Showing posts with label Agincourt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Agincourt. Show all posts
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Shooting Speed of Longbow and Crossbow
This video suggests that with a belt hook, the disparity in shooting speed was not as great as commonly supposed: four shots in 30 seconds for the crossbow vs. nine for the longbow. Of course, a windlass crossbow would be much slower.
Leo "Tod" Todeschini was present at the shoot, and reports that the crossbow had a draw weight of 150 lbs, far too light for a war weapon. He reckons that a belt and claw can span a crossbow up to about 350 lbs in draw, at a rate of about six shots a minute. This agrees with the contemporary Florentine chronicler Villani's account of Crecy that the English shot three times in the time it took the Genoese crossbowmen to fire once.
Before about 1390, minutes and seconds were things known only by the very learned. A first person portrayal of an English bowman from before then might say " I can shoot six times in the time it takes to say the Lord's Prayer, three times the speed of a crossbowman spanning from the belt."
"But, if I shoot as fast as I can, I'll use a whole sheaf of 24 arrows before French men-at-arms on foot, starting 200 yards out, are still more than 60 yards out. And this is not to be thought on, since everyone knows that an archer does the greatest injury at close range. So I will shoot more deliberately at long range, especially since there is much advantage to marking where your first shot falls before firing the second, which can scarcely be done if you shoot when your first shot is still in the air."
An English bowman who shoots his arrows wisely will shoot his last arrow only a few seconds before he drops his bow and takes up another weapon.
In these videos Tod Todeschini shoots heavy crossbows spanned with a belt and pulley and a goat's foot lever, getting off about three and five shots a minute respectively. I don't think he's trying to shoot as fast as he possibly can. The belt and pulley is, of course, somewhat more cumbersome than a simple belt hook, but allows a heavier draw.
Note Tod's superior biomechanics compare to the first video: he presses downward with one leg rather than lifting his entire body as he spans the bow. The downward leg press is often visible in medieval images of crossbowmen spanning from a belt.
In comments, Jason Daub says that he can get off six shots in 34 seconds with a 240 lb. bow using a simple belt hook. It is well to know that the draw weights of crossbows and hand bows are not directly comparable, since the crossbow generally has a much shorter power stroke. A 240 lb. composite crossbow might put no more energy into the missile than an 80 lb. hand bow. And crossbows with steel prods suffer further in comparison, because much of the stored energy goes into accelerating the relatively heavy prod.
Monday, January 12, 2015
Calais under English Rule: 1347-1558
The town of Calais, while ruled by England, was very much an English town. Most of the original French inhabitants were expelled when Edward III took the town, and English settlers brought in. The names of streets and inns were all English.
This was less true of the Pale of Calais, the territory under English control outside Calais proper, including the outlying forts at Hammes and Guisnes (now Guînes). While some English settled in the Pale, the population outside the town remained predominantly French or Flemish. The Pale covered about 20 square miles, and Guînes is about 6.5 miles from Calais by road.
Even though Edward III expelled most of the original population of the town, a few were allowed to remain: a priest, "and other auncyent personages such as knewe the customes, lawes and ordynaunces of the towne and to signe out the herytages howe they were devyded", and some others by special leave of the king. Foreigners could not become a burgess, hold freehold property or keep an inn. Over time these regulations became less well enforced, and in 1364 there was a complaint of foreigners owning hostelries in Calais. In 1413, Henry V renewed the prohibition on foreigners becoming burgesses or keeping an inn, and required foreigners settling in Calais to be taxed at 1/15th of their wealth.
Lodging keepers were required to make a report of what strangers were lodging with them each night.
During herring time, between the feasts of Michaelmas and St. Andrew, when many foreign fishermen brought their catch to Calais, there were extra precautions: only one of the town gates was open, there was an additional watch, and foreign fishermen were not allowed in town overnight.
The Calais Staple was an important institution under English Rule. From 1348 until the French retook Calais, with brief lapses in the 14th century, most wool, woolfells, tin and lead exported from England was required to pass through the Staple, a marketplace governed by the Company of the Staple, where it could be conveniently taxed. The Staple was an important source of revenue for the Crown, and the Staplers an important source of financing.
After the garrison mutinied over unpaid wages, in 1407 Henry IV assigned half of the wool duties to pay the garrison. This was insufficient, and Henry borrowed the remainder from the Staplers, repaying them by excusing them from wool customs for a time.
While most of the Staplers and members of the garrison expected to eventually return to England, some of the burgesses, descendants of the original English settlers, expected Calais to be their home for life.
From 1365 on, the town was ruled by a mayor and 12 aldermen, but there was also a Mayor of the Staple, leading to repeated conflicts as to who had precedence, the Mayor of the Town or the Mayor of the Staple. This bickering would continue into the reign of Edward IV, to be resolved for a time in favor of the Mayor of the Staple, only to be revived in the early 16th c.
The town is estimated to have had a population of 4,500 in the 15th c.
When Henry VIII visited in 1532, the town was reckoned capable of providing 2,400 beds and stables for 2,000 horses.
Brewing beer was a major local industry. There were at least 7 brewhouses in the 16th c., including a large one owned by the crown.
A 16th century English report on Calais spells the name of its inhabitants "Calisian"
Sandeman, George Amelius Crawshay. 1908. Calais under English rule. Oxford: B.H. Blackwell; [etc., etc.].
This was less true of the Pale of Calais, the territory under English control outside Calais proper, including the outlying forts at Hammes and Guisnes (now Guînes). While some English settled in the Pale, the population outside the town remained predominantly French or Flemish. The Pale covered about 20 square miles, and Guînes is about 6.5 miles from Calais by road.
Even though Edward III expelled most of the original population of the town, a few were allowed to remain: a priest, "and other auncyent personages such as knewe the customes, lawes and ordynaunces of the towne and to signe out the herytages howe they were devyded", and some others by special leave of the king. Foreigners could not become a burgess, hold freehold property or keep an inn. Over time these regulations became less well enforced, and in 1364 there was a complaint of foreigners owning hostelries in Calais. In 1413, Henry V renewed the prohibition on foreigners becoming burgesses or keeping an inn, and required foreigners settling in Calais to be taxed at 1/15th of their wealth.
Lodging keepers were required to make a report of what strangers were lodging with them each night.
During herring time, between the feasts of Michaelmas and St. Andrew, when many foreign fishermen brought their catch to Calais, there were extra precautions: only one of the town gates was open, there was an additional watch, and foreign fishermen were not allowed in town overnight.
The Calais Staple was an important institution under English Rule. From 1348 until the French retook Calais, with brief lapses in the 14th century, most wool, woolfells, tin and lead exported from England was required to pass through the Staple, a marketplace governed by the Company of the Staple, where it could be conveniently taxed. The Staple was an important source of revenue for the Crown, and the Staplers an important source of financing.
After the garrison mutinied over unpaid wages, in 1407 Henry IV assigned half of the wool duties to pay the garrison. This was insufficient, and Henry borrowed the remainder from the Staplers, repaying them by excusing them from wool customs for a time.
While most of the Staplers and members of the garrison expected to eventually return to England, some of the burgesses, descendants of the original English settlers, expected Calais to be their home for life.
From 1365 on, the town was ruled by a mayor and 12 aldermen, but there was also a Mayor of the Staple, leading to repeated conflicts as to who had precedence, the Mayor of the Town or the Mayor of the Staple. This bickering would continue into the reign of Edward IV, to be resolved for a time in favor of the Mayor of the Staple, only to be revived in the early 16th c.
The town is estimated to have had a population of 4,500 in the 15th c.
When Henry VIII visited in 1532, the town was reckoned capable of providing 2,400 beds and stables for 2,000 horses.
Brewing beer was a major local industry. There were at least 7 brewhouses in the 16th c., including a large one owned by the crown.
A 16th century English report on Calais spells the name of its inhabitants "Calisian"
Sandeman, George Amelius Crawshay. 1908. Calais under English rule. Oxford: B.H. Blackwell; [etc., etc.].
Saturday, November 08, 2014
The Bridport Muster: 1457
The Bridport muster roll gives an unusually complete record of one of the musters held by the Lancastrians in 1457. Held at Bridport in Dorset, it records the arms owned, or that should have been owned, or in 82 cases were not owned, by 201 named individuals. Frequently the contraction ordinab occurs, probably for the Latin ordinabitur, or "he was instructed". Presumably it reflects equipment the individual should have had, but didn't bring to the muster. It's unclear how many of them the authorities expected to actually make good the deficiency, and how many would simply by fined.
For those that actually had bow and arrows, the most common kit was was jack, sallet, bow and arrows, often with a sword and dagger, for 33 individuals. Two had jack, sallet and habergeon: the 1473 Burgundian ordinance of St. Maximin de Tréves expected mounted archers to wear a a habergeon beneath their jack. One had jack, wallet and leg harness. One had a sallet and habergeon. 20 had bow and arrow, but no armor. 7 of the archers had a sallet as their only armor. 5 had a jack but no sallet. Two had brigandines but no sallet.
This is somewhat at variance with Le Fèvre and Waurin's report that most of the English archers at Agincourt were unarmored: one would expect an expeditionary force to be better equipped than a local muster. Probably the many Welsh foot archers were less likely to have armor, and so brought down the average prevalence of armor among the archers as a whole.
For those that actually had bow and arrows, the most common kit was was jack, sallet, bow and arrows, often with a sword and dagger, for 33 individuals. Two had jack, sallet and habergeon: the 1473 Burgundian ordinance of St. Maximin de Tréves expected mounted archers to wear a a habergeon beneath their jack. One had jack, wallet and leg harness. One had a sallet and habergeon. 20 had bow and arrow, but no armor. 7 of the archers had a sallet as their only armor. 5 had a jack but no sallet. Two had brigandines but no sallet.
This is somewhat at variance with Le Fèvre and Waurin's report that most of the English archers at Agincourt were unarmored: one would expect an expeditionary force to be better equipped than a local muster. Probably the many Welsh foot archers were less likely to have armor, and so brought down the average prevalence of armor among the archers as a whole.
