"Battle-line at Agincourt" Topic

"And scholars today are immune from the same penchant to copy each other?"

Sadly, no.

"It isn't that cuneos means one of several mutually exclusive uses, that causes the problem: modern scholars doubt the separated men at arms,"

Not the modern scholars I have read.

"And if there were archers between the battles of men at arms, and there were arrows piercing the sides of helmets, the only way that could be accomplished is if the French vanguard presented its flanks to archery: the most likely probability is therefore that the archers were advanced at a projecting angle out in front of their own men at arms as "wings": which, where their ends meet, form "wedges" of archers."

The most likely probability is that the arrows piercing the sidea of the helmets were shot by the archers on the extreme flanks of the army, not by the archers between the bodies of MAA.

I know what you're going to say: "But they can't because they are out of range". Um, aren't you forgetting the major factor that the sheer size of the French army funnelled into such a narrow field would have meant that plenty of French got within lethal range of those flanking archers? After all, we know that French were found with arrows piercing the sides of their helmets. What they don't tell us though, is where on the field these bodies were found.

Hi

But mike, my friend,we still have the incovneient points that most of the french are out of range. AND the problem of them going to the flanks during the french advance, getting there FIRST, soon enough to plant stakes and still keep shooting.

With the 19th century wedges, there are no safe spots, overlapping fields of fire, and no problems with time and distance.

And we have the helm hits.

But, again, back to rich's original question. The french didn't sweep the archers onthe flank as the vulnerable part of the army, because they weren't the vulnerable part!

IF you go body left and right the archers are not only not shooting during the advance, but vulnerable but for unknown reasons not killed. Assuming that the archers move twice as fast, you still have the problem that the french will contact the last of the archers before they reach the flank and either wait patiently for them to pass or something.

Makes no sense.

R

"It isn't that cuneos means one of several mutually exclusive uses, that causes the problem: modern scholars doubt the separated men at arms,"

Not the modern scholars I have read.

Bennett in his Osprey volume follows Jim Bradbury in placing all the men at arms in the center. Curry seems to buy into this as well.

Um, aren't you forgetting the major factor that the sheer size of the French army funnelled into such a narrow field would have meant that plenty of French got within lethal range of those flanking archers?

Not at all. My little reconstruction, above, accepts what you say here. The uncommitted French mainguard alone would have potentially given the archers near the woods plenty to do.

But it remains a fact: that if the three battles of men at arms each have their own wings of archers, that ALL of the archers are within effective range if their battalion is attacked.

After all, we know that French were found with arrows piercing the sides of their helmets. What they don't tell us though, is where on the field these bodies were found.

As the Gesta tells when the helmets were getting pierced from the side, that tells us where also: right when and where the French van divided into three columns, i.e. close in front of the English battleline.

"But mike, my friend,we still have the incovneient points that most of the french are out of range."

Most of the French will be in range when they get to within ~250yds of the English line. Remember, that I have said that I think there were archers:
in between the MAA
in 2 ranks immediately in front of the MAA
on the exreme flanks of the army

- in other words the entire army battle line consisted of archers (at least in the front 2 ranks).

"AND the problem of them going to the flanks during the french advance, getting there FIRST, soon enough to plant stakes and still keep shooting."

Quite. I do not agree with Rich's idea of them moving to the flanks. Some of them were there right from the start.

"With the 19th century wedges, there are no safe spots, overlapping fields of fire, and no problems with time and distance."

True, but in my view the archers between the MAA don't have to be in a wedge. With archers all along the line as described above, there is simply no need.
Also, if the wedge formation was so successful, why was it not used in later periods (e.g. the ECW)?

"IF you go body left and right the archers are not only not shooting during the advance, but vulnerable but for unknown reasons not killed. Assuming that the archers move twice as fast, you still have the problem that the french will contact the last of the archers before they reach the flank and either wait patiently for them to pass or something."

Agreed see comments above.

"But it remains a fact: that if the three battles of men at arms each have their own wings of archers, that ALL of the archers are within effective range if their battalion is attacked."

They don't have to be "wings". See my comments above.

"As the Gesta tells when the helmets were getting pierced from the side, that tells us where also: right when and where the French van divided into three columns, i.e. close in front of the English battleline."

They would have to be close in front of the battleline otherwise they would not be within effective archery range. I still suspect that the "side hits" were inflicted on the flanks of the French advance. Remember my previous calculations that showed that a wedge can only deliver effective flanking fire within the last ~80 yds?

I'm also not convinced about this "dividing into three columns". Your quote from the sources indicate that they atacked "where the banners were", but doesn't actually say anything about dividing into attack colums. An "attack column" sounds much too Napoleonic for my liking.

They don't have to be "wings". See my comments above.

If side-on shooting is deemed to be a tactically good idea (which it would be, into the less resistant surfaces of plate armor), then "wedges" are the way to go.

I don't see why you are so resistant to the idea of forward angled lines of archers BETWEEN the battles of men at arms, since we agree that on the flanks the English archers were angled forward.

You earlier argued that poking your lines at the approaching enemy was asking for those flanks to get hit: but I also argued that the protruding points of the "wedges", being behind stakes, and being able to fall back in line with the men at arms, under necessity, would not be vulnerable to that: and by being in position to perform enfilading shooting, that remained a possibility if the French avoided the archers.

Did the English expect that the French would in fact not become a big threat to the archers? There is no way to know. But it seems to me likely that the advanced "wedges" were, if nothing more, a combo formation to allow earlier shooting (by being closer), and possible flanking fire. In other words, a better idea by allowing for more optional uses than just standing in a static, straight line alongside the men at arms.

Remember my previous calculations that showed that a wedge can only deliver effective flanking fire within the last ~80 yds?

Yes. And I agree. And it as a LOT of distance to get in those side-on shots. Many thousands of arrows would be got off in that last c. 80 yards!

I'm also not convinced about this "dividing into three columns". Your quote from the sources indicate that they atacked "where the banners were", but doesn't actually say anything about dividing into attack colums. An "attack column" sounds much too Napoleonic for my liking.

As Rocky has stated before: all medieval formations of close order troops are in "columns" by Nappy definition, being 8 and more ranks deep. Hal V's men at arms were stretched thinner out of necessity, not from choice.

The Gesta does in fact state columns: "And when the men-at-arms had from each side advanced towards one another over roughly the same distance, the flanks of both battle-lines, ours, that is, and the enemy's, extended into the woodlands which were on both sides of the armies. But the French nobility, who had previously advanced in line abreast and had 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 the standards were."

At that point, the French vanguard is estimated to have become 20 to 30 ranks deep, certainly "column" depth by any definition.

"If side-on shooting is deemed to be a tactically good idea (which it would be, into the less resistant surfaces of plate armor), then "wedges" are the way to go."

Except that wedges don't really offer the opportunity for full side on shooting only at an angle.

"I don't see why you are so resistant to the idea of forward angled lines of archers BETWEEN the battles of men at arms, since we agree that on the flanks the English archers were angled forward."

Mainly because if a wedge foprmation was such a good idea, why was it not used in any later period (e.g. ECW)?

"You earlier argued that poking your lines at the approaching enemy was asking for those flanks to get hit: but I also argued that the protruding points of the "wedges", being behind stakes, and being able to fall back in line with the men at arms, under necessity, would not be vulnerable to that: and by being in position to perform enfilading shooting, that remained a possibility if the French avoided the archers."

I think you do not fully understand the threat that an exposed flank creates in the minds of the men. The flank of a unit is the one area that they cannot easily defend. Get attacked in the flank and it is very likely your troops will break. We wargamers IMHO significantly underate the effectiveness of a flank attack. Again IMHO a flank attack is more deadly than an attack from the rear – you can turn to face a rear attack, unless you are simultaneously engaged to the front. Even a flank protected by stakes (and surely the stakes would be placed to the unit's front, not its flank) would offer insufficient protection to avoid the threat of a flank attack.

Read military histories from any period and you will find that is is often flank attacks that cause troops to break.

"As Rocky has stated before: all medieval formations of close order troops are in "columns" by Nappy definition, being 8 and more ranks deep. Hal V's men at arms were stretched thinner out of necessity, not from choice."

I disagree with that view as well. Mdieval formations were often only 4 ranks deep if there was sufficient room to deploy. This is because a longer battle line creates more potential opportunities for a flank attack (see above).

Doug, "As the Gesta tells when the helmets were getting pierced from the side, that tells us where also: right when and where the French van divided into three columns, i.e. close in front of the English battle line.

But that is not what the Gesta tells us. All he said was that the power of the longbow was such that it pierced helmets. He never said he saw this as part of the battle. We have no idea where he got the idea that English arrows pierced helmets. And where would he see it? He was 600 yards to the rear where Henry told him to stay. Because of that, the quote is useless for determining when the French divided into three columns. Eyewitnesses state the French fell back a bit shortly after starting to advance. It is highly doubtful that this was a reaction to bow fire. The French were approximately 300 yards from the English lines. More likely it was at this point that the French formed their three columns.

Rich

Rocky, "But, again, back to rich's original question. The french didn't sweep the archers onthe flank as the vulnerable part of the army, because they weren't the vulnerable part!"

I'm sorry Rocky but that is not an answer. You need to explain why unarmored archers were not the vulnerable.

Rich

Mike, "Mainly because if a wedge formation was such a good idea, why was it not used in any later period (e.g. ECW)?"

First off, the wedge formation only makes sense if one is facing a mounted attack. It breaks up the integrity of the mounted formation as it splits the oncoming cavalry. Secondly, archers firing at a 90 degree angle to their front cannot stop armored cavalry. This was shown at Poiters. Arquebus fire was shown to be more affective firing those straight ahead shots.

Rich

Except that wedges don't really offer the opportunity for full side on shooting only at an angle.

They're better than nothing; and for the last c. 40 yards they do get virtually ninety degrees side-on. And even slightly to the rear would be possible, for the archers that have been passed by.

Mainly because if a wedge foprmation was such a good idea, why was it not used in any later period (e.g. ECW)?

I can think of a few possible reasons: the main one would be drill: I think the HYW saw the apogee of longbowman massed in formation. Once the WotR was done, there was a long period where campaigning became increasingly rare on such a scale as the HYW. Archers seem to have fallen into small scale use, e.g. aboard ships. By Hal VIII's day, their numbers had diminished to c. 1% ("Therefore these two things, traitness of time, and every man his trade of living, are the causes that so few men shoot as you see in this great town, where, as there be a thousand good men's bodies, yet scarce ten that useth any great shooting. And those whom you see shoot the most, with how many things are they drawn, or rather driven, from shooting." And: "And I tell you,…the lack of teaching to shoot in England causeth very many men to play with the King's acts; …many buy bows, because of the [statute] but yet they shoot not; not of evil will, but because they know not how to shoot." Roger Ascham)

Even a flank protected by stakes (and surely the stakes would be placed to the unit's front, not its flank) would offer insufficient protection to avoid the threat of a flank attack.

Well I know how I would set it up: the archers toward the ends of each meeting "wing" would bend around the point, and stakes would be set thickly at that joint, following the axis: I would NOT simply drive in the stakes directly in front of each man, thus leaving a vulnerable point with no stakes facing an attacking enemy!

These are the kinds of arguable details which no original sources provide answers to: the kinds of obvious niggling details which the men on the ground knew how to tackle without a "manual."

We'll just have disagee on the depth of formations. I don't know of any other examples, off the top of my head, where the depth was specifically stated at all outside of the "four ranks" at Agincourt. Deeper is better if it means that you lose slowly on the flanks and blow through the center because the enemy was too thin.

But that is not what the Gesta tells us. All he said was that the power of the longbow was such that it pierced helmets. He never said he saw this as part of the battle. We have no idea where he got the idea that English arrows pierced helmets. And where would he see it?

Back to denying "our cleric" as a truthful man. And back also to following what scholars have copied from each other (as Mike and I observed above): this claim that the English baggage was clear back at the original battleline site (I actually have no idea how such an idea got started: that might make an interesting paper for a medieval history journal.)

Read it, Rich: immediately after describing the French vanguard dividing, either (or both) because of the arrows piercing visors and sides of helmets or by design, attacking where the standards were, and driving the English back "almost a spear's length", he says: "And then we who have been assinged to the clerical militia and were watching, fell upon our faces in prayer"…etc. (He spent, according to his claim, the entire battle on horseback; so "fell upon our faces in prayer" is not literal, I hope!) Either he was watching what he had just described in specific detail, or he was a liar. There is no mystery at all about where he got his graphic details from. How much more clearly does a written account have to be to convince you?

Secondly, archers firing at a 90 degree angle to their front cannot stop armored cavalry.

Archers facing forward in a "wedge" are not firing "at a 90 degree angle to their front."(?) Your comparative arquebus comment makes no sense.

I fail to see how your "weak archers" could divide a cavalry charge by being in a "wedge" formation: it would be the apex of the staked line which divided the cavalry, not the troops behind it.

"I can think of a few possible reasons: the main one would be drill: "

Except that you then simply go on to describe the twilight of the heavy archer. If the wedge formation was good for archers (even only against mounted troops) then surely it would be equally good for arquebusiers or musketeers? If this were true then we would see wedges being used as an anti-cavalry tactic all the way through until the Napoleonic period or later … but we don't. Indeed the Napoleonic anti-cavalry tactic was to form square … because a square cannot be outflanked.

Except that you then simply go on to describe the twilight of the heavy archer.

That's another reason why no wedge formations later.

The forward angled lines weren't for defeating cavalry, as Rich suggests: a straight line of stakes will inhibit a cavalry attack quite as well as a protruding line will.

