[49], The French vanguard and main battle numbered respectively 4,800 and 3,000 men-at-arms. One popular "origin story" for the middle finger has to do with the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. 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. 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. 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. Henry V and the resumption of the Hundred Years War, That fought with us upon Saint Crispins day, https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Agincourt, World History Encyclopedia - Battle of Agincourt, Warfare History Network - Miracle in the Mud: The Hundred Years' War's Battle of Agincourt, Battle of Agincourt - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). The French nobility, weakened by the defeat and divided among themselves, were unable to meet new attacks with effective resistance. The English Gesta Henrici described three great heaps of the slain around the three main English standards. 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. The military aspects of this account are similarly specious. 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 Hundred Years' War. Opie, Iona and Moira Tatem. On February 1, 1328, King Charles IV of France died without an heir. 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. With Toby Merrell, Ian Brooker, Philip Rosch, Brian Blessed. Over the years some 'folk etymologies' have grown up around this symbolic gesture. [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. The Battle of Agincourt is well documented by at least seven contemporary accounts, three from eyewitnesses.
What's the origin of "the finger"? - The Straight Dope [126], Shakespeare's depiction of the battle also plays on the theme of modernity. He told his men that he would rather die in the coming battle than be captured and ransomed. Soon after the battle started, it had thousands of English and French soldiers and horses running through it. 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.
Battle of Agincourt - Wikipedia [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. [50] Both lines were arrayed in tight, dense formations of about 16 ranks each, and were positioned a bowshot length from each other. With 4,800 men-at-arms in the vanguard, 3,000 in the main battle, and 1,200 in the infantry wings. [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. 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.
Why is showing the middle finger offensive? When, how, and - Quora The English were not in an ideal condition to fight a battle.
Agincourt and the Middle Finger | First Floor Tarpley False claim: "Middle finger" gesture derives from English soldiers at [70]), The tightness of the terrain also seems to have restricted the planned deployment of the French forces. As the English were collecting prisoners, a band of French peasants led by local noblemen began plundering Henrys baggage behind the lines. [72], The French cavalry, despite being disorganised and not at full numbers, charged towards the longbowmen. [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. On 25 October 1415, an army of English raiders under Henry V faced the French outside an obscure village on the road to Calais. I admit that I bring this story up when I talk about the Hundred Years War only to debunk it. 33-35). Fighting ignorance since 1973. In pursuit of his claim to the French throne, Henry V invaded Normandy with an army of 11,000 men in August 1415. Two are from the epigrammatist Martial: Laugh loudly, Sextillus, when someone calls you a queen and put your middle finger out., (The verse continues: But you are no sodomite nor fornicator either, Sextillus, nor is Vetustinas hot mouth your fancy. Martial, and Roman poets in general, could be pretty out there, subject-matter-wise. [b] The unexpected English victory against the numerically superior French army boosted English morale and prestige, crippled France, and started a new period of English dominance in the war that would last for 14 years until France defeated England in the Siege of Orlans in 1429. Common estimates place the English army at about 6,000, while the French army probably consisted of 20,000 to 30,000 men. The French hoped to raise 9,000 troops, but the army was not ready in time to relieve Harfleur. Kill them outright and violate the medieval moral code of civilized warfare? This was an innovative technique that the English had not used in the Battles of Crcy and Poitiers. Turning to our vast classical library, we quickly turn up three references. 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. The French were commanded by Constable Charles d'Albret and various prominent French noblemen of the Armagnac party. One final observation: any time some appeal begins with heres something that intelligent people will find edifying you should be suspicious.