Friday, November 07, 2014
The English Archers' Equipment at Agincourt
The archers were for the most part without armor, in their pourpoints, with their hose rolled down, with hatchets and axes hanging from their belts, or long swords. Some were completely barefoot, and some wore hunettes (huvettes in Waurin) or cappelines of boiled leather, and some of osier reinforced with iron (sur lesquelz avoit une croisure de fer: covered with pitch or leather in Waurin )Jean Le Fèvre and Jean Waurin were both present at that battle, and both wrote chronicles that described what happened at Agincourt. Their accounts were not independent: they essentially compared notes after the battle and their two versions of what happened were very similar. I have translated Le Fèvre above, with significant variations in Waurin noted.
Hunettes/huvettes and cappelins were head defenses. Huvettes could be made of boiled leather, but also iron, scales and plates, and were sometimes described as small and round. Cappelins seem to have been a sort of helmet favored by infantry and light cavalry. Le Fèvre and Waurin seem to be describing some of the English archers wearing small helmets with lower, less pointed crowns than the bascinet of the contemporary man at arms.
Le Fèvre de Saint-Remy, Jean, and François Morand. 1876. Chronique de Jean Le Fèvre, seigneur de Saint-Rémy, transcrite d'un manuscrit appartenant à la bibliothèque de Boulogne-sur-Mer. Paris: Loones.
Saturday, October 25, 2014
The Great Docudramatist of the 16th Century
It is well to remember, in watching any of Shakespeare's histories, that he was always a playwright first. Whenever he had to choose between good drama and good history, drama would win. And he was working from Holinshed, at least one remove from the primary sources.
Shakespeare was in the business of writing seductive untruths for a living. Remember that when you watch his Henry V, or any of his histories.
Shakespeare was in the business of writing seductive untruths for a living. Remember that when you watch his Henry V, or any of his histories.
Monday, October 20, 2014
Reorganization at Harfleur: 1415
Anne Curry has noted that several retinues who lost men from illness during the siege of Harfleur in 1415 managed to find replacements for some of their losses before they marched away to fight at Agincourt. Where did these men come from?
Curry argues that either extra men crossed with the original force or reinforcements arrived later, but I think there is a better explanation.
We know that dysentery killed some leaders like the earl of Suffolk, and sent the duke of Clarence, the Earl Marshal and the earls of March and Arundel home as invalids.
Suffolk had a son and heir to take command, and the Earl Marshal and earl of March had trustworthy subordinates who preserved their retinues as ongoing units.
What happened to the Clarence and Arundel retinues after their leaders went home as invalids is unclear.
But it seems very plausible that some retinues lost enough of their upper command that they could no longer continue as independent contractors. This was particularly likely when the retinue was small, and some consisted of only a man at arms and three archers. The remaining fighting men would have sought and found employment in continuing units with vacancies.
Curry argues that either extra men crossed with the original force or reinforcements arrived later, but I think there is a better explanation.
We know that dysentery killed some leaders like the earl of Suffolk, and sent the duke of Clarence, the Earl Marshal and the earls of March and Arundel home as invalids.
Suffolk had a son and heir to take command, and the Earl Marshal and earl of March had trustworthy subordinates who preserved their retinues as ongoing units.
What happened to the Clarence and Arundel retinues after their leaders went home as invalids is unclear.
But it seems very plausible that some retinues lost enough of their upper command that they could no longer continue as independent contractors. This was particularly likely when the retinue was small, and some consisted of only a man at arms and three archers. The remaining fighting men would have sought and found employment in continuing units with vacancies.
The Frustrating Documentation of the Agincourt Campaign.
At first glance, it might seem that the English army in during the Agincourt Campaign is quite well documented. The Soldier in later Medieval England has 11,285 records for 1415.
But. In theory, every man at arms that fought at Agincourt should be listed three times: in a pre-departure muster, a post campaign accounting, and the Agincourt Roll copied by heralds in the late 16th and early 17th century. Since the herald weren't interested in common archers, the number per retinue is given but not their names in the Agincourt roll, so archers at the battle should be listed twice. Men invalided home should be listed both in the initial muster and a muster of invalids.
In practice, it is possible for the same man to be listed more often: some post campaign accounting also listed men who died at Harfleur or were sent home as invalids, distinguished in the list but not in the database They could have been on an invalid list as well. In addition, the Agincourt Roll double counts at least one retinue, that of Sir Henry Huse, both as part of a larger retinue and as an independent listing. It also lists the names of some men who died or were still sick at Harfleur, had been sent home, or were killed before the battle.
So there are less than half as many records as we would expect if all the documentation had survived. The Agincourt Roll is clearly incomplete: it conspicuously omits the Duke of York, who died in the battle, and his retinue, and only accounts for 2,496 archers in an army that at the lowest estimate had twice as many.
But. In theory, every man at arms that fought at Agincourt should be listed three times: in a pre-departure muster, a post campaign accounting, and the Agincourt Roll copied by heralds in the late 16th and early 17th century. Since the herald weren't interested in common archers, the number per retinue is given but not their names in the Agincourt roll, so archers at the battle should be listed twice. Men invalided home should be listed both in the initial muster and a muster of invalids.
In practice, it is possible for the same man to be listed more often: some post campaign accounting also listed men who died at Harfleur or were sent home as invalids, distinguished in the list but not in the database They could have been on an invalid list as well. In addition, the Agincourt Roll double counts at least one retinue, that of Sir Henry Huse, both as part of a larger retinue and as an independent listing. It also lists the names of some men who died or were still sick at Harfleur, had been sent home, or were killed before the battle.
So there are less than half as many records as we would expect if all the documentation had survived. The Agincourt Roll is clearly incomplete: it conspicuously omits the Duke of York, who died in the battle, and his retinue, and only accounts for 2,496 archers in an army that at the lowest estimate had twice as many.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Loss of English Horses at Agincourt
The chronicles agree that the English lost many horses when the French looted their camp at the battle of Agincourt. The shipping account of the earl of Oxford's return trip gives some indication of the level of loss. Of 84 archers, all originally mounted, only 37 returned with horses. The earl and his 39 men at arms brought back 87, including six for the earl's cartage. Based on 14th and 15th c. English shipping allowances of three horses per squire and more for higher ranks, the earl and his men at arms probably left Harfleur with about 140 horses.
Other companies may have lost more or less.
Curry, Anne. 2000. The battle of Agincourt: sources and interpretations. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. p.433
Craig L. Lambert. 2011. Shipping the Medieval Military English maritime logistics in the fourteenth century. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press. p.99
Other companies may have lost more or less.
Craig L. Lambert. 2011. Shipping the Medieval Military English maritime logistics in the fourteenth century. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press. p.99
Monday, July 07, 2014
Armor: 1410-1415
From England, France, Belgium and the Netherlands:
From Manuscript Miniatures. Some of these have deliberately exotic elements because of a setting that is supposed to be classical, mythical, historical, Asian, or more than one of the above. They should generally be pretty obvious.
From Effigies & Brasses. Bear in mind that these are biased towards people who could afford effigies or brasses, a wealthier subset of the people who could afford full armor.
From Armour in Art
From Manuscript Miniatures. Some of these have deliberately exotic elements because of a setting that is supposed to be classical, mythical, historical, Asian, or more than one of the above. They should generally be pretty obvious.
From Effigies & Brasses. Bear in mind that these are biased towards people who could afford effigies or brasses, a wealthier subset of the people who could afford full armor.
From Armour in Art
Sunday, April 06, 2014
Prisoners and Booty from Agincourt
The related chronicles of Monstrelet, Le Fèvre, and Waurin claim that the English took 1,500 or 1,600 French prisoners at Agincourt, but like most medieval chroniclers their large numbers are unreliable. The St. Albans Chronicle has what I consider the most reliable count: a bit over 700 prisoners, and the dead numbering three dukes, five counts, the constable of France, the seneschal of Hainault, the master of the crossbowmen of the king of France, almost a hundred other lords, and 3,069 knights and squires, a number so exact that it may be an actual count. Berry Herald counted the dead at 4,000 knights and squires and 500-600 "other men of war". The English count would have missed French dead dragged away in the night after the battle by local peasantry or stripped by them and thus unrecognizable as persons of rank. The disproportionate number of gentle dead is understandable when we remember that the other ranks had by all accounts moved to the rear of the formations before they came to hand strokes, and, less heavily burdened, would have had a better chance of getting away once the fight was lost.
That's a lot of prisoners and booty: roughly one prisoner for every man-at-arms in the English army, and the kit of two dead or captured French men-at-arms for every three fighting men in the English army, archers included.
Beyond the gear that those they killed or captured, what else would they have looted? Gesta Henrici Quinti reports that the French abandoned "their wagons and other baggage carts, many of these loaded with provisions and missiles, spears and bows." Conspicuously absent is any mention of the valuables that must have been in the French tents at the start of the battle.
Once it was clear that the day was theirs the English first concern would have been to secure their prisoners before advancing to the French camp behind the rearguard. There would have been time for servants to throw the most valuable items into saddlebags. The French would have abandoned the wagons so some of them could escape on the draft horses.
The English took more booty than they could bear away. King Henry ordered that the men could only keep armor sufficient for their bodies: the rest was to be heaped in a barn or house and the building burned. For the 3/4 of the army that marched on foot there must have been a painful struggle between greed and exhaustion.
That's a lot of prisoners and booty: roughly one prisoner for every man-at-arms in the English army, and the kit of two dead or captured French men-at-arms for every three fighting men in the English army, archers included.
Beyond the gear that those they killed or captured, what else would they have looted? Gesta Henrici Quinti reports that the French abandoned "their wagons and other baggage carts, many of these loaded with provisions and missiles, spears and bows." Conspicuously absent is any mention of the valuables that must have been in the French tents at the start of the battle.
