Your membership is the foundation of our sustainability and resilience. 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. 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. PDF THE ENGLISH VS FRENCH - Carolina Traditional Archers with chivalry. Henry managed to subjugate Normandy in 1419, a victory that was followed by the Treaty of Troyes in 1420, which betrothed Henry to King Charles VIs daughter Catherine and named him heir to the French crown. [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. There is no evidence that, when captured in any scenario,archers had their finger cut off by the enemy( bit.ly/3dP2PhP ). Clip from the 1944 movie "Henry V" (137 min). 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. [113] Barker opined that "if the differential really was as low as three to four then this makes a nonsense of the course of the battle as described by eyewitnesses and contemporaries".[110]. Saint Crispin's Day - Wikipedia [68], Henry's men were already very weary from hunger, illness and retreat. Battle of Agincourt - English History [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. 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. Agincourt was a battle like no other but how do the French remember Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 ISBN 0-19-282916-5 (p. 454). PLUCK YEW!". The . Bowman were not valuable prisoners, though: they stood outside the chivalric system and were considered the social inferiors of men-at-arms. . After the victory, Henry continued his march to Calais and arrived back in England in November to an outpouring of nationalistic sentiment. Update [June 20, 2022]: Updated SEO/social. 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. - Its origins can be traced back to 1066 . The play focuses on the pressures of kingship, the tensions between how a king should appear chivalric, honest, and just and how a king must sometimes act Machiavellian and ruthless. This material may not be reproduced without permission. Thinking it was an attack from the rear, Henry had the French nobles he was holding prisoner killed. Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com. 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. The English account in the Gesta Henrici says: "For when some of them, killed when battle was first joined, fall at the front, so great was the undisciplined violence and pressure of the mass of men behind them that the living fell on top of the dead, and others falling on top of the living were killed as well."[62]. [19], Henry V invaded France following the failure of negotiations with the French. Osprey Publishing. 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. .). [8] These included the Duke of York, the young Earl of Suffolk and the Welsh esquire Dafydd ("Davy") Gam. 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. 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. |. 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. 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 . Adam Koford, Salt Lake City, Utah, Now for the facts. King Charles VI of France did not command the French army as he suffered from psychotic illnesses and associated mental incapacity. Unable to cross the Somme River because of French defenses, he was forced to take a detour inland and cross farther upstream. In the other reference Martial writes that a certain party points a finger, an indecent one, at some other people. [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. You would think that anything English predating 1607, such as the language, Protestantism, or the Common Law, would have been a part of Americas patrimony. Plucking The Yew - Jerry Pournelle The fact that Winston Churchill sometimes made his V-for-victory gesture rudely suggests that it is of much more recent vintage. 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 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. Fixed formatting. [93] Entire noble families were wiped out in the male line, and in some regions an entire generation of landed nobility was annihilated. 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. . 78-116). [106] This lack of unity in France allowed Henry eighteen months to prepare militarily and politically for a renewed campaign. Didn't it originate at Agincourt? Updates? [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. 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). 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. David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994. [89] A slaughter of the French prisoners ensued. [32] In 2019, the historian Michael Livingston also made the case for a site west of Azincourt, based on a review of sources and early maps. 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. The cavalry force, which could have devastated the English line if it had attacked while they moved their stakes, charged only after the initial volley of arrows from the English. Battle of Agincourt, (October 25, 1415)Battle resulting in the decisive victory of the English over the French in the Hundred Years' War. The English army, led by King Henry V, famously achieved victory in spite of the numerical superiority of its opponent. 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. 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? When that campaign took place, it was made easier by the damage done to the political and military structures of Normandy by the battle. This famous weapon was made of the native English yew tree, and so the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking yew". It may be difficult to pinpoint exactly when the middle finger gesture originated, but some historians trace its roots to ancient Rome. [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). Keegan, John. In the ensuing campaign, many soldiers died from disease, and the English numbers dwindled; they tried to withdraw to English-held Calais but found their path blocked by a considerably larger French army. The French, who were overwhelmingly favored to win the battle, threatened to cut a certain body part off of all captured English soldiers so that they could never fight again. [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. . [51] Albret, Boucicaut and almost all the leading noblemen were assigned stations in the vanguard. Thus, when the victorious English waved their middle fingers at the defeated French, they said, "See, we can still pluck yew! [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. October 25, 1415. What's the origin of "the finger"? - The Straight Dope He contrasts the modern, English king and his army with the medieval, chivalric, older model of the French. [33], Early on the 25th, Henry deployed his army (approximately 1,500 men-at-arms and 7,000 longbowmen) across a 750-yard (690m) part of the defile. 