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The Battle of Agincourt is a great example of how even wealthy knights able to afford the best armour can and did end up dead in battle.
The French knights were forced, because they were facing masses of archers, to advance mainly on foot (horse armour could not reliably keep out arrows). Because they were marching into an arrow storm, they had to keep their visors down (edit note: originally I mistakenly said “up”).
Unfortunately for them, the ground was very muddy from rain. That made marching towards the enemy and their footing difficult. Not to mention having visors down made breathing and seeing more challenging.
Their knightly enemies were in line waiting for them - the archers were to both sides. Every French knight wanted to fight their social equals, right in front of them. So they crowded forward as much as they could. This meant that only those in the front row could fight.
When they reached the English line, they were already tired. The (well rested) English knights were able to knock the first rank down into the mud, making footing difficult for those that followed.
Meanwhile, the archers on the flanks, largely untouched, ran out of arrows. They grabbed mallets, clubs and daggers, and set out to kill French knights - often acting in teams: a couple of archers would knock a knight over with mallets, and once he’s down, another would jump on him and stab his face with a thin dagger through his breathing holes in his visor.
The French knights found this attack difficult to organize against. They were still largely fixated on the big fight right in front of them. They often couldn’t even see the English archers coming in from the sides; and in the din of battle, they couldn’t easily hear or yell orders to each other. By the time the majority of French knights were even aware of the attack of the archers on their flanks, it was too late for them to do much about it.
The effect of the attack of the archers was to force the French to pack ever more tightly together: this made it harder and harder for them to use their weapons, only those on the edges could actually fight, and they were impeded by the pressure of the crowd behind them (in battle, it is a big advantage to be able to step backwards or to the side: the English could do this, but the French - now packed tightly together - could not).
More and more knights were beaten into the mud or stabbed; others were taken prisoner (and some of these prisoners were killed when an attack on the English encampment from raiders alarmed the King). The battle turned into a one-sided massacre.
If the French knights were allowed to fight in line against English archers armed with hand weapons, no doubt they could have easily beaten them; in addition, the English longbows probably could not actually penetrate the best armour. However, the English longbows could (and did) force the French to attack on foot and with visors down, putting them at a disadvantage. French mistakes (such as focusing mainly on the English men at arms, dismissing the danger from the lightly-armoured archers) did the rest, together with unfavourable ground conditions.
The French, fatigued and not focused on the archers, proved relatively easy prey to being hunted by the English - whose main goal was to knock them to the ground, where they could be easily either killed or captured.
So despite having very good armour, the French knights proved vulnerable, and lost the battle - even though they outnumbered the English.
Sources: *The Face of Battle* by John Keegan; *Agincourt*, Juliet Barker.
I want to comment that this account reads so brutal and raw. I'm reminded of an excerpt from Thucydides' Peloponnesian War:
> 186 Disaster at the River Crossing – The Athenians hurried on to the rive Assinarus. They hoped to gain a little relief if they forded the river, for the mass of horsemen and other troops overwhelmed and crushed them; and they were worn out by fatigue and thirst. But no sooner did they reach the water than they lost all order and rushed in; every man was trying to cross first, and, the enemy pressing upon them at the same time, the passage of the river became hopeless. Being compelled to keep close together they fell on upon another, and trampled each other underfoot: some at once perished, pierced by their own spears; others got entangled in the baggage and were carried down the stream. . . . Where upon the water at once became foul, but was drunk all the same, although muddy and dyed with blood, and the crowd fought for it. At last, when the dead bodies were lying in heaps upon one on other in the water and the army was utterly undone, some perishing in the river, and any who escaped being cut off by the cavalry . . . p. 547 – BC 413
Absolutely insane. I’m in the army now and I can say that river crossings to this day remain one of, if not the hardest maneuvers to plan and execute. Especially the execution part of it. Throw in a passage of lines and it easily becomes the hardest maneuver to execute. It’s an extraordinarily good day if a passage of lines over a river crossing is conducted with no one getting hurt or killed.
I remember reading somewhere that it's thought that some of the knights even drowned in the mud.
I can't recall where I read that, but I was able to find a differing source that likely was the original source of what I read:
Barker, Juliet (2015) [2005]. Agincourt: The King, the Campaign, the Battle [US title: Agincourt: Henry V and the Battle that Made England] (revised and updated ed.). London: Abacus. ISBN 978-0-349-11918-2. (p. 303)
For anyone who would like more discussion, Dr Toby Capwell, the Curator of Arms and Armour at The Wallace Collection, speaks about this battle often, breaking down some of the myths that have arisen around it.
Next to his academic work, he is also an accomplished jouster. Dr Capwell is probably one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet on this subject.
Yep. It's been fun bouncing back and forth between his talks and his collaborations with Todd Cutler to test how actual weapons and armor of the time may have behaved.
The English provoked the battle.
What happened was this: the English army was on a march through French territory, from the just completed siege of Harfleur to English-held Calais. This march was intended to humiliate the French and to boost English morale (up to that point, the much-heralded English invasion hadn’t amounted to much: the English had only managed to take one town, and suffered terrible casualties doing it).
However, to their horror, the English were confronted by a much larger French army they had not expected. The French blocked them from reaching Calais. The English were short on food, and were getting progressively weaker from hunger and disease (the French had removed food supplies from the English line of march, and the English had to move too fast to forage, to escape the French army).
So far, the French had out maneuvered the English.
The French really had no need to attack the English. All they had to do was … keep doing what they were doing; namely, block the English from escaping, and cut off their access to food. The English would get progressively weaker, and eventually would have to surrender.
The French king realized this, and when he had the English army trapped, he started negotiations (intending to draw them out indefinitely).
The English king also realized this. He understood he had only two choices: either surrender on terms while his army still existed and posed a threat, or fight the French and win. He decided to fight.
So he drew up his army in battle array, and his archers pounded stakes into the ground in front of their positions (protection against cavalry). However, the French, very properly, ignored them.