Once it was clear that the day was theirs the English first concern would have been to secure their prisoners before advancing to the French camp behind the rearguard. There would have been time for servants to throw the most valuable items into saddlebags. The French would have abandoned the wagons so some of them could escape on the draft horses.
The English took more booty than they could bear away. King Henry ordered that the men could only keep armor sufficient for their bodies: the rest was to be heaped in a barn or house and the building burned. For the 3/4 of the army that marched on foot there must have been a painful struggle between greed and exhaustion.
Saturday, April 05, 2014
After Agincourt
The king of England lodged in the castle of Guînes and his battalion in the town, but the great multitude of his men at arms and archers moved on towards Calais, extremely tired and exhausted, encumbered by booty and prisoners, save for the French dukes, counts and barons of high rank whom the king of England kept with him. But when those men at arms men arrived outside Calais tired and weary, and where they hoped to gain refreshment, they were refused entry, which was very hard on them. Many had spent eight days with hardly any bread, and they had been able to find scarcely any other victuals. You may imagine that the prisoners, most of whom were wounded, were suffering greatly. All wanted to find comfort in Calais, but they failed in that.
They refused to let them enter, save for some of the great lords. The governors of the town, which lay on the frontier, did this so that the victuals would not fail come what may. So all of the men at arms and archers, starving and heavily burdened and troubled with baggage and prisoners, remained outside, very discontented, so that many sold some of their gear and prisoners to those of the town so that they could get money immediately to cross the sea, and they did not care so long as they could go to England. There were many who put their prisoners to a courteous ransom and who received them on their faith and on that day agreed to four nobles for one who was worth ten, and they did not count the cost of bread as long as they could have it to eat. The king of England who was at Guînes heard what privation and suffering his men were experiencing and he made provision as soon as he could.
Wavrin, Jehan de, William Hardy, and Edward L. C. P. Hardy. 1864. Recueil des croniques et anchiennes istories de la Grant Bretaigne, a present nomme Engleterre. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green; [etc.]. Voll. 2, pp 20-221 Translation copyright Will McLean: 2014.
The army reached Guines the evening of October 28, and pressed on to Calais while the king remained at Guines overnight, entering Calais October 29 to great rejoicing. By November 2, the village of Falkenham in Suffolk had been sent orders to immediately send victuals to Calais "as it is well known that (the king) is now at Calais in person with his army." There are many points closer to Calais on the Channel coast of England than Falkenham, but this order has survived.
Henry was committed to remain at Calais until November 11 to receive his prisoners from Harfleur, and left for England on November 16. The individual retinues would have returned as soon as they could arranged for shipping, but it would have taken some time for all of them to do so.
Henry later ruled that the expedition lasted until eight days after he landed at Dover on November 16 and all returning men would be paid for service until then, suggesting that that some of the surviving retinues took that long to return to England.
It must have been a nice economic problem for the captains trying to return home from Calais. The shipowners would charge dearly for the scarce space on the earliest ships, but the captains would pay dearly for food for each additional day in Calais. And if they had insufficient cash on hand, how much of a discount should they accept for their ransoms and plunder for early passage?
Barker, Juliet R. V. 2006. Agincourt Henry V and the battle that made England. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Co. pp 323-328 and notes.
Curry, Anne. 2000. The battle of Agincourt: sources and interpretations. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press. p. 429
Sunday, March 03, 2013
Coat Armor, Badges, Devices, Liveries and Jupons
Coat armors were garments that displayed the particular arms of a specific individual. They might be worn by that individual, or the heralds that served him as direct representatives.
Badges were more general. National badges like the cross of St. George might be worn by all who were members of, or who served, that nation. Household badges might be worn by all those that were part of, served, or supported a great household.
Devices were usually more specific. They might be an emblem chosen by a single individual for limited purpose: such as a single man who sought a single opponent for a deed of arms. Often they were only slightly broader: a small group of companions who sought opponents willing to fight on equal terms.
Liveries allowed great and middling households to identify their members and allies. The most closely affiliated supporters got clothing of particular colors and a badge. Less closely affiliated supporters got the badge alone. Livery clothing was often of more than one color to increase the number of clearly distinct liveries.
Some urban militias also wore uniform clothing. Froissart describes the Flemish army before Roosebecke:
Jupons were also worn over armor in the 14th and 15th century. The term seems to have generally referred to garments without heraldic arms and so distinguished from coat armor, although they might be covered with brocade or other patterns.
When did men-at-arms wear coat armor, and when did they wear something else? It's a complicated question. On the one hand, men-at-arms wanted their individual valor and prowess to be recognized. On the other hand, coat armor was expensive, or fragile, or both.
Also, not all men-at-arms had arms to display. In 1389, John Kingston was thought worthy enough to sustain a challenge from a French knight, but he then had neither arms nor formal rank as a squire, and so both were granted by letters patent.
Further, it seems that "divers men" on the Agincourt campaign assumed arms for the campaign that they had neither inherited nor been granted. Henry V's band of brothers were allowed to keep their assumed arms, but in 1417 he prohibited assuming arms unless the bearer "possess or ought to possess the same in right of an ancestor or by gift of one having sufficient power."
And not all of the men entitled to bear coat armor on the battlefield always did so. 14th and early 15th c. manuscripts frequently show men-at-arms bearing arms on their shield or horse trappings but none on their body, and frequently a jupon of an entirely different color than any in their arms. The mid 15th c. Beauchamp Pageant shows the Earl of Warwick in coat armor for most of his battles, but in white harness fighting against the forces of Owen Glendower in 1402, identified only by his crest of a bear and ragged staff.
14th and 15th c. manuscript illuminations almost always show only a minority of the men-at-arms in a battle wearing coat armor.
While marching infantry are shown in livery coats, I've seen no clear evidence in iconography of men-at-arms wearing them in battle. Two apparent exceptions appear in MS M.804 a version of Froissart's chronicles from ca. 1412-1415. It turns out that both fol. 338r and 347v are showing Flemish urban militia as described above, but drawn as men-at-arms with full leg harness because that is the artist's default way of portraying soldiers.
One should be reluctant to draw conclusions from iconography alone. Fortunately, the closely related Agincourt accounts of Jean Le Fèvre and Jean de Waurin shed light on who wore coat armor and when.
Later, Le Fèvre and de Waurin tell how Anthony, duke of Brabant, rode in such haste to the battlefield that he left the main body of his men behind.
Other contexts:
Participants in deeds of arms for single or group combat by mutual consent probably wore coat armor even more frequently than on the battlefield. The phrase "his coat of arms on his back" recurs with monotonous regularity in accounts of these combats. The exceptions tended to be individuals who wore sumptuous finery designed for that particular deed of arms, as when Jacques de Laing wore "a robe of sanguine silk all strewn with blue tears" for one of his combats at the pas of the Fontaine des Pleurs, or to make a political statement, as when Juan de Merlo wore "a vermillion-coloured mantle, with a white cross on it, like to the badge of the French" in 1435.
Jousters might wear their personal coat armor, but often wore team uniforms, often designed for a particular joust, or other garments according to their fancy.
Tournaments, in the traditional sense of mounted melee combats, had become quite rare by 1350 everywhere outside Germany.
King René, when he attempted to revive the tournament west of the Rhine ca. 1460, expected that coat armor would be the norm for noble participants. Illuminations of tournaments ca. 1350 are more ambiguous, with some participants wearing their arms on their clothing and others wearing clothing completely unlike their arms.
Curry, Anne. 2000. The battle of Agincourt: sources and interpretations. Woodbridge: Boydell Press.
Badges were more general. National badges like the cross of St. George might be worn by all who were members of, or who served, that nation. Household badges might be worn by all those that were part of, served, or supported a great household.
Devices were usually more specific. They might be an emblem chosen by a single individual for limited purpose: such as a single man who sought a single opponent for a deed of arms. Often they were only slightly broader: a small group of companions who sought opponents willing to fight on equal terms.
Liveries allowed great and middling households to identify their members and allies. The most closely affiliated supporters got clothing of particular colors and a badge. Less closely affiliated supporters got the badge alone. Livery clothing was often of more than one color to increase the number of clearly distinct liveries.
Some urban militias also wore uniform clothing. Froissart describes the Flemish army before Roosebecke:
The men from each town or castlewick had similar uniforms (parures semblables) so as to recognize one another: one company wore a coat made of blue and yellow, another a black band on a red coat, another white chevrons on a blue coat, another wavy stripes of green and blue, another checkered black and white, another quarterly white and red, another blue with one red quarter and another cut with red above and blue below.The London watch of 1378 distinguished groups of wards by the color of their lances: white powdered with red stars, all red, white environed or wreathed with red, black with white stars, and all white.
Jupons were also worn over armor in the 14th and 15th century. The term seems to have generally referred to garments without heraldic arms and so distinguished from coat armor, although they might be covered with brocade or other patterns.
When did men-at-arms wear coat armor, and when did they wear something else? It's a complicated question. On the one hand, men-at-arms wanted their individual valor and prowess to be recognized. On the other hand, coat armor was expensive, or fragile, or both.
Also, not all men-at-arms had arms to display. In 1389, John Kingston was thought worthy enough to sustain a challenge from a French knight, but he then had neither arms nor formal rank as a squire, and so both were granted by letters patent.
Further, it seems that "divers men" on the Agincourt campaign assumed arms for the campaign that they had neither inherited nor been granted. Henry V's band of brothers were allowed to keep their assumed arms, but in 1417 he prohibited assuming arms unless the bearer "possess or ought to possess the same in right of an ancestor or by gift of one having sufficient power."
And not all of the men entitled to bear coat armor on the battlefield always did so. 14th and early 15th c. manuscripts frequently show men-at-arms bearing arms on their shield or horse trappings but none on their body, and frequently a jupon of an entirely different color than any in their arms. The mid 15th c. Beauchamp Pageant shows the Earl of Warwick in coat armor for most of his battles, but in white harness fighting against the forces of Owen Glendower in 1402, identified only by his crest of a bear and ragged staff.
