Agincourt

Co-authored with Anne Curry, Peter Hoskins and Thom Richardson

The Battle of Agincourt on October, 25, 1415, remains one of the most glorious victories in British history, with a legacy that endures today. A pivotal moment in the Hundred Years War between France and England, it reinvigoratead the English campaign in France and bolstered the English crown's hereditary claims to French land. Published to mark the 600th anniversary of this famous victory, The Agincourt Companion tells a wider story about warfare in the middle ages. Delving into the development and advances in weaponry, armour and tactics during this period and the impact this had on the battlefield, this is a richly detailed look at the world of medieval warfare.

There was nothing second-rate about the English way of war in the Late Middle Ages, argues Tobias Capwell, Curator of Arms and Armour at London’s Wallace Collection, in a major new study published late last year. The early 15th-century English warrior was at the forefront of military innovation. And the key to success was combined-arms tactics.

This paper examines the concept of courage within medieval ethics and uses the Battle of Agincourt as a case-study for how medieval writers discussed this virtue. It shows how courage was defined as the virtuous mean between the vices of cowardice on the one hand and of foolhardiness on the other. Giles of Rome's Aristotelian discussion of courage sets out seven kinds of fortitude and argues that true courage is when men choose of their own free will to fight for the common good.

Quali sentimenti compongono l’animo del soldato in battaglia? Come si manifestano e cosa li influenza? Cosa lo spinge a mettere a repentaglio il bene più prezioso in suo possesso, la sua stessa vita, e a non volgere le terga in cerca di scampo?

In 1415 the army of Henry V succeeded in capturing the town of Harfleur after a six week siege. This was a watershed moment in the history of warfare, as it was the first time that an English army had made extensive use of gunpowder weapons in besieging a sizeable urban settlement. Firearms were subsequently used in all major military operations, playing a key role in siege warfare and soon completely superseding traditional mechanical artillery. This paper examines the reasons why this important technological change occurred in the early fifteenth century and assesses the effectiveness of the English guns during the siege.

Resumo: Este artigo busca apresentar como as crônicas do século XV produzidas na Inglaterra, construíram uma memória sobre a Batalha de Agincourt que justificava os direitos do rei Henrique V e dos ingleses ao trono francês. Percebe-se que a memória sobre o evento é muito mais um discurso em torno da viagem e provações do rei e seu exército até a conquista da vitória. Une-se também com a construção da identidade inglesa na qual a imagem do rei tornou-se um elemento unificador das virtudes do próprio povo, representado pelo contexto bélico que foi a Guerra dos Cem Anos. 

Abstract: This paper aims to present how the chronicles of the 15 th century made in England build a memory about the Battle of Agincourt, which explained the rights of Henry V and the English to the French throne. We notice that the memory on the event is much more a speech around the trip and probation of the king and his army to the conquest of the victory. It is united with the construction of the English identity in which the image of the king became a unifier element of the people virtues, represented by the war context that was the Hundred Years War.

Breve analisi: della situazione interna ai regni di Francia e d'Inghilterra, degli errori militari  dovuti agli squilibri presenti e delle conseguenze che hanno portato all'annientamento quasi totale della cavalleria francese durante la battaglia di Azincourt (1415).

‘Rewriting History’ is a reappraisal of Shakespeare’s history cycle, exploring its origins, its popularity and its effects before challenging its dominance on critical and theatrical perceptions of the history plays.
A critical history of the cycle shows how external factors such as patriotism, bardolatory, character-focused criticism and the editorial decision of the First Folio are responsible for the cycle, more so than any inherent aspects of the plays.
The performance history of the cycle charts the initial innovations made in the twentieth century which have affected our perception of characters and key scenes in the texts. I then argue how the cycle has become increasingly restrictive, lacking innovation and consequently undervaluing the potential of the histories.
Having accounted for the history of the cycle to date, the second part of my thesis looks at the consequent effects upon each history play, and details how each play can be performed and analysed individually.
I close my thesis with the suggestion that a compromise between individual and serial perceptions is warranted, where both ideas are acknowledged equally for their effects and defects. By broadening our ideas about these plays we can appreciate the dramatic potential locked within them.