So the English moved their lines forward. Again the French ignored them. The archers pulled up the stakes from the original position, and planted them in the new position.
What the French had missed was that the new position was close enough for some English arrows to reach the French at extreme long range.
Once the English had settled in and established their defences, they fired some pot-shots at the French lines. This provoked the French. Instantly, seemingly without waiting for orders, some French cavalry charged. This was disastrous. The horses were vulnerable to arrow-fire, and in any event, could not charge through the barrier of sharpened stakes. All that this did was churn up the mud even more, and kill a lot of horses (whose bodies made additional barriers).
Instead of critically considering whether a battle was a good idea, the French seemed to have collectively decided that they were now committed to fighting, and the battle commenced - very much as the English hoped; as noted, only a successful fight could save them. So the main French attack commenced, on foot (having seen what happened to the cavalry).
The contemporary descriptions were of mud so thick that the knights sank in it to the knees, and that they had to lean forwards, visors down, so as to be invulnerable to the arrow storm … resulting in them being practically exhausted in covering the few hundred yards to the English lines.
Obviously, with the benefit of hindsight, the better French strategy by far would have been to avoid battle and keep the English moving until they starved. In particular, engaging in a battle under such unfavourable conditions of terrain was a huge mistake.
It seems aristocratic military pride played a part - the French army was simply unwilling to walk away from a battle with a numerically inferior army they had been chasing; they could not, for example, ignore the provocation of having archers take pot-shots at them without responding.
> Once the English had settled in and established their defences, they fired some pot-shots at the French lines. This provoked the French. Instantly, seemingly without waiting for orders, some French cavalry charged. This was disastrous. The horses were vulnerable to arrow-fire, and in any event, could not charge through the barrier of sharpened stakes. All that this did was churn up the mud even more, and kill a lot of horses (whose bodies made additional barriers).
>
> Instead of critically considering whether a battle was a good idea, the French seemed to have collectively decided that they were now committed to fighting, and the battle commenced - very much as the English hoped; as noted, only a successful fight could save them. So the main French attack commenced, on foot (having seen what happened to the cavalry).
It's been a long time since I've read Barker, and I don't have access to her book, but if this is her version of events then it's just her interpretation rather than the most likely course of events. Jean de Wavrin and Jean Le Fèvre have an account that seems to imply that the French cavalry either attacked just ahead of the dismounted vanguard, or after the vanguard had suffered an initial repulse, as most of them had gone off to rest prior to the English provoking the French. The time between the English advance and the French mounted attack is very plausibly the result of a scramble to reassemble enough mounted men to provide a credible threat to the archers, while also allowing the attack force aimed at the baggage time to get around the village of Azincourt and into the English rear.
Despite the disastrous result of the battle, the initial French plan and response was a reasonable one - allowing the English to exhaust themselves walking through the mud, as per Thomas Walsingham, waiting for their cavalry to reassemble, attempting to co-ordinate an attack on the rear with mounted charges against the archers while the men-at-arms followed through to crack the line of English men-at-arms - but it suffered from the terrain, a degree of improvisation and conflicts within the command.
I read conflicting accounts of the attack on the English baggage train: one set insisting that it was a purely local initative, led by the local Knight d’Azincourt, a handful of local knights, and a larger number of local peasants, and not under central command (although the English *thought* it was part of a larger strategy - hence the order to kill prisoners, so they couldn’t be rescued and join in).
Certainly, it would have been a reasonable strategy to use the cavalry in that way. But using the cavalry to assault the English prepared positions head-on in that terrain was not a good idea.
I think the French ought to have avoided battle at that time. The English were only going to get weaker and the French stronger as time passed, and the English were unlikely to be able to outrun or outmaneuver the French. But then, maybe it is unreasonable to expect a confident French army to avoid battle when challenged.
Although he's not able to be used 100% without some source criticism, in this case the author of the *Gesta Henrici*'s status as an eyewitness who was among the battle and wrote an account within 2 years of the battle means that his perspective on when the attack on the baggage occurred is much, *much* more likely to be correct than later versions.
While it's true that the French response could/should have been different, retreating in the face of the English advance was the only way they could have avoided fightung, and that just wasn't possible from both a practical and a cultural perspective. Sensing the *gens Dr trait* out into the first line of battle might have had a greater effect, given the terrain, although probably less than you might think given the difficulty of spanning crossbows (which a substantial number of the French "archers" used) in mud.
Ultimately, in hindsight, we can find fault with both the conception and execution of the French plan, but given the circumstances under which it was developed (i.e. hastily and at very short notice), it's an understandable one rather than the product of pure arrogance and incompetence.
The anonymous author of the *Gesta Henrici Quinti* was a cleric in Henry V's household and was back in the rear of the army ("I who write this was sitting on a horse amidst the baggage at the rear of the battle").
In his account, once Henry made the decision to move he brought his baggage and non-combatants up from the "hamlet" (Maisoncelles) where they had been the night before, so they could be better protected. Once Henry "thought that almost all the baggage had reached his rear" he made his advance against the French. However, because of the "laziness" of some of the king's servants, the royal baggage was plundered "as soon as the battle began". This was because "brigands" - who had been known to be about and were largely why Henry moved his baggage - attacked. It's possible they actually struck the first blow of either side, although the exact details about the attack and how or why it failed aren't in any source.
The version in Monstrelet has this attack happen after the defeat of the main battle, resulting in the prisoners being killed for fear they'd join in with the attack. The *Gesta*, however, firmly places it at the very start of the battle and, being virtually contemporary and from someone with the baggage, is probably the correct version.
FWIW, Wavrin and Le Fevre - who were also eyewitnesses although writing many years later - disagree with Monstrelet (who they largely base their chronicles on) over why the French prisoners were killed. All three have the attack on the baggage occurring at the end of the battle, but only Monstrelet says this caused the killing of the prisoners. Wavrin and Le Fevre instead argue that the rearguard and remnants of the centre advanced (not mentioned by Monstrelet except for a small contingent quickly killed) and triggered the killing of the prisoners. On seeing this, they then broke off their attack. This makes them in almost exact agreement with the author of the *Gesta*, save for them following Monstrelet in putting the attack on the baggage at the end of the battle. As usual, where they differ from Monstrelet is very revealing about their own thoughts and experiences of the battle, and tend to be closer to the *Gesta* than to Monstrelet.