Wedges were for applying enfilading fire into armored troops. When armor mostly goes away, so does the need to get in flanking shots at plate armor's weaker side and back parts.

Combine decreasing drill, a smaller archers "pool", and no more cap-a-pie plate, and these are reasons enough to have forward angled lines of archers disappear.

Doug, "Back to denying "our cleric" as a truthful man."

No, I'm back pointing out your delusions. The man never said what you claim he said. He never said he saw helmets being pierced by arrows. Sorry Doug but you are hallucinating. What he actually said was the French formed three columns either out of fear of the longbow or to penetrate the English line. The piercing of the helmets was simply to indicate the power of the bows. He never said he actually saw arrows piercing helmets. For all we know he could have picked this up as bravado from the archers. If you are seeing anymore into that statement then you are going through delusions.

Rich

"But the French troops (who fancied themselves nobles, so I am told), who had (allegedly) previously advanced in line abreast and had all but come to grips with us (or rather, I should say, with our troops, not we clerics) either from fear of the missiles which by their very force pierced (so I am told) the sides and visors of their helmets, or in order the sooner to break through our strongest points and reach the standards (or our wenches, I have received conflicting opinions on the motivations of the French in this matter), divided into three columns (or possibly only one, it depends on who you talk to who was actually there), attacking our battle-line in the three places where the 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 about a spear's length (that's just an approximation, based on what I was told later). And then we who have been assigned to the clerical militia and were watching (the best we could, from over a league away, got a bad feeling about how things might be going for our boys and) fell on our faces (in the mud) in prayer before the (begrimed) mercy-seat of God, crying out aloud in bitterness of spirit that God might even yet remember us and the crown of England and, by the grace of His supreme bounty, deliver us from (that distant, unobservable but certainly very real) iron furnace and the terrible death which (,we were sure, though at the time we could not actually see,) menaced us."

Clear as day, "our cleric" says the arrows "pierced"; an immediate description by one who was there to see it happen. The entire passage (minus my inserted parentheticals) percolates with immediacy, recalling an actual event witnessed from close range complete with the details. And you don't believe it (him). That is your problem.

Hi

Sorry I missed the last bits. Spent saturday flying.

Rich, you have, by objecting, actually demonstrated my points. At least to my biased mind.

I THINK mike is saying 2 ranks of archers, now, infront of the MAA. This doesn't work with 5000 archers and 1500maa.

And the basic point I am making is that the archers ARE vulnerable IF they follow either your model, Mikes model or the other recent models. Each of them need a phase where the time/distance problem or a complex drill model would have unarmored and lights trying to maneuver during a melee and all the while not shooting.

The story, back to the first principles we all agree on. English deploy, french deploy….all wait and wait. Taking breaks for meals and such. Then the brits advance to a new position ca 300 yards from the french. The stakes are planted a second time and sharpened. Then archers advance a few yards more, fire long range harassing fire. With no possible response, french advance.

AT THIS POINT….

We have three scenarios proposed.

1)traditional: archers retreat straight back to position two. And redeploy. Time distance/ both french and british move 50 yards, the brits lose 10 more seconds working through the stakes and redeploying. The french at this point close from ca 220yds to 170 yards. fire resumes at optimum long range, closing to optimum bodkin range.

2)Modern screen from bennet and Rich. From second position, archers are now in a very open screen in front of the french ca 250 yards away. Firing at extreme range, the french advance. Archers scamper to sides. The guys in the center travelling at several times the speed of the french to the flamks. Stupid french dont attack the unprotected archers except for the slow ones, unmentioned by any source that don't get out of the way. Rich is right, why didn't the french KILL them then sweep the flanks on the vastly outnumberd surviving british MAA.

Or three. If I get Mikes version….the deployment is a single line of MAA with a double line of archers in front who shoot and shoot and shoot then pass through the MAA. It satisfies a couple issues except for the win.

Now, "why not later" which is Mikes objection to tradtion and wedges.

Which I think actually addresses Rich's "battles where the archers got killed" question. At agincourt, we have a unique field and situation that isn't replicated later. In the War of the Roses and ECW, the fight isn't involving the select 5000 archers out of a general population of some 200,000 archers, but everybody. This means a lot of things implying training at an army level, lesser archers and so on. Further, do any of these battles, like the "big three" involve a set piece situation involving naturally secured flanks?

To me, the question is "stratego" like. Something wargamers do a lot. That is "weapon A always beats Weapon B which always defeats C which always defeats A".

Doesn't work that way. The real world, I mean. In my circle in modern days, there are a lot of what are called "perfect shooters". The guys who really take to rifle and do "one shot/one kill" as their trade. However, while each of them can take their preferred Moison, or M70 or whatever and in GIVEN circumstances do "one shot/one kill", armies arent made of "perfect shooters". Further, the situation often benefits with lots of random fire. Tactics and weapons suited for different conditions cannot be considered in isolation.

Scope sighted rifles don't turn everyone into a thousand yard sniper. Snipers don't win every fight. AK47s aren't Remingtons…and so on.

It isn't the weapon, but the conditions and theSYSTEM.

Rocky

Or three. If I get Mikes version….the deployment is a single line of MAA with a double line of archers in front who shoot and shoot and shoot then pass through the MAA. It satisfies a couple issues except for the win.

You are not seeing that Mike's version agrees with the 19th century one: he only quibbles over actual "wedge" shaped bodies of archers on the wings and between the battles of men at arms: he has the wings angled forward to get enfilading/flanking shots into the French columns on the right and left (as per the traditional version English O.B.): but he adds two ranks of archers strung across the front of each battle of men at arms, who move up through the archers before melee contact.

Doug, "The entire passage (minus my inserted parentheticals) percolates with immediacy, recalling an actual event witnessed from close range complete with the details."

Yep, I knew it was all in your head. Immediacy? I'll give you immediacy:

When the French saw the English come before them, they put themselves into battle order each under their own banner, placing their helmets on their head. They were urged by the constable and other princes to confess their sins in true contrition and to fight well and boldly, just as the English had been. Then the English sounded their trumpets loudly and the French began to bow their heads so that the arrow fire would not penetrate the visors of their helmets.

You can just see it unfold. Look at the detail "placing their helmets on their head" or the urging of the constable or the bowing of their heads so the arrows wouldn't penetrate their visors. It is these little details that only one who was there could recount, such immediacy! Only Monstrelet was never there.

Or this,

"During the great assault the most brother of the king, Humphrey of Gloucester fought bravely and without caution. Having been pierced by the point of the sword, he was thrown to the ground half dead. His brother the king himself put his feet astride the legs of Humphrey. For the renowned duke fell with his head against the king's feet but with his feet to the enemy. In this position the king fought most courageously for a long time so that his brother might be carried safely away from the enemy to his own men."

Talk about immediacy. Look at the small detail that only one who was there could have seen: Humphrey fell against the king's feet; or "with his feet to the enemy." Only one who was nearby could pick out this kind of detail. Sorry, Tito was never there.

Immediacy? They all wrote as though they were there. Compared to Monstrelet and Tito our cleric of the Gesta sounds like he was 600 yards to the rear sitting on his horse, and sometimes dismounting to put his head on the ground praying, trying to see what he could see. He reads like someone told him about the three columns and he's trying to figure out why they did that: were they afraid or the longbows or were they preparing to try to penetrate the English line. There is no immediacy there. Monstrelet and Tito have presented immediacy, not our cleric of the Gesta. So if you are trying to use immediacy to cover the fact that our cleric never said he saw this happening, forget it! Your imagination is running wild!

Rich

Rocky, "Rich, you have, by objecting, actually demonstrated my points. At least to my biased mind."

In other words, you can't prove it. You know then that this makes your statement wrong.

Rocky, "The story, back to the first principles we all agree on. English deploy, French deploy….all wait and wait."

This is your problem Rocky with all that "time/distance problem or a complex drill mode" stuff. The French didn't deploy and wait and wait. I told you they were too busy arguing who was going to be in the van. The French army didn't START to deploy into battle order until they saw the English advancing on them:

Monstrelet, LeFevre and Wauren
When the French saw the English come before them, they put themselves into battle order each under their own banner, placing their helmets on their head.

Now try to apply some of the time/distance and complex drill problem solving to figure out how long it would take the French to form 5,000 men into battle order each under their own banner.

Rich

Rocky, "1)traditional: archers retreat straight back to position two. And redeploy. Time distance/ both French and British [the English would be more correct] move 50 yards, the brits lose 10 more seconds working through the stakes and redeploying. The French at this point close from ca 220yds to 170 yards. fire resumes at optimum long range, closing to optimum bodkin range."

I should have added this to my previous comment. This is where your time/distance calculations fall on their face (probably joining the English clerics praying). The English move 50 yards; the French argue. The English move 100 yards; the French argue. The English advance 300 yards; the French look up, clamp both hands to the side of their face and scream "Oh my God! Here come the English!" So while the French are rushing around trying to find their own banners and get into battle order, the archers finish their march, set up on either side of the battlefield and their men-at-arms march up to join them.

Rich

You can just see it unfold. Look at the detail "placing their helmets on their head" or the urging of the constable or the bowing of their heads so the arrows wouldn't penetrate their visors. It is these little details that only one who was there could recount, such immediacy! Only Monstrelet was never there.

Monstrelet was, or was not, there; it depends on who you read. Curry says he wasn't. Bennett says he was. Three eyewitnesses, or four.

His details are those from a participant's perspective: the cleric's details are those of a bystander (and a frightened one at that!).

Immediacy is not even implied when the writer says "we… were watching": immediately after describing the attack, its movements, the effect of the arrows on the attackers, the effect of the attack on the waiting line of men at arms. There's not a shred of secondhand detail about it (unless you simply can't stand the cleric being where he could actually see what he said happened, or won't believe him when he says "we…were watching").

Sorry, Tito was never there.

But that surely qualifies as one of the most well known and repeated anecdotes to come out of the battle. Your point misfires in the presence of legendary recounting: any story directly centered on Hal V is going to be big stuff. The cleric's details are all wide scope stuff; the kind you might expect from a man who had had a good view of the field from a relatively safe position.

He reads like someone told him about the three columns and he's trying to figure out why they did that:

So my use of "immediacy" doesn't fly with you. That's fine. To each his own.

But you keep side-stepping the kicker in the whole argument: to deny the cleric, Rich, you have to call him a liar. He says he and the other clerics with him "were watching". He says that right after describing how the French contacted the English line in front of them. He uses metaphors of terror, like, "this iron furnace and the terrible death which menaced us."

You've thoroughly bought into the mistaken consensus of the modern writers who have put the cleric 500 to a thousand yards away. They all seem to have missed the killer to that argument: that the cleric bald-facedly declares that he was watching the battle. No one could do that hundreds of yards away; nor would such a position detect any danger worthy of the metaphor, "this iron furnace of death which menaced us."

"Oh my God! Here come the English!"

Your little flight of fancy begins to fly, only if the cleric is an utter and complete liar and fabricator.

Even then, let's look at this a tad more:

Walsingham: "Because the French were holding their position without moving, it was necessary for the English, if they wished to come to grips with the enemy, to traverse the middle ground on foot, burdened with their arms. The king realised the astuteness of the French in standing firm in one place so that they might not be exhausted by advancing on foot through the muddy field. … the French saw that our men had crossed the field with considerable effort; considering, therefore, that the moment was favorable to attack those tired men whom they thought would be captured with no quarter, they advanced in terrifying fashion into the field,…" (Hmm, not a trace of French stupidity in any of that; Hal V is taking an awful risk.)

Tito: "But de Heilly said, 'O most vigorous king, I will not order [my men] for your benefit nor will I act according to your command. We all remain, both ourselves and your army, in the territory of the supreme Charles, sovereign ruler of the French. It is his order we obey, not yours. We will come to you to fight with you when the time seems right to us.'"

P. Elmham: "The enemy, disdaining the sluggishness and inactivity of the King's army, endeavored to prepare for the battle their numerous companies (cuneos), in great worth and with the greatest foresight, in proper order and with all the circumspection that they could. They thought that they would fight so that their arms would blaze out with such splendour, like the rays of the sun, shining with the deeds of their glory. They arrayed their troops after their own manner, as the King had disposed his: yet the width of the plain was not sufficient to fit so numerous a people into suitable formation for battle….Each army waited for the other, but neither moved towards the other for a long space of time…Now the King considering that a great part of the short day was already past, and firmly believing that the French were not inclined to move from their position, consulted the most experienced officers of his army, whether he should advance with his troops, in the order in which they stood, towards the enemy who refused to come towards him." (No hint that the French were wandering about in disarray, arguing and shoving each other around, thumping their chests and bragging up their lineage.)

Hardyng: "The king approached closer to the enemy and the enemy towards him…" (Echoing the Gesta.)

The Religieux: "When it came to putting the army into battle formation (as is always the usage before coming to blows) each of the leaders claimed for himself the honour of leading the vanguard. This led to considerable debate and so that there could be some agreement, they came to the rather unfortunate conclusion that they should all place themselves in the front line. (No hint that this debating was still going on while the English advanced. Rather, it occurred the night before, as the narrative makes clear by talking about the conditions of the French camp and the army's sleepless night in the mud and rain.)

Cochon: "The two armies drew up against each other. The French thought that they would carry the day given their great numbers, and in their arrogance had proclaimed that only those who were noble should go into battle. So all the men of lower ranks, who were enough to have beaten the English, were pushed to the rear. In addition there was a great division between the parties of the duke of Orleans and the duke of Burgundy." (The blame culture is showing here. No hint of this division occurring as the English advanced across the field.)