See also:

http://www.academia.edu/1684505/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Hotspur_in_Henry_IV_Part_One

http://www.academia.edu/688988/The_Ladys_Percy_Challenging_Expectations_of_Structure_and_Gender_in_Henry_the_Fourth

First cousin of King Charles VI, godfather of the future King Charles VII and Constable of France, Charles I d’Albret (1368-1415) was one on the prominent figures of the Kingdom of France at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries. His birth was the result of the alliance between the Valois and the Albret that allowed the recapture of Aquitaine by the French; his death at the forefront of the French army at Agincourt – a battle he probably never desired – marked the beginning of a dark era for the kingdom. Actually, the story of his life often overlap this of Charles VI’s France, from the lights of chivalry to the gloom of the civil war between Armagnacs and Burgundians. For the powerful Gascon family of the Albret, he is a first height. Through his action, the lands of his family expanded in Dreux, in Périgord and in Berry. Even in Gascony, he organised and administered the disorganised lordships of his forebears as a true principality. Yet nowhere his political action was more influencial than at the king’s court. None among his forefathers ever played such a role in the kingdom of France, and none among his descendants would outdo him before the 16th century, whith Henry IV, born as him of a marriage between Bourbon and Albret. For six centuries, no historian ever recounted in detail the Constable’s life. Bringing it to light, we wish to provide new insights into his time, thanks to inedited documents from the king’s and the Albret’s archives, but also with the stories of the chroniclers and with the poets (as Christine de
Pisan) who mentioned his deeds.

An attempt to trace the movements of books belonging to the duke of Orleans within France (in response to the threat of English invasion of his lands), within England (as he was moved from place to place in the custody of various English noblemen), and to and from France to England (brought to him in the course of his captivity and returned with him to France). It is very preliminary. There is much more work to be done.

The French defeat in Agincourt, although not decisive, was the third to be of major importance during the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453), after those of Crecy (1346), and Poitiers (1356). The battle occurred during the march of the English army towards the safety of Calais, decided by King Henry V after the difficult conquest of Harfleur (September 22). [...]  If efficiency of English archers was confirmed one again, battle’s specificity resulted from, first the imbalance of casualties, second the massacre of French prisoners by order of the King, third its later representation in William Shakespeare's drama (The Chronicle History of Henry the Fifth, around 1599). [...]  As a matter of facts, Henry V’s harshness attitude was certainly in accordance with medieval warfare’s practices of the time, if not with the chivalric code about surrender.

This piece looks at fifteenth century French responses to the Battle of Agincourt and its aftermath. I discuss works by Christine de Pizan, Alain Chartier, and Charles d'Orleans, as well as the major chronicle sources of the period, using these to shed new light on Shakespeare's play.

The battle of Agincourt has inspired a great deal of historical research over the centuries since it was fought. The archaeological potential of the battlefield, on the other hand, has attracted far less attention. This can be summed up via two general investigations; those undertaken by Lt Col John Woodford in 1818 and the archaeological surveys and excavations carried out by Sutherland since 2002. So much of what we think we know about the battlefield has been influenced by Woodford's notes, maps and illustrations that it is important to attempt to archaeological confirm or refute this information. Current research investigates the context in which he worked and attempts to make sense of his legacy.

The Welsh esquire, Dafydd Gam, was one of the few casualties named in contemporary English accounts of the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. In these sources, his status as an esquire was not contested and these sources informed William Shakespeare, who included his name among the dead in his play Henry V (1599). Later antiquarians and modern traditions consistently refer to Dafydd as Sir Dafydd Gam and state that he was knighted as he lay dying on the battlefield. The article argues that the tradition that Dafydd Gam was knighted before or after the battle is erroneous, and that its origins lie not in the legends associated with Agincourt but in the political concerns of Dafydd’s descendants, principally his grandson, William Herbert (d. 1469), in asserting his ancestry and status in the political struggles in England in the 1450s and 1460s.