14th and 15th c. manuscript illuminations almost always show only a minority of the men-at-arms in a battle wearing coat armor.
While marching infantry are shown in livery coats, I've seen no clear evidence in iconography of men-at-arms wearing them in battle. Two apparent exceptions appear in MS M.804 a version of Froissart's chronicles from ca. 1412-1415. It turns out that both fol. 338r and 347v are showing Flemish urban militia as described above, but drawn as men-at-arms with full leg harness because that is the artist's default way of portraying soldiers.
One should be reluctant to draw conclusions from iconography alone. Fortunately, the closely related Agincourt accounts of Jean Le Fèvre and Jean de Waurin shed light on who wore coat armor and when.
To tell the truth, the king of England had wanted to lodge in another village which had been taken by his herbergers, but he, who always observed proper and honourable practices, did what you will now hear. It is true that whenever he wanted to send scouts before towns or castles or any matter, he had the lords or gentlemen take off their coats of arms when they went off and put back on again when they returned. It it so happened that on the day that the king left Bonnières to go up close to Blangy, there was a village which had been commandeered by his harbingers, but he had not been told of it. Not knowing in which village he was supposed to lodge, he went on by a bow shot and rode past it. Then he was told he had passed it. Then he stopped and said 'As I have passed, god forbid that I should return as I have got my coat of arms on'. And he moved on and lodged where his vanguard was lodging, and moved the vanguard further forward.From these accounts it appears that coat armor was particularly associated with pitched battles, and that anything that could be considered retreat could be considered dishonorable once it was put on. For that reason Henry did not want it worn when scouting, because the men would necessarily have to return to the main body, and this could be described as retreat. Also, coat armor was worn not only by commanders, but by at least some of the ordinary gentlemen.
...But to return to the king of England, before he crossed the river at Blangy en Ternoise, because the crossing was narrow he had six bold men of his vanguard take off their coats of arms and cross over in order to find out whether the passage was guarded. They found that there was no one seeing to its defence, so they crossed quickly.
Later, Le Fèvre and de Waurin tell how Anthony, duke of Brabant, rode in such haste to the battlefield that he left the main body of his men behind.
As he would not wait for them, because of the haste with which he had come he took one of the banners from his trumpeters, made a hole in the middle of it, and used it as his coat armour.So, the duke did not have coat armor with him on the march, but thought it so important to wear it in battle that he made improvised coat armor from a banner.
Other contexts:
Participants in deeds of arms for single or group combat by mutual consent probably wore coat armor even more frequently than on the battlefield. The phrase "his coat of arms on his back" recurs with monotonous regularity in accounts of these combats. The exceptions tended to be individuals who wore sumptuous finery designed for that particular deed of arms, as when Jacques de Laing wore "a robe of sanguine silk all strewn with blue tears" for one of his combats at the pas of the Fontaine des Pleurs, or to make a political statement, as when Juan de Merlo wore "a vermillion-coloured mantle, with a white cross on it, like to the badge of the French" in 1435.
Jousters might wear their personal coat armor, but often wore team uniforms, often designed for a particular joust, or other garments according to their fancy.
Tournaments, in the traditional sense of mounted melee combats, had become quite rare by 1350 everywhere outside Germany.
King René, when he attempted to revive the tournament west of the Rhine ca. 1460, expected that coat armor would be the norm for noble participants. Illuminations of tournaments ca. 1350 are more ambiguous, with some participants wearing their arms on their clothing and others wearing clothing completely unlike their arms.
Curry, Anne. 2000. The battle of Agincourt: sources and interpretations. Woodbridge: Boydell Press.
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Before Agincourt
In France an intermittent civil war, punctuated by truces, had been going on since 1407 between the Burgundians and the Orleanist faction that later became known as the Armagnacs. King Charles VI had suffered from bouts of insanity since 1392, and his relatives feuded over who would control France while he was incapacitated. Simmering for some time, the rivalry between Burgundy and Orleans became openly violent when the king’s nephew, John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, had the king’s brother, Louis, duke of Orleans, assassinated in Paris November 23, 1407.
The two factions bid against each other for English support. Negotiations began between the English and the Burgundians and the Burgundians offered sufficiently attractive terms that an English army supported the Burgundians in breaking the blockade of Paris at the battle of St. Cloud on November 9, 1411.
The desperate Orleanists offered even better terms, and in May of 1412 the English agreed to support them. In August the English launched an expedition to Normandy under the duke of Clarence. Clarence arrive in Normandy only to discover that the French factions had made temporary peace while he was en route, and had to content himself with extracting promises of a large indemnity to depart, some in cash and with hostages as surety for the rest.
Around this time the earl of Warwick did much destruction on the frontiers of Calais, burning Samer and taking Wissant by storm.
Afterwards, he held a deed of arms at Calais beginning the twelfth day of Christmas.
James I, king of Scots, had been captured by English pirates in 1406, and delivered to the English crown. He would not be ransomed until 1424.
Murdoch Stewart, Duke of Albany, grandson of Robert II of Scotland, had been captured at the battle of Homildon Hill in 1402. He would remain an English prisoner until 1416, when he would be traded for Henry Percy, second earl of Northumberland, son of Henry “Hotspur” Percy
1413
Henry V was crowned king of England April 9, 1413.
In the spring of 1413 a popular revolt encouraged by the duke of Burgundy took control of the city of Paris and the persons of the king and dauphin for several months. Called the Cabochien revolt after one of their leaders, Simon Caboch of the wealthy but low-status guild of butchers, they wore white hoods as livery. The Burgundian knights Leon de Jacqueville and Robert de Mailly were also described by Monstrelet and the monk of saint-Denys as leaders of the revolt.
Orleanist ministers and servants in the royal households, as well as Paris burghers of the Orleans faction, were imprisoned, murdered and executed.
By July, the Duke of Orleans and his allies were gathering their forces and pressing for the release of the King, Quean and Dauphin. King Charles VI was described as then being ‘in good health”.
Around this time the English took, plundered and burnt the small town and monastery of Treport in Normandy.
Cabochien brutality had alienated potential supporters within Paris, and the Orleans party was accumulating powerful forces outside the city.
By the middle of September the duke of Burgundy and most of his supporters had left Paris and the Orleans faction was in control of the city and the royal court.
In September an embassy from England, led by the earl of Warwick and Henry Chichele, bishop of St. Davids, met at Leulinghen, halfway between Calais and Boulogne with ambassadors for the French king, but were only able to agree on an eight month truce.
By November 14, 1413, the duke of Burgundy had been accused of raising troops in breach of royal proclamations.
1414
Oldcastle's Lollard revolt was intended to begin with an attack on the king at Twelfth Night at Eltham palace. Forewarned by spies and informers, the king crushed the revolt, which seems to have had little support, on January 10th. Seventy or eighty were captured and 45 executed. On March 28 the king offered a general pardon to all rebels who submitted before midsummer.
On January 24th the truce with France was extended through February 2nd, 1415.
January 26th, the Armagnacs issued a summons for a French army to assemble against the Duke of Burgundy, who was marching on Paris with 2,000 men, having left Lille on the 23rd.
February 3rd Beauchamp was appointed captain of Calais.
In February, the duke of Burgundy retreated from his position outside Paris.
The English Parliament met at Leicester April 30th.
The King received envoys from both the Burgundians and Armagnacs at Leicester between April and June. Several embassies were also sent to Paris in April, May and July-August.
In May, the Armagnacs invaded the Burgundian territory of Artois, taking and plundering Soissons with brutality that was remarkable by contemporary standards. Monstrelet reports that English fought on both sides in the assault.
The Armagnacs besieged Arras without success in June. The count d'Eu and Lord Montagu did arms in the mines.
In September John of Burgundy signed the peace treaty of Arras
October 20th, Beauchamp was appointed an envoy to the Council of Constance, and he had reached the city no later than January of 1415.
In November Parliament met again, and at that point it was clear the Henry V was prepared to go to war with Parliament’s support if his claims were not met.
On December 13, John de Clifford asked the king to order John Neville, warden of the Marches, to be present at a combat between him and William Douglas of Drumlanrig at Carlisle. Safe conduct was granted for Douglas “to him and six persons chosen by him, attended by eighty horsemen, to go to Carlisle, to perform certain feats of arms before judges, against Sir John de Clifford and six persons of his nomination”.
The combat was accomplished some time before the safe conduct expired on February 15, 1415. It seems to have been a series of single combats.
Douglas had visited England several times earlier as part of Scottish embassies to negotiate the release of King James and a truce with England.
1415
In February, an English embassy visited Paris, but the French were unwilling to agree to Henry’s demands. Portuguese men-at-arms, who were English allies, were with the English and fought four different challenges against the French at that time, but no English did. It seems likely that it was English policy not to seek or accept such combats, either to avoid hampering the diplomatic effort, or because the English wanted to husband their resources for the expected war.
In February Henry was also preparing for war by impressing tentmakers and seamen.
In March he sent to Holland and Zeeland to hire ships.
On April 11, he gave orders to seize all English and foreign ships above twenty tons.
On April 16 the king’s chancellor declared to his council the king’s intent to make a voyage to recover his inheritance.
On April 24th, it was announced that the truce with France was extended to June 8.
In June, a final embassy from France arrived in England, but was a failure. The French offered an enlarged Aquitaine, marriage with Catherine of France and a dowry of 800,000 francs, but Henry demanded Normandy, Anjou, Touraine, Poitou, Maine and Ponthieu in addition.
On April 29, the king ordered his treasurer to pay wages to various retinues, and had indentures drafted for several retinues for the expedition.
The two factions bid against each other for English support. Negotiations began between the English and the Burgundians and the Burgundians offered sufficiently attractive terms that an English army supported the Burgundians in breaking the blockade of Paris at the battle of St. Cloud on November 9, 1411.