Chronique anonyme: "The English were fresh and unwearied as they had not moved from their advantageous position. They began to strike in a most violent fashion against the French and knocked to the ground many who could not get up again. Most had no one with them to help them up because they had not wanted to take with them any of their lower ranks (varlets), for the gentlemen had wanted to have the honour deriving from the battle." (No hint whatsoever that the English advance had caught the French arguing for precedence in the vanguard.)

Pierre de Fenin: "They spent the night without doing anything to each other. When Friday morning came, the lords of France drew themselves up into battle order. They established a vanguard where they put the majority of their nobles and the flower of their men,… And also the centre battle and rearguard did not assemble with all men and thus all took to fight, because all of the princes had placed themselves in the vanguard and had left their men leaderless. As a result there was no control or discipline amongst their men." (Stupid. But no hint of this O.B. being set up in a mad scramble as the English advanced across the field.)

Ruisseauville: "The English began to bray and to cry out and to shout three times whilst coming up against our men, the French. They came very quickly, the archers in front running without armour and with their breeches hanging down, always firing on the French, and our men of France advanced in fine fashion and without rushing." (What, no panic? No, "OMG, here come the English!?")

Jean Juvenal des Ursins: He has much to say about the war council decision the night before to attack the English; but not a whiff of the contention among the nobles regarding who was to fight in the vanguard. As the battle began: "They began to march until arrowfire occurred from both sides." (Again, echoing the Gesta.) Des Ursins' Second version: "All the lords wanted to be in the first battle, so that each would have as much honour as another, as they could not agree to do anything else…. The next day dawned, the 25 October 1415,…" (The decision to put all the lords in the van occurred the night before, evidently.)

Monstrelet, Waurin and Le Fevre: The legendary discord, over who should get to fight in the vanguard, is entirely missing from all three versions: rather, the O.B. of the three battles reads like a sound distribution of the leaders, who are even named: they even specifically state the numbers of gens de trait assigned to the van and main battle, which rather disagrees with those accounts stating that only noblemen fought in the vanguard, leaving the rest of their army leaderless. "After all these battles had been put into formation as described, it was indeed a noble vision to behold." (Where is this infernal squabbling about who should be in front? This doesn't sound like "the French are rushing around trying to find their own banners and get into battle order", to me.) "At the throwing of [Erpingham's] baton, all the English suddenly gave a great cry which was a cause of amazement to the French." (Oops, there goes Henry's "stolen march" on the squabbling French.) "When the English saw that the French were not advancing on them, they moved forward in good order and again made another great cry before taking a rest and catching their breath… Then the archers who were in the meadow also raised a great shout and fired with great vigour on the French. Straightway the English approached the French; first the archers, etc…. When the French saw the English come before them, they put themselves into battle order each under their own banner, placing their helmets on their head. They were urged by the constable and other princes to confess their sins in true contrition and to fight well and boldly, just as the English had been." It is obvious, that this is a badly arranged passage, mixing things out of order: we have a digression in the midst of what started out as the opening of the battle, to show the French arming for battle, confessing ("as the English had done") and listening to their leaders speeches: but surely NOT after the arrows had started to fly?!

So there we have it: Not one shred of evidence from the sources to back up your little, imaginative scenario of arguing Froggies and skulking, silent English "stealing a march" on them. The arguing over precedent all happens, if it happens to any great degree at all, on the night before the battle. On the morning of the battle, the French stand in their ranks, as do the English, waiting on each other's next move.

"They all seem to have missed the killer to that argument: that the cleric bald-facedly declares that he was watching the battle. No one could do that hundreds of yards away;"

Here you clearly demonstrate a lack of understanding of the medieval mindset and their reporting of events. He says he is watching the battle. You say he can't do that from hundreds of yards away. If I was watching a battle (as a non-combatant) I'd WANT to be hundreds of yards away!

"nor would such a position detect any danger worthy of the metaphor, "this iron furnace of death which menaced us.""

To our modern minds, used to factual TV reporting from war zones around the world, yes. However, to the medieval mind being in roughly the same place (albeit hundreds of yards away from the actual fighting) would still engender in a civilian (particularly a peaceful cleric) that the French represented "this iron furnace of death which menaced us.". The use of such flowery and dramatic phrases (often quotes from the Bible) was quite normal in medieval writing. It does not imply immediacy at all.

Here you clearly demonstrate a lack of understanding of the medieval mindset and their reporting of events. He says he is watching the battle. You say he can't do that from hundreds of yards away. If I was watching a battle (as a non-combatant) I'd WANT to be hundreds of yards away!

What is it with you (and Rich) and this "you lack understanding of the medieval mind(set)", thing? Are you some kind of channel to those days? Do you possess a connection through some "distant mirror"? If Barbara Tuchman used such a metaphor, and admits: "People of the Middle Ages existed under mental, moral and physical circumstances so different from our own as to constitute almost a foreign civilization. As a result, qualities of conduct that we recognize as familiar amid these alien surroundings are revealed as permanent in human nature": why do you think that you (and Rich) have some specially developed connection into "our cleric's", et al. medieval minds? You don't. I don't. But as she said, familiar behavior then becomes recongizeable as permanent in human nature: and if the cleric says he was watching the battle that he has just described in specific, graphic detail, I take him at his word, that he actually saw those things, not got them later from people closer than he was.

With what evidence do you base "hundreds of yards away", on?

How is the cleric's reporting of the events of the battle so different from how you or I would do it? If I said I was sitting "at the rear of the engagement" on horseback the entire battle: if I reported specific details about how arrows penetrated helmets; if I described how the French drove back the English line "about a spear's length": then if I said "we…were watching" and "fell on our faces in prayer" for deliverance from "this iron furnace of death", I would expect readers to believe my words as those of one who was THERE, not over a league away.

Biblical metaphors, borrowed classical turns of phrase, etc., in no way vitiate the cleric's simple declaration, "we…were watching."

Hi

Rich, the various writers simply say, english fire harassing fire, french advance. You have created a new timeline here by having the brits already deployed in wings on the edges of the fields before the advance. This means several things. One, your previous screen is an irrelevency if true. In that you have the french not responding until AFTER the brits have gone to flanks. (and ignoring the 300 cav).

And if your deployment is corrct, then sweeping one or both flanks rather than marching down the center means your question is on point in the first point. The french were too stupid to take the vulnerable archers on the flank.

Again, time and distance, If the archers are in a pair of wings some 200 yards long before you reach the MAA in the funnel, then the MAA can flank the archers, outnumber, fight and out armor them well before any brit can come to their aid.

Thus, the french are stupid and ignore basic medieval tactics.

All this while inventing a new timeline in the story.

Sorry, rich. I think you are left eith one argument to dismiss Oman and others: Bennet is a modern PhD and just knows more and is right.

Rocky

Hi

Doug, while I am not sanguine with the idea of reporting as if face to face by people who weren't there, I accept the point. From Herodotus on historians commonly engage in this sort of hyperbole.

The only problem is that then you end up wasting a lot of time arguing about which hyperbole is made up out of whole cloth, or based on some later conversationw with someone who was there.

Or as we jokinging called them in my era "No $%^&, there I was.." stories.

The thing is that you cannot then use these things to prove or disprove anything from a "primary" source.

Rocky

(Sorry for the multiple post trys: I am feeling peevish with my typos, and consider this an opportunity to send a not-so-subtle message to Bill, that we need a post editor tool (still)….)

Or as we jokinging called them in my era "No $%^&, there I was.." stories.

If we're going to question precise details given, based solely on a suspicion of "No $h*t there I was" stories, then we have no original sources that we can use at all.

If we question the veracity of such immediate writers as the Gesta cleric, then, as I said, we ARE STUPID to even care about this history research thing.

I am interested in any evidence on which to base skepticism of the cleric's claim, "we…were watching." Anyone can say "he was 600 (1,000) yards away." He says he was watching the battle, right after he describes very specific details about it, eyewitness kinds of details: the precise kinds of details that he would have found impossible to see at all from 300 yards away, much less twice or three times that distant removed from the fighting. If those details clashed irreconcilably with the other sources (especially our two/three other eyewitnesses), I would be suspicious too: but since the Gesta cleric's statements on the battle are the most internally consistent, and suitable to the other best sources, I am puzzled how this "consensus" got established, relegating him to the distance of nullity as an actual eyewitness….

Btw, to whoever may notice: my use of "league" is in error (no duh): for some reason a brain fart (a double sized one, actually) transposed league for "furlong", and doubled it in size. I was thinking 440 yards to the furlong: due to an old wargaming article I wrote well over ten years ago (such is the nature of brain farts in middle age)….

Doug, "Monstrelet was, or was not, there; it depends on who you read. Curry says he wasn't. Bennett says he was. Three eyewitnesses, or four."

Show me where Bennett and Curry mention the cleric as an eyewitness. You just make this up as you go.

Doug, Immediacy is not even implied when the writer says "we… were watching"

Hey I'm not the one trying to push the ‘immediacy' silliness as a excuse for the cleric not saying he was an eyewitness. Of course he was watching. He was on his horse trying to get as good a look as he could while 600 yards to the rear of the on-going battle. We don't get to make things up and then say "To each his own." If that's the case then I'll take historical proof over your fantasies.

Doug, "Your little flight of fancy begins to fly, only if the cleric is an utter and complete liar and fabricator."

Man, you really have an emotional attach to our little cleric. Do you think that's healthy? How about we say he was wrong because he was 600 yards to the rear of the action. After all, a lie is an intent to deceive. There was no intent to deceive just a simple mistake because he wasn't an eyewitness. Our only eyewitnesses (LeFevre and Wauren) say the French didn't even start to organize their battle line until they saw the English advance on them. So much for your ‘flight of fancy'. That is unless you think our eyewitnesses are utter and complete liars and fabricators.

Next is Doug's list of quotes. I had to smile while reading them. But this quote by Doug really cracked me up. It is so typical of Doug discounting what he doesn't like. "It is obvious, that this is a badly arranged passage," This concerns the comment by the eyewitnesses that the French didn't start organizing until they saw the English advancing on them. He does this all the time.

However, this does give me another teaching opportunity for Doug on how to read sources.

Walsingham: "Because the French were holding their position without moving," This means the French were still at their original position. Hell they could have been playing ‘whack-the-noodle' (an old French game using Italian noodles) for all that Walsingham tells us.

"the French saw that our men had crossed the field with considerable effort; considering, therefore, that the moment was favorable to attack those tired men whom they thought would be captured with no quarter

The French had no plans to attack until after they saw the English on the move. Now, obviously Doug will tell you that "holding their position" means they were in battle order. No it doesn't. It just means the French hadn't moved yet.

Tito: "We will come to you to fight with you when the time seems right to us.'" Evidently, the time wasn't right just then. What were they waiting for? Maybe, like our eyewitness say they didn't get their act together until they saw the English advancing.

Pseudo Elmham: "They arrayed their troops after their own manner, … Each army waited for the other, but neither moved towards the other for a long space of time." Ya got me on this one. But then Pseudo Elmham was not an eyewitness and is corrected by a number of other sources.

Hardyng: "The king approached closer to the enemy and the enemy towards him…" Just like the Gesta it doesn't say anything except that the English moved and the French moved.

The Religieux: [Doug] "No hint that this debating was still going on while the English advanced."

According to Curry, who trots out her sources to back her assertion, Henry had just finished putting the battle line in shape and asked what time it was. Prime (7am – 8am) was the answer. The French didn't form their battle line until the hour of Terce (9am-10am) Battle started at 10am. We have 2-3 hours between the time Henry formed his first battle line and the time battle started. We have at least an hour or two before the French started to form their battle line. Gee what could the French be doing in that time period? Playing whack-the-noodle?

Cochon. Here comes one of Doug's renown dismissals of sources he doesn't like. Cochon clearly is describing the arguing about who was going join the van. "The blame culture is showing here. No hint of this division occurring as the English advanced across the field." Evidently Doug believes that Cochon supports his whack-the-noodle thesis.

Chronique anonyme: " The English were fresh and unwearied as they had not moved from their advantageous position. They began to strike in a most violent fashion against the French and knocked to the ground many who could not get up again."

I have no idea why Doug put this in. The Chronique doesn't even begin to describe the battle until the English were already in their second position. Any arguing would have gone on long before that time.

Pierre de Fenin: " When Friday morning came, the lords of France drew themselves up into battle order."

Well we already knew this. The question is when. De Fenin is no help here.

Jean Juvenal des Ursins. Des Ursins seems to indicate this arguing was the night before. However, he also wrote: When the king of England saw that it would be necessary to fight …. He decided to wait for the French if they were wished to fight him."

Des Ursins fails to even account for the English first setup and the move to the second set up. The king arrives, waits for the French. The French arrives and the battle begins. Even in his second account there is no indication that the English had to wait and then move. Des Ursins also states "It was after eight o'clock in the morning. Our men had the sun in their eyes," This was also wrong. It was ten o'clock and the sun was too high to be in their eyes. So Des Ursins has clearly left things out and gotten things wrong. That doesn't mean we throw his testimony out but we do have to correlate it with what other sources say. And, no one correlates this evening argument about the van. The reason why is that the van was organized the next day.

Monstrelet, Waurin and Le Fevre: Doug did a real sloppy job of sources reading here. Doug is in the silly position of arguing that MW&L are wrong about when the French started to form battle and proving it out of quotes from MW&L! Only Doug would try that.