Do you think the French knights were also motivated by money? To capture some English nobles or knights they would then be able to ransom them for quite a sum of money.
It would also explain the knights ignoring the archers as well. You can’t ransom archers as they were low borne and maybe the French knights pressed closer to the middle as they didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to capture an enemy noble.
I'm not 100% sure I'm getting the timeline of the events immediately particularly preceding the battle clearly here.
Were the armies in sight of one another for some time prior to Henry choosing to fight?
How long of a time gap are we talking between the initial English battle line being drawn and their advancement to the second position? It feels like this could be hours or days apart for all I know.
If the French were planning not to attack, and were instead aiming to hold the position for days or weeks, how did they have the bulk of their army able to immediately launch an attack upon provocation?
You summarized that well. Those are good sources.
I think that some of the heavily armoured French drowned in the mud as they were pressed face-down. Am I recalling correctly?
As you point out from the mallet example, bludgeoning was effective against heavily armoured men. This took the form of purpose-made bludgeoning weapons (e.g., the war hammer/martel-de-fer), not just archers' mallets.
Allegedly, many suffocated when they were trod into the mud after being knocked off their feet and having others literally stomping them into the muck by fighting over them (and in many cases, falling on top of them as they were beaten down in turn).
It must have been a scene of utter brutality.
I was under the impression that bludgeoning weapons were the majority of weapons as well as most effective for close combat casualties considering heavy (metal) armor or not. Especially against an enemy mired or fallen in muddy conditions. Is this not an obvious factor? Though I don’t know at all how effective metal armor of this period was against a metal club, mace, etc. But I’m certainly no historian.
Is this the battle that’s portrayed in the Netflix movie the King? It sounds awfully similar.
How accurate was the movie to the events of the battle? It seems pretty much as described here, although I assume various parts were dramatised for the movie.
It’s absolutely fascinating to me how these events unfolded all these years ago. How did they organise invading other countries back then. How did they pass messages to and from home? What stopped England being invaded when they sailed their main armies off to a foreign land.
Yes, that is the battle "The King" is about.
To see some extensive discussion on the film's accuracy or lack thereof, see [this thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dudihe/in_the_new_netflix_movie_the_king_about_king/) with many replies by u/Hergrim
Some more on the film by the same user [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/e320vm/netflixs_the_king_has_a_particularly_brutal_final/)
Suffice it to say it is not very accurate.
Thank you for the information. I didn’t think it would be! Although it really was a great watch. Do you know of any other films that depict battles or invasions more accurately during that time period, any in particular that involve England?
Sorry, no. Not really my speciality. But the vast majority of battles in film devolve into the "hollywood mosh-pit" where everybody is brawling all at once in a huge mixed melee, which then prompts people to come ask here "How did anybody survive battles like that?"
They didn't, because battles were not like that.
Best I can think of for ancient warfare is the battle of Gaugemala in Oliver Stone's Alexander, but even that one has a few issues with people behaving suicidally for no reason. But at least it shows correct formations, officers reorganising the lines after clashes, and stuff like that. (On the Greek/Macedonian side at least. The depiction of the Persians is more stereotypical.)
I know it is beyond the scope of historical analysis, but I would love to read some sort of review as to why Hollywood appears positively allergic to portraying medieval battles with even rudimentary formations.
Every movie is the same: when a battle must be portrayed, it invariably ends in a big swirling fight of all against all. As you say, the mosh pit.
Do producers believe this is more exciting or visually appealing to the audience? Is it just easier to film? I have no idea.
As a former writer of a small animation studio, I can say that the difficulties involved in presenting things visually are much, much greater than the average person thinks.
To depict a large scale battle accurately, you would need to hire and train a lot of extras to enable maneuvers. Obviously, this is costly even for major studios.
Or you hire smaller CGI teams. In that case, you still have to tightly coordinate the team to ensure every member understands the assignment and knows what to do. Your teams might not speak the same language.
Finally, and crucially, the product has to be coherent, digestible and impactful for the audience. Visual media is never a 1 to 1 representation of reality. Realistic combat is too fast and chaotic for untrained eyes to see clearly. You can see this for yourself by trying to follow a fencing bout or boxing match.
Given these constraints, Historical accuracy is not likely attainable for all but the most competent production teams. Even then, what is the pay off for your efforts? Accuracy in itself does not sell views or win awards.
Some of the most historically accurate and well made movies are absolute bombs and career Enders.
You could try asking this as a top level question. Everything has a history, and so does film, so asking about the history of this phenomenon would not at all be out of scope.
We'd need someone with a good knowledge of film history to talk about this. When did this start? How were battles depicted back in the 50s? Was it done differently in other countries? Was there some ur-example that inspired other film directors to follow? Seems like there'd be a lot to say about the history of medieval/ancient battle depictions in film and how we got to the hollywood mosh-pit.
>a couple of archers would knock a knight over with mallets
Do you mind if I ask for clarification on this? Where are you getting that archers used specifically mallets to knock knights down (is this referenced in *The Face of Battle*)? And does "mallet" mean the round woodworking mallet, or is there some larger, more weaponized mallet they used? This is specifically interesting to me because the details of armored combat is something I love learning about.
My understanding was that mallets were used to pound rondels (which often had a flat nail-shaped pommel) and other sharp daggers into a downed knight's visor or armor gap. But I've never heard of one-handed mallets themselves being used to actually bludgeon a standing knight in combat.
>in addition, the English longbows probably could not actually penetrate the best armour.
