battle of agincourt middle finger

The English Gesta Henrici described three great heaps of the slain around the three main English standards. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. Maybe it means five and was a symbol of support for Henry V? 78-116). It was often reported to comprise 1,500 ships, but was probably far smaller. Opie, Iona and Moira Tatem. And where does the distinction between one and two fingers come from? The French were commanded by Constable Charles d'Albret and various prominent French noblemen of the Armagnac party. 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! Band of Brothers: Henry V and the Battle of Agincourt 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. As the English were collecting prisoners, a band of French peasants led by local noblemen began plundering Henrys baggage behind the lines. The city capitulated within six weeks, but the siege was costly. What it is supposed to represent I have no idea. They were successful for a time, forcing Henry to move south, away from Calais, to find a ford. Agincourt. The Battle Of Agincourt: What Really Happened? | HistoryExtra They were blocking Henry's retreat, and were perfectly happy to wait for as long as it took. 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. 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. This famous English longbow was . [56] Some 200 mounted men-at-arms would attack the English rear. Why is showing the middle finger offensive? When, how, and - Quora The English eyewitness account comes from the anonymous author of the Gesta Henrici Quinti, believed to have been written by a chaplain in the King's household who would have been in the baggage train at the battle. The version that I tell explains the specific British custom of elevating two fingers as a rude gesture. Early in the morning on October 25 (the feast day of St. Crispin), 1415, Henry positioned his army for battle on a recently plowed field bounded by woods. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 ISBN 0-19-282916-5 (p. 454). Humble English archers defeated the armoured elite of French chivalry, enshrining both the longbow and the battle in English national legend. Rogers, Mortimer[117] and Sumption[41] all give more or less 10,000 men-at-arms for the French, using as a source the herald of the Duke of Berry, an eyewitness. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts here . I suppose that the two-fingered salute could still come from medieval archery, even if it didnt come specifically from the Battle of Agincourt, although the example that Wikipedia links to (the fourteenth-century Luttrell Psalter) is ambiguous. It. Updates? This article was. [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. He told his men that he would rather die in the coming battle than be captured and ransomed. 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. [121] Mortimer notes the presence of noncombatant pages only, indicating that they would ride the spare horses during the battle and be mistakenly thought of as combatants by the English.[122]. 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). Winston Churchhill can be seen using the V as a rallying call. It forms the backdrop to events in William Shakespeare's play Henry V, written in 1599. Without a river obstacle to defend, the French were hesitant to force a battle. Some notable examples are listed below. Made just prior to the invasion of Normandy, Olivier's rendition gives the battle what Sarah Hatchuel has termed an "exhilarating and heroic" tone, with an artificial, cinematic look to the battle scenes. Idiom Origins - Middle finger - History of Middle finger Rogers says each of the 10,000 men-at-arms would be accompanied by a gros valet (an armed, armoured and mounted military servant) and a noncombatant page, counts the former as fighting men, and concludes thus that the French in fact numbered 24,000. The impact of thousands of arrows, combined with the slog in heavy armour through the mud, the heat and difficulty breathing in plate armour with the visor down,[83] and the crush of their numbers, meant the French men-at-arms could "scarcely lift their weapons" when they finally engaged the English line. In Gestures: Their Origins and Distribution, Desmond Morris and colleagues note that the digitus infamis or digitus impudicus (infamous or indecent finger) is mentioned several times in the literature of ancient Rome. 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. "[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 battlefield was a freshly plowed field, and at the time of the battle, it had been raining continuously for several days. [27], During the siege, the French had raised an army which assembled around Rouen. Bowman were not valuable prisoners, though: they stood outside the chivalric system and were considered the social inferiors of men-at-arms. The French monk of St. Denis says: "Their vanguard, composed of about 5,000 men, found itself at first so tightly packed that those who were in the third rank could scarcely use their swords,"[63] and the Burgundian sources have a similar passage. 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. How different cultures perceive emojis in workplace communication It may be in the narrow strip of open land formed between the woods of Tramecourt and Azincourt (close to the modern village of Azincourt). 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. The number is supported by many other contemporary accounts. So they were already overcome with fatigue even before they advanced against the enemy". It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird". [110][111][112] Ian Mortimer endorsed Curry's methodology, though applied it more liberally, noting how she "minimises French numbers (by limiting her figures to those in the basic army and a few specific additional companies) and maximises English numbers (by assuming the numbers sent home from Harfleur were no greater than sick lists)", and concluded that "the most extreme imbalance which is credible" is 15,000 French against 8,0009,000 English. This would prevent maneuvers that might overwhelm the English ranks. Why do some people have that one extra-long fingernail on the pinkie finger. .). David Mikkelson Published Sep 29, 1999. 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. 33-35). 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. [104] Henry returned a conquering hero, seen as blessed by God in the eyes of his subjects and European powers outside France. False claim: "Middle finger" gesture derives from English soldiers at 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. The struggle began in 1337 when King Edward III of England claimed the title King of France over Philip VI and invaded Flanders. [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. This was an innovative technique that the English had not used in the Battles of Crcy and Poitiers. 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 . [93] Entire noble families were wiped out in the male line, and in some regions an entire generation of landed nobility was annihilated. With Toby Merrell, Ian Brooker, Philip Rosch, Brian Blessed. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. The Roman gesturemadeby extending the third finger from a closed fist, thus made the same threat, by forming a similarly phallic shape. 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. 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. 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. Upon his death, a French assembly formed to appoint a male successor. The terrain favoured Henrys army and disadvantaged its opponent, as it reduced the numerical advantage of the French army by narrowing the front. Moreover, if archers could be ransomed, then cutting off their middle fingers would be a senseless move. 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. Axtell, Roger E. Gestures: The Dos and Taboos of Body Language Around the World.New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1991 ISBN 0-471-53672-5 (pp. 