Now Doug says the French were all marshaled and ready before the English started moving. the O.B. of the three battles reads like a sound distribution of the leaders Yet almost directly after MW&L wrote the quote Doug used they wrote: "When the formation had been made, the French were arranged in separate companies each close to their banner awaiting the coming of the English." As Curry points out it was the job of the French to attack not the English to attack the French. How did they know the English were advancing? Well, MW&L tell us that when they saw the English they started to put them into battle order. It was the result of this trying to get their act together that our boys described. But the trigger to form that order was seeing the English advance on them.

Tito gives us the information that the French were not ready to attack while Henry was in his first position waiting for the French to attack. Walsingham points out the French didn't move until they saw the English advancing. This point is made much more clearly by MW&L who clearly state the French didn't start to form their battle line until they saw the English advancing on them. Curry confirms this by her time-line. 7am the English form; 9am the French begin to form; and 10am the battle starts.

So what did the French do between 7am and 9am? Doug would have you believe they played ‘whack-the-noodle'. However, both the Religieux and Cochon mention the arguing among the French as to precedence in the van and that this happened on the day of battle. The only time this could occur is between 7am and 9am. This seems to make more sense than ‘whack-the-noodle'.

As for Des Ursins he just got things a bit mixed up. After all, no one is backing him up on that and two sources indicate the argument happened on the day of battle.

So, on the morning of the battle, the French were not standing in their ranks waiting on the English to move. For two hours they were either arguing about precedence or playing ‘whack-the-noodle' depending on whose theory you accept. They didn't even start to order their battle line until they saw the English advancing on them (around 9am). Since there was a slope between the two camps such that the French could not see the English camp from their camp, the English were well into their advance before the French even saw them (Curry, personal inspection of the battlefield). And now you know the rest of the story.

Rich

Doug, "Monstrelet was, or was not, there; it depends on who you read. Curry says he wasn't. Bennett says he was. Three eyewitnesses, or four."

Show me where Bennett and Curry mention the cleric as an eyewitness. You just make this up as you go.

And you don't read for comprehension as you go: a simple two line statement of mine and you screw it up: I SAID, Bennett, not Curry, says MONSTRELET was there. Page 72 in the Osprey campaign book: "Monstrelet, who fought in the battle, gives the most detailed account."

If that's the case then I'll take historical proof over your fantasies.

What historical proof places the baggage 600 (1,000) yards "at the rear of the engagement?"

There was no intent to deceive just a simple mistake because he wasn't an eyewitness.

And you know this, how? Because some modern writers say so? How do they know?

That is unless you think our eyewitnesses are utter and complete liars and fabricators.

Just not very organized writers. You can't take their sequencing verbatim, or else you end up with them praying and confessing and listening to their leaders harangue, while the English arrows are falling on them.

Well, MW&L tell us that when they saw the English they started to put them into battle order. It was the result of this trying to get their act together that our boys described. But the trigger to form that order was seeing the English advance on them.

Up to this point, very sloppy rebuttal, Rich, imho of course.

You discount nothing and spend your time trying to show how the sources aren't clear enough to show that the French army WASN'T organized in the face of an English advance.

All I was pointing out is that the sources do not support your assertion that the French went through some sort of "OMG, here come the English", and scrambled to find their banners and form a battleline, etc: and they do not support your assertion that this mess took the entire time that the English advanced from the first position to the second, split into two wings (while less than 300 yards away from the French), planted stakes, then waited for the French to finish sorting themselves out.

Only you believe this happened -- so that Rocky's invitation to you to set up the figures and do the time-motion experiment yourself, becomes superfluous: instead, you will claim that no time-motion study can be performed for a battle where we don't even know how long it took the French to get their battles ready to move: it is you who are playing mental "whack-yer-noodle", Rich, and that is sad.

The way you go at this is pointless: you don't have anything to base your thesis on, much less prove anything: you emasculate the sources until anything they say is so subjective as to be rendered meaningless.

This point is made much more clearly by MW&L who clearly state the French didn't start to form their battle line until they saw the English advancing on them.

You still don't admit it, do you: that MW&L are writing that the arrows (including the meadow ambush) were already on-going events BEFORE the French lace on their helmets, confess their sins, listen to their leaders, THEN start to move. Do you really believe this is the sequencing of the battle? They say: "After all these battles had been put into formation as described, it was indeed a noble vision to behold." When was there a moment to observe this fine display, if the French were doing the "OMG! here come the English!" thingie? Obviously, Rich, the French were lounging for hours ("at ease") once in battle array (as were the English for that matter), and it was only the loud approach of the English that got them to lace on their helmets and take up close order under their banners: how long would that take for men already in the field, waiting for orders to move out?

However, both the Religieux and Cochon mention the arguing among the French as to precedence in the van…

Only those two of the more immediate sources; and des Ursins inserted the same, because it was what others told him had occurred. But NONE of them even hints that this arguing took place as the English advanced, or even on the morning of the battle.

… and that this happened on the day of battle.

How you get anything from them to indicate that the arguing took place on the day of the battle, leaves me completely flummoxed….

Your observation about the rising ground between the two camps is correct; but you miss the point that Curry makes, that the armies formed up on the 25th in sight of each other; to not do so would be military stupidity of the first order! And the French cavalry sent men to get a closer look at the English, and they were driven off by arrows. There was never any time when the French didn't have a view of the English army.

And I am thinking that the more I talk to you about this, the more you indicate that you don't even have the rudiments of the beginning of this story, much less the rest of it.

"With what evidence do you base "hundreds of yards away", on?"

You yourself said:
"Curry says the cleric "would have been several hundred yards away", but her own construction of where the baggage was on the night before, and how Henry moved it to maintain the same ralationship to the army ("at no great distance"): in addition to the preference for the battle taking place at or very near the road that crosses the field between Tramecourt and Agincourt picture , would put the baggage a lot closer, imho, than "a few hundred yards away". We've been over this elsewhere: but I don't think that the fact of the French dividing into three columns would have been hard to see even three hundred yards away, to a man sitting on horseback."
Can we agree on 300yds then?

"If we're going to question precise details given, based solely on a suspicion of "No $h*t there I was" stories, then we have no original sources that we can use at all. If we question the veracity of such immediate writers as the Gesta cleric, then, as I said, we ARE STUPID to even care about this history research thing."

Um … yeah. We have to assume that any report is suspect unless corroborated by at least one other primary source (first rule of historical analysis). Of course the more primary sources that confirm a given point then the more likely it is that we can consider it to be true.

"I am interested in any evidence on which to base skepticism of the cleric's claim, "we…were watching." … He says he was watching the battle, right after he describes very specific details about it, eyewitness kinds of details: the precise kinds of details that he would have found impossible to see at all from 300 yards away … If those details clashed irreconcilably with the other sources (especially our two/three other eyewitnesses), I would be suspicious too: but since the Gesta cleric's statements on the battle are the most internally consistent, and suitable to the other best sources, I am puzzled how this "consensus" got established, relegating him to the distance of nullity as an actual eyewitness…."

Although uncorroborated (since no OTHER primary source confirms that the cleric who wrote the Gesta was actually there) we have to assume that he was present, although probably at some distance behind the battle line (see dscussion above). However, assuming he was there does not mean that we have to accept EVERYTHING he says "because he was an eyewitness". The fact that we think there is evidence to suggest that he was ~300yds away forces us to question the veracity of his "eyewitness details". If his presence in the thick of the fighting was undisputed then such eyewitness details would carry far more weight. Of course we can counter the "he was too far away" argument by saying that he deduced some of his eyewithess details from inspection of the battlefield after the conflict.

However, we are left with the previous position that uncorroborated evidence, even in a primary source, has to be treated with some suspicion. The witness says "x happened". We cannot prove him wrong, but we cannot prove him right either …

(Here endeth the lesson on comparative analysis of written historical sources.)

Hi

I am a little lost on this part of your discussion. I cannot see what it matters WHEN the french were arguing. The narritive only needs to be considered when the french advance and what is happening with the brits.

None of this addreses the wedges versus bennet's flanks or the first question of the vulnerability of the bow.

R

Can we agree on 300yds then?

Maybe. But at the outside. I hadn't, at that time, noticed the clear declaration "we…were watching", as an underscored emphasis allowing the veracity of the up-close details the cleric had just described (the arrows piercing the sides of helmets, etc.). That impresses me a lot. I don't see where the modern writers (and their disciples e.g. Rich Knapton) get off saying he was removed to a distance where he couldn't see what he described.

Um … yeah. We have to assume that any report is suspect unless corroborated by at least one other primary source (first rule of historical analysis).

No we don't. Sometimes, often for the middle ages, we only have ONE source of any description for a given battle. We don't toss the battle.

Of course the more primary sources that confirm a given point then the more likely it is that we can consider it to be true.

And Agincourt is uniquely replete in having so many eyewitness and other good accounts. The Gesta cleric's details work very well with these other sources. Those few comments elsewhere about the baggage being distant, or seemingly so, need to be compared to the more immediate Gesta account, not the other way around.

If his presence in the thick of the fighting was undisputed then such eyewitness details would carry far more weight.

The details he gives do not depend on being in the thick of the melee: quite the opposite: a man claiming to have seen the things the cleric describes, if he also said he was standing next to Erpingham, would make his details suspect as being his own observation! (It would be like William the Conqueror claiming to have seen his army disintegrating, and rushing around rallying them all, IF he had also claimed to have led the Norman charge on the English center: eh?? How could he be both in the face of the English, surrounded by thousands of his own men, and be able to see his army disintegrating? Yet I have read bonafide historians claming that William was doing both at the same time: in the melee and able to rally troops that he could not possibly have seen routing.)

I am surprised that it is what I said that causes you to place the cleric. I am reacting to Rich (copying Bennett, et al.), insisting that the cleric was not an eyewitness, or a p**s-poor one, because he was face down in the mud 600 (1,000) yards to the rear.

I am calling him out: prove, with some source evidence, that the baggage was that far away. He did not prove it before on the other thread(s), he can't do it now: the cleric's details stand up to the other sources, if they are interpreted WITH the Gesta instead of excluding it. But Rich's "investment" in this theory of his won't allow him to even consider a reversal of his position vis-a-vis the cleric's details. And he just gets further and further away from making a believable conclusion out of his convoluted attempts to brace up his claim that the English army advanced in two lines.

Show me where Bennett and Curry mention the cleric as an eyewitness.

Bennett never said the "chaplain" was an eyewitness. He refers to him a few times is all.

I already quoted Curry more than once. This is for others' benefit, not Rich's, because he knows this stuff already: and if he doesn't remember it, then this is for him too: but if Rich doesn't remember our exchange on the other thread(s) on this exact topic of "eyewitness" status for "our cleric", then I am sorry that I have spent so much time hashing and rehashing this with someone whose memory leaks like a sieve (and if that's the case, you have my profoundest sympathy, and I will truly quit this activity now).

"Hey Rich: DO you remember this bit that follows next, or not?"

Curry: "Not only is the Gesta useful because it is written so soon after the event, but also because it was written by a priest accompanying the English army throughout the campaign of 1415. In addition it seems to be a wholly independent account which did not draw on other works, unlike many of the sources we shall encounter. Because it is an early text, written by an eyewitness, and with a focused and detailed treatment of the campaign, it is all too easy to assume that it tells us all we need to know." (Unless you are Rich Knapton, then it tells us nothing we need to know about the battle.)

"No we don't. Sometimes, often for the middle ages, we only have ONE source of any description for a given battle. We don't toss the battle."

Precisely. Any historian worth his salt will still treat it as UNCORROBORATED evidence.

Nothing the Gesta says is uncoroborated by other sources. But the Gesta "colors" how we interpret those sources. This is the proper way to look at them, because aside from Monstrelet, Waurin and Le Fevre, they are not eyewitness accounts. And of the eyewitness accounts, only the Gesta is unborrowed, is the most immediate to the events, and just happens to be the most clearly composed and most complete account as well. To claim that his account is entirely created from details gleaned from others -- that he couldn't see what he described -- is uncoroborated (as I have been showing).

Even so, if his details were provided by participants, are they out of line with what we know about the other sources? No, they are not: if we include them all, we come up with the 19th century writers' battle formation: archers between the men at arms and on the extreme ends of the line.

Only by unjustifiably relegating "the chaplain" to a position where he couldn't know what he later talked about, and subsequently dismissing his depiction of the English battleline as "certainly mistaken", can students of the battle claim that there were no archers intermingled with the men at arms.

And the sole motivation for this seems to be a popular notion (which the author of this thread buys into lock, stock and barrel) that archers were somehow a weak link in the English army, to be exploited routinely by French men at arms on foot. Of course, this theory remains, uncoroborated.

We've been patiently waiting for the coroboration. And all we get is the run-around. That's because there is no coroboration, only supposition, assertion and fancy.

Doug, "With what evidence do you base "hundreds of yards away", on?" … I am calling him out: prove, with some source evidence, that the baggage was that far away. He did not prove it before on the other thread(s), he can't do it now:

What? Your sieve working over time. I've already outlined it with sources. Here is the reader digest version. Several sources say the battlefield was around 1,000 paces (yards). Others say it was three bow shots. Under the assumption they're both talking about the same battlefield, one bow shot equals a third of 1,000 paces or 333 paces. For convenience sake, round to 300 yards. The English advanced to within one bow shot of the French. They were within 300 paces. To get there they had to march 600 paces (three bow shots minus one bow shot is two bow shots). Henry told the clerics and the baggage to stay where he placed them back at the original battle line. Then he marched 600 paces or yards. This means the baggage and the cleric were 600 yards from the battle action and to the rear of the army. Now will you stop this uncorroborated silliness about the cleric being a direct eyewitness of the battle?