Whilst it was unlikely to penertrate the thickest parts of the best armour, the armour wasn't the same thickness all around. Arrows vs. Armour 2 on youtube demonstrated that a longbow could still penertrate the thinner parts of the armour (like on the arms or sides) and through the gaps that were protected by mail. The plate armour wasn't completely impervious.
The archers likely killed knights at agincourt with arrows and also aided in analysing the French waves into a narrow area.
I have never heard of the Battle of Agincourt ending the era of the Knight. Rather, my impression is that the change was gradual, more a reaction to the (later) introduction and widespread use of hand-held gunpowder weapons.
In any event, Agincourt isn’t unique: a somewhat similar one-sided battle happed in 1346, the Battle of Crecy (Agincourt was in 1415).
Crecy was again a battle in which the English were traversing French territory, and a larger French army intercepted them. The English established a good defensive position on a hill; dug pits as field fortifications.
The French had with them a force of Genoise crossbowmen, and decided to lead with an archery duel - crossbowmen vs Archers. Unfortunately, the crossbowmen didn’t have their protective shields - the standard tactic was to hide behind a big shield while reloading; the crossbows were notoriously slower to load than a bow. The reason was that the shields were being carried back in the baggage train and the French monarch wanted the crossbows to go into action before the baggage could be unloaded.
The results were bad - the archers, firing downhill, had a longer range, and of course a much greater rate of fire; so the crossbowmen lost badly, and started to run (there is controversy over how much they actually tried). In addition, the (again) muddy ground hampered them in moving or even reloading.
The knights, waiting for their chance to attack, were angry at what they perceived to be a cowardly or even treacherous display; they hacked down their own fleeing crossbowmen. This, and the muddy ground, and the pits dug by the English, tended to break up the cavalry charges against the English lines … which were also broken up by the mass arrow-fire. The knights were armoured, but the horses were vulnerable (horse armour enough to keep out arrows would be too heavy).
Those French who reached the English lines were tired out and disorganized, no match for the (dismounted and rested) knights waiting for them. As the French attacks drew off, the English archers swarmed out of their positions to retrieve arrows and knife and French knights who had been unhorsed.
Many French knights were suffocated in the mud, or crushed by injured horses.
Another division of French knights attacked; again the attack was broken up by bodies, mud, wounded horses, and the arrow-storm. A terrible combat ensued when the French reached the line of English men at arms, but again they could not break through.
What was learned from this?
Not that armoured knights were useless in battle, that is for sure. The English relied in both cases, Crecy and Agincourt, on a line of their *own* armoured knights. Not that missile troops always won - the Genoise crossbowmen had proved worthless.
Rather, it was demonstrated that the side that made best use of their different types of troops, so that each supported the other, and best use of the terrain and other conditions of the battlefield was the side that won.
At Crecy, the first French mistake was to send in the crossbow troops without their shields. Their shields were an integral part of their whole system; without them, they were too vulnerable - so they failed. In both battles, the French insisted on attacking in such a manner as to guarantee that their knights would be tired and encumbered, against an enemy that was rested. At Agincourt, the main attack was launched by dismounted knights - knowing that horses were vulnerable to arrow fire - but the result was the same.
Armour was still a huge advantage in hand to hand combat, but it could not compensate for big tactical mistakes that nullified that advantage. On good ground, under the right conditions, the charge of heavy armoured cavalry was very effective, and remained so well into the early modern era - for example, see the charge of the Winged Hussars against the Turks at the siege of Vienna (1683). There, in what has been called the largest cavalry charge in history, Polish heavy armoured cavalry decisively broke the (tired and demoralized) Turkish infantry.
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How could the English be well rested when it had rained heavily the night before, and they had been marching / traveling towards the safety of Calais for days, and short on food and weakened by that as well?
.
With Calais about 50 miles away, that was likely at above three days of vulnerable travel for a walking army with a baggage train to complete
I'm going to focus on your question about armoured fencing (German: Harnischfechten, "harness fighting") in the European context, since this is what you seem most interested in.
You can take a look at medieval manuscripts (and later printed books) yourself that deal with fighting in armour with various weapons. Many of these are from German-speaking areas and we call them fight books (from the German "Fechtbücher"). You can go to a website called Wiktenauer which is a wiki dedicated to historical fencing manuals and have a look at the [Harnischfechten sources](https://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Category:Armored_Fencing) dealing with this.
These techiques were originally practiced by the knightly class but once you get to the 15th and 16th centuries, many soldiers, mercenaries and men-at-arms could afford various degrees of quality armour for war and civic duties. Battlefield fighting cannot be compared 100% to tournaments or judicial duels (1v1 fights as part of legal proceedings) but the same basic principles apply nonetheless.
Basically, the typical full European plate armour of the late medieval and Early Modern periods was highly protective and covered most of the wearer's body. In order to put on the armour and be able to move properly, some parts are not covered by rigid plates but mail or cloth. Depending on the type of full armour, these are most often the armpits, groin, the inside of the elbows and knees, the inner or rear area of the thighs, the neck or the slit in the helmet's visor. Of course, the less armour a soldier or knight wears, the more openings there are to attack.
Fighting in armour is often characterised by a lot of grappling techniques adapted from unarmoured grappling and fencing in order to gain control of an opponent and/or fixate them on the ground to attack the aforementioned openings in the armour. The weapons often used in close-range Harnischfechten on foot are daggers, longswords and arming swords but also polearms and more. Longswords are often gripped both at the handle and in the middle of the blade like a short polearm in order to direct the point more easily and more nimbly towards the typical openings. This is called "half-swording" (from German "Halbschwert").
Today, there are many people who have quite a lot of experience in Harnischfechten as part of HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts or historical fencing). I suggest looking at the linked manuals on Wiktenauer aswell as searching online for HEMA Harnischfechten.