The desperate Orleanists offered even better terms, and in May of 1412 the English agreed to support them. In August the English launched an expedition to Normandy under the duke of Clarence. Clarence arrive in Normandy only to discover that the French factions had made temporary peace while he was en route, and had to content himself with extracting promises of a large indemnity to depart, some in cash and with hostages as surety for the rest.
Around this time the earl of Warwick did much destruction on the frontiers of Calais, burning Samer and taking Wissant by storm.
Afterwards, he held a deed of arms at Calais beginning the twelfth day of Christmas.
James I, king of Scots, had been captured by English pirates in 1406, and delivered to the English crown. He would not be ransomed until 1424.
Murdoch Stewart, Duke of Albany, grandson of Robert II of Scotland, had been captured at the battle of Homildon Hill in 1402. He would remain an English prisoner until 1416, when he would be traded for Henry Percy, second earl of Northumberland, son of Henry “Hotspur” Percy
1413
Henry V was crowned king of England April 9, 1413.
In the spring of 1413 a popular revolt encouraged by the duke of Burgundy took control of the city of Paris and the persons of the king and dauphin for several months. Called the Cabochien revolt after one of their leaders, Simon Caboch of the wealthy but low-status guild of butchers, they wore white hoods as livery. The Burgundian knights Leon de Jacqueville and Robert de Mailly were also described by Monstrelet and the monk of saint-Denys as leaders of the revolt.
Orleanist ministers and servants in the royal households, as well as Paris burghers of the Orleans faction, were imprisoned, murdered and executed.
By July, the Duke of Orleans and his allies were gathering their forces and pressing for the release of the King, Quean and Dauphin. King Charles VI was described as then being ‘in good health”.
Around this time the English took, plundered and burnt the small town and monastery of Treport in Normandy.
Cabochien brutality had alienated potential supporters within Paris, and the Orleans party was accumulating powerful forces outside the city.
By the middle of September the duke of Burgundy and most of his supporters had left Paris and the Orleans faction was in control of the city and the royal court.
In September an embassy from England, led by the earl of Warwick and Henry Chichele, bishop of St. Davids, met at Leulinghen, halfway between Calais and Boulogne with ambassadors for the French king, but were only able to agree on an eight month truce.
By November 14, 1413, the duke of Burgundy had been accused of raising troops in breach of royal proclamations.
1414
Oldcastle's Lollard revolt was intended to begin with an attack on the king at Twelfth Night at Eltham palace. Forewarned by spies and informers, the king crushed the revolt, which seems to have had little support, on January 10th. Seventy or eighty were captured and 45 executed. On March 28 the king offered a general pardon to all rebels who submitted before midsummer.
On January 24th the truce with France was extended through February 2nd, 1415.
January 26th, the Armagnacs issued a summons for a French army to assemble against the Duke of Burgundy, who was marching on Paris with 2,000 men, having left Lille on the 23rd.
February 3rd Beauchamp was appointed captain of Calais.
In February, the duke of Burgundy retreated from his position outside Paris.
The English Parliament met at Leicester April 30th.
The King received envoys from both the Burgundians and Armagnacs at Leicester between April and June. Several embassies were also sent to Paris in April, May and July-August.
In May, the Armagnacs invaded the Burgundian territory of Artois, taking and plundering Soissons with brutality that was remarkable by contemporary standards. Monstrelet reports that English fought on both sides in the assault.
The Armagnacs besieged Arras without success in June. The count d'Eu and Lord Montagu did arms in the mines.
In September John of Burgundy signed the peace treaty of Arras
October 20th, Beauchamp was appointed an envoy to the Council of Constance, and he had reached the city no later than January of 1415.
In November Parliament met again, and at that point it was clear the Henry V was prepared to go to war with Parliament’s support if his claims were not met.
On December 13, John de Clifford asked the king to order John Neville, warden of the Marches, to be present at a combat between him and William Douglas of Drumlanrig at Carlisle. Safe conduct was granted for Douglas “to him and six persons chosen by him, attended by eighty horsemen, to go to Carlisle, to perform certain feats of arms before judges, against Sir John de Clifford and six persons of his nomination”.
The combat was accomplished some time before the safe conduct expired on February 15, 1415. It seems to have been a series of single combats.
Douglas had visited England several times earlier as part of Scottish embassies to negotiate the release of King James and a truce with England.
1415
In February, an English embassy visited Paris, but the French were unwilling to agree to Henry’s demands. Portuguese men-at-arms, who were English allies, were with the English and fought four different challenges against the French at that time, but no English did. It seems likely that it was English policy not to seek or accept such combats, either to avoid hampering the diplomatic effort, or because the English wanted to husband their resources for the expected war.
In February Henry was also preparing for war by impressing tentmakers and seamen.
In March he sent to Holland and Zeeland to hire ships.
On April 11, he gave orders to seize all English and foreign ships above twenty tons.
On April 16 the king’s chancellor declared to his council the king’s intent to make a voyage to recover his inheritance.
On April 24th, it was announced that the truce with France was extended to June 8.
In June, a final embassy from France arrived in England, but was a failure. The French offered an enlarged Aquitaine, marriage with Catherine of France and a dowry of 800,000 francs, but Henry demanded Normandy, Anjou, Touraine, Poitou, Maine and Ponthieu in addition.
On April 29, the king ordered his treasurer to pay wages to various retinues, and had indentures drafted for several retinues for the expedition.
Monday, October 25, 2010
On St. Crispin's Day
My favorite post on the battle of Agincourt from 2007, with added links to my other posts on the subject.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Archer's Mauls
"In addition, many of them had adopted a type of weapon until then unknown - great lead-covered mallets [clavam plumbeam] from which one single blow on the head could kill a man or knock him senseless to the ground."
Religeux of St, Denis, c. 1415-22
“the English archers...then took their swords, hatchets, mallets, falcon-beaks and other weapons..”
Jean Waurin: 1444-1460s, describing Agincourt
4.202: Gere taken owt of the Chyrch..ix sheffe arwys, ix bawys, ij hand-gonnes, iiij chambers for gonnys, ij mallys of lede, ij jakks.
Paston Letters, 1465
In the Burgundian Abbeville ordinance of 1471, the mounted archers were to be equiped with two handed swords and daggers. The 1472 ordinance of Bohain en Vermendois added archers on foot at a ratio of one foot archer for every three mounted archers, and the foot archers were to have, besides their bows, a lead mallet and a dagger.
214: There fore hyt ys moche lefte, and men take hem to mallys of ledde, bowys, swyrdys, gleyvys, and axys.
c1475 Gregory's Chron. (Eg 1995) :: The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London ... , ed. J. Gairdner, Camd. n.s. 17 (1876). 57-239.
"And herein our archers of England far pass the Parthians, which for such a purpose, when they shall come to hand-strokes, hath ever ready, either at his back hanging, or else in his next fellow's hand, a leaden maul, or such-like weapon, to beat down his enemies withal."
Toxophilus, the schole of shootinge conteyned in two bookes, by Roger Ascham, 1545
“Mr. Brander's curious manuscript so often referred to, among the different store-houses at Calais, there named, describes one by the title of the malle chambre, in which were then eight hundred and eighty leaden malles. There is also an entry of two hundred malles in a store-house at Berwick.”
Military antiquities: respecting a history of the English army from the conquest to the present time, by Francis Gose. Mr Brander’s manuscript was a royal inventory from 1547.
“….a maule of leade with a pyke of five inches longe, well stieled, sett in a staff of fyve foote of lengthe with a hooke at his gyrdell to take of and mayntayne the fighte as oure elders have donn, with handye stroaks”
Henry Barrett, 1562
Some made a mell of massy lead,
Which iron all about did bind;
And later:
The moorish pikes, and mells of lead,
Did deal there many a dreadful thwack.
From The Battle of Floddon Field, a ballad thought to date from the 16th c.
Lead mallets were also used by other infantry. The Paris rioters that broke into the Hôtel de Ville in 1382 seized so many lead mallets that they became known as Maillotins, and as a result we have a useful illustration of the weapon in an illumination of the revolt, above.
The first insurrection was that of the Paris mob, and was sparked off by a costermonger who, when an official tried to levy a tax on the fruit and vegetables he was selling, began to roar "Down with the gabelle!" At this cry, the whole populace rose, ran to the tax-collectors' houses and robbed and murdered them. Then, since the mob was unarmed, one of their number led them to the Chatelet where Bertrand de Guesclin, a former High Constable, had stored 3,000 lead-tipped cudgels in preparation for a battle which was to have been fought against the English. The rabble used axes to break their way into the tower where these cudgels or mallets (in French, maillets) were kept and, arming themselves, set forth in all directions to rob the houses of the King's representatives and in many cases to murder them. The popolo grasso, or men of substance who in French are called "bourgeois," fearing lest the mob (who were later called Maillotins and were of much the same kidney as the Ciompi in Florence) might rob them too, took arms and managed to subdue them. They then proceeded to take government into their own hands and, together with the Maillotins, continued the war against their royal lords.
Two Memoirs of Renaissance Florence: The Diaries of Buonaccorso Pitt and Gregorio Dati, edited by Gene Brucker (first published in 1967 by Harper & Row; reissued in 1991 by Waveland Press)
The tapestry of Jordain de Blaye in Padua, shown at the beginning, also shows mallets carried as weapons, although in this case it is impossible to know if the heads illustrated are lead, iron or steel. However, it is much easier to make a forged head square or rectangular in cross section and iron and steel medieval hammers overwhelmingly have that shape, which suggest that the artist was showing mallets with lead heads.
In a good reproduction of the tapestry it is possible to see that the mallet heads shown are not simple cylinders for one of the heads, but the head diameter increases slightly towards the two faces of the head.
The lead maul was a reasonable weapons choice for archers in conjunction with the defensive stakes introduced into English tactics by Henry V: if you’re carrying a lead maul to drive stakes carrying a sword as well may not be worth the added cost and encumbrance. They seem to have been common but not universal weapons choice for archers when stakes were employed on the battlefield. I know of no evidence of English archers using mauls as weapons before Agincourt, and the Religeux reported them as a novel development.