Doug, "And you don't read for comprehension as you go: a simple two line statement of mine and you screw it up: I SAID, Bennett, not Curry, says MONSTRELET was there. Page 72 in the Osprey campaign book: "Monstrelet, who fought in the battle, gives the most detailed account."

Oh! So nobody is saying our cleric is an eyewitiness. So your statement should read: "two eyewitnesses, or three" You just got the numbers mixed up. I see now.

Doug, "Hey Rich: DO you remember this bit that follows next, or not?" Curry: "Not only is the Gesta useful because it is written so soon after the event, but also because it was written by a priest accompanying the English army throughout the campaign of 1415. In addition it seems to be a wholly independent account which did not draw on other works, unlike many of the sources we shall encounter. Because it is an early text, written by an eyewitness, and with a focused and detailed treatment of the campaign, it is all too easy to assume that it tells us all we need to know.

Hey Doug do you remember this?

Curry
"most of the of the fighting would have been several hundred yards away, and the author could not have seen anything in detail. … In many ways, his account of the battle is vague and bland. … It is not easy to use his account to unpick Henry's battle plan and impossible to gain much from it about French actions.:"

You should. It's been shown to you at least twice before in this discussion. However, in the spirit of friendship I'll compromise. The cleric was an eyewitness but, as you said, a "p??s poor" one because he was 600 yards to the rear of the engagement looking at the backs of the English. Now, you can't ask for any more than that.

Doug, "How you get anything from them to indicate that the arguing took place on the day of the battle, leaves me completely flummoxed…."

Oh Doug let's be honest. You started this discussion flummoxed. Just read their accounts. First comes the arguing then the battle with no indication of an evening intervening.

Doug, "You still don't admit it, do you: that MW&L are writing that the arrows (including the meadow ambush) were already on-going events BEFORE the French lace on their helmets, confess their sins, listen to their leaders, THEN start to move. Do you really believe this is the sequencing of the battle?"

Hell Doug, if that's what bothering you let's change it. We'll simply say the French did their "OMG! Here come the English" before the arrows start to fly. There! Feel better.

Doug, "They say: "After all these battles had been put into formation as described, it was indeed a noble vision to behold." When was there a moment to observe this fine display, if the French were doing the "OMG! here come the English!" thingie?"

It's quite obvious. This happened after the French said "OMG! here come the English!" and before the arrows started to fly. I'm glad you asked so I could straighten everything out for you (as I have been doing all along).

Doug, "Obviously, Rich, the French were lounging for hours."

OMG you DO believe in the whack-the-noodle theory.

Doug, "Your observation about the rising ground between the two camps is correct; but you miss the point that Curry makes, that the armies formed up on the 25th in sight of each other; to not do so would be military stupidity of the first order!"

Well there you have it boys and girls, another dispute settled by that internationally renown medieval military expert. Shoot if they were not insight of each other then the French would have to send at party closer to the English to insure they didn't escape during the night. Oh wait, the French did that. However, if the French and English were not insight of each other they would have to send scouts back and forth to spy out each other. Wait, both sides did that. Since both sides were in sight of each other then it would be useless for the English to drive off the French scouts so they wouldn't know about the English move. Wait once more, that's exactly what the English did. At least, being in sight of each other the French would know immediately that the English were getting ready to move. Unfortunately the French didn't know of the move until the English were already underway. But don't worry folks the French and English were in sight of each other because Doug, the internationally renown medieval military expert, said so.

Doug, "And Agincourt is uniquely replete in having so many eyewitness and other good accounts. The Gesta cleric's details work very well with these other sources"

Well that's true if you keep it to the English advanced on the French and the French advanced on the English. For example, there is not one of these replete eyewitness and other good accounts that say anything about seeing arrows piercing helmets. Of course neither does the writer of the Gesta. That's just Doug's fantasy.

Doug, "Only by unjustifiably relegating "the chaplain" to a position where he couldn't know what he later talked about."

Doug seems to be totally incapable of separating himself from the Gesta. Time and time again it has been pointed out that he has mischaracterized what the Gesta has said. But he is incapable of grasping that idea. But then that's what enmeshment means.

Doug, "Nothing the Gesta says is uncoroborated by other sources."

There are a number of uncorroborated mischaracterizations by Doug of what the Gesta says. Seeing arrows pierce helmets: uncorroborated. The baggage following the army as it advances into the battle field: uncorroborated. The battle line with wedges between the battles: uncorroborated (well there is one but you have to read him just right). The second battle position had archers in wedges between the battles: uncorroborated. The English army advanced in combined arms of archers and battles: uncorroborated. In fact, all of Doug's mischaracterizations are uncorroborated.

Doug, " We've been patiently waiting for the coroboration. And all we get is the run-around. That's because there is no coroboration, only supposition, assertion and fancy."

What corroboration are you looking for dearest Doug? Everything I've asserted has been backed up by reference to direct quotes. Nor did I have to distort those quotes as you frequently do. So just tell me, what corroboration did you miss.

Rich

Hi

does any of this change in your mind if I point out that a "pace" isn't a set measurement, but usually when stated, closer to two feet?

Rich. Your first question is about the vulnerable light infantry not being attacked. Your scenario proves the french should have swept the flank. And didn't for some reason.

The wedges make military sense and answer your original question.

R

…Several sources say the battlefield was around 1,000 paces (yards).

No one is disputing the length of the "battlefield", Rich: we have the actual field still in our RL venue, after all.

Others say it was three bow shots. Under the assumption they're both talking about the same battlefield, one bow shot equals a third of 1,000 paces or 333 paces. For convenience sake, round to 300 yards. The English advanced to within one bow shot of the French. They were within 300 paces. To get there they had to march 600 paces (three bow shots minus one bow shot is two bow shots).

Yep, we're on the same page (again) so far….

Henry told the clerics and the baggage to stay where he placed them back at the original battle line.

BZZT!

Wrong. Henry called the baggage train out of the original camp. And when he saw that MOST of it had arrived, he started to move his army. Now, WHY move the baggage a stupid short distance, only to leave it 600+ yards to the rear of where he's marching to? His original battleline (the "first position") was drawn up "at no great distance" from where the camp was during the night. To move the baggage at all has to have a reason: and that reason can't include moving it "no great distance" just to leave it behind by moving the army 600+ yards away!

Then he marched 600 paces or yards. This means the baggage and the cleric were 600 yards from the battle action and to the rear of the army.

No logic to this! You (et al.) have created a scenario where Henry camps at no great distance from where he subsequently forms up his army. Then he calls the baggage to move. And leaves it behind?

Now will you stop this uncorroborated silliness about the cleric being a direct eyewitness of the battle?

Now will you explain how Curry can be wrong about where the English camp WAS, ergo where Henry's first position has to be slightly north of that? "La Cloyelle", with the army's first position either side of that dotted line north of the name on the map picture When the English army moves, the French army moves. (Or not, depending.) In any case, the battle takes place near the village of Agincourt: that's where Curry has the armies meet. The baggage, in order to maintain the same physical proximity to the army, must move when the army moves. Therefore, it is drawn up not far away, so as to be "at the rear of the engagement."

Hey Doug do you remember this?

Curry
"most of the of the fighting would have been several hundred yards away, and the author could not have seen anything in detail. …

Sure. And that's Curry falling in line with the "consensus" that the baggage was a long ways off: but after explaining clearly enough that it wasn't. I am sorry, but she contradicts herself: she is not godlike.

Besides, it isn't the "detail" that impresses you, is it? You claim that the Gesta's details are all of the kind that the cleric could/would get from asking afterwards.

Arrows through the sides of helmets is the only specific, "up close and personal" detail that would require being within (I suppose) 100 yards in order to actually have seen such with his own eyes.

The ordering of the bodies of troops (archers intermingled with men at arms, etc.), the movements of the French attack (vis-a-vis dividing into three columns when very close), the backward movement of the English line upon contact by the French columns: these could easily have been descried from several hundred yards away.

And besides all of that: your objection to the Gesta has mainly been his O.B., being for the "first position" only, going along with the "all archers as wings, men at arms in the center" theory. Then you complexticate this into an advance of two lines, splitting into the final formation after the men at arms "catch up" (which nowhere has any basis in contemporary evidence).

…In many ways, his account of the battle is vague and bland. … It is not easy to use his account to unpick Henry's battle plan and impossible to gain much from it about French actions.:"

Yes, and she offers the reason: that he was fighting a compulsion to not explain things as the causes of men or weather, etc., in order to give God the sole credit for the English victory.

First comes the arguing then the battle with no indication of an evening intervening.

I quoted the sources and you either passed up the exposition I provided or don't believe it: if anything, the accounts fall solidly on the side of the arguing taking place the night before; they talk about the camp conditions, etc. THEN, they move to the day of battle.

Hell Doug, if that's what bothering you let's change it. We'll simply say the French did their "OMG! Here come the English" before the arrows start to fly. There! Feel better.

Except it doesn't read that way.

And you are placing ALL of your kaboodle on W&L.

Of course, the French saw the English coming LONG before the arrows started to fly. You would have them not only blind but deaf as well (except that they were "amazed" to hear the English shout as they started to move), in order to have them not notice until the English were almost upon them, before they "scrambled" to find their banners and get into formation. All just your fancy, based on no evidence whatsoever.

Doug, "They say: "After all these battles had been put into formation as described, it was indeed a noble vision to behold." When was there a moment to observe this fine display, if the French were doing the "OMG! here come the English!" thingie?"

It's quite obvious. This happened after the French said "OMG! here come the English!" and before the arrows started to fly. I'm glad you asked so I could straighten everything out for you (as I have been doing all along).

I'll make you feel better now: you can have your squabbling Froggies on the morning of the battle: you can have them still finishing up their oneupsmanship scramble to force their way into the front ranks as the English start their "stolen march" on them.

What you have just written here admits that MW&L are right: that the French army was ordered and indeed "a noble vision to behold" before the arrows fly. That means they can attack.

Do the time-motion simulation, now. And get your advancing "screen" of "vulnerable, weak archers" out of the way, and into their staked wings position, with arrows flying, BEFORE the French cavalry reach them.

Unfortunately the French didn't know of the move until the English were already underway.

If you look at the map, and read Curry, the English first position was where the armies could see each other.

But even if the English were just barely the other side of the high ground between (out of sight), their "stolen march" was ruined by their repeated war cries, their slow measured advance to catch their breath and keep their line ordered, and they would have become visible within the first few score yards of their advance. That, and the French scouts would, at the last extremity, have carried the word back in plenty of time.

For example, there is not one of these replete eyewitness and other good accounts that say anything about seeing arrows piercing helmets. Of course neither does the writer of the Gesta. That's just Doug's fantasy.

Which you agreed with!

The argument then revolved around WHEN and WHERE on the field the helmets were shot through. You came up with the fanciful explanation that "our cleric" saw killed prisoners with their helmets shot through! I showed that his narrative demands that the helmets referred to as pierced by the very force of the arrowshot had to happen out in front of the English line, where the reference places them.

And you don't even allow the specific detail in your referencing of W&L, making the piercing of the helmets of prisoners impossible: "In pursuing his victory and seeing his enemy defeated and that they could no longer resist him, they started to take prisoners hoping all to become rich. That indeed was a valid belief for all the great lords were at the battle. Once taken, they had their helmets removed by their captors."

Doug seems to be totally incapable of separating himself from the Gesta. Time and time again it has been pointed out that he has mischaracterized what the Gesta has said. But he is incapable of grasping that idea. But then that's what enmeshment means.

By tossing the Gesta entirely for the battle details, which you have done, you are enmeshed with MW&L: and making their shared account say all that we need to know about the English advance.

You have popped up with more and less unconvincing "explanations" to make this work. And in your last response you have admitted that their clear description of the French army "before the arrows flew" means that they were in battle array before the arrows flew, ergo, capable of attacking, and therefore STUPID to let the STUPID English archer screen come within arrowshot, divide apart and march at their leisure to form wings for their late-arriving men at arms center: plant stakes and wait with arrows on strings all the while.

Your premise of an archer screen is without any substance based on original accounts. And your question is answered implicitly by your theory: the French were STUPID.

Seeing arrows pierce helmets: uncorroborated.

BZZT! "Sides of helmets."

W&L clearly mention the helmets lowered to protect the visors from being pierced: this is at the start of their advance.

The cleric's moment to take notice of is just before the French had made contact, i.e. well within the theorized enfilading fire of the wedges and wings of forward angled archers.

MW&L do not even describe the initial contact of the men at arms at all. Hmmm, because they don't, does that mean that the English men at arms weren't engaged until after their archers had been fighting and had "almost reached the main battle which was following in behind the vanguard"? I think not. But to be "enmeshed" only in MW&L, we are left with a detailed, albeit muddled, out of sequence account, lacking in even the less than distinct details provided by the cleric (who at least can unfold a story without our having to piece together bits taken out of sequence).

The baggage following the army as it advances into the battle field: uncorroborated.

By other eyewitnesses, granted. Only "our cleric" was with the baggage.

But other sources do mention the baggage:

"…to the rear so that it might be placed at the back of the battle." (Elmham)

"But he ordered the horses and all the baggage train to remain in the village where they had been lodging, leaving a few guards with them,…" (Livius)

"Whilst the battle of the French and English was going on and the English were almost on top, Isambart d'Azincourt and Robert de Bournoville accompanied by some men of low rank launched an attack on the baggage of the English making great affray. As a result the English feared that the French would come upon them to do them harm. Thus the English killed many of the prisoners they had." (Pierre de Fenin)

"It was true that when the English realized that they were fighting they had behind them two men like monks who wore big hats with large shells on them, and who read their books and kept making the sign of the cross over the English for as long as the battle lasted." (Ruisseauville) (fascinating proximity, don't you think so?)

