By 1415, negotiations had ground to a halt, with the English claiming that the French had mocked their claims and ridiculed Henry himself. In the other reference Martial writes that a certain party points a finger, an indecent one, at some other people. David Mikkelson Published Sep 29, 1999. 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. David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994. Why not simply kill them outright in the first place? 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). 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. Image source The longbow. [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. 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? On the morning of 25 October, the French were still waiting for additional troops to arrive. The Battle of Agincourt (/dnkr(t)/ AJ-in-kor(t);[a] French: Azincourt [azku]) was an English victory in the Hundred Years' War. 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. 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. 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. 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. The one-finger salute, or at any rate sexual gestures involving the middle finger, are thousands of years old. Fixed formatting. Henry V's victory in the mud of Picardy remains the . (Storyline based on the play by William Shakespeare "The Cronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Batt. It goes on to state thatafter an unexpected victory, the English soldiersmocked thedefeatedFrenchtroopsbywavingtheir middle fingers( here ). [107], Most primary sources which describe the battle have English outnumbered by several times. Pluck yew - onlysky.media 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. Take on the burden and expense of caring for them? Agincourt was a battle like no other but how do the French remember 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 Battle of Agincourt was another famous battle where longbowmen had a particularly important . There is a modern museum in Agincourt village dedicated to the battle. The battlefield was a freshly plowed field, and at the time of the battle, it had been raining continuously for several days. 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. 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. In such a "press" of thousands of men, Rogers suggested that many could have suffocated in their armour, as was described by several sources, and which was also known to have happened in other battles. [36] Henry, worried about the enemy launching surprise raids, and wanting his troops to remain focused, ordered all his men to spend the night before the battle in silence, on pain of having an ear cut off. Upon hearing that his youngest brother Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester had been wounded in the groin, Henry took his household guard and stood over his brother, in the front rank of the fighting, until Humphrey could be dragged to safety. After several decades of relative peace, the English had resumed the war in 1415 amid the failure of negotiations with the French. The English numbered roughly 5,000 knights, men-at-arms, and archers. [77][78][79][80] Rogers suggested that the longbow could penetrate a wrought iron breastplate at short range and penetrate the thinner armour on the limbs even at 220 yards (200m). Without a river obstacle to defend, the French were hesitant to force a battle. Maybe it means five and was a symbol of support for Henry V? [109] Juliet Barker, Jonathan Sumption and Clifford J. Rogers criticized Curry's reliance on administrative records, arguing that they are incomplete and that several of the available primary sources already offer a credible assessment of the numbers involved. 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. PDF THE ENGLISH VS FRENCH - Carolina Traditional Archers Historians disagree less about the French numbers. 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. As the English were collecting prisoners, a band of French peasants led by local noblemen began plundering Henrys baggage behind the lines. 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. The English won in a major upset and waved the body part in question at the French in defiance. [34][d] The French apparently had no clear plan for deploying the rest of the army. 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"). [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. Nonetheless, so many readers have forwarded it to us accompanied by an "Is this true?" [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. 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. During World War II the symbol was adopted as a V for victory. So they were already overcome with fatigue even before they advanced against the enemy". To meet and beat him was a triumph, the highest form which self-expression could take in the medieval nobleman's way of life." Idiom Origins - Middle finger - History of Middle finger 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. [37], Henry made a speech emphasising the justness of his cause, and reminding his army of previous great defeats the kings of England had inflicted on the French. Shakespeare's version of the battle of Agincourt has been turned into several minor and two major films. When that campaign took place, it was made easier by the damage done to the political and military structures of Normandy by the battle. (There is an Indo-European connection between the p-sound and f-sound see the distinction between the Latin pater and the Germanic Vater/father but that split occurred a long time ago.) The French nobility, weakened by the defeat and divided among themselves, were unable to meet new attacks with effective resistance. [93] Among them were 90120 great lords and bannerets killed, including[95] three dukes (Alenon, Bar and Brabant), nine counts (Blmont, Dreux, Fauquembergue, Grandpr, Marle, Nevers, Roucy, Vaucourt, Vaudmont) and one viscount (Puisaye), also an archbishop. The city capitulated within six weeks, but the siege was costly. Adam Koford, Salt Lake City, Utah, Now for the facts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 ISBN 0-19-282916-5 (p. 454). After a difficult siege, the English forces found themselves assaulted by a massive French force. The campaign season was coming to an end, and the English army had suffered many casualties through disease. The earliest known photograph of "the finger," given by Charles "Old "[67] On top of this, the French were expecting thousands of men to join them if they waited. 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). 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. [96] Of the great royal office holders, France lost its constable (Albret), an admiral (the lord of Dampierre), the Master of Crossbowmen (David de Rambures, dead along with three sons), Master of the Royal Household (Guichard Dauphin) and prvt of the marshals. [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". The French knights were unable to outflank the longbowmen (because of the encroaching woodland) and unable to charge through the array of sharpened stakes that protected the archers. There is no evidence that, when captured in any scenario,archers had their finger cut off by the enemy( bit.ly/3dP2PhP ). Battle of Agincourt - The English Really Should Have Lost, But They Won Barker states that some knights, encumbered by their armour, actually drowned in their helmets.[64]. Wikipedia. [20] He initially called a Great Council in the spring of 1414 to discuss going to war with France, but the lords insisted that he should negotiate further and moderate his claims. The 'middle finger salute' did not derive from the defiant gestures of English archers whose fingers had been severed at the Battle of Agincourt. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. 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. Legendinc.com Giving the Finger History [26] He also intended the manoeuvre as a deliberate provocation to battle aimed at the dauphin, who had failed to respond to Henry's personal challenge to combat at Harfleur. Medieval Archers (Everything you Need to Know) - The Finer Times The middle finger gesture does not derive from the mutilation of English archers at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. The version that I tell explains the specific British custom of elevating two fingers as a rude gesture. The legend that the "two-fingered salute" stems from the Battle of Agincourt is apocryphal Although scholars and historians continue to debate its origins, according to legend it was first.