[5] [b] Henry V 's victory at Agincourt, against a numerically superior French army. 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. [88] In some accounts the attack happened towards the end of the battle, and led the English to think they were being attacked from the rear. It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows that the gesture is known as giving the bird. And yew all thought yew knew everything! When Henry V acceded to the English throne in 1413, there had been a long hiatus in the fighting. 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. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future. [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. This was not strictly a feudal army, but an army paid through a system similar to that of the English. Henry V's victory in the mud of Picardy remains the . Upon his death, a French assembly formed to appoint a male successor. The 'middle finger salute' did not derive from the defiant gestures of English archers whose fingers had been severed at the Battle of Agincourt. Henry V and the resumption of the Hundred Years War, That fought with us upon Saint Crispins day, https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Agincourt, World History Encyclopedia - Battle of Agincourt, Warfare History Network - Miracle in the Mud: The Hundred Years' War's Battle of Agincourt, Battle of Agincourt - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). However, the lack of archaeological evidence at this traditional site has led to suggestions it was fought to the west of Azincourt. 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. [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 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. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Singer Robbie Williams insults the viewer. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future. 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". 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. 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. 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. 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 . Fixed formatting. 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 number is supported by many other contemporary accounts. 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. Take on the burden and expense of caring for them? When the French rejected Henrys substantial territorial demands, he arrived in Normandy in August 1415 with a force of about 12,000 men and laid siege to the city of Harfleur. [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). The puzzler was: What was this body part? The next line of French knights that poured in found themselves so tightly packed (the field narrowed at the English end) that they were unable to use their weapons effectively, and the tide of the battle began to turn toward the English. 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. One popular "origin story" for the middle finger has to do with the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Maybe it means five and was a symbol of support for Henry V? 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. Osprey Publishing. Jones, P. N. (1992). Kill them outright and violate the medieval moral code of civilized warfare? [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. [46] Many lords and gentlemen demanded and got places in the front lines, where they would have a higher chance to acquire glory and valuable ransoms; this resulted in the bulk of the men-at-arms being massed in the front lines and the other troops, for which there was no remaining space, to be placed behind. [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. (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.). With Toby Merrell, Ian Brooker, Philip Rosch, Brian Blessed. Im even more suspicious of the alleged transformation of p to f. 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. On 25 October 1415, an army of English raiders under Henry V faced the French outside an obscure village on the road to Calais. 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 [soldiers would] be incapable of fighting in the future. [31], The precise location of the battle is not known. In the Battle of Agincourt, the French threatened the English Soldiers that they would cut off their fingers and when they failed the Englishmen mocked them by showing their fingers. Shakespeare's version of the battle of Agincourt has been turned into several minor and two major films. 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. After the initial wave, the French would have had to fight over and on the bodies of those who had fallen before them. [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. [citation needed]. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts here . [52] The dukes of Alenon and Bar led the main battle. Bloomsbury Publishing. The Battle of Agincourt was another famous battle where longbowmen had a particularly important . It sounds rather fishy to me. 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. 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. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Thinking it was an attack from the rear, Henry had the French nobles he was holding prisoner killed. On February 1, 1328, King Charles IV of France died without an heir. The "middle finger" gesture does not derive from the mutilation of English archers at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. She graduated from the University of Chicago in 2019 with bachelor's degrees in English Language and Literature and Medieval Studies. Subject: Truth About the Finger In the film Titanic the character Rose is shown giving the finger to Jack, another character. The king received an axe blow to the head, which knocked off a piece of the crown that formed part of his helmet. The two armies spent the night of 24 October on open ground. The Face of Battle. 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. [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. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. [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. 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. When that campaign took place, it was made easier by the damage done to the political and military structures of Normandy by the battle. 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. [105] Other benefits to the English were longer term. The town surrendered on 22 September, and the English army did not leave until 8 October. The Hundred Years War was a discontinuous conflict between England and France that spanned two centuries. Axtell, Roger E. Gestures: The Do's and Taboos of Body Language Around the World. Update [June 20, 2022]: Updated SEO/social. 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. [27], During the siege, the French had raised an army which assembled around Rouen. 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. 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. Poitiers 1356: The capture of a king (Vol. The English won in a major upset and waved the body part in question at the French in defiance. 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. It may be difficult to pinpoint exactly when the middle finger gesture originated, but some historians trace its roots to ancient Rome. David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994. Some notable examples are listed below. 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. Its up there with heres something that they dont want you to know.. During World War II the symbol was adopted as a V for victory. To meet and beat him was a triumph, the highest form which self-expression could take in the medieval nobleman's way of life." [106] This lack of unity in France allowed Henry eighteen months to prepare militarily and politically for a renewed campaign. It established the legitimacy of the Lancastrian monarchy and the future campaigns of Henry to pursue his "rights and privileges" in France. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 ISBN 0-19-282916-5 (p. 454). ), 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? I thought the French threatened to cut off the primary finger of the English longbowmen (the middle finger was neeed the most to pull the bowstring). But frankly, I suspect that the French would have done a lot worse to any captured English archers than chopping off their fingers. . 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.'" What it is supposed to represent I have no idea. Historians disagree less about the French numbers. The English army, led by King Henry V, famously achieved victory in spite of the numerical superiority of its opponent. 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. [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 French monk of St. Denis describes the French troops as "marching through the middle of the mud where they sank up to their knees. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. 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! The French, who were overwhelmingly favored to win the battle, Continue Reading 41 2 7 Alexander L [44] There was a special, elite cavalry force whose purpose was to break the formation of the English archers and thus clear the way for the infantry to advance. This is the answer submitted by a listener: Dear Click and Clack, Thank you for the Agincourt 'Puzzler', which clears up some profound questions of etymology, folklore and emotional symbolism. 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. 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 metallography and relative effectiveness of arrowheads and armor during the Middle Ages. This would prevent maneuvers that might overwhelm the English ranks. Henry would marry Catherine, Charles VI's young daughter, and receive a dowry of 2million crowns. Most importantly, the battle was a significant military blow to France and paved the way for further English conquests and successes. [21] On 19 April 1415, Henry again asked the Great Council to sanction war with France, and this time they agreed. The terrain favoured Henrys army and disadvantaged its opponent, as it reduced the numerical advantage of the French army by narrowing the front. Didn't it originate at Agincourt? They were blocking Henry's retreat, and were perfectly happy to wait for as long as it took. But lets not quibble. It took place on 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin's Day) near Azincourt, in northern France. 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. 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.

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