"News then came to the King that the French were attacking from behind and that they had already taken the pack horses and other baggage. This was indeed the case, for Robinet de Bournville, Riflart de Clamace, Isembard d'Azincourt and other men-at-arms, accompanied by 600 peasants, had gone off to attack the baggage camp of the English king and had captured baggage and other things along with a large number of horses of the English whilst their keepers were involved in the battle." (Monstrelet)

"At the same moment both horsemen and foot soldiers ran to fall upon and pillage the horses and baggage of the English which they had left in the rear during the battle". (Chronique de Normandie)

Corroboration, if you want it to be equal between sources, is not possible for any detai we single out. But it is obvious from the paucity of other sources, that the subject of the baggage played no large part in the outcome of the battle for most chroniclers to even notice.

If we combine the above accounts and compare them to the Gesta (our only source where the writer was WITH the baggage), it is also obvious that the only one that remotely comes close to the same is Elmham: he corroborates the Gesta well enough, using almost the same description of the baggage being "to the back of the battle". (Gesta, "at the rear of the engagement") Only the Gesta mentions the motivation for this clearly: so that it would not fall into the hands of the enemy and be pillaged.

The French accounts mentioning the pillaging of the baggage need corroboration: and the Gesta clears up what those accounts would otherwise claim was a thorough pillaging: only the "tail end" of the moving baggage train got attacked at all; and so far behind where "our cleric" was when the attack occurred, that he only heard of it, never actually seeing it done as an eyewitness.

The second battle position had archers in wedges between the battles: uncorroborated.

Monstrelet (he who "got it wrong" -- Rich K.) says archers and men at arms were in the wings. W&L don't go into the same amount of detail and we get little or no enlightenment from them. So Monstrelet agrees enough to not be in conflict with the Gesta: and W&L even more, by not referring to the battleline in any clear fashion, are not in conflict either.

Only to you is there some need to come up with a unique interpretation of the English line as being different in the 2nd position from the 1st: and this requires from you a twisting of what Livius and P. Elmham meant when they said the army's array as it moved to attack remained the same. You have nothing to back this up with except the sources of least value, if you can find anything at all (in fact, there is ONE, which does say the archers were in between "the main bodies of the two armies"; do you know which one it is? Can you find it? Do you care? I wouldn't want to try and claim that it holds up to the same value as the Gesta.)

The English army advanced in combined arms of archers and battles: uncorroborated.

Rich, you are the ONE claiming "In fact, all of Doug's mischaracterizations are uncorroborated." Show one mischaracterization, first of all: then show how it is made of whole cloth.

It is YOUR theory (whatever that is, by now I am confused) that is the one depending on an interpretation of the sources which is both partial ("enmeshed") and incomplete.

I am supporting the Gesta writer as an actual eyewitness: you need specifically him to be blind to the details of the battle, and getting his sources from the participants afterward: I even say "fine" to that, if you must, but ask you to show how those details are out of harmony with the other sources: and I say that they are not.

We quote sources. And you ignore the exact points I make.

You tossed off the rather full amount of quotes (all I could find up to MW&L) indicating either no evidence for the French doing an "OMG here come the English!" mad scramble to meet them; or actually adding to the probability that the arguing for precedence was on the night before the battle. (There is in fact ONE French source which says that the English attacked when the French were scattered about, walking horses, etc., because they did not believe that the English would dare to attack: but that singular claim has no corroboration, and does not suit your theory that the French were arguing too much to get into battle formation soon enough to stop the English from setting up their 2nd position.)

You deny that arrows pierced helmet sides because nobody else says that specific detail: then allow it happened, but to prisoners: only the prisoners were not wearing helmets when they were butchered: W&L clearly state removed helmets, and describe the "…noble Frenchmen were killed and their heads and faces cut, which was amazing to see." (Not the description of arrow wounds, is it?)

Everything you have said, trying to place the cleric too far away to have actually seen what he said he saw, has either been borrowed from writers like Bennett, who have not thought this out carefully, or is directly refuted by specific things the sources say.

You will not admit that the French can attack the English, and yet do not: you want their stupidity to be one of arguing and letting the English "steal a march" on them, instead of simply being too stupid to attack the stupid English battleline of 5K archers moving up in an open order "screen", dividing off and offering their flanks to the cavalry, who sit there stupidly staring until the archers get into their wings, drive in their stakes, then start shooting them up.

Henrici Quintini may have been a good eye-witness when it comes to the overall campaign & right up to the first position at Agincourt. The problem is that he seems in no way to be a credible eye-witness to the actual setup and prosecution of the battle itself, save a few anecdotes.

These are the comments that I made during this discussion:

Its our old friend the Gesta again, a man sitting on a ‘horse' many hundreds of yards behind the ‘English' Battle line who gets all and sundry taking his account as verbatim whilst dismissing Le Fevre & Waurin, who were both in the front line.

The Gesta is mentioned many times in this thread as being the main witness to the setup of the 'English' army. Curry; 'who you all seem to be quoting' says: "His account of the battle is vague and bland, & "It is not easy to use his account to unpick Henry's battle plan, and impossible to gain much from it about the French actions….

What I am trying to say is that if the Gesta is used in this thread to argue the positioning & account for the movements of the day then surely it is relevant, especially when it comes to my hypothesis about the single battle with flanking bowmen. (As well as in front of the Men-at-Arms) As I see it, the Gesta ‘Henrici Quintini' is the fly in the ointment.

I think the last statement is the truest ‘As I see it, the Gesta ‘Henrici Quintini' is the fly in the ointment'.

Rich Knapton (Originally posted) 12 Sep 2008 7:34 a.m. PST
Dibble, I have asked you and others not to highjack my topic. Yet you continue to try to do so. This is extremely rude. There are topics already out there discussing what you want to discuss. If you don't like them, start your own. But, don't highjack mine.
Rich

Rich
As a last word from me about this thread. Please be sure that I at no time tried to "hijack" your topic. I have only ever responded to others comments.
Where I am sorry however, is in not responding to this complaint earlier.

Paul

The problem is that he seems in no way to be a credible eye-witness to the actual setup and prosecution of the battle itself, save a few anecdotes.

Which anecdotes do YOU select as worthy? Why those?

Its our old friend the Gesta again, a man sitting on a ‘horse' many hundreds of yards behind the ‘English' Battle line who gets all and sundry taking his account as verbatim whilst dismissing Le Fevre & Waurin, who were both in the front line.

How do YOU come to the conclusion that the cleric was "hundreds of yards behind the 'English' Battle line"?

He doesn't get all the attention. MW&L do not get dismissed! If some scholars in the past have concentrated on the Gesta or even used it exclusively, that is poor scholarship.

We don't know where Waurin and Le Fevre were on the field. Conjecture places them both with the English, with Waurin as a French herald positioned there. Nobody knows. We do know where "the chaplain" was sitting. (Was he one of the two "monks" sitting behind the English line, reading their books and making the sign of the cross over the English army?)

The Gesta is mentioned many times in this thread as being the main witness to the setup of the 'English' army. Curry; 'who you all seem to be quoting' says: "His account of the battle is vague and bland, & "It is not easy to use his account to unpick Henry's battle plan, and impossible to gain much from it about the French actions….

As I told Rich, Curry contradicts herself. In more than one place she uses the Gesta to help place the English on the field, including where the camp and baggage was during the battle; then seems to relegate the cleric to a position where he would have seen only from hundreds of yards away. Both views cannot coexist, sorry. And she explained why, in her estimation, the cleric was lacking in many details that other sources cover: "The Gesta's account of the battle itself is not particularly substantial, reflecting no doubt the inherent difficulties of describing the event as well as the intention to use it as an example of the revelation of God's will. This may explain why it says nothing about the state of the ground or the weather (odd omissions, perhaps, for an English eyewitness), or about the French being weighed down by their armour."

As I see it, the Gesta ‘Henrici Quintini' is the fly in the ointment.

Indeed, it is. I have said as much before now. If you are going to discard specific details recounted from the Gesta, you had best have very good "corroborated" reasons for doing so. Not just your personal conviction that having all the English men at arms in one group in the center is a good idea. That's called bias; and we all ought to know what writer's/scholar's bias does to any historical study.

Rich "highjacked" his own thread, pages and pages ago.

The irony is that Rocky and I can't get him to come out and once and for all admit that the reason why the French didn't attack the English archers (when Rich has them strung out in open order in front of the English men at arms) was because they were tactically STUPID. He's argued himself into having no other reason, that I can think of anyway.

The simple answer to Rich's OP question, "Why didn't the French attack the archers and threaten the English rear", is answered in my little reconstruction a ways back there on this thread: the vanguard was following the battle plan laid out by the marshal and constable of France: they were depending on the mainguard to cover the attack column(s) of the vanguard. It wasn't a case of the stupids, it was having no time to change that battle plan: the battle was already under way.

Rich has claimed archers are "weak" and presented four battles as examples, without showing any details from any of them for citing them as examples of weak archers taken out by men at arms.

He has since then highjacked his own thread by tickering with the English O.B. (to what purpose, I have lost sight of, I admit), to put the archers out in front with the men at arms in a second line; and Rocky and I have called that highly improbable, because it WOULD make the archers vulnerable, with no stakes, in open order, ready to be charged down by French cavalry! It would split the English army into two parts, inviting defeat in piecemeal fashion.

If Rich continues to insist that this revised O.B. is reality, then he has presented an even bigger mystery as to why the French opening attack didn't launch into the exposed archers, even before they divided into wings. Rocky's invitation to Rich to do the "time-motion" simulation himself has now resulted in Rich claiming that the French were stupid before the battle: arguing about who should fight in the vanguard, and that that argument was still going on as the English advanced to attack them.

I keep trying to drag this thread back on-topic. But Rich insists on supporting the insupportable theory he's cooked up.

And as far as I can tell, both of you (and others, but not Mike) agree on the battleline of all the archers on the wings and the men at arms in the center in a single body. Which still causes the entire problem Rich was addressing, just not in as many places!

He raised this topic to discredit the 19th century English O.B., followed by Oman and Burne, Keegan, et al. most scholars until Bennett (as far as I can tell, following Jim Bradbury): just another example of a historian trying to upset the old apple cart by advocating for a new view of an old story).

By insisting that the archers are weak, their weakness ought to be that much greater in larger bodies, further away from any men at arms. And the archers' combined fire out toward the ends of the line benefits their own men at arms not at all.

As Rocky said today, the "wedges" answer all of Rich's questions. He just has to admit that archers are not inherently a weak link the way the English typically used them.

Here's a quote from Roger Ascham, on the comparative fighting qualities of other archers to English yeomen, after discussing examples of other archer nations in history, ending with the Parthians versus the Romans: "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."

The English yeoman was no weak link: "With regal command, the king prepared his men for battle, placing the vanguard as a wing on the right, with the rearguard as a wing to the left. Amongst them he intermingled troops of archers." (Elmham)

Rocky: I am a little lost on this part of your discussion. I cannot see what it matters WHEN the French were arguing. The narrative only needs to be considered when the French advance and what is happening with the brits.

If the French were caught napping they could not have attacked the English advance. It knocks the stool out from under your time/distance study. You study only works if the French were standing there waiting to attack. And, as Doug's quote shows, the French were caught by surprise by the advance. They were in no position to immediately launch an attack.

But why then have a screen, you might ask? Prudence is the answer. And, it was convention to have archers screen the battles when advancing on the enemy.

Rocky, None of this addresses the wedges versus Bennett's flanks or the first question of the vulnerability of the bow.

Oh, didn't you know. Doug has made an imperial decree that the archers were not vulnerable. So Bennett's archers on the flanks were as strong as they were when they were used as wedges. He has backed that up with about as much source reference as you did when you made the same statement.

Rocky, does any of this change in your mind if I point out that a "pace" isn't a set measurement, but usually when stated, closer to two feet?

Not really. I got this off of ‘Measurement in the Middle Ages' at link

Pace: A vague measure of distance with two widely differing definitions:
* Historically, the distance between successive stationary positions of the same foot or two "Steps", or about 5 feet (60 inches).
* The distance from where one foot is set down to where the other is set down, or about 2 1/2 feet (30 inches).

The first is sometimes called the double pace. With this definition 1,000 paces equals 1,666 yards. With the second definition a 1,000 paces is 833 yards. A bow flight (1/3 of a 1,000 paces) is 278 yards. I took as a bow flight to be 300 yards. So there is some difference but not much.

Paul, As a last word from me about this thread. Please be sure that I at no time tried to "hijack" your topic.

At the time your comments would have taken us off of the subject. At this time it is quite apropos

Rich

Doug, "Wrong. Henry called the baggage train out of the original camp. And when he saw that MOST of it had arrived, he started to move his army."

As I already showed you with sources the baggage was left all over the place Thursday night where they camped. This was OK because he was going to fight there. But when he decided to move, and he saw pillagers waiting for him to advance, he called for the baggage of the army to be brought in to one place where is can be defended. He even left archers there to help defend it. So my point is correct. He called in the baggage, left archers there to help protect it. Told his clerics to remain there with the baggage and then he and his army marched off 600 yards.

Doug: "You (et al.) have created a scenario where Henry camps at no great distance from where he subsequently forms up his army." Yes, the baggage was spread out over different parts of the camp. Then he calls the baggage to move. Yes, since the baggage was spread out he wanted it one location where if could be better defended. And leaves it behind? Yes, but first he left archers to help defend the baggage should it be attacked.