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. "[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. This was an innovative technique that the English had not used in the Battles of Crcy and Poitiers. [92], The French had suffered a catastrophic defeat. Turning to our vast classical library, we quickly turn up three references. [citation needed]. [139] The museum lists the names of combatants of both sides who died in the battle. The Battle of Agincourt (Pt 1) - YouTube Battle of Agincourt - The English Really Should Have Lost, But They Won [citation needed], Immediately after the battle, Henry summoned the heralds of the two armies who had watched the battle together with principal French herald Montjoie, and they settled on the name of the battle as Azincourt, after the nearest fortified place. Subject: Truth About the Finger In the film Titanic the character Rose is shown giving the finger to Jack, another character. Apparently Henry believed his fleeing army would perform better on the defensive, but had to halt the retreat and somehow engage the French (Its taking longer than we thought.) The earliest known photograph of "the finger," given by Charles "Old 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. T he battle of Agincourt, whose 600th anniversary falls on St Crispin's Day, 25 October, is still tabloid gold, Gotcha! They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. 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 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. [45] A second, smaller mounted force was to attack the rear of the English army, along with its baggage and servants. In 1999, Snopesdebunked more of the historical aspects of the claim, as well as thecomponent explaininghow the phrase pluck yew graduallychanged form to begin with an f( here ). [70]), The tightness of the terrain also seems to have restricted the planned deployment of the French forces. This article was. 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.'" [47] Although it had been planned for the archers and crossbowmen to be placed with the infantry wings, they were now regarded as unnecessary and placed behind them instead. How different cultures perceive emojis in workplace communication The French, who were overwhelmingly favored to win the battle, Continue Reading 41 2 7 Alexander L The English were not in an ideal condition to fight a battle. 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. The Battle of Agincourt was another famous battle where longbowmen had a particularly important . Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts here . The Battle of Agincourt Opie, Iona and Moira Tatem. A Dictionary of Superstitions.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 ISBN 0-19-282916-5 (p. 454). This moment of the battle is portrayed both as a break with the traditions of chivalry and as a key example of the paradox of kingship. Winston Churchhill can be seen using the V as a rallying call. Participating as judges were Justices Samuel Alito and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. This battle is notable for the use of the English longbow in very large numbers, with the English and Welsh archers comprising nearly 80 percent of Henry's army. 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. The Battle Of Agincourt: What Really Happened? | HistoryExtra The origins of the sign aren't confirmed, but popular folklore suggests that its original meaning, packed with insult and ridicule, first appeared in the 20th century in the battle of Agincourt. 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. Jean de Wavrin, a knight on the French side wrote that English fatalities were 1,600 men of all ranks. It goes on to state thatafter an unexpected victory, the English soldiersmocked thedefeatedFrenchtroopsbywavingtheir middle fingers( here ). The town surrendered on 22 September, and the English army did not leave until 8 October. Theodore Beck also suggests that among Henry's army was "the king's physician and a little band of surgeons". [127], Shakespeare's play presented Henry as leading a truly English force into battle, playing on the importance of the link between the monarch and the common soldiers in the fight. 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. Juliet Barker quotes a contemporary account by a monk from St. Denis who reports how the wounded and panicking horses galloped through the advancing infantry, scattering them and trampling them down in their headlong flight from the battlefield. [124], The most famous cultural depiction of the battle today is in Act IV of William Shakespeare's Henry V, written in 1599. One of the most renowned. [22], Henry's army landed in northern France on 13 August 1415, carried by a vast fleet. Increasingly, they had to walk around or over fallen comrades. Battles were observed and chronicled by heralds who were present at the scene and recorded what they saw, judged who won, and fixed names for the battles. It was often reported to comprise 1,500 ships, but was probably far smaller. Henry would marry Catherine, Charles VI's young daughter, and receive a dowry of 2million crowns. On February 1, 1328, King Charles IV of France died without an heir. 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. The 'middle finger salute' did not derive from the defiant gestures of English archers whose fingers had been severed at the Battle of Agincourt. [62] [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. 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. Materials characterization, 29(2), 111117. "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? A Dictionary of Superstitions. Wikipedia. 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. Idiom Origins - Middle finger - History of Middle finger [84] The exhausted French men-at-arms were unable to get up after being knocked to the ground by the English. The king received an axe blow to the head, which knocked off a piece of the crown that formed part of his helmet. [43], The French were organized into two main groups (or battles), a vanguard up front and a main battle behind, both composed principally of men-at-arms fighting on foot and flanked by more of the same in each wing. [130][131] Partially as a result, the battle was used as a metaphor at the beginning of the First World War, when the British Expeditionary Force's attempts to stop the German advances were widely likened to it.[132]. (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.). It forms the backdrop to events in William Shakespeare's play Henry V, written in 1599. ", "Miracle in the Mud: The Hundred Years' War's Battle of Agincourt", The Agincourt Battlefield Archaeology Project, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Agincourt&oldid=1137126379, 6,000 killed (most of whom were of the French nobility), Hansen, Mogens Herman (Copenhagen Polis Centre), This page was last edited on 2 February 2023, at 23:13.
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