When did the middle finger become offensive? - BBC News 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 . Although the French initially pushed the English back, they became so closely packed that they were described as having trouble using their weapons properly. Supposedly, both originated at the 1415 Battle of Agincourt, . According to contemporary English accounts, Henry fought hand to hand. There is no evidence that, when captured in any scenario,archers had their finger cut off by the enemy( bit.ly/3dP2PhP ). But lets not quibble. 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. In the words of Juliet Barker, the battle "cut a great swath through the natural leaders of French society in Artois, Ponthieu, Normandy, Picardy. The main part of the speech begins "This day is called the feast of . Another verse begins: You love to be sodomized, Papylus . It seems clear, however, that the English were at a decided numerical disadvantage. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. 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.
Plucking The Yew - Jerry Pournelle And where does the distinction between one and two fingers come from? It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows that the gesture is known as giving the bird. And yew all thought yew knew everything! Henry threatened to hang whoever did not obey his orders. After the initial wave, the French would have had to fight over and on the bodies of those who had fallen before them.
Africa: Funny but Fanciful - Little Evidence for Origin of the F Word 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 ). To meet and beat him was a triumph, the highest form which self-expression could take in the medieval nobleman's way of life." Henry would marry Catherine, Charles VI's young daughter, and receive a dowry of 2million crowns. Update [June 20, 2022]: Updated SEO/social. 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. Why do some people have that one extra-long fingernail on the pinkie finger. 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. Winston Churchhill can be seen using the V as a rallying call. [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. This claim is false. The campaign season was coming to an end, and the English army had suffered many casualties through disease. The pl sound, the story goes, gradually changed into an f, giving the gesture its present meaning.
A Short History of "Flipping the Bird" - OddFeed Nicolle, D. (2004). This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team.
The traditional view of the years 131821 is one of domination by Longbowmen and "The Finger" - (on 'TheBeckoning') .
The Battle of Agincourt (Pt 1) - YouTube [17] Two of the most frequently cited accounts come from Burgundian sources, one from Jean Le Fvre de Saint-Remy who was present at the battle, and the other from Enguerrand de Monstrelet. Keegan, John. Omissions? The image makes the further claim that the English soldiers chanted pluck yew, ostensibly in reference to the drawing of the longbow. After a difficult siege, the English forces found themselves assaulted by a massive French force.
The Battle Of Agincourt: What Really Happened? | HistoryExtra They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. 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. The brunt of the battle had fallen on the Armagnacs and it was they who suffered the majority of senior casualties and carried the blame for the defeat. Originally representing the erect phallus, the gesture conveyssimultaneously a sexual threat to the person to whom it is directed andapotropaicmeans of warding off unwanted elements of the more-than-human. ( here ). [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]. [105] Other benefits to the English were longer term.
PDF THE ENGLISH VS FRENCH - Carolina Traditional Archers [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. When the archers ran out of arrows, they dropped their bows and, using hatchets, swords, and the mallets they had used to drive their stakes in, attacked the now disordered, fatigued and wounded French men-at-arms massed in front of them. 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. Historians disagree less about the French numbers. Loades, M. (2013). [7] Barker, who believes the English were outnumbered by at least four to one,[120] says that the armed servants formed the rearguard in the battle. The decorative use of the image of Priapusmatched the Roman use ofimages of male genitalia for warding off evil. 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]. [citation needed]. Henry V's victory in the mud of Picardy remains the . [76] Modern historians are divided on how effective the longbows would have been against plate armour of the time. 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. 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. Fixed formatting. 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. When that campaign took place, it was made easier by the damage done to the political and military structures of Normandy by the battle. [31], The precise location of the battle is not known. The effect of the victory on national morale was powerful. The battle probably lasted no longer than three hours and was perhaps as short as half an hour, according to some estimates. [51] Albret, Boucicaut and almost all the leading noblemen were assigned stations in the vanguard.
The earliest known photograph of "the finger," given by Charles "Old 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". Clip from the 1944 movie "Henry V" (137 min). Jean de Wavrin, a knight on the French side wrote that English fatalities were 1,600 men of all ranks. The Battle of Agincourt originated in 1328.
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. [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. [93] In all, around 6,000 of their fighting men lay dead on the ground. [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]. 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. 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.
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