Doug, The baggage, in order to maintain the same physical proximity to the army, must move when the army moves.

Why? That makes no sense. Plus there is not an iota of proof that this happened. It is never mentioned in any source. Where it was ordered to stay it functioned to block Henry's rear, if the French should try to sweep around the forests, right where it is. There was no need to move it. This is ridiculous.

Doug, And that's Curry falling in line with the "consensus" that the baggage was a long ways off:

Well Doug you can't quote her to prove the cleric was an eyewitness and then reject her when she says he was a "p??s poor one. It unethical to cherry pick like that.

Doug, Arrows through the sides of helmets is the only specific, "up close and personal" detail that would require being within (I suppose) 100 yards in order to actually have seen such with his own eyes.

But Doug he doesn't say he saw that. He only uses it as an adjective phrase in describing the power of the longbow. We don't know where he got that idea. Like I said it could be the simple bragging of the archers. So, no he doesn't have to be up close and personal to have gotten that idea.

Doug, The ordering of the bodies of troops (archers intermingled with men at arms, etc.), the movements of the French attack (vis-a-vis dividing into three columns when very close), the backward movement of the English line upon contact by the French columns: these could easily have been described from several hundred yards away.

The initial battle line he probably saw personally before Henry banished him the baggage train. All the rest could easily have been told to him after the battle. It does not require him to be there in person.

Doug, the accounts fall solidly on the side of the arguing taking place the night before; they talk about the camp conditions, etc. THEN, they move to the day of battle.

Authors at this time all made shifts like these. Look at you problem with W&L.

Doug, Except it doesn't read that way. And you are placing ALL of your kaboodle on W&L.

Doug, get over it. It's the way they wrote at this time. As far as W&L they were the only two direct witnesses of the battle. But even they can't provide everything.

Doug, All just your fancy, based on no evidence whatsoever.

Oh balderdash, it is based on the reports of the two direct eyewitnesses.

Doug, What you have just written here admits that MW&L are right: that the French army was ordered and indeed "a noble vision to behold" before the arrows fly. That means they can attack.

Your timing is all off. The archers wouldn't have fired unless they were within at least 300 yards. It was at 300 yards that the English reestablished the battle-line. So by the time the archers fire the English were either very close or already in their battle line. Besides initial French attack was against the archers who had their spikes already driven into the ground. We know that because of accounts of French riders getting hung up on them.

Doug, If you look at the map, and read Curry, the English first position was where the armies could see each other.

Even she said the positions were guesses on her part. Nobody really knows where they set up. That's why I go back to the sources.

Doug, That, and the French scouts would, at the last extremity, have carried the word back in plenty of time.

See, you just proved my point. The English drove off the French scouts so they wouldn't see what the English were doing. Thank You.

Doug Which you agreed with!

Sorry Doug, I agree that he probably saw helmets with arrows piercing them (after the fact). I never agreed that he actually saw arrows piercing the helmets. Do we have any other account of pierced helmets? No. Maybe he was just passing along longbow gossip.

Doug, By tossing the Gesta entirely for the battle details, which you have done, you are enmeshed with MW&L: and making their shared account say all that we need to know about the English advance.

At least I chose direct eyewitnesses not some priest sitting on a horse 600 yards and to the rear of the action. And, I never said they are all we need. But they are a whole lot better than the cleric. Especially since they were warriors and could interpret what they saw a whole lot better than your cleric.

Doug, Your premise of an archer screen is without any substance based on original accounts. And your question is answered implicitly by your theory: the French were STUPID.

And you are in complete denial.

Doiug, BZZT! "Sides of helmets.

OK, sides of helmets uncorroborated.

Doug, W&L clearly mention the helmets lowered to protect the visors from being pierced: this is at the start of their advance.

Lowering helmets because of the vulnerability of the eye slots is a far cry from seeing their friends with arrows sticking out of the sides of their helmets.

Doug, The cleric's moment to take notice of is just before the French had made contact, i.e. well within the theorized enfilading fire of the wedges and wings of forward angled archers.

To take notice? How the hell can the man take notice when he was 600 yards to the rear of the fight. It is obvious he was told this by someone.

Doug, MW&L do not even describe the initial contact of the men at arms at all

So? The Gesta doesn't talk about Erpingham. What's your point.

Doug, But other sources do mention the baggage:

Great Doug. You have established the English had baggage.

Doug, But it is obvious from the paucity of other sources, that the subject of the baggage played no large part in the outcome of the battle for most chroniclers to even notice.

That's because it was 600 yards to the rear.

Doug, If we combine the above accounts and compare them to the Gesta

You're right. This is another place where the Gesta agrees with other sources. They all agree there was baggage behind the English army.

Doug, We quote sources. And you ignore the exact points I make.

That's because your sources don't support the points you're trying to make. That's not my fault. Let me give you an example. You write in response to my claiming archers between battles in the second position is uncorroborated: Monstrelet (he who "got it wrong" -- Rich K.) says archers and men at arms were in the wings. Monstrelet wasn't even talking about the second line. He was talking about the Erpingham affair not the second line. So quoting sources only help if they substantiate your claims which they don't.

Doug, I am supporting the Gesta writer as an actual eyewitness

And that's your problem. All the evidence points to the fact that he was 600 yards behind the English.

Doug, There is in fact ONE French source which says that the English attacked when the French were scattered about, walking horses, etc., because they did not believe that the English would dare to attack

Thanks Doug, I must have missed that one. It fits in perfect. It shows that the French were not at all ready to attack when the English advanced. It shows that those who were to lead the attack hadn't even warmed the muscles of their horses up yet. They only got ready when they saw the English advance. By the way, what's the source.

Doug, You deny that arrows pierced helmet sides because nobody else says that specific detail: then allow it happened, but to prisoners

But Doug, I'm not an eyewitness. All I said is that he probably saw helmets with arrows sticking out of their sides. My guess was that it was after the battle because he wasn't there to see it during the battle. It also could be he was passing on the trash talk of the archers.

Rich

Continued

Doug, As I told Rich, Curry contradicts herself. In more than one place she uses the Gesta to help place the English on the field, including where the camp and baggage was during the battle; then seems to relegate the cleric to a position where he would have seen only from hundreds of yards away. Both views cannot coexist, sorry.

This is typical Doug. Curry says the Cleric was an excellent recorder of the campaign but a terrible battle witness. Therefore she contradicts herself. It never occurs to Doug that he is reading her wrong.

This is for Doug's benefit. We'll call it remedial historiography. When historians write about a battle they generally divide the story into two parts. The first part details how the armies got to the battlefield. The second part is the battle itself. [If I'm going too fast. Let me know.] The first part is generally called the ‘Campaign'. The second part is called, well, the ‘Battle'. When she says the Gesta is an excellent observer of the ‘campaign' that means the writer is an excellent observer of those things which led up to the battle, but not the battle itself. When she says his account of the battle is p??s poor, it means he did not actually see the battle because he was 600 yards to the rear of the army. The problem is not Curry but rather Doug's understanding of what Curry wrote; but we're used to that.

Doug, As Rocky said today, the "wedges" answer all of Rich's questions. He just has to admit that archers are not inherently a weak link the way the English typically used them.

Let's see, the English typically used the archers as archers. They were not typically used as ‘shock' [hand-to-hand] troops. The English typically used the men-at-arms as shock troops. According to Doug, then, when archers are used as archers they are not inherently weak. However, should they be used in a non-typical way, shock, they are inherently weak. Even his arguments agree with me.

What the four battles showed, as Doug well knows, is that archers, as archers, were unable to stop a determined advance by armored men on foot. Thus, if the archers are to stop their armored opponent they must fight hand-to-hand. It seems to me self-evident that unarmored men, whose primary training is with the bow cannot withstand armored fighters trained from youth to fight hand-to-hand and who are armed with lances. If Doug wishes to say that the archers were not inherently weak it's up to him to show how they were not inherently weak. To date he could only come up with archers could fire into the eye slits of the helmet. It is laughable to think that the archers [only the ones in front] would calmly stand there, while these warriors are almost upon them, calmly aiming for the helmet slits. Not to mention that all the French had to do was slightly lower his helmet a bit so the slits cannot be shot at or glance and then glance away. And, that's the best Doug can come up with. That is to say nothing. So, if Doug wants to prove the archers were not vulnerable, he needs to come up with something more than "because I said so."

Rich

OK for a more serious approach to why the archers, on the flanks, were not attacked. The sources say the French was constricted because of the forests to their flank. Sources also say the French were 5,000 strong and 20 ranks deep. This means their front was constricted by the forests on either side to 250 files. The English were set up in 4 ranks also of 250 files. Thus the English men-at-arm's flanks were also resting on forests like the French. Where does that leave the archers. The only place they could be is along the sides of the forests. The goal of the French had to be break the men-at-arms. Once broken the archers must also flee. Attack the archers and they just fall back into the forest. The flanks of the men-at-arms remain secure and the French have dissipated their forces with no discernible results.

Rich

Hi

Rich, a "screen" isn't "prudent" as you think. I am at a loss to figure out the "prudence" part.

And the point I keep insisting on isn't that the french argued either while deployed, or sometime else. The time line is this 300 cav charge on one side and the Marshall of france impales himself on a stake.

If the archers are already deployed on the flanks enstaked, your screen becomes irrelevent.

if it is followed by the MAA advance who as you indicate above the front was 250 yards wide, then I have no problem with the flank wedges, but as elsewhere you indicate a far wider field, then I think you are confusing me AGAIN.

If the field is 250 yard wide, then the flanks enjoy overlapping fields of fire and there are no open zones during the advance.

If the field is 500, then you have a time motion story problem.

But in neither case does your "screen" work.

But then above, you contradict yourself AGAIN.

We all agree that archers with hammers to pound stakes cannot successfully combat MAA. This leads you to insist they are vulnerable in an earlier post, and I offer that the stakes are basic to the issue. But now, above, you agree that the archers are not going to melee the MAA but retreat into the forest. BUT THEN we have our first question. Why didn't the french attack a vulnerable flank drive the bow into the forest and sweep the flank of the outnumbered british super heavy infantry?

I think you keep making little circles in your proofs. Above you have proved using similar circles that the field is 1000 yards, 750, 500, 250. The width matters, but none of them would support your screen idea. All of them require a simple point, enstaked the archers aren't as vulnerable as you assume. We agree they are vulnerable, it is the "stakes" part that I think confuses you.

Notice, I am not arguing where Gesta is. Don't really care. We HAVE what we have and saying "my favorite source can beat up your's " is a waste of time. Historians not only don't agree, but we/them all like the idea of finding something NEW in the old stuff.

What can be discussed is "time/motion and military probability. Decide how wide you want the field, and the issues all change. But none of them support the original question "why didn't the french attack the vulnerable archers".

Rocky

As I already showed you with sources the baggage was left all over the place Thursday night where they camped.

You can't see, I suppose, how this visual of "all over the place", is totally a Rich-creation.

Please, by all means, SHOW from even one original source, how the baggage was scattered at any time: the army was dogged by the French constantly and fearing attacks all the while. The English were not in the habit of casually leaving their baggage parks disorganized, ever, even for a moment.

Doug, The baggage, in order to maintain the same physical proximity to the army, must move when the army moves.

Why? That makes no sense. Plus there is not an iota of proof that this happened. It is never mentioned in any source.

Just the Gesta, is all: the ONE source on the baggage that even you should trust as authoritative: the cleric does not speak of an attack on the baggage where he was, simply because the pillagers only attacked the "tail end" of it: a description perfectly in keeping with a waggon train on the move.

The camp can't be "at no great distance" if it is scattered "all over the place".

That's a little more than "not an iotta of proof", it seems to me.

Where it was ordered to stay it functioned to block Henry's rear, if the French should try to sweep around the forests, right where it is. There was no need to move it. This is ridiculous.

The trees were woods, not "forest." The sources clearly talk of men and horses traversing it. Cavalry could not attack through it, but they could move (rout) through it. Why must we go over the same old ground, Rich?

Well Doug you can't quote her to prove the cleric was an eyewitness and then reject her when she says he was a "p??s poor one. It unethical to cherry pick like that.

Oh, I can't point out inconsistencies in modern scholars?

What I don't do is "cherry pick" the original sources, leaving parts out that don't agree with a theory I made up.

But Doug he doesn't say he saw that.

Quibbling over semantics. None of the eyewitnesses say, "I saw that." But the cleric unequivocally says, "we…were watching", right after describing the details that you personally have the most trouble with.

By your requirement, the whole narrative is a borrowed supposition of adjectives and none of it describes anything literally: the same yardstick would have to be applied to the narratives of MW&L too.

The initial battle line he probably saw personally before Henry banished him the baggage train. All the rest could easily have been told to him after the battle. It does not require him to be there in person.

"We…were watching".

Yes, according to Rich, this is a fine example of writing in the first person but not really seeing what is being described.

We'll just come to you, Rich, with any other examples of similar writing styles, and let you sort them out for us: real eyewitnesses on this side, fakers using fancy writing on the other side. Trouble is, I can't tell how you tell the difference.

Authors at this time all made shifts like these. Look at you problem with W&L.

Which simply proves my point; you haven't a shred of source evidence to support your assertion that the French were arguing even as the English "stole a march" on them.

Do we have any other account of pierced helmets? No. Maybe he was just passing along longbow gossip.

Shall we see how lengthy a list of "maybe's" can get? Or shall we try and leave out the maybe's as much as possible, and take what the narrators wrote at face value, then go from there?

