Battle of Agincourt

by

Anne Curry

• LAST MODIFIED: 23 September 2024
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791279-0260

Introduction

On 25 October 1415, Henry V, king of England, achieved a great victory over a French army in a battle fought close to the village of Azincourt about forty miles south of Calais. Henry’s reasons for invading France in 1415 are relatively uncontentious, being linked not only to the causes of the Hundred Years’ War as a whole but also to the English kings hopes of exploiting divisions in France between the Burgundian and Armagnac factions in their struggles to control the government of the mad Charles VI. More debate has arisen on whether Henry was keen to face the French in battle or whether he was forced to do so by his enemy. There has also been controversy over the sizes of the respective armies and the deployment of the various kinds of troops, as well as over the precise location of the battle. Equally significant is the popular memorialization of the battle over the six centuries that have followed, fanned in particular by Shakespeare’s portrayal within his play Henry V, first performed in 1599.

General Overviews

Although the battle of Agincourt featured in general histories of England and France, it was not until 1827 that a focused study was published, which in its third edition (Nicolas 1833) contained not only a narrative of the campaign and battle drawn from the chronicle sources then in print but also a number of supporting appendices drawn from manuscripts largely in the British Library. Belleval 1865 is the first major study in French, providing discussion of French participants as well as a narrative of the battle. Both of these studies have remained influential and have informed many subsequent works, as has the account of the battle in Wylie 1914–1919, which was the first to draw on English governmental archives. Burne 1956 brought the eye of a military man to the battle, deploying Burne’s ideas on Inherent Military Probability. Keegan 1976 is also influenced by military experience and comparison of battle situations over time, leading to a particular emphasis on the high level of atrocity and the pivotal role of personal soldierly courage. The year 2005 saw the almost simultaneous publication of two important works covering both campaign and battle. Barker 2005, based on published sources only, did not deviate much from the previously established line on numbers but set events fully in context. Curry 2005 deployed the author’s extensive research in the archives in England and France to propose a revision of army numbers and also to problematize other questions of royal intentions and French responses. Toureille 2015 provides a French perspective but set within a larger context of eventual English failure in France.

• Barker, Juliet. Agincourt: The King, the Campaign, the Battle. London: Little, Brown, 2005.

  A compelling narrative with many vignettes that create a strong sense of period and personality, but tending to follow a traditional line because of the reliance on printed sources alone.

• Belleval, René. Azincourt. Paris: Dumolin, 1865.

  Although written from a patriotic viewpoint, and emphasizing the loyal participation and fate of French families and individuals in the battle, the book draws on some French archival material previously unexploited to create its narrative.

• Burne, Alfred H. The Agincourt War. London: Eyre and Spottiswode, 1956.

  Burne, an artillery commander in the First World War, sees Agincourt as the dominant battle but aims to place it militarily in the wider context of Anglo-French conflict in the fifteenth century. Rather dependent on chronicles in print and following a traditional line on an exceedingly large French army.

• Curry, Anne. Agincourt: A New History. Stroud, UK: Tempus, 2005.

  An effort to go back to all of the original sources, whether chronicle or government record, and to scrutinize closely the campaign as well as the battle, leading to revised numbers for both armies and also indicating areas where problems of analysis remain. Revised edition published in 2005 by the History Press. The book has been complemented from 2015 onward by the Agincourt 600 section of Curry’s website, The Soldier in Later Medieval England.

• Jones, Michael K. Agincourt 1415. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword, 2005.

  Quite a personal approach and without footnotes, but raising important questions and suggesting new answers, for instance on the actual process of battle.

• Jones, Michael K. 24 Hours at Agincourt. London: W. H. Allen, 2015.

  Concentrates on the twenty-four hours from the arrival of the English on the afternoon of 24 October to nightfall on 25th, and thereby develops further some of the ideas in Jones 2005.

• Keegan, John. The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme. London: Jonathan Cape, 1976.

  Not an effort to provide a straightforward narrative but rather to understand the battle from the perspective of soldiers involved in it. A very stimulating comparison with two other great military actions and with observations on military history as a specific genre. Published by Penguin Books in 1978.

• Nicolas, Nicolas Harris. History of the Battle of Agincourt. 3d ed. London: Johnson, 1833.

  First edition 1827, second edition 1832. Inspired by British victories in the Napoleonic wars, and hence patriotic in tone on Henry V’s success, but a pioneering collection of sources and transcribed documents, especially on the retinues and soldiers of the English army, as well as a narrative informed by such sources. A remarkable book for its time.

• Toureille, Valérie. Le drame d’Azincourt. Paris: Albin Michel, 2015.

  Produced for the 600th anniversary, noting the relative lack of French studies of the battle. The first part contains a relatively standard account of the engagement, emphasizing French losses, but the rest of the book emphasizes French resistance to the English and the end of the Hundred Years’ War.

• Wylie, James Hamilton. The Reign of Henry the Fifth. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1914–1919.

  An attempt toward as fully researched an account of the campaign and battle as possible, and thereby heavily annotated and a guide to future work. At times uncritical of the sources it uses and also lacking in discussion and evaluation. Vol. 1, 1413–1415; Vol. 2, 1415–1416.