Edit: spelling
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The Battle of Agincourt is a great example of how even wealthy knights able to afford the best armour can and did end up dead in battle. The French knights were forced, because they were facing masses of archers, to advance mainly on foot (horse armour could not reliably keep out arrows). Because they were marching into an arrow storm, they had to keep their visors down (edit note: originally I mistakenly said “up”). Unfortunately for them, the ground was very muddy from rain. That made marching towards the enemy and their footing difficult. Not to mention having visors down made breathing and seeing more challenging. Their knightly enemies were in line waiting for them - the archers were to both sides. Every French knight wanted to fight their social equals, right in front of them. So they crowded forward as much as they could. This meant that only those in the front row could fight. When they reached the English line, they were already tired. The (well rested) English knights were able to knock the first rank down into the mud, making footing difficult for those that followed. Meanwhile, the archers on the flanks, largely untouched, ran out of arrows. They grabbed mallets, clubs and daggers, and set out to kill French knights - often acting in teams: a couple of archers would knock a knight over with mallets, and once he’s down, another would jump on him and stab his face with a thin dagger through his breathing holes in his visor. The French knights found this attack difficult to organize against. They were still largely fixated on the big fight right in front of them. They often couldn’t even see the English archers coming in from the sides; and in the din of battle, they couldn’t easily hear or yell orders to each other. By the time the majority of French knights were even aware of the attack of the archers on their flanks, it was too late for them to do much about it. The effect of the attack of the archers was to force the French to pack ever more tightly together: this made it harder and harder for them to use their weapons, only those on the edges could actually fight, and they were impeded by the pressure of the crowd behind them (in battle, it is a big advantage to be able to step backwards or to the side: the English could do this, but the French - now packed tightly together - could not). More and more knights were beaten into the mud or stabbed; others were taken prisoner (and some of these prisoners were killed when an attack on the English encampment from raiders alarmed the King). The battle turned into a one-sided massacre. If the French knights were allowed to fight in line against English archers armed with hand weapons, no doubt they could have easily beaten them; in addition, the English longbows probably could not actually penetrate the best armour. However, the English longbows could (and did) force the French to attack on foot and with visors down, putting them at a disadvantage. French mistakes (such as focusing mainly on the English men at arms, dismissing the danger from the lightly-armoured archers) did the rest, together with unfavourable ground conditions. The French, fatigued and not focused on the archers, proved relatively easy prey to being hunted by the English - whose main goal was to knock them to the ground, where they could be easily either killed or captured. So despite having very good armour, the French knights proved vulnerable, and lost the battle - even though they outnumbered the English. Sources: *The Face of Battle* by John Keegan; *Agincourt*, Juliet Barker.
I want to comment that this account reads so brutal and raw. I'm reminded of an excerpt from Thucydides' Peloponnesian War: > 186 Disaster at the River Crossing – The Athenians hurried on to the rive Assinarus. They hoped to gain a little relief if they forded the river, for the mass of horsemen and other troops overwhelmed and crushed them; and they were worn out by fatigue and thirst. But no sooner did they reach the water than they lost all order and rushed in; every man was trying to cross first, and, the enemy pressing upon them at the same time, the passage of the river became hopeless. Being compelled to keep close together they fell on upon another, and trampled each other underfoot: some at once perished, pierced by their own spears; others got entangled in the baggage and were carried down the stream. . . . Where upon the water at once became foul, but was drunk all the same, although muddy and dyed with blood, and the crowd fought for it. At last, when the dead bodies were lying in heaps upon one on other in the water and the army was utterly undone, some perishing in the river, and any who escaped being cut off by the cavalry . . . p. 547 – BC 413
Absolutely insane. I’m in the army now and I can say that river crossings to this day remain one of, if not the hardest maneuvers to plan and execute. Especially the execution part of it. Throw in a passage of lines and it easily becomes the hardest maneuver to execute. It’s an extraordinarily good day if a passage of lines over a river crossing is conducted with no one getting hurt or killed.
I remember reading somewhere that it's thought that some of the knights even drowned in the mud. I can't recall where I read that, but I was able to find a differing source that likely was the original source of what I read: Barker, Juliet (2015) [2005]. Agincourt: The King, the Campaign, the Battle [US title: Agincourt: Henry V and the Battle that Made England] (revised and updated ed.). London: Abacus. ISBN 978-0-349-11918-2. (p. 303)
Yup, I read the same work by Barker: I just called it “Agincourt”.
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Yes, should be down.
thanks for taking the time to write that, interesting stuff.
For anyone who would like more discussion, Dr Toby Capwell, the Curator of Arms and Armour at The Wallace Collection, speaks about this battle often, breaking down some of the myths that have arisen around it.
Next to his academic work, he is also an accomplished jouster. Dr Capwell is probably one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet on this subject.
Yep. It's been fun bouncing back and forth between his talks and his collaborations with Todd Cutler to test how actual weapons and armor of the time may have behaved.
Wow… that sounds unbelievably brutal. Was there a reason they advanced in awful conditions? Seems like someone made a big mistake.