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? 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. 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. Adam Koford, Salt Lake City, Utah, Now for the facts. After several decades of relative peace, the English had resumed the war in 1415 amid the failure of negotiations with the French. Opie, Iona and Moira Tatem. And I aint kidding yew. 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. During this battle, the medieval archers started ahead of the army and commenced the action. The Battle of Agincourt took place on October 25, 1415. Singer Robbie Williams insults the viewer. Agincourt and the Middle Finger | First Floor Tarpley [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. Shakespeare's portrayal of the casualty loss is ahistorical in that the French are stated to have lost 10,000 and the English 'less than' thirty men, prompting Henry's remark, "O God, thy arm was here". 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. The French nobility, weakened by the defeat and divided among themselves, were unable to meet new attacks with effective resistance. On the morning of 25 October, the French were still waiting for additional troops to arrive. [c], The English made their confessions before the battle, as was customary. 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". 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. What Is the History of the Middle Finger? | Snopes.com The English numbered roughly 5,000 knights, men-at-arms, and archers. Agincourt 1415: The Triumph of the Longbow: Directed by Graham Holloway. [72], The French cavalry, despite being disorganised and not at full numbers, charged towards the longbowmen. With 4,800 men-at-arms in the vanguard, 3,000 in the main battle, and 1,200 in the infantry wings. However, the lack of archaeological evidence at this traditional site has led to suggestions it was fought to the west of Azincourt. 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. [84] The exhausted French men-at-arms were unable to get up after being knocked to the ground by the English. "[67] On top of this, the French were expecting thousands of men to join them if they waited. 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. Recent heavy rain made the battle field very muddy, proving very tiring to walk through in full plate armour. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Since the French had many more men-at-arms than the English, they would accordingly be accompanied by a far greater number of servants. 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 . This material may not be reproduced without permission. [citation needed], The French responded with what they considered the generous terms of marriage with Catherine, a dowry of 600,000 crowns, and an enlarged Aquitaine. But lets not quibble. Theodore Beck also suggests that among Henry's army was "the king's physician and a little band of surgeons". If the one-fingered salute comes from Agincourt, as the graphic suggests, then at what point did it get transformed into two fingers in England? Participating as judges were Justices Samuel Alito and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In a book on the battle of Agincourt, Anne Curry, Professor Emeritus of Medieval History at the University of Southampton, addressed a similar claim prescribed to the V-sign, also considered an offensive gesture: No chronicle or sixteenth-centuryhistory says that English archers made any gesture to the French after the battle in order to show they still had their fingers. 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 giving someone the middle finger The earliest known photograph of "the finger," given by Charles "Old When 5,000 British Archers Defeated Over 30,000 French Knights Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future. [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. 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. 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). [49], The French vanguard and main battle numbered respectively 4,800 and 3,000 men-at-arms. At least one scholar puts the French army at no more than 12,000, indicating that the English were outnumbered 2 to 1. It goes on to state thatafter an unexpected victory, the English soldiersmocked thedefeatedFrenchtroopsbywavingtheir middle fingers( here ). David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994. [70]), The tightness of the terrain also seems to have restricted the planned deployment of the French forces. 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. [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. 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 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. [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. The puzzler was: What was this body part? Shakespeare's version of the battle of Agincourt has been turned into several minor and two major films. The king received an axe blow to the head, which knocked off a piece of the crown that formed part of his helmet. The town surrendered on 22 September, and the English army did not leave until 8 October. [34] It is likely that the English adopted their usual battle line of longbowmen on either flank, with men-at-arms and knights in the centre. This head-lowered position restricted their breathing and their vision. The fact that Winston Churchill sometimes made his V-for-victory gesture rudely suggests that it is of much more recent vintage. The archers were commanded by Sir Thomas Erpingham, another elderly veteran. 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". [citation needed]. King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt, 1415 by Sir John Gilbert, Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport, Lancashire. 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. In the words of Juliet Barker, the battle "cut a great swath through the natural leaders of French society in Artois, Ponthieu, Normandy, Picardy. 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. The battle repeated other English successes in the Hundred Years War, such as the Battle of Crcy (1346) and the Battle of Poitiers (1356), and made possible Englands subsequent conquest of Normandy and the Treaty of Troyes (1420), which named Henry V heir to the French crown. An account purporting to offer the historical origins of the obscene middle-finger extended hand gesture (varously known as "flipping the bird," "flipping someone off," or the "one-finger salute") is silly, and so obviously a joke that shouldn't need any debunking. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. 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. Jones, P. N. (1992). 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. 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. Do you return these prisoners to your opponents in exchange for nothing, thereby providing them with trained soldiers who can fight against you another day? 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. Contemporary accounts [ edit] 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. . [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. The English King Henry V and his troops were marching to Calais to embark for England when he was intercepted by forces which outnumbered his. Battle of Agincourt - The English Really Should Have Lost, But They Won In pursuit of his claim to the French throne, Henry V invaded Normandy with an army of 11,000 men in August 1415. Clip from the 1944 movie "Henry V" (137 min). The historian Suetonius, writing about Augustus Caesar, says the emperor expelled [the entertainer] Pylades . 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. Thinking it was an attack from the rear, Henry had the French nobles he was holding prisoner killed. 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. The Burgundians seized on the opportunity and within 10 days of the battle had mustered their armies and marched on Paris. What's the origin of "the finger"? - The Straight Dope 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.