Here is a modern supplier, giving an idea of the size of a lead head at various weights.
Finally, we have an image from 1410-1412, from BNF Français 2810. Livre des Merveilles, f. 249.
Friday, November 06, 2009
The French Onset at Agincourt
From the Gesta Henrici Quinti:
Sed Gallorum nobilitas quae plena fronte prius accesserat, ut de prope conjunctionem venerat, vel timore telorum, quorum adversitas eos reptabat per latera et umbracula cassidum, vel ut citius penetrarent nostram fortitudinem ad vexilla, diviserunt se in tres turmas, invadentes bellum nostrum in tribus locis ubi erant vexilla: et in prima mixtione lancearum tam feroci impetus grassati sunt nostros, quod eos fere ad longitudinem lanceae retrocedere compulerunt.
Here is Anne Curry's translation in The Battle of Agincourt Sources and Interpretations:
But the French nobility who had previously advanced in line abreast and all but come to grips with us, either from fear of the missiles which by their very force pierced the sides and visors of their helmets, or in order the sooner to break through our strongest points and reach the standards, divided into three columns, attacking our line of battle at the three places where our standards were. And in the melee of spears which then followed, they hurled themselves against our men in such a fierce charge as to force them to fall back almost a spear's length.
Sed Gallorum nobilitas quae plena fronte prius accesserat, ut de prope conjunctionem venerat, vel timore telorum, quorum adversitas eos reptabat per latera et umbracula cassidum, vel ut citius penetrarent nostram fortitudinem ad vexilla, diviserunt se in tres turmas, invadentes bellum nostrum in tribus locis ubi erant vexilla: et in prima mixtione lancearum tam feroci impetus grassati sunt nostros, quod eos fere ad longitudinem lanceae retrocedere compulerunt.
Here is Anne Curry's translation in The Battle of Agincourt Sources and Interpretations:
But the French nobility who had previously advanced in line abreast and all but come to grips with us, either from fear of the missiles which by their very force pierced the sides and visors of their helmets, or in order the sooner to break through our strongest points and reach the standards, divided into three columns, attacking our line of battle at the three places where our standards were. And in the melee of spears which then followed, they hurled themselves against our men in such a fierce charge as to force them to fall back almost a spear's length.
Monday, November 02, 2009
The Numbers at Agincourt II
Having taken a closer look, I don't believe Anne Curry's revisionist numbers for the English, either. If the quotes posted here are correct, she accounts for men invalided home and detached to garrison Harfleur. While the size of the garrison is reasonably well attested, it's not clear how complete the surviving records of those invalided home are.
Another key missing piece is the number that died during the siege from dysentery, what the era knew as "bloody flux". The English administrative records were not set up to record a comprehensive total of deaths by disease during the siege. There is no way to get a reasonably precise number.
What we do know is that the number was high. The English lost a bishop, an earl and at least eight knights at Harfleur. The chronicler Monstrelet believed more than 2,000 died. Less than forty deaths were recorded in the official records, but so much the worse for the official records. We know that many of the records have not survived, and the death toll among the nobility and knights suggests disease deaths at about 10%.
Monstrelet's estimate might be high, or low. Given the deaths among the peerage, I wouldn't bet on 2,000 deaths being an overestimate, and many more were invalided home than died at Harfleur.
If so, the English army at Agincourt was probably closer to the 6,000 of the Gesta Henrici Quinti than the revisionist 9,000 of Anne Curry.
Another key missing piece is the number that died during the siege from dysentery, what the era knew as "bloody flux". The English administrative records were not set up to record a comprehensive total of deaths by disease during the siege. There is no way to get a reasonably precise number.
What we do know is that the number was high. The English lost a bishop, an earl and at least eight knights at Harfleur. The chronicler Monstrelet believed more than 2,000 died. Less than forty deaths were recorded in the official records, but so much the worse for the official records. We know that many of the records have not survived, and the death toll among the nobility and knights suggests disease deaths at about 10%.
Monstrelet's estimate might be high, or low. Given the deaths among the peerage, I wouldn't bet on 2,000 deaths being an overestimate, and many more were invalided home than died at Harfleur.
If so, the English army at Agincourt was probably closer to the 6,000 of the Gesta Henrici Quinti than the revisionist 9,000 of Anne Curry.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
The Numbers at Agincourt
Anne Curry has a new revisionist take on the battle, saying the French army was much, much smaller than most historians have believed. Also, that the English army was a bit larger. The change in numbers for the English isn’t as large, so I’ll leave that part of it aside for simplicity.
Here is a forum post covering a lot of her argument.
I am not convinced by her arguments for the French numbers. Let’s start with Berry Herald, who she considers a significant and useful source for the battle, and I think she’s right. Berry was writing years after the battle, and we have no reason to think he was present, but he provides a detailed order of battle of the men-at-arms assigned to a dozen different commanders. 1,200 men at arms are assigned to the mounted wings, 4,800 to the vanguard, and about 3,000 to the main battle. He says the total was 10,000, so that leaves 1,000 for the rear battle.
Most of the sources agree that it didn’t work out as planned, and a significant part of mounted wings were not in position when the English advanced unexpectedly. Presumable they ended up with the rear battle.
But Le Fevre and Waurin were both present at the battle, and they say that the vanguard also had archers, in numbers that work out to one for every two men at arms. In addition, there were crossbowmen equal to a three for every eight archers. The absolute numbers they report are not reliable, but the ratios should be about right.
They add that the main battle had men at arms and archers equal to the vanguard.
We also know that the intent was to raise on archer for every two men at arms for the campaign, and this seems to have been achieved in the noble retinues we have pay records for.
We also know that gros valets were present, but not necessarily listed on the payroll. The original battle plan had them charging in support of the men at arms. Des Ursins suggests they were present in the main battle in addition to the men at arms and archers, and that there were crossbowmen there as well. Le Fevre and Waurin report that some who were struck down in the vanguard and main battle were rescued and led away by their servants. This is only plausible if those servants were no further away than the rear ranks of the same battle.
We don’t know how many valets were well enough equipped to play a useful role as a combatant. Later in the 15th c. it was expected there would be one similarly protected coustilier for every man at arms. A few years earlier, in his campaign against Liege John the Fearless had a bit under 4,000 combatants on his payroll. At the battle of Othee, he reportedly sent 1,000 gros valets in support of a flanking attack by 400-500 men at arms. His pay lists from around this time suggest men at arms were typically about 60% of the men on his army payroll, so a force of 10,000 men at arms might be able to also field at least 4,000 gros valets. And it’s possible that the number was higher, and there were additional gros valets at Othee that were not sent on the mounted attack. That does not seem unreasonable compared to the 1:1 ratio later in the 15th c.
So now we have:
Mounted wings: 1,200 men at arms
Vanguard: 4,800 men at arms, 2,400 archers, 900 crossbowmen, 1,000 gros valets
Main battle: 3,000 men at arms, 2,600 archers, 1,000 crossbowmen, 2,500 gros valets
Rear battle: 1,000 men at arms, 400 gros valets
Total: 20,400 combatants.
It was usual at this time for crossbowmen to be accompanied by pavisers, with about one paviser for every two crossbowmen. If not assumed to be included in the number of crossbowmen this would add another 900 men.
Since making the number of men at arms and archers the same in the vanguard and main battle would give an unusually high number of archers for French army of the period and contradict Berry Herald, I have taken La Fevre and Waurin's statement less literally, and that they meant that the total number of fighting men in the vanguard and main battles was about equal.
There would have been addition non-combatant servants. In the 14th c. two servants per man at arms, seems to have been typical. If we assume that only 3,9000 of them were combatant gros valets, that would have added another 14,000 pages and grooms. Of course, more of them might have been armed gros valets, which would keep the army size the same but increase the combatant numbers. Possibly some of the French servants were armed and carried on the payroll as archers, which would have reduced the total army size somewhat.
If we assume that English men at arms each had one yeoman serving as an archer and one page, that would only increase their total force by about 900 if the yeomen were already counted as archers.
This would then be a battle where an eyewitness could reasonable say that the French army was at least three times the size of the English. The chroniclers report that servants were exercising horses on the field before to the battle, and presumably many were assisting their masters prior to the combat, so they would have swelled the number included in a visual estimate of the army size.
There is another problem with Curry’s estimate of 12,000 combatants for the French army at Agincourt. This would imply, based on Berry Herald’s distribution of men at arms and the ratio of other troops reported by eyewitnesses, that the vanguard had 3,600 men at arms and 2,700 missile troops.
This would make the vanguard significantly smaller than the English army, and yet all three eyewitness reports say the reverse was true.
To push most of the missile troops in the vanguard to the rear, the men at arms would need to extend their front to cover about 750 yards. On this frontage, 4,000 men at arms would be less than four ranks deep, assuming 27 inches per man. 27 inches per man is within the range of Napoleonic era infantry doctrine, and fits with my experience with efforts to recreate medieval combat.
Four deep is a very shallow formation for a melee infantry unit by pre-gunpowder standards. The classical Greeks and Romans and the early medieval Byzantines all seem to have taken eight ranks as the norm. The English at Agincourt averaged somewhere between 4.5 ranks deep (conventional wisdom of about 6,000 men) and 6.75 (Curry estimate of about 9,000 English combatants.) Both Tito Livio and Pseudo Elmham say the English army was four deep. The English army was mostly archers, and might reasonably accept a shallower formation than a purely melee unit.
Here is a forum post covering a lot of her argument.
I am not convinced by her arguments for the French numbers. Let’s start with Berry Herald, who she considers a significant and useful source for the battle, and I think she’s right. Berry was writing years after the battle, and we have no reason to think he was present, but he provides a detailed order of battle of the men-at-arms assigned to a dozen different commanders. 1,200 men at arms are assigned to the mounted wings, 4,800 to the vanguard, and about 3,000 to the main battle. He says the total was 10,000, so that leaves 1,000 for the rear battle.