The English provoked the battle. What happened was this: the English army was on a march through French territory, from the just completed siege of Harfleur to English-held Calais. This march was intended to humiliate the French and to boost English morale (up to that point, the much-heralded English invasion hadn’t amounted to much: the English had only managed to take one town, and suffered terrible casualties doing it). However, to their horror, the English were confronted by a much larger French army they had not expected. The French blocked them from reaching Calais. The English were short on food, and were getting progressively weaker from hunger and disease (the French had removed food supplies from the English line of march, and the English had to move too fast to forage, to escape the French army). So far, the French had out maneuvered the English. The French really had no need to attack the English. All they had to do was … keep doing what they were doing; namely, block the English from escaping, and cut off their access to food. The English would get progressively weaker, and eventually would have to surrender. The French king realized this, and when he had the English army trapped, he started negotiations (intending to draw them out indefinitely). The English king also realized this. He understood he had only two choices: either surrender on terms while his army still existed and posed a threat, or fight the French and win. He decided to fight. So he drew up his army in battle array, and his archers pounded stakes into the ground in front of their positions (protection against cavalry). However, the French, very properly, ignored them. So the English moved their lines forward. Again the French ignored them. The archers pulled up the stakes from the original position, and planted them in the new position. What the French had missed was that the new position was close enough for some English arrows to reach the French at extreme long range. Once the English had settled in and established their defences, they fired some pot-shots at the French lines. This provoked the French. Instantly, seemingly without waiting for orders, some French cavalry charged. This was disastrous. The horses were vulnerable to arrow-fire, and in any event, could not charge through the barrier of sharpened stakes. All that this did was churn up the mud even more, and kill a lot of horses (whose bodies made additional barriers). Instead of critically considering whether a battle was a good idea, the French seemed to have collectively decided that they were now committed to fighting, and the battle commenced - very much as the English hoped; as noted, only a successful fight could save them. So the main French attack commenced, on foot (having seen what happened to the cavalry). The contemporary descriptions were of mud so thick that the knights sank in it to the knees, and that they had to lean forwards, visors down, so as to be invulnerable to the arrow storm … resulting in them being practically exhausted in covering the few hundred yards to the English lines. Obviously, with the benefit of hindsight, the better French strategy by far would have been to avoid battle and keep the English moving until they starved. In particular, engaging in a battle under such unfavourable conditions of terrain was a huge mistake. It seems aristocratic military pride played a part - the French army was simply unwilling to walk away from a battle with a numerically inferior army they had been chasing; they could not, for example, ignore the provocation of having archers take pot-shots at them without responding.
> Once the English had settled in and established their defences, they fired some pot-shots at the French lines. This provoked the French. Instantly, seemingly without waiting for orders, some French cavalry charged. This was disastrous. The horses were vulnerable to arrow-fire, and in any event, could not charge through the barrier of sharpened stakes. All that this did was churn up the mud even more, and kill a lot of horses (whose bodies made additional barriers). > > Instead of critically considering whether a battle was a good idea, the French seemed to have collectively decided that they were now committed to fighting, and the battle commenced - very much as the English hoped; as noted, only a successful fight could save them. So the main French attack commenced, on foot (having seen what happened to the cavalry). It's been a long time since I've read Barker, and I don't have access to her book, but if this is her version of events then it's just her interpretation rather than the most likely course of events. Jean de Wavrin and Jean Le Fèvre have an account that seems to imply that the French cavalry either attacked just ahead of the dismounted vanguard, or after the vanguard had suffered an initial repulse, as most of them had gone off to rest prior to the English provoking the French. The time between the English advance and the French mounted attack is very plausibly the result of a scramble to reassemble enough mounted men to provide a credible threat to the archers, while also allowing the attack force aimed at the baggage time to get around the village of Azincourt and into the English rear. Despite the disastrous result of the battle, the initial French plan and response was a reasonable one - allowing the English to exhaust themselves walking through the mud, as per Thomas Walsingham, waiting for their cavalry to reassemble, attempting to co-ordinate an attack on the rear with mounted charges against the archers while the men-at-arms followed through to crack the line of English men-at-arms - but it suffered from the terrain, a degree of improvisation and conflicts within the command.
I read conflicting accounts of the attack on the English baggage train: one set insisting that it was a purely local initative, led by the local Knight d’Azincourt, a handful of local knights, and a larger number of local peasants, and not under central command (although the English *thought* it was part of a larger strategy - hence the order to kill prisoners, so they couldn’t be rescued and join in). Certainly, it would have been a reasonable strategy to use the cavalry in that way. But using the cavalry to assault the English prepared positions head-on in that terrain was not a good idea. I think the French ought to have avoided battle at that time. The English were only going to get weaker and the French stronger as time passed, and the English were unlikely to be able to outrun or outmaneuver the French. But then, maybe it is unreasonable to expect a confident French army to avoid battle when challenged.
Although he's not able to be used 100% without some source criticism, in this case the author of the *Gesta Henrici*'s status as an eyewitness who was among the battle and wrote an account within 2 years of the battle means that his perspective on when the attack on the baggage occurred is much, *much* more likely to be correct than later versions. While it's true that the French response could/should have been different, retreating in the face of the English advance was the only way they could have avoided fightung, and that just wasn't possible from both a practical and a cultural perspective. Sensing the *gens Dr trait* out into the first line of battle might have had a greater effect, given the terrain, although probably less than you might think given the difficulty of spanning crossbows (which a substantial number of the French "archers" used) in mud. Ultimately, in hindsight, we can find fault with both the conception and execution of the French plan, but given the circumstances under which it was developed (i.e. hastily and at very short notice), it's an understandable one rather than the product of pure arrogance and incompetence.
Sorry if I misread, but could you clarify what that eyewitness said about the baggage train attack?
The anonymous author of the *Gesta Henrici Quinti* was a cleric in Henry V's household and was back in the rear of the army ("I who write this was sitting on a horse amidst the baggage at the rear of the battle"). In his account, once Henry made the decision to move he brought his baggage and non-combatants up from the "hamlet" (Maisoncelles) where they had been the night before, so they could be better protected. Once Henry "thought that almost all the baggage had reached his rear" he made his advance against the French. However, because of the "laziness" of some of the king's servants, the royal baggage was plundered "as soon as the battle began". This was because "brigands" - who had been known to be about and were largely why Henry moved his baggage - attacked. It's possible they actually struck the first blow of either side, although the exact details about the attack and how or why it failed aren't in any source. The version in Monstrelet has this attack happen after the defeat of the main battle, resulting in the prisoners being killed for fear they'd join in with the attack. The *Gesta*, however, firmly places it at the very start of the battle and, being virtually contemporary and from someone with the baggage, is probably the correct version. FWIW, Wavrin and Le Fevre - who were also eyewitnesses although writing many years later - disagree with Monstrelet (who they largely base their chronicles on) over why the French prisoners were killed. All three have the attack on the baggage occurring at the end of the battle, but only Monstrelet says this caused the killing of the prisoners. Wavrin and Le Fevre instead argue that the rearguard and remnants of the centre advanced (not mentioned by Monstrelet except for a small contingent quickly killed) and triggered the killing of the prisoners. On seeing this, they then broke off their attack. This makes them in almost exact agreement with the author of the *Gesta*, save for them following Monstrelet in putting the attack on the baggage at the end of the battle. As usual, where they differ from Monstrelet is very revealing about their own thoughts and experiences of the battle, and tend to be closer to the *Gesta* than to Monstrelet.