And, I never said they are all we need. But they are a whole lot better than the cleric. Especially since they were warriors and could interpret what they saw a whole lot better than your cleric.

What's the big mystery created by the cleric's narrative? Helmets pierced in the sides? Easy to corroborate: consider it done, many times over, by modern tests. French dividing into three columns to strike into the English van, center and rearguard? Fits the other sources just fine. No discrepencies at all.

What else? The "wall" of dead the "height of a man?" Easily seen as such by a man standing head-high above the surrounding melee: looked like he was twice as high, especially in memory. The "tumbling effect"? (see both of the latter are gesta details of the mechanics of crowd dynamics during a battle: funny, neither Waurin or LeFevre say a dang thing about the physics of the battle, just your p**spoor, non military cleric: yet scholars, -- e.g. Keegan -- take his details very seriously indeed)

Your timing is all off. The archers wouldn't have fired unless they were within at least 300 yards. It was at 300 yards that the English reestablished the battle-line. So by the time the archers fire the English were either very close or already in their battle line. Besides initial French attack was against the archers who had their spikes already driven into the ground. We know that because of accounts of French riders getting hung up on them.

Precisely. There was no presented "vulnerable" archers for the French cavalry to charge into. They arrived, set their stakes, THEN started shooting. They didn't arrive, divide hither and thither, presenting their flanks to the cavalry, finally reach the position where they could form wings to the center, then set their stakes, THEN start shooting. Your screen is pure fantasy.

Lowering helmets because of the vulnerability of the eye slots is a far cry from seeing their friends with arrows sticking out of the sides of their helmets.

You obviously do not know how thin iron and steel plate is on the sides of the helmets.

To take notice? How the hell can the man take notice when he was 600 yards to the rear of the fight. It is obvious he was told this by someone.

The lying cleric: "we…were watching."

You write in response to my claiming archers between battles in the second position is uncorroborated: Monstrelet (he who "got it wrong" -- Rich K.) says archers and men at arms were in the wings. Monstrelet wasn't even talking about the second line.

You are ignoring/denying, how I showed a couple pages back, how your earlier posts on this are 180 degrees inconsistent with each other.

All the evidence points to the fact that [the cleric] was 600 yards behind the English.

It's about time you supported this mantra of yours with some kind of list of this "all the evidence." I can't think of a single piece of evidence to push the baggage train 600+ yards behind the English advanced position.

Doug, There is in fact ONE French source which says that the English attacked when the French were scattered about, walking horses, etc., because they did not believe that the English would dare to attack

Thanks Doug, I must have missed that one. It fits in perfect. It shows that the French were not at all ready to attack when the English advanced. It shows that those who were to lead the attack hadn't even warmed the muscles of their horses up yet. They only got ready when they saw the English advance. By the way, what's the source.

The Berry Herald: "The English had in his company, along with those of his blood and lineage, 1,500 knights and esquires and 15,000-16,000 archers. He found the French in poor array and in small number, because some had gone off to get warm, others to walk and feed their horses, not believing that the English would be so bold as to attack them. As the English saw them in this disarray, they attacked and discomfitted them."

That's it. No battle details. Yet this "fits in perfect" with your theory? Pray tell, how? No sign of arguing going on; just a bucolic, laid-back camp, hubris reigning in abundance, then "OMG here are the English", (not even, "here COME the English"). Then we have the denial of any sitting time, with the English and French out of sight of each other, which detail/condition you advocate for: so how exactly could the English "[see] this disarray" and take advantage of it?

The Berry Herald is NOT a good source for anything that isn't already given to us in far better sources. We have "no corroboration" of anything the Berry Herald said here, and quite a few other sources in disagreement with it. But you can use it since it "fits in perfect" with your argument.

It also could be he was passing on the trash talk of the archers.

You have quite a different view, of the type of men/warriors the English yeomen were, from mine.

And I don't know you can consider yourself an unbiased student of medieval military history, when you make such unfounded accusations against the narrators/chroniclers and their sources.

Doug, As I told Rich, Curry contradicts herself. In more than one place she uses the Gesta to help place the English on the field, including where the camp and baggage was during the battle; then seems to relegate the cleric to a position where he would have seen only from hundreds of yards away. Both views cannot coexist, sorry.

This is typical Doug: Curry says the Cleric was an excellent recorder of the campaign but a terrible battle witness…

I never said that, you did.

She never says he was p**spoor or "terrible": merely bland or vague: which is hardly his unique quality: all the sources leave much to be desired in that respect: where MW&L give us arms and armor and numerical details, the Gesta author at least gives us specific details about how the armies closed, and the resulting crowd dynamics played upon the doomed French. To each his/her definition of "bland" or "vague": I will take the Gesta anytime over MW&L, if I had to toss one of them.

It never occurs to Doug that he is reading her wrong.

I could be. But I trust my capability to read for comprehension: my confidence has served me very, very well for many years.

However, I can read the gesta, et al., myself, thanks to Curry and her publisher. And if she really falls into the "he was 600+ yards away to the rear" camp, then how to make sense out of statememts of hers like these:

"Therefore, given the descriptions we have of Henry's position, it is likely that he drew his lines at least midway between Maisoncelle and Agincourt and probably nearer to the latter."

"Although the author of the Gesta was present, he was at his own admission 'then sitting on a horse among the baggage at the rear of the battle.' We shall see later that there is some confusion over how close the baggage had been drawn up. His position on horseback would help to some degree in viewing what was going on ahead. Indeed, it is interesting that he should choose to tell us how he was positioned, as if to give his account more credability. Even so, most of the fighting would have been <b<several hundred yards away and the author could not have seen anything in detail."

"The Gesta's interpretation for [moving the baggage up to the rear from its existing position at the overnight encampment] was to protect the baggage, by not leaving it exposed at a distance from the army, but there are other possible reasons for Henry's order. The first is that he wanted to use the baggage train as a form of rear defence. It has already been suggested that he feared a French flanking move around the back of his army. The drawing up of wagons would help to protect his rear. Secondly, should hit army be faced with defeat and the need to retreat, it would be sensible to have the baggage and horses as close as possible so that there could be a speedy evacuation."

There is is: how do you rectify, "baggage and horses kept as close as possible", with "most of the fighting would have been hundreds of yards away?

Curry obviously is tainted by the "consensus" of scholars stating that the English baggage park was far away: the difficulties of such a notion cannot agree with the Gesta's stated reasons for moving the baggage from its overnight position in the first place, nor Curry's hypothetical other reasons for moving it; which if anything require even closer proximity to make either of them work.

[If I'm going too fast. Let me know.]

Rich, when you cozy up to your self-proclaimed doctorate in medieval studies, and talk this way, all you do is come across, even to my charitable mind, as a total prig.

When she says his account of the battle is p??s poor…

She never did, nor "terrible". Only Rich says that.

…it means he did not actually see the battle because he was 600 yards to the rear of the army.

She never quoted his next line, "we…were watching", either. Perhaps it was on oversight, like it was to my memory, until you caused me to reread the Gesta one too many times, and I discovered it for myself.

Perhaps you could explain how this telling claim, as specific as his telling how and from where he saw the battle, is something we can just dismiss as rhetoric (or less charitably, bull crap).

What the four battles showed, as Doug well knows, is that archers, as archers, were unable to stop a determined advance by armored men on foot.

You DO RECALL? that I said as much, way back there. Armies don't eleminate an enemy by missile alone, or usually shock alone: they are used in combo. Typically, by the time men at arms finally arrived close to the English line, they had been so abused, wounded and disordered by the deluges of clothyard shafts, that the melee did the rest. How else could 900 to 1,600 English men at arms defeat upwards of 8,000 French men at arms?

Thus, if the archers are to stop their armored opponent they must fight hand-to-hand. It seems to me self-evident that unarmored men, whose primary training is with the bow cannot withstand armored fighters trained from youth to fight hand-to-hand and who are armed with lances. If Doug wishes to say that the archers were not inherently weak it's up to him to show how they were not inherently weak.

Agincourt, and earlier, Auray, Poitiers and Crecy, all show that well enough. Even Formigny shows it: the ARCHERS went outside their stake line to fight for the cannon with French men at arms, and were doing just fine, until more French columns showed up in the English rear.

It is laughable to think that the archers [only the ones in front] would calmly stand there, while these warriors are almost upon them, calmly aiming for the helmet slits. Not to mention that all the French had to do was slightly lower his helmet a bit so the slits cannot be shot at or glance and then glance away.

You, are, amazing.

With arrows slamming into your body at any second, just when would YOU feel it was safe to steal a glance up to look around!? A big part of the trouble for the French was NOT being able to risk looking up AT ALL; their formation got so compacted because of that, that three ranks back, all the men were incapable of freeing their weapons to fight.

And, that's the best Doug can come up with. That is to say nothing. So, if Doug wants to prove the archers were not vulnerable, he needs to come up with something more than "because I said so."

Oh I did. For all your lengthy blather, you missed/ignored/tossed the corroboration of the Gesta from the Elham, "intermingl[ing] troops of archers" among the battles of men at arms: and Ascham's clearly admiring view of his Nation's yeomen as hand to hand fighters.

OK for a more serious approach to why the archers, on the flanks, were not attacked.

Oh, I GET it; your education is more of a joke. You aren't taking any of this seriously. That's a relief, after using so much of my free time on you.

Sources also say the French were 5,000 strong and 20 ranks deep.

Or 30.

This means their front was constricted by the forests on either side to 250 files. Thus the English men-at-arm's flanks were also resting on forests like the French. Where does that leave the archers. The only place they could be is along the sides of the forests.

ROTFLMAO!!!

You call this a more serious approach? I think, seriously, Dude, you are either the most forgetful self-proclaimed-scholar I have ever spoken with; or now you are simply having fun, giggling to yourself, seeing how long you can spin this farce out.

You are no longer treating this subject/thread with enough coherence or consistency to warrant my further attention. I will now go play elsewhere.

Rocky, give up. This guy, with this latest departure, is acting like a bleep.

Rich, I don't feel anything but puzzlement, and possibly pity, for you at this point. No offense intended, truly. You are coming across, imho, as some kind of bipolar case. Get help.

To begin with. Where the English first setup the field was wide enough for the battles to have wedges of archers between them. The subsequent move was to a position where the forests on either side had narrowed to about 300 – 250 yards. Henry has the archers lead. By going first they in effect screen the advance of the men-at-arms. We are told they were rushing across the battlefield. They wanted to get to their new position before the French could do anything about it. When they got to their new position, on the flanks of the forest, they drove the spikes in. Meanwhile, the English battles march up, in enfilade and link up with the archers by closing off the 300 – 250 gap between the two forests. With only 300 -250 yards wide, there was no room for archer wedges. Henry reasoned [probability] they could do this because the French were distracted and not prepared for an advance like this from the English. In fact, they did not think the English would advance at all. After all it was the French who were the aggressors. It was up to them to attack. He gambled that the French would not get their act together in time for him to setup in his second location.

As to my comments about other sizes of the battle, I was always tentative. I would say "if the battlefield was 900 yards wide" and then discuss the ramifications of that tentative statement.

Rocky This leads you to insist they are vulnerable in an earlier post, and I offer that the stakes are basic to the issue.

What I said was, if the archers were in wedge formation they would be a weak point to exploit. I finally came to the conclusion the French didn't exploit them because, in the second position, they weren't there.

Rocky, If the archers are already deployed on the flanks enstaked, your screen becomes irrelevent.

You are missing the point. How do the archers get from the first position at the end of the field to their new position two thirds of the way down the field? You take them out of their wedges Then rush them down the field so they can take up their second position and be ready to link up with the slower moving battles before the French wakeup and attack. In moving so many archers first, they become a screen for the slower moving men-at-arms. So I am not contradicting myself at all.

Rocky I think you keep making little circles in your proofs. Above you have proved using similar circles that the field is 1000 yards, 750, 500, 250.

Not true. I simply argued that certain things cannot be done if the field is 900 or 1,000 feet wide. I think it was Doug who brought up the 500 yards wide issue. I don't remember suggesting the field was 750 or 500 yards wide. You are simply not reading what I'm writing. You are making certain assumption about what I write that turn out to be wrong.

Rocky, We HAVE what we have and saying "my favorite source can beat up yours " is a waste of time.

The point is to know what it is that we have.

Rocky. But none of them support the original question "why didn't the french attack the vulnerable archers.

That discussion ended when no one could come up with a good reason that if the archers were there why weren't they attack. I then made the suggestion they weren't attacked because they were not there [in the second position]. Simply saying there were stakes doesn't prove anything. It is simply a statement of fact. One needs to workout how the stakes would impeded on coming men-at-arms. Nobody has done that. So, simply saying there were stakes is no proof that the archers were not vulnerable. But then it's all academic [pun intended] since the field was only 300-250 yards wide at the second position there was not enough room for archer wedges.

I think that pretty well winds things up. Unless there are more questions.

Rich

Well… since this is wargaming forum, take a wargamer's approach.

My favourite set of medieval rules, however simplified it might be, is Rules by Ral, a.k.a. Iron Wind rules.

It says that knights cannot attack yeoman or peasants if they are able to attack other knights. Sort of targeting priority.

And that's it :>

On a second thought, there might be a reason in this. IF the french MAA attack archers, english MAA would be upon them in no time, striking where they can benefit from their concentrated force while the archers soak up some damage and keep part of the french occupied (probably not for very long, as they were primarily the missile troops, not best suited for melee. Still, they can give their MAA some valuable time and support). So the french go for their "priority no. 1 target", believing the archers will not make much difference once the melee is joined.

Sometimes it's all simple, as long as you keep your mind open.