Most of the sources agree that it didn’t work out as planned, and a significant part of mounted wings were not in position when the English advanced unexpectedly. Presumable they ended up with the rear battle.
But Le Fevre and Waurin were both present at the battle, and they say that the vanguard also had archers, in numbers that work out to one for every two men at arms. In addition, there were crossbowmen equal to a three for every eight archers. The absolute numbers they report are not reliable, but the ratios should be about right.
They add that the main battle had men at arms and archers equal to the vanguard.
We also know that the intent was to raise on archer for every two men at arms for the campaign, and this seems to have been achieved in the noble retinues we have pay records for.
We also know that gros valets were present, but not necessarily listed on the payroll. The original battle plan had them charging in support of the men at arms. Des Ursins suggests they were present in the main battle in addition to the men at arms and archers, and that there were crossbowmen there as well. Le Fevre and Waurin report that some who were struck down in the vanguard and main battle were rescued and led away by their servants. This is only plausible if those servants were no further away than the rear ranks of the same battle.
We don’t know how many valets were well enough equipped to play a useful role as a combatant. Later in the 15th c. it was expected there would be one similarly protected coustilier for every man at arms. A few years earlier, in his campaign against Liege John the Fearless had a bit under 4,000 combatants on his payroll. At the battle of Othee, he reportedly sent 1,000 gros valets in support of a flanking attack by 400-500 men at arms. His pay lists from around this time suggest men at arms were typically about 60% of the men on his army payroll, so a force of 10,000 men at arms might be able to also field at least 4,000 gros valets. And it’s possible that the number was higher, and there were additional gros valets at Othee that were not sent on the mounted attack. That does not seem unreasonable compared to the 1:1 ratio later in the 15th c.
So now we have:
Mounted wings: 1,200 men at arms
Vanguard: 4,800 men at arms, 2,400 archers, 900 crossbowmen, 1,000 gros valets
Main battle: 3,000 men at arms, 2,600 archers, 1,000 crossbowmen, 2,500 gros valets
Rear battle: 1,000 men at arms, 400 gros valets
Total: 20,400 combatants.
It was usual at this time for crossbowmen to be accompanied by pavisers, with about one paviser for every two crossbowmen. If not assumed to be included in the number of crossbowmen this would add another 900 men.
Since making the number of men at arms and archers the same in the vanguard and main battle would give an unusually high number of archers for French army of the period and contradict Berry Herald, I have taken La Fevre and Waurin's statement less literally, and that they meant that the total number of fighting men in the vanguard and main battles was about equal.
There would have been addition non-combatant servants. In the 14th c. two servants per man at arms, seems to have been typical. If we assume that only 3,9000 of them were combatant gros valets, that would have added another 14,000 pages and grooms. Of course, more of them might have been armed gros valets, which would keep the army size the same but increase the combatant numbers. Possibly some of the French servants were armed and carried on the payroll as archers, which would have reduced the total army size somewhat.
If we assume that English men at arms each had one yeoman serving as an archer and one page, that would only increase their total force by about 900 if the yeomen were already counted as archers.
This would then be a battle where an eyewitness could reasonable say that the French army was at least three times the size of the English. The chroniclers report that servants were exercising horses on the field before to the battle, and presumably many were assisting their masters prior to the combat, so they would have swelled the number included in a visual estimate of the army size.
There is another problem with Curry’s estimate of 12,000 combatants for the French army at Agincourt. This would imply, based on Berry Herald’s distribution of men at arms and the ratio of other troops reported by eyewitnesses, that the vanguard had 3,600 men at arms and 2,700 missile troops.
This would make the vanguard significantly smaller than the English army, and yet all three eyewitness reports say the reverse was true.
To push most of the missile troops in the vanguard to the rear, the men at arms would need to extend their front to cover about 750 yards. On this frontage, 4,000 men at arms would be less than four ranks deep, assuming 27 inches per man. 27 inches per man is within the range of Napoleonic era infantry doctrine, and fits with my experience with efforts to recreate medieval combat.
Four deep is a very shallow formation for a melee infantry unit by pre-gunpowder standards. The classical Greeks and Romans and the early medieval Byzantines all seem to have taken eight ranks as the norm. The English at Agincourt averaged somewhere between 4.5 ranks deep (conventional wisdom of about 6,000 men) and 6.75 (Curry estimate of about 9,000 English combatants.) Both Tito Livio and Pseudo Elmham say the English army was four deep. The English army was mostly archers, and might reasonably accept a shallower formation than a purely melee unit.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Happy Saint Crispin’s Day
But what did Henry really say to the troops?
M.H. Hansen argues convincingly:
But follow the link for the whole article.
Several contemporary accounts do have Henry V responding to one of his officer’s wish for more men with something very similar to Shakespeare’s: “God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more”, but that exchange is generally distinguished from Henry’s pre-battle speeches to his men. For those we should not imagine Henry climbing aboard a convenient wagon and making a single eloquent speech to the small fraction of the army within earshot, but riding a grey horse across the front of an army stretching for hundreds of yards, stopping from time to time to encourage the men with brief phrases:
He then dismounted by his banner, and waited for the French to attack. When the French remained passive for some time, he asked what time of day it was, and was told “prime”. He then shouted:
The preceding is a composite, drawn from the accounts of Thomas Elmham, Jean de la Fevre and different versions of the Brut. They can be found in Anne Curry’s The Battle of Agincourt: Sources and Interpretations (The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, Suffolk 2000), an excellent collection of the surviving records of the battle. Hansen is also worth consulting for the original Latin and French of Elmham and le Fevre.
More on Agincourt.
M.H. Hansen argues convincingly:
What King Henry probably did is what many generals have done from classical antiquity right up to, at least, the Napoleonic Wars:[34] from horseback he shouted some encouraging remarks to the men as he rode along the front, and he may even have addressed some of the men individually. It is reasonable to assume that some memorable parts of his exhortation were remembered and worked into the formal battle exhortation, which later was attributed to the King in accordance with the classical historiographic tradition. The speeches reported by Elmham and Jean le Fèvre can easily be broken down into short apophthegms, whereas the complicated argumentation of the speech printed in Pseudo-Elmham cannot in any possible form have been delivered by a general traversing the line. Consequently, some of the remarks attributed to Henry the Fifth in the speeches reported by Elmham and le Fèvre may well be historical. What has to be fiction is the rhetorical form…
The voice of a person who stands some 50 m before the front line can carry no more than ca. 75 m in either direction. And when the speaker turns to one side, those standing on the opposite side can only catch some scattered words of what is shouted. Furthermore these conditions apply in calm weather when the speech is delivered to unarmed men….
The information reported here stems from an experiment I conducted in the meadow behind Copenhagen University. I would like to thank colleagues and students from the Institute of Classics for their cooperation. Let me add that I have a strong voice and that I was really shouting my declamation of a translation into Danish of Thrasymachos' speech in Xen. Hell. 2.1.13-7. At present, I am negotiating with the Queen's Guard and hope in near future to repeat the experiment, this time with one or more batallions as my audience.
But follow the link for the whole article.
Several contemporary accounts do have Henry V responding to one of his officer’s wish for more men with something very similar to Shakespeare’s: “God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more”, but that exchange is generally distinguished from Henry’s pre-battle speeches to his men. For those we should not imagine Henry climbing aboard a convenient wagon and making a single eloquent speech to the small fraction of the army within earshot, but riding a grey horse across the front of an army stretching for hundreds of yards, stopping from time to time to encourage the men with brief phrases:
Make yourselves ready, companions. I would rather die in the field for my rights than be taken, and put the realm of England to ransom for my person.
Let every man keep himself close and in good order and be of good cheer.
Sirs, think this day to acquit yourselves as men and fight for the right of England
I’ve come to France to recover my rightful inheritance. Fight boldly in that good quarrel, sure in the justice of our cause.
You are all born Englishmen. Think of your families at home. Fight hard, so you can return to them with great honor and glory.
Remember the many times that King Edward and Prince Edward fought for the right of England against the French with small armies and won great victories and the better of their enemies by God’s will.
He then dismounted by his banner, and waited for the French to attack. When the French remained passive for some time, he asked what time of day it was, and was told “prime”. He then shouted:
Then now is a good time, for all England is praying for us. Therefore be of good cheer, let us go into battle.
In the name of almighty God and St. George, advance banners! St. George, give us this day your help!
The preceding is a composite, drawn from the accounts of Thomas Elmham, Jean de la Fevre and different versions of the Brut. They can be found in Anne Curry’s The Battle of Agincourt: Sources and Interpretations (The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, Suffolk 2000), an excellent collection of the surviving records of the battle. Hansen is also worth consulting for the original Latin and French of Elmham and le Fevre.
More on Agincourt.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Henry V x II
When young Kenneth Branagh directed himself as Hal in Henry V, he invited comparison with young Laurence Olivier’s 1944 film. Let’s compare.
The play explicitly breaks the fourth wall with the prologue’s apology for the gap between the stage performance and the historical reality. Olivier uses this as springboard both for a loving recreation of the original Globe theatre and a chance to comment on how actors create and inhabit the roles they portray on the stage. We see Olivier first as an Elizabethan actor clearing his throat surrounded by a flurry of backstage chaos, next as the same actor portraying Henry V before an Elizabethan audience, and then as Henry V himself.
This is a tough act to follow, and Branagh wisely chooses a different tack. Derek Jacobi, always in a long dark 20th century coat and scarf, reappears as prologue and chorus to provide narration when required.
Olivier’s version edits out many of the darker elements in Shakespeare’s text. Branagh retains much more of the dark side of Henry and his play, although he too omits some of the grimmest elements, in particular the slaughter of the French prisoners.
Although Oliver had some respectable actors, Branagh assembled a stronger cast overall, with Ian Holm splendid as Fluellen, a radiant Emma Thompson as Princess Katherine, Paul Scofield as Charles VI, Brian Blessed as Exeter, Judi Dench as Mistress Quickly and Robbie Coltrane as Falstaff.