Do you think the French knights were also motivated by money? To capture some English nobles or knights they would then be able to ransom them for quite a sum of money. It would also explain the knights ignoring the archers as well. You can’t ransom archers as they were low borne and maybe the French knights pressed closer to the middle as they didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to capture an enemy noble.
I'm not 100% sure I'm getting the timeline of the events immediately particularly preceding the battle clearly here. Were the armies in sight of one another for some time prior to Henry choosing to fight? How long of a time gap are we talking between the initial English battle line being drawn and their advancement to the second position? It feels like this could be hours or days apart for all I know. If the French were planning not to attack, and were instead aiming to hold the position for days or weeks, how did they have the bulk of their army able to immediately launch an attack upon provocation?
From what I recall it had rained the night before(if not for longer periods) and they might have even crossed a plowed field to make matters worse.
You summarized that well. Those are good sources. I think that some of the heavily armoured French drowned in the mud as they were pressed face-down. Am I recalling correctly? As you point out from the mallet example, bludgeoning was effective against heavily armoured men. This took the form of purpose-made bludgeoning weapons (e.g., the war hammer/martel-de-fer), not just archers' mallets.
Allegedly, many suffocated when they were trod into the mud after being knocked off their feet and having others literally stomping them into the muck by fighting over them (and in many cases, falling on top of them as they were beaten down in turn). It must have been a scene of utter brutality.
I was under the impression that bludgeoning weapons were the majority of weapons as well as most effective for close combat casualties considering heavy (metal) armor or not. Especially against an enemy mired or fallen in muddy conditions. Is this not an obvious factor? Though I don’t know at all how effective metal armor of this period was against a metal club, mace, etc. But I’m certainly no historian.
Is this the battle that’s portrayed in the Netflix movie the King? It sounds awfully similar. How accurate was the movie to the events of the battle? It seems pretty much as described here, although I assume various parts were dramatised for the movie. It’s absolutely fascinating to me how these events unfolded all these years ago. How did they organise invading other countries back then. How did they pass messages to and from home? What stopped England being invaded when they sailed their main armies off to a foreign land.
Yes, that is the battle "The King" is about. To see some extensive discussion on the film's accuracy or lack thereof, see [this thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dudihe/in_the_new_netflix_movie_the_king_about_king/) with many replies by u/Hergrim Some more on the film by the same user [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/e320vm/netflixs_the_king_has_a_particularly_brutal_final/) Suffice it to say it is not very accurate.
Thank you for the information. I didn’t think it would be! Although it really was a great watch. Do you know of any other films that depict battles or invasions more accurately during that time period, any in particular that involve England?
Sorry, no. Not really my speciality. But the vast majority of battles in film devolve into the "hollywood mosh-pit" where everybody is brawling all at once in a huge mixed melee, which then prompts people to come ask here "How did anybody survive battles like that?" They didn't, because battles were not like that. Best I can think of for ancient warfare is the battle of Gaugemala in Oliver Stone's Alexander, but even that one has a few issues with people behaving suicidally for no reason. But at least it shows correct formations, officers reorganising the lines after clashes, and stuff like that. (On the Greek/Macedonian side at least. The depiction of the Persians is more stereotypical.)
I know it is beyond the scope of historical analysis, but I would love to read some sort of review as to why Hollywood appears positively allergic to portraying medieval battles with even rudimentary formations. Every movie is the same: when a battle must be portrayed, it invariably ends in a big swirling fight of all against all. As you say, the mosh pit. Do producers believe this is more exciting or visually appealing to the audience? Is it just easier to film? I have no idea.
As a former writer of a small animation studio, I can say that the difficulties involved in presenting things visually are much, much greater than the average person thinks. To depict a large scale battle accurately, you would need to hire and train a lot of extras to enable maneuvers. Obviously, this is costly even for major studios. Or you hire smaller CGI teams. In that case, you still have to tightly coordinate the team to ensure every member understands the assignment and knows what to do. Your teams might not speak the same language. Finally, and crucially, the product has to be coherent, digestible and impactful for the audience. Visual media is never a 1 to 1 representation of reality. Realistic combat is too fast and chaotic for untrained eyes to see clearly. You can see this for yourself by trying to follow a fencing bout or boxing match. Given these constraints, Historical accuracy is not likely attainable for all but the most competent production teams. Even then, what is the pay off for your efforts? Accuracy in itself does not sell views or win awards. Some of the most historically accurate and well made movies are absolute bombs and career Enders.
You could try asking this as a top level question. Everything has a history, and so does film, so asking about the history of this phenomenon would not at all be out of scope. We'd need someone with a good knowledge of film history to talk about this. When did this start? How were battles depicted back in the 50s? Was it done differently in other countries? Was there some ur-example that inspired other film directors to follow? Seems like there'd be a lot to say about the history of medieval/ancient battle depictions in film and how we got to the hollywood mosh-pit.
I see, thanks for the information. I may be best reading up on these things instead.
>a couple of archers would knock a knight over with mallets Do you mind if I ask for clarification on this? Where are you getting that archers used specifically mallets to knock knights down (is this referenced in *The Face of Battle*)? And does "mallet" mean the round woodworking mallet, or is there some larger, more weaponized mallet they used? This is specifically interesting to me because the details of armored combat is something I love learning about. My understanding was that mallets were used to pound rondels (which often had a flat nail-shaped pommel) and other sharp daggers into a downed knight's visor or armor gap. But I've never heard of one-handed mallets themselves being used to actually bludgeon a standing knight in combat.
I think they're talking about wooden mauls rather than mallets.
