The English army, led by King Henry V, famously achieved victory in spite of the numerical superiority of its opponent. The middle finger gesture does not derive from the mutilation of English archers at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. 1995 - 2023 by Snopes Media Group Inc. 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). [5] [b] Henry V 's victory at Agincourt, against a numerically superior French army. Supposedly, both originated at the 1415 Battle of Agincourt, . The battle probably lasted no longer than three hours and was perhaps as short as half an hour, according to some estimates. The English army, led by King Henry V, famously achieved victory in spite of the numerical superiority of its opponent. 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? [123] Other ballads followed, including "King Henry Fifth's Conquest of France", raising the popular prominence of particular events mentioned only in passing by the original chroniclers, such as the gift of tennis balls before the campaign. The 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"). Although it could be intended as humorous, the image on social media is historically inaccurate. This was an innovative technique that the English had not used in the Battles of Crcy and Poitiers. [8] These included the Duke of York, the young Earl of Suffolk and the Welsh esquire Dafydd ("Davy") Gam. [17] Two of the most frequently cited accounts come from Burgundian sources, one from Jean Le Fvre de Saint-Remy who was present at the battle, and the other from Enguerrand de Monstrelet. This symbol of rocking out is formed by tucking the middle and index finger and holding them in place with the thumb. [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". David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994. Thepostalleges that the Frenchhad planned to cut offthe middle fingers ofall captured English soldiers,to inhibit them fromdrawingtheir longbowsin futurebattles. By 1415, negotiations had ground to a halt, with the English claiming that the French had mocked their claims and ridiculed Henry himself. The French hoped to raise 9,000 troops, but the army was not ready in time to relieve Harfleur. According to contemporary English accounts, Henry fought hand to hand. The trial ranged widely over whether there was just cause for war and not simply the prisoner issue. After a difficult siege, the English forces found themselves assaulted by a massive French force. Subject: Truth About the Finger In the film Titanic the character Rose is shown giving the finger to Jack, another character. 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. Singer Robbie Williams insults the viewer. On the morning of 25 October, the French were still waiting for additional troops to arrive. 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. 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. It was often reported to comprise 1,500 ships, but was probably far smaller. [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. 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 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. [90] In his study of the battle John Keegan argued that the main aim was not to actually kill the French knights but rather to terrorise them into submission and quell any possibility they might resume the fight, which would probably have caused the uncommitted French reserve forces to join the fray, as well. Moreover, if archers could be ransomed, then cutting off their middle fingers would be a senseless move. Legend says that the British archers were so formidable that the ones captured by the French had their index and middle fingers cut off so that they . 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. [106] This lack of unity in France allowed Henry eighteen months to prepare militarily and politically for a renewed campaign. [34] It is likely that the English adopted their usual battle line of longbowmen on either flank, with men-at-arms and knights in the centre. Agincourt came on the back of half a century of military failure and gave the English a success that repeated victories such as Crcy and Poitiers. 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 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. 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. Keegan, John. . The French army blocked Henry's way to the safety of Calais, and delaying battle would only further weaken his tired army and allow more French troops to arrive. [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. [27], During the siege, the French had raised an army which assembled around Rouen. The longbow. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1991 ISBN 0-471-53672-5 (pp. 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. The battlefield was a freshly plowed field, and at the time of the battle, it had been raining continuously for several days. It sounds rather fishy to me. 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. It seems to me that the single upturned middle finger clearly represents an erect penis and is the gestural equivalent of saying f*ck you! As such, it is probably ancient Wikipedia certainly thinks so, although apparently it became popular in the United States in the late nineteenth century under the influence of Italian immigration, replacing other rude gestures like thumbing the nose or the fig sign. 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. [89] A slaughter of the French prisoners ensued. Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say (like "pleasant mother pheasant plucker", which is who you had to go to for the feathers used on the arrows), 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. Over the years some 'folk etymologies' have grown up around this symbolic gesture. If the two-fingered salute comes from Agincourt, then at what point was it reduced to one finger in North America? 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. There was no monetary reward to be obtained by capturing them, nor was there any glory to be won by defeating them in battle. 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. [34][d] The French apparently had no clear plan for deploying the rest of the army. The pl sound, the story goes, gradually changed into an f, giving the gesture its present meaning. Bloomsbury Publishing. Participating as judges were Justices Samuel Alito and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. [59], The field of battle was arguably the most significant factor in deciding the outcome. A Dictionary of Superstitions.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 ISBN 0-19-282916-5 (p. 454). Im even more suspicious of the alleged transformation of p to f. 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. It supposedly describes the origin of the middle-finger hand gesture and, by implication, the insult "fuck you". 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. 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. 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. 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. This claim is false. 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). Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com. After Henry V marched to the north, the French moved to block them along the River Somme. Keegan also speculated that due to the relatively low number of archers actually involved in killing the French knights (roughly 200 by his estimate), together with the refusal of the English knights to assist in a duty they saw as distastefully unchivalrous, and combined with the sheer difficulty of killing such a large number of prisoners in such a short space of time, the actual number of French prisoners put to death may not have been substantial before the French reserves fled the field and Henry rescinded the order. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore [soldiers would] be incapable of fighting in the future. . Agincourt. [19], Henry V invaded France following the failure of negotiations with the French. 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. Winston Churchhill can be seen using the V as a rallying call. 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.