Showing posts with label Hundred Years War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hundred Years War. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Thinking about the past -- Agincourt

French authorities are investing lots of money in the historical displays at Agincourt. Why? Tourist spending, of course!

But the real story, as far as I am concerned is the grown-up emphasis in the historical presentation, particularly on the French side, as reported by the BBC.
When the old museum opened on the site in 2001, its exhibition boards said 9,000 English soldiers fought 30,000 French at Agincourt.

The new centre, expected to open in the autumn, will reduce these figures to 8,500 English and 12,500 French.

It's still an upset, but a long way from Shakespeare's underdog story of Englishmen outnumbered five to one.

Before diehard fans of Henry V cry foul, Mr Gilliot [the museuum director]says the numbers were agreed in consultation with historians from England and France.
They are based on research by Professor Anne Curry of the University of Southampton, who studied financial records at the National Archives in London.
Records show that Henry V took 12,000 men with him when he set out from Southampton and left many of them behind to man the garrison after an earlier victory at the port of Harfleur.

Prof Curry says her findings are respected by medieval historians, but unpopular with some English fans of the Agincourt story.
 Chain mail to hate mail
"I've had hate mail and trolling and I've been astonished how seriously people take these things," she said. Prof Curry thinks this can partly be explained by how Agincourt is seen in England in patriotic terms. When she attended the 600th anniversary of the battle in 2015, people came draped in St George's flags. There is a sense of "how we have fended off France in the past", she said.

Prof Curry believes Agincourt's myths persist in part because so many people claim to be descended from soldiers who fought there. Unsurprisingly, her research on the size of the armies has not faced resistance in France. But regardless of the troop tallies, it still seems surprising that the French national and regional governments are investing so heavily in a lost battle.

'Just history'
But Mr Gilliot says patriotism in France is "different".
"We had the revolution in 1789, and since this period we don't really care whether a battle was lost or won by what we call the 'ancien regime'," he said.
"It is just history." Mr Gilliot says the level of knowledge of this historical period differs between French and English visitors.

"We are very surprised that a lot of English people know their national history very well and sometimes we have visitors who are descended from a nobleman who participated in the battle," he said.

"English people want to know where the castle was that Shakespeare describes in his play, or to visit the battlefield.
For the French visitors, the questions are very different, they often ask who won the Hundred Years War. We are seeing that the Medieval period is not really covered in schools in France."
'No boasting'
But he has never met English visitors boasting about the result.
"Our English visitors are very respectful, interested and well-educated, and they sometimes help us by pointing out problems in our translations," he said.

Saturday, March 25, 2017

Some people you just don't want to fight...

...because some people are just scum.

During the first half of the Hundred Years War, when France was in chaos, disbanded soldiers often struck out on their own to fill their purses and their stomachs by capturing both warriors and civilians and ransoming them back to their lords or families.  These were not nice people, as this story of the Good Duke makes clear. Duke Louis, who had himself been captive in England for seven years, was determined to rout out these outlaws.  Duke Louis' men had if anything a lower opinion of these "English" (who may not have been English in fact).

Duke Louis told them:

They have made a pit at Beauvoir , and when they have taken someone who they do not wish to or cannot ransom, they say " put them in hell" and they are thrown into this pit full of fire, of which everyone was so terrified, so that when anyone became a prisoner, he gave out that he was rich for fear of being thrown in hell. Therefore Duke Louis required, that all of his company should take part in the attack.

They all replied "Most redoubtable Lord, we are ready to go where it pleases you and we desire nothing else. But we pray you humbly, that it please you that you personally should not go there; for it would be too much of an honor to such people as they are, that such a Prince as you are ought to go there. For they are excommunicated by the sentence of the Pope, and are men of the companies, and without absolution; but if you please order us to go there." Therefore the Duke agreed with them and with great pain, as to him who always wished to be with them.
They won...
all those at Beauvoir were killed except the captain, Le Bourg Camus, who was taken to Molins, and the others were thrown into their hell.
Image: This might be a later version of Beauvoir castle.