Both Branagh and Olivier owe a noticeable debt to better directors. Olivier features a mounted duel between the constable and Henry that owes a visible debt to a similar scene in Alexander Nevsky, and Branagh’s vision of Agincourt owes much to Seven Samurai.
Olivier repeatedly frames scenes and uses stylized backdrops to recreate the look of images from illuminations in the Tres Riches Heures de Duc de Berry. There’s a clear homage to the February page, although without exposed genitalia.
Branagh clearly ended up with a lower budget for armor. His English men-at-arms are grossly underarmored, and the Exeter, the Englishman with the most complete harness, wears an anachronistic and misshapen monstrosity. Even the French show the usual film reluctance to wear helmets. Olivier does better, but many of his are clearly not wearing a hard cuirass or breastplate beneath their jupons, or showing the characteristic pouter pigeon profile of the era. Recreating medieval armor is expensive, especially when you need to convey a reasonable impression of an army, and given a finite budget I don’t see a lot of places where Branagh could have found savings to do better without sacrificing other elements of the production. This isn’t Braveheart, where resources were lavished on a gratuitous and ahistorical assault on York. The charge of the French cavalry, which was a splendid and expensive tracking shot in the Olivier version, is dealt with quite economically in the Branagh version: a series of reaction shots of wide-eyed English looking offscreen as hoofbeats drum louder and louder on the soundtrack.
Branagh does portray the English heraldry accurately and effectively. The similar heraldic designs repeated on coat armor convey to the educated viewer how many of the English commanders were blood relatives to the king.
Both films err in showing the English men-at-arms fighting on horseback: dismounting all the men-at-arms to fight on foot was a key English tactic at this and most other battles of the war. Both films show men at arms wearing a separate plate neck defense that wrapped around the bottom edge of the helmet and allowed it to freely rotate within it. This is a misunderstanding of what frontal depictions in contemporary brasses were showing: a plate or plates attached directly to the helmet.
Olivier’s other historical lapses include the infamously wrong hoisting of French knights onto their horses with derricks and English bowmen leaping out of trees in the grand tradition of Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood. He also shows a number of round shields on the field. This may not be entirely wrong: this image from the period seems to show round shields born by two of the foreground men at arms. It is, however, unusual and atypical. It’s difficult to shake the impression that whoever was responsible for the costumes discovered he had several dozen round targes available and found it expedient to decorate them with Agincourt era heraldry. Mail coifs that close at the base of the throat and gap widely below are another annoyance to the purist.
Olivier includes a brief shot of the advancing French reflected in standing water, and after the first encounter pans to show muddy carnage behind the front line, but much of the other combat happens on a green, pastoral and unmuddy battlefield.
Branagh errs in the other direction, showing the battle as total chaos. The different accounts of Agincourt agree that the English men-at-arms kept good order thoughout the battle: this was a key ingredient in their victory.
Branagh only lightly evokes the bowl haircuts of the early 15th c. Olivier is more faithful to the look of the era in this and other ways. In general, Branagh often settled for a rough approximation of the dress, hairstyles and equipment of the period while Olivier came a lot closer to getting the same details right.
Branagh brings wonderful immediacy to Henry V. Courting Katherine, he asks if she can love him. Neither speaks the language of the other well, and when Katherine responds for the third time in the conversation with a baffled “I cannot tell” Branagh’s Hal snaps back with: “Can any of your neighbors tell, Kate? I’ll ask them” When I first heard this, I took for a sarcastic ad-lib added by Branagh, but no, it’s the way Shakespeare wrote it. Branagh’s delivery makes it work as natural dialog.
“..Notwithstanding the poor and untempered effect of my visage. Now beshrew my father’s ambition! He was thinking of civil wars when he got me…” complains Hal to Katherine. Branagh, who does not have a conventionally pretty mug, makes the line work well. Young Olivier, who was not in any sense an ugly man, couldn’t, and didn’t try.
Olivier plays the English clerics for low comedy. Branagh portrays them as deadly serious political players.
Olivier portrays the French nobility as ineffectual and foppish twits. In Branagh’s version they are, with the exception of the Dauphin, more dangerous opponents, but disunited. This is better drama and closer to Shakespeare’s text: a victory is enhanced when it is won over strong opponents rather than weak ones. Charles VI in Olivier’s version is a twitching mental defective. Historically he was, on and off, but Shakespeare chose to show him in a lucid phase, and Scofield’s portrayal is less distracting and closer to the text.
The play explicitly breaks the fourth wall with the prologue’s apology for the gap between the stage performance and the historical reality. Olivier uses this as springboard both for a loving recreation of the original Globe theatre and a chance to comment on how actors create and inhabit the roles they portray on the stage. We see Olivier first as an Elizabethan actor clearing his throat surrounded by a flurry of backstage chaos, next as the same actor portraying Henry V before an Elizabethan audience, and then as Henry V himself.
This is a tough act to follow, and Branagh wisely chooses a different tack. Derek Jacobi, always in a long dark 20th century coat and scarf, reappears as prologue and chorus to provide narration when required.
Olivier’s version edits out many of the darker elements in Shakespeare’s text. Branagh retains much more of the dark side of Henry and his play, although he too omits some of the grimmest elements, in particular the slaughter of the French prisoners.
Although Oliver had some respectable actors, Branagh assembled a stronger cast overall, with Ian Holm splendid as Fluellen, a radiant Emma Thompson as Princess Katherine, Paul Scofield as Charles VI, Brian Blessed as Exeter, Judi Dench as Mistress Quickly and Robbie Coltrane as Falstaff.
Both Branagh and Olivier owe a noticeable debt to better directors. Olivier features a mounted duel between the constable and Henry that owes a visible debt to a similar scene in Alexander Nevsky, and Branagh’s vision of Agincourt owes much to Seven Samurai.
Olivier repeatedly frames scenes and uses stylized backdrops to recreate the look of images from illuminations in the Tres Riches Heures de Duc de Berry. There’s a clear homage to the February page, although without exposed genitalia.
Branagh clearly ended up with a lower budget for armor. His English men-at-arms are grossly underarmored, and the Exeter, the Englishman with the most complete harness, wears an anachronistic and misshapen monstrosity. Even the French show the usual film reluctance to wear helmets. Olivier does better, but many of his are clearly not wearing a hard cuirass or breastplate beneath their jupons, or showing the characteristic pouter pigeon profile of the era. Recreating medieval armor is expensive, especially when you need to convey a reasonable impression of an army, and given a finite budget I don’t see a lot of places where Branagh could have found savings to do better without sacrificing other elements of the production. This isn’t Braveheart, where resources were lavished on a gratuitous and ahistorical assault on York. The charge of the French cavalry, which was a splendid and expensive tracking shot in the Olivier version, is dealt with quite economically in the Branagh version: a series of reaction shots of wide-eyed English looking offscreen as hoofbeats drum louder and louder on the soundtrack.
Branagh does portray the English heraldry accurately and effectively. The similar heraldic designs repeated on coat armor convey to the educated viewer how many of the English commanders were blood relatives to the king.
Both films err in showing the English men-at-arms fighting on horseback: dismounting all the men-at-arms to fight on foot was a key English tactic at this and most other battles of the war. Both films show men at arms wearing a separate plate neck defense that wrapped around the bottom edge of the helmet and allowed it to freely rotate within it. This is a misunderstanding of what frontal depictions in contemporary brasses were showing: a plate or plates attached directly to the helmet.
Olivier’s other historical lapses include the infamously wrong hoisting of French knights onto their horses with derricks and English bowmen leaping out of trees in the grand tradition of Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood. He also shows a number of round shields on the field. This may not be entirely wrong: this image from the period seems to show round shields born by two of the foreground men at arms. It is, however, unusual and atypical. It’s difficult to shake the impression that whoever was responsible for the costumes discovered he had several dozen round targes available and found it expedient to decorate them with Agincourt era heraldry. Mail coifs that close at the base of the throat and gap widely below are another annoyance to the purist.
Olivier includes a brief shot of the advancing French reflected in standing water, and after the first encounter pans to show muddy carnage behind the front line, but much of the other combat happens on a green, pastoral and unmuddy battlefield.
Branagh errs in the other direction, showing the battle as total chaos. The different accounts of Agincourt agree that the English men-at-arms kept good order thoughout the battle: this was a key ingredient in their victory.
Branagh only lightly evokes the bowl haircuts of the early 15th c. Olivier is more faithful to the look of the era in this and other ways. In general, Branagh often settled for a rough approximation of the dress, hairstyles and equipment of the period while Olivier came a lot closer to getting the same details right.
Branagh brings wonderful immediacy to Henry V. Courting Katherine, he asks if she can love him. Neither speaks the language of the other well, and when Katherine responds for the third time in the conversation with a baffled “I cannot tell” Branagh’s Hal snaps back with: “Can any of your neighbors tell, Kate? I’ll ask them” When I first heard this, I took for a sarcastic ad-lib added by Branagh, but no, it’s the way Shakespeare wrote it. Branagh’s delivery makes it work as natural dialog.
“..Notwithstanding the poor and untempered effect of my visage. Now beshrew my father’s ambition! He was thinking of civil wars when he got me…” complains Hal to Katherine. Branagh, who does not have a conventionally pretty mug, makes the line work well. Young Olivier, who was not in any sense an ugly man, couldn’t, and didn’t try.
Olivier plays the English clerics for low comedy. Branagh portrays them as deadly serious political players.
Olivier portrays the French nobility as ineffectual and foppish twits. In Branagh’s version they are, with the exception of the Dauphin, more dangerous opponents, but disunited. This is better drama and closer to Shakespeare’s text: a victory is enhanced when it is won over strong opponents rather than weak ones. Charles VI in Olivier’s version is a twitching mental defective. Historically he was, on and off, but Shakespeare chose to show him in a lucid phase, and Scofield’s portrayal is less distracting and closer to the text.
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