Battle of Agincourt

battle_name=Battle of Agincourt

Modern Re-Assessment of Agincourt

Were archers as effective as traditionally thought?

Recent experiments at Agincourt and elsewhere suggest that the English archers inflicted little damage on the heavily armored French knights and men-at-arms with their arrows because of the recent adoption of steel (rather than iron) for armor.

Related Topics:
Knight - Men-at-arms

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

However these limited sets of tests were made for a television program about Agincourt:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• The draw weight of the English longbows used may or may not have been correct. It is unlikely that they were using bows with the average draw weight of those found on the Mary Rose;
• The bodkin arrow heads which were used in the tests was one of many possible designs;
• The tests assumed that the majority of armour was steel of consistent quality and that the arrow heads were of iron, when they too might have been steel;
• It failed to test what would happen at close range with arrows aimed at weak points in the armour.
• The tests also failed to account for the fact that the average English archer was the master of his trade able to consistently hit targets in excess of two hundred yards.

It is possible, then, that most of the casualties of the archery were the less-armored horses, causing the mounted fighters to be thrown down onto the muddy ground, where they had difficulty in arising. In addition, the French troops were exhausted by struggling through the quagmire which they were churning up on the battlefield and arrived piecemeal at the English line of battle.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A second feature contributing to the French defeat was the funnel-shaped battlefield that caused the French forces to converge as they approached the English lines. As they moved forward, they jostled each other and tripped over the bodies of the fallen horses and men. It is possible that many actually suffocated as they were trampled into the mud by the following soldiers and knights. This suggestion has been supported by computer models and video footage used to study crowd disasters at football grounds and music concerts.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Into this chaos, the lightly armored archers moved, much more nimbly than the heavily armored French, and were able to inflict severe damage on the enemy with their short swords, knives, mallets, and other weapons. This suggests that the archers did considerably more damage as infantry than as archers.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Were the English as outnumbered as traditionally thought?

Until recently, Agincourt has been feted as one of the greatest victories in British military history, but in the recently published Agincourt, A New History, Anne Curry makes the claim that the scale of the English triumph at Agincourt was overstated for almost six centuries. However, it will be years before other historians will have been able to go over her data and decide whether her theory is correct.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For a very long time, the official version was that Henry V's army was largely outnumbered by the French. From the Second World War until the early 2000s, historians believed the odds were at least four to one. However, Anne Curry theorizes that the figures had been exaggerated over the centuries for patriotic reasons{{ref|curry}}. After studying the original enrollment records at the National Archives in London and the National Library of France in Paris, she determined that there were more English and Welsh troops than previously thought, and far fewer on the French side.

Related Topics:
Second World War - National Archives - London - National Library of France - Paris

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

According to her research, the French still outnumbered the English and Welsh, but only by a factor of three to two (12,000 Frenchmen pitted against 8,000 Englishmen and Welshmen). According to Curry, the Battle of Agincourt was a "myth constructed around Henry to build up his reputation as a king". Allegedly, the legend of the English as underdogs at Agincourt was definitely given credence in popular English culture with Shakespeare's Henry V in 1599. In the speech before the battle, Shakespeare puts in the mouth of Henry V the famous line "we few, we happy few, we band of brothers".

Related Topics:
Shakespeare - Henry V - 1599

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Some early reviewers of the book have been enthusiastic, but it remains to be seen whether her thesis will stand up to scrutiny after the book has been subjected to the critique of a wider scholarly audience.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~