battle of agincourt middle finger

1995 - 2023 by Snopes Media Group Inc. The image makes the further claim that the English soldiers chanted pluck yew, ostensibly in reference to the drawing of the longbow. 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. Although an audience vote was "too close to call", Henry was unanimously found guilty by the court on the basis of "evolving standards of civil society".[136][137][138]. [72], The French cavalry, despite being disorganised and not at full numbers, charged towards the longbowmen. It lasted longer than Henry had anticipated, and his numbers were significantly diminished as a result of casualties, desertions, and disease. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future. Moreover, if archers could be ransomed, then cutting off their middle fingers would be a senseless move. The Battle of Agincourt took place during the the Hundred Years' War, a conflict which, despite its name, was neither one single war nor did it last one hundred years. The Face of Battle. 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. During this battle, the medieval archers started ahead of the army and commenced the action. Opie, Iona and Moira Tatem. Winston Churchhill can be seen using the V as a rallying call. [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. With 4,800 men-at-arms in the vanguard, 3,000 in the main battle, and 1,200 in the infantry wings. When the English won the battle the soldiers waved their middle fingers at the French in defiance, thus flipping the bird was born The Battle of Agincourt was another famous battle where longbowmen had a particularly important . 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. Singer Robbie Williams insults the viewer. 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 ). 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. 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. The latter, each titled Henry V, star Laurence Olivier in 1944 and Kenneth Branagh in 1989. After Henry V marched to the north, the French moved to block them along the River Somme. [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. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. 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). 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. "[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. The French were commanded by Constable Charles d'Albret and various prominent French noblemen of the Armagnac party. (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.). (Its taking longer than we thought.) 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. King Henry V of England led his troops into battle and participated in hand-to-hand fighting. Henry would marry Catherine, Charles VI's young daughter, and receive a dowry of 2million crowns. It may be difficult to pinpoint exactly when the middle finger gesture originated, but some historians trace its roots to ancient Rome. 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. [130] Critic David Margolies describes how it "oozes honour, military glory, love of country and self-sacrifice", and forms one of the first instances of English literature linking solidarity and comradeship to success in battle. The Battle of Agincourt is well documented by at least seven contemporary accounts, three from eyewitnesses. The version that I tell explains the specific British custom of elevating two fingers as a rude gesture. The approximate location of the battle has never been disputed, and the site remains relatively unaltered after 600 years. Contemporary chroniclers did not criticise him for it. 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. King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt, 1415 by Sir John Gilbert, Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport, Lancashire. False. 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. [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 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! Jones, P. N. (1992). But lets not quibble. Barker states that some knights, encumbered by their armour, actually drowned in their helmets.[64]. "[102], Estimates of the number of prisoners vary between 700 and 2,200, amongst them the dukes of Orlans and Bourbon, the counts of Eu, Vendme, Richemont (brother of the Duke of Brittany and stepbrother of Henry V) and Harcourt, and marshal Jean Le Maingre.[12]. On 25 October 1415, an army of English raiders under Henry V faced the French outside an obscure village on the road to Calais. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). 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. On February 1, 1328, King Charles IV of France died without an heir. [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). Some historians trace its origins to ancient Rome. This famous weapon was made of the native English yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew." When Henry V acceded to the English throne in 1413, there had been a long hiatus in the fighting. 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. Most importantly, the battle was a significant military blow to France and paved the way for further English conquests and successes. Battle of Agincourt. 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. Wikipedia. Shakespeare's version of the battle of Agincourt has been turned into several minor and two major films. 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. [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. As the English were collecting prisoners, a band of French peasants led by local noblemen began plundering Henrys baggage behind the lines. 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. 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). [52] The dukes of Alenon and Bar led the main battle. Archers were not the "similarly equipped" opponents that armored soldiers triumphed in defeating -- if the two clashed in combat, the armored soldier would either kill an archer outright or leave him to bleed to death rather than go to the wasteful effort of taking him prisoner. 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.'" The cavalry force, which could have devastated the English line if it had attacked while they moved their stakes, charged only after the initial volley of arrows from the English. It seems clear, however, that the English were at a decided numerical disadvantage. So they were already overcome with fatigue even before they advanced against the enemy". 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 . Another verse begins: You love to be sodomized, Papylus . Henry threatened to hang whoever did not obey his orders. 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. On the morning of 25 October, the French were still waiting for additional troops to arrive. 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. [19], Henry V invaded France following the failure of negotiations with the French. Materials characterization, 29(2), 111117. The French hoped to raise 9,000 troops, but the army was not ready in time to relieve Harfleur. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1991 ISBN 0-471-53672-5 (pp. [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. The Agincourt Carol, dating from around this time and possibly written for Henrys reception in London, is a rousing celebration of the might of the English. giving someone the middle finger [27], During the siege, the French had raised an army which assembled around Rouen. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. 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. 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. Keegan, John. [25] The siege took longer than expected. This was an innovative technique that the English had not used in the Battles of Crcy and Poitiers. Bloomsbury Publishing. One popular "origin story" for the middle finger has to do with the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. The Face of Battle.New York: Penguin Books, 1978 ISBN 0-140-04897-9 (pp. 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. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. [93] Entire noble families were wiped out in the male line, and in some regions an entire generation of landed nobility was annihilated. Apparently Henry believed his fleeing army would perform better on the defensive, but had to halt the retreat and somehow engage the French [73] The mounted charge and subsequent retreat churned up the already muddy terrain between the French and the English. [5] [b] Henry V 's victory at Agincourt, against a numerically superior French army. [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. 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. 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. [139] The museum lists the names of combatants of both sides who died in the battle. Contemporary accounts describe the triumphal pageantry with which the king was received in London on November 23, with elaborate displays and choirs attending his passage to St. Pauls Cathedral. 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. 78-116). Didn't it originate at Agincourt? After several decades of relative peace, the English had resumed the war in 1415 amid the failure of negotiations with the French. People who killed their social betters from a distance werent very well liked, and would likely have paid with their lives as did all the French prisoners, archers or otherwise, whom Henry V had executed at Agincourt, in what some historians consider a war crime. [76] Modern historians are divided on how effective the longbows would have been against plate armour of the time. 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 . 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. Send questions to Cecil via cecil@straightdope.com. It was often reported to comprise 1,500 ships, but was probably far smaller. [citation needed], Immediately after the battle, Henry summoned the heralds of the two armies who had watched the battle together with principal French herald Montjoie, and they settled on the name of the battle as Azincourt, after the nearest fortified place. [126], Shakespeare's depiction of the battle also plays on the theme of modernity. 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. Maybe it means five and was a symbol of support for Henry V? [92], The French had suffered a catastrophic defeat. This suggests that the French could have outnumbered the English 5 to 1. 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. 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. The city capitulated within six weeks, but the siege was costly. [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. 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". It established the legitimacy of the Lancastrian monarchy and the future campaigns of Henry to pursue his "rights and privileges" in France. Its origins can be traced back to 1066 . The Battle of Agincourt was immortalized by William Shakespeare in his play Henry V. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. October 25, 1415. The key word for describing the battle of Agincourt is mud . It forms the backdrop to events in William Shakespeare 's play Henry V, written in 1599. 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. 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. A Dictionary of Superstitions. [116] Rogers, on the other hand, finds the number 5,000 plausible, giving several analogous historical events to support his case,[112] and Barker considers that the fragmentary pay records which Curry relies on actually support the lower estimates. 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. [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. 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. Omissions? 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. [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. Without the middle finger it would be impossible for the English soldiers to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore incapable of fighting in the future. Adam Koford, Salt Lake City, Utah, Now for the facts. 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. 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. 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. The Battle of Agincourt took place on October 25, 1415. 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. [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. because when a spectator started to hiss, he called the attention of the whole audience to him with an obscene movement of his middle finger. Morris also claims that the mad emperor Caligula, as an insult, would extend his middle finger for supplicants to kiss. 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. 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. During World War II the symbol was adopted as a V for victory. A BBCNews Magazinereportsimilarlytracesthe gesture back toAncient Greek philosophers ( here ). [101] The bailiffs of nine major northern towns were killed, often along with their sons, relatives and supporters. Corrections? 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. The Roman gesturemadeby extending the third finger from a closed fist, thus made the same threat, by forming a similarly phallic shape. 78-116). Details the English victory over the French at the Battle of Agincourt. 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. 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. [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. 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. Updates? Eventually the archers abandoned their longbows and began fighting hand-to-hand with swords and axes alongside the men-at-arms. 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 one-finger salute, or at any rate sexual gestures involving the middle finger, are thousands of years old. 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. The town surrendered on 22 September, and the English army did not leave until 8 October. . It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird".

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