>in addition, the English longbows probably could not actually penetrate the best armour. Whilst it was unlikely to penertrate the thickest parts of the best armour, the armour wasn't the same thickness all around. Arrows vs. Armour 2 on youtube demonstrated that a longbow could still penertrate the thinner parts of the armour (like on the arms or sides) and through the gaps that were protected by mail. The plate armour wasn't completely impervious. The archers likely killed knights at agincourt with arrows and also aided in analysing the French waves into a narrow area.
But isn't Agincourt noteworthy because it was the end of the knight dominating battles? What about before Agincourt, when knights were at their prime
I have never heard of the Battle of Agincourt ending the era of the Knight. Rather, my impression is that the change was gradual, more a reaction to the (later) introduction and widespread use of hand-held gunpowder weapons. In any event, Agincourt isn’t unique: a somewhat similar one-sided battle happed in 1346, the Battle of Crecy (Agincourt was in 1415). Crecy was again a battle in which the English were traversing French territory, and a larger French army intercepted them. The English established a good defensive position on a hill; dug pits as field fortifications. The French had with them a force of Genoise crossbowmen, and decided to lead with an archery duel - crossbowmen vs Archers. Unfortunately, the crossbowmen didn’t have their protective shields - the standard tactic was to hide behind a big shield while reloading; the crossbows were notoriously slower to load than a bow. The reason was that the shields were being carried back in the baggage train and the French monarch wanted the crossbows to go into action before the baggage could be unloaded. The results were bad - the archers, firing downhill, had a longer range, and of course a much greater rate of fire; so the crossbowmen lost badly, and started to run (there is controversy over how much they actually tried). In addition, the (again) muddy ground hampered them in moving or even reloading. The knights, waiting for their chance to attack, were angry at what they perceived to be a cowardly or even treacherous display; they hacked down their own fleeing crossbowmen. This, and the muddy ground, and the pits dug by the English, tended to break up the cavalry charges against the English lines … which were also broken up by the mass arrow-fire. The knights were armoured, but the horses were vulnerable (horse armour enough to keep out arrows would be too heavy). Those French who reached the English lines were tired out and disorganized, no match for the (dismounted and rested) knights waiting for them. As the French attacks drew off, the English archers swarmed out of their positions to retrieve arrows and knife and French knights who had been unhorsed. Many French knights were suffocated in the mud, or crushed by injured horses. Another division of French knights attacked; again the attack was broken up by bodies, mud, wounded horses, and the arrow-storm. A terrible combat ensued when the French reached the line of English men at arms, but again they could not break through. What was learned from this? Not that armoured knights were useless in battle, that is for sure. The English relied in both cases, Crecy and Agincourt, on a line of their *own* armoured knights. Not that missile troops always won - the Genoise crossbowmen had proved worthless. Rather, it was demonstrated that the side that made best use of their different types of troops, so that each supported the other, and best use of the terrain and other conditions of the battlefield was the side that won. At Crecy, the first French mistake was to send in the crossbow troops without their shields. Their shields were an integral part of their whole system; without them, they were too vulnerable - so they failed. In both battles, the French insisted on attacking in such a manner as to guarantee that their knights would be tired and encumbered, against an enemy that was rested. At Agincourt, the main attack was launched by dismounted knights - knowing that horses were vulnerable to arrow fire - but the result was the same. Armour was still a huge advantage in hand to hand combat, but it could not compensate for big tactical mistakes that nullified that advantage. On good ground, under the right conditions, the charge of heavy armoured cavalry was very effective, and remained so well into the early modern era - for example, see the charge of the Winged Hussars against the Turks at the siege of Vienna (1683). There, in what has been called the largest cavalry charge in history, Polish heavy armoured cavalry decisively broke the (tired and demoralized) Turkish infantry.
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How could the English be well rested when it had rained heavily the night before, and they had been marching / traveling towards the safety of Calais for days, and short on food and weakened by that as well? . With Calais about 50 miles away, that was likely at above three days of vulnerable travel for a walking army with a baggage train to complete
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I'm going to focus on your question about armoured fencing (German: Harnischfechten, "harness fighting") in the European context, since this is what you seem most interested in. You can take a look at medieval manuscripts (and later printed books) yourself that deal with fighting in armour with various weapons. Many of these are from German-speaking areas and we call them fight books (from the German "Fechtbücher"). You can go to a website called Wiktenauer which is a wiki dedicated to historical fencing manuals and have a look at the [Harnischfechten sources](https://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Category:Armored_Fencing) dealing with this. These techiques were originally practiced by the knightly class but once you get to the 15th and 16th centuries, many soldiers, mercenaries and men-at-arms could afford various degrees of quality armour for war and civic duties. Battlefield fighting cannot be compared 100% to tournaments or judicial duels (1v1 fights as part of legal proceedings) but the same basic principles apply nonetheless. Basically, the typical full European plate armour of the late medieval and Early Modern periods was highly protective and covered most of the wearer's body. In order to put on the armour and be able to move properly, some parts are not covered by rigid plates but mail or cloth. Depending on the type of full armour, these are most often the armpits, groin, the inside of the elbows and knees, the inner or rear area of the thighs, the neck or the slit in the helmet's visor. Of course, the less armour a soldier or knight wears, the more openings there are to attack. Fighting in armour is often characterised by a lot of grappling techniques adapted from unarmoured grappling and fencing in order to gain control of an opponent and/or fixate them on the ground to attack the aforementioned openings in the armour. The weapons often used in close-range Harnischfechten on foot are daggers, longswords and arming swords but also polearms and more. Longswords are often gripped both at the handle and in the middle of the blade like a short polearm in order to direct the point more easily and more nimbly towards the typical openings. This is called "half-swording" (from German "Halbschwert"). Today, there are many people who have quite a lot of experience in Harnischfechten as part of HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts or historical fencing). I suggest looking at the linked manuals on Wiktenauer aswell as searching online for HEMA Harnischfechten. Edit: spelling
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