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 . With 4,800 men-at-arms in the vanguard, 3,000 in the main battle, and 1,200 in the infantry wings. 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). [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. 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. There had even been a suggestion that the English would run away rather than give battle when they saw that they would be fighting so many French princes. A BBCNews Magazinereportsimilarlytracesthe gesture back toAncient Greek philosophers ( here ). The Hundred Years' War. Despite the numerical disadvantage, the battle ended in an overwhelming victory for the English. A labiodental fricative was no less "difficult" for Middle English speakers to pronounce than the aspirated bilabial stop/voiceless lateral combination of 'pl' that the fricative supposedly changed into, nor are there any other examples of such a pronunciation shift occurring in English. 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." There is a modern museum in Agincourt village dedicated to the battle. But lets not quibble. However, a need to reassert his authority at home (as well as his own ambition and a sense of justice) led Henry V to renew English claims in France. The battle remains an important symbol in popular culture. [86], The only French success was an attack on the lightly protected English baggage train, with Ysembart d'Azincourt (leading a small number of men-at-arms and varlets plus about 600 peasants) seizing some of Henry's personal treasures, including a crown. [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. [139] The museum lists the names of combatants of both sides who died in the battle. The English won in a major upset and waved the body part in question at the French in defiance. A truce had been formally declared in 1396 that was meant to last 28 years, sealed by the marriage of the French king Charles VIs daughter to King Richard II of England. 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. Clip from the 1944 movie "Henry V" (137 min). "[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]. The English numbered roughly 5,000 knights, men-at-arms, and archers. The decorative use of the image of Priapusmatched the Roman use ofimages of male genitalia for warding off evil. Julia Martinez was an Editorial Intern at Encyclopaedia Britannica. But frankly, I suspect that the French would have done a lot worse to any captured English archers than chopping 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. One popular "origin story" for the middle finger has to do with the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future. [70]), The tightness of the terrain also seems to have restricted the planned deployment of the French forces. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. [19], Henry V invaded France following the failure of negotiations with the French. Take on the burden and expense of caring for them? In pursuit of his claim to the French throne, Henry V invaded Normandy with an army of 11,000 men in August 1415. The Face of Battle.New York: Penguin Books, 1978 ISBN 0-140-04897-9 (pp. After the battle, the English taunted the survivors by showing off what wasn't cut off. While the precise number of casualties is unknown, it is estimated that English losses amounted to about 400 and French losses to about 6,000, many of whom were noblemen. 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. [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. For three hours after sunrise there was no fighting. Inthe book,Corbeillpoints to Priapus, a minor deityhedatesto 400 BC, whichlater alsoappears in Rome as the guardian of gardens,according to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Greece and Rome( here ). There was no monetary reward to be obtained by capturing them, nor was there any glory to be won by defeating them in battle. The two armies spent the night of 24 October on open ground. The Battle of Agincourt (/dnkr(t)/ AJ-in-kor(t);[a] French: Azincourt [azku]) was an English victory in the Hundred Years' War. 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. Poitiers 1356: The capture of a king (Vol. [133] Branagh's version gives a longer, more realist portrayal of the battle itself, drawing on both historical sources and images from the Vietnam and Falkland Wars.[134]. 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]. [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. Common estimates place the English army at about 6,000, while the French army probably consisted of 20,000 to 30,000 men. 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! Tudor re-invention, leading to the quintessential Shakespearean portrayal of "we happy few", has been the most influential, but every century has made its own accretions. 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. It lasted longer than Henry had anticipated, and his numbers were significantly diminished as a result of casualties, desertions, and disease. Winston Churchhill can be seen using the V as a rallying call. Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com. In the song Hotel California, what does colitas mean? 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. giving someone the middle finger It established the legitimacy of the Lancastrian monarchy and the future campaigns of Henry to pursue his "rights and privileges" in France. One of the most renowned. To meet and beat him was a triumph, the highest form which self-expression could take in the medieval nobleman's way of life." The Battle of Agincourt was another famous battle where longbowmen had a particularly important . 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. 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. [8] These included the Duke of York, the young Earl of Suffolk and the Welsh esquire Dafydd ("Davy") Gam. The French could not cope with the thousands of lightly armoured longbowmen assailants (who were much less hindered by the mud and weight of their armour) combined with the English men-at-arms. 33-35). Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts here . [38], The French army had 10,000 men-at arms[39][40][41] plus some 4,0005,000 miscellaneous footmen (gens de trait) including archers, crossbowmen[42] (arbaltriers) and shield-bearers (pavisiers), totaling 14,00015,000 men. The "middle finger" gesture does not derive from the mutilation of English archers at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. 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. 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". 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). [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. 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. 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. [72], The French cavalry, despite being disorganised and not at full numbers, charged towards the longbowmen. Shakespeare's version of the battle of Agincourt has been turned into several minor and two major films. 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. [31] This entailed abandoning his chosen position and pulling out, advancing, and then re-installing the long sharpened wooden stakes pointed outwards toward the enemy, which helped protect the longbowmen from cavalry charges. The fact that Winston Churchill sometimes made his V-for-victory gesture rudely suggests that it is of much more recent vintage. Agincourt. I admit that I bring this story up when I talk about the Hundred Years War only to debunk it. [34][d] The French apparently had no clear plan for deploying the rest of the army. 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 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. King Henry V of England led his troops into battle and participated in hand-to-hand fighting. They shadowed Henry's army while calling a semonce des nobles,[30] calling on local nobles to join the army. The two candidates with the strongest claims were Edward III of England, who was the son of Charles's sister, and Philip, Charles's paternal . It supposedly describes the origin of the middle-finger hand gesture and, by implication, the insult "fuck you". A widely shared image on social media purportedly explains the historic origins of the middle finger, considered an offensive gesture in Western culture. [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). [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. 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? He told his men that he would rather die in the coming battle than be captured and ransomed. By 1415, negotiations had ground to a halt, with the English claiming that the French had mocked their claims and ridiculed Henry himself. 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. 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. The longbow. Subject: Truth About the Finger In the film Titanic the character Rose is shown giving the finger to Jack, another character. [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 Burgundians seized on the opportunity and within 10 days of the battle had mustered their armies and marched on Paris. As John Keegan wrote in his history of warfare: "To meet a similarly equipped opponent was the occasion for which the armoured soldier trained perhaps every day of his life from the onset of manhood. The French hoped to raise 9,000 troops, but the army was not ready in time to relieve Harfleur. They were successful for a time, forcing Henry to move south, away from Calais, to find a ford. 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. Most importantly, the battle was a significant military blow to France and paved the way for further English conquests and successes. "Guardian newspaper:French correction: Henry V's Agincourt fleet was half as big, historian claims, 28 July 2015", "Living Dictionary of the French Language", "Limitations imposed by wearing armour on Medieval soldiers' locomotor performance", "High Court Rules for French at Agincourt", "High Court Justices, Legal Luminaries Debate Shakespeare's 'Henry V', "The Development of Battle Tactics in the Hundred Years War", "Historians Reassess Battle of Agincourt", The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, "Henry V's Greatest Victory is Besieged by Academia", The Little Grey Horse Henry V's Speech at Agincourt and the Battle Exhortation in Ancient Historiography, "The Battle of Agincourt: An Alternative location? It was a disastrous attempt. Certainly, d'Azincourt was a local knight but he might have been chosen to lead the attack because of his local knowledge and the lack of availability of a more senior soldier. Update [June 20, 2022]: Updated SEO/social. The f-word itself is Germanic with early-medieval roots; the earliest attested use in English in an unambiguous sexual context is in a document from 1310. The battlefield was a freshly plowed field, and at the time of the battle, it had been raining continuously for several days. 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. Corrections? The image makes the further claim that the English soldiers chanted pluck yew, ostensibly in reference to the drawing of the longbow. [104] Henry returned a conquering hero, seen as blessed by God in the eyes of his subjects and European powers outside France. .). [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. What does DO NOT HUMP mean on the side of railroad cars? 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. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore they would be incapable of fighting in the future. 78-116). Turning to our vast classical library, we quickly turn up three references. It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird". With Toby Merrell, Ian Brooker, Philip Rosch, Brian Blessed. The puzzler was: What was this body part? Its origins can be traced back to 1066 . The historian Suetonius, writing about Augustus Caesar, says the emperor expelled [the entertainer] Pylades . It forms the backdrop to events in William Shakespeare 's play Henry V, written in 1599. Maybe it means five and was a symbol of support for Henry V? At issue was the question of the legitimate succession to the French crown as well as the ownership of several French territories. 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. On February 1, 1328, King Charles IV of France died without an heir. [89] A slaughter of the French prisoners ensued. The Burgundian sources have him concluding the speech by telling his men that the French had boasted that they would cut off two fingers from the right hand of every archer, so that he could never draw a longbow again. 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.'" Wikipedia. Sumption, thus, concludes that the French had 14,000 men, basing himself on the monk of St. Denis;[119] Mortimer gives 14 or 15 thousand fighting men. 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 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. A Dictionary of Superstitions. 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. When the English won the battle the soldiers waved their middle fingers at the French in defiance, thus flipping the bird was born The English Gesta Henrici described three great heaps of the slain around the three main English standards. [citation needed]. The English and Welsh archers on the flanks drove pointed wooden stakes, or palings, into the ground at an angle to force cavalry to veer off. Some historians trace its origins to ancient Rome. [68], Henry's men were already very weary from hunger, illness and retreat. [84] The exhausted French men-at-arms were unable to get up after being knocked to the ground by the English. 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. However, the lack of archaeological evidence at this traditional site has led to suggestions it was fought to the west of Azincourt. Bloomsbury Publishing. By most contemporary accounts, the French army was also significantly larger than the English, though the exact degree of their numerical superiority is disputed. 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.
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