AGINCOURT - Medieval Myth Busting 

Those are some nicely framed frames you have framing your frames

This is the kind of content I'd expect to see on the BBC, History or Discovery channel. Unfortunately those channels are full of mostly rubbish nowadays. Thanks Tod and everyone involved for the production of these Myth Busting videos. Superb work!

It is so great to see a historian with a proper scientific attitude - both not hesitating to say «I don't know» or «I need to look into this further» and, at the same time, welcoming and encouraging the insights and experience that HEMA and reenactment bring. Great video, Tod & Toby (Tod & Tob?)!

18:40 "It's all about making the enemy fight on your terms." Fantastic summary of Agincourt, and a statement for battles down the ages.

This channel has become really excellent in the last year.

Hmm so Henry was playing the tank during the Agincourt raid and aggro'ed the whole French army via taunting with his shiny armor :P

How refreshing to have knowledgeable people sharing their science in a calm and structured way, treating their audience as adults. What a great channel!

Hi Tod, when putting up temporary fencing for sheep or cows,here in the alps. We used an pointy iron bar to make the hole and just jammed the fence post in by hand afterwards. Held up fine. Whether one lugged around a wooden maul or iron bar, it had to be shared, and passed down the line. Not every archer needed to carry every tool. If you have a baggage train both tools would be available. Just a thought, greetings from Emmental.

A few weeks ago whilst visiting a friend in London I had a spare few hours and ended up going to the Wallace Collection specifically because of Toby's enthusiasm in the previous video on war bows vs plate armour; it fascinated me. And who should end up delivering a 'quick' talk on some Italian classic armour but the man himself. Needless to say it was fascinating and the bloke clearly knows his stuff. I did try to speak to him afterwards to thank him for fuelling my interest in Armour and its functionality but the poor man was lambasted by a perhaps over eager couple who took up almost as much of his time as his talk took. Anyway, if you read this Toby, thanks again. To anyone else, absolutely go check out the Wallace Collection. There are far greater treasures than armour and weaponry there.

I think its pretty obvious that archers simply carried large pencil sharpeners

As someone who has done marquee erection with very large stakes, one option is they drove the sharp end into the ground to a good depth, wiggled them to loosen the stake, then withdrew them and put the blunt end in. It won't matter if the stake is slightly loose in the hole, it'll still hold. It might also be they had a shorter, specialist, hole-making stake that makes a hole, gets tapped lightly on the sides with a hammer to loosen it, gets withdrawn and used again, and you would only need one for any number of long stakes.

Dear Todd, This message is intended to contain an important point, and I hope You will find it worth considering. As a fan - so to speak - of blunt trauma, I’d say that the weakest point on a body is usually neck and neck vertebrae; no armour can protect it much if at all; a blow with a warhammer or mace to the head need not damage the helmet at all and yet still resulting acceleration forces imparted to the brain stem, cerebellum and neck vertebrae are sufficient to knock the opponent out or indeed kill them. Now Agincourt: if most archers shot as Joe does (and it seems to be the case, as You’ve discussed with Toby), and French marched in relatively tight formation, then vast majority of arrows would most likely hit heads, necks and shoulders... even without puncturing through the visor or breathing holes, repetitive hits to the head would have probably similar effect to a long-drawn boxing match: concussion from repetitive impact. Add to this slipping in mud and one can easily fall over (which can prove lethal). Worse still - when struggle to breathe or see, both of which can be attributed to repetitive blows to the head, one might even try in desperation to do the silly thing and lift the visor. Test: I would STRONGLY suggest a head model with full protection - helmet, mail coif, padding - to be planted on an articulated short bar containing torsion meter. I would then proceed to fire a number of shots at it front, side and back. I’m pretty sure, that even without piercing the helmet, a lot of close range shots will deliver forces tantamount to a nasty blow to the head. PS: Totally LOVE Your work! Kindest regards, Jack

I really like Toby's point at 21:40 I think wasting arrows would have been a big concern to armies in those days. Arrows weren't cheap, and they had to be CARRIED by people or pack animals, taking up valuable space and weight. The British army, just before WW1, had magazine cut-offs on their rifles. It was only by order of an officer that they were allowed to use their whole magazine for rapid fire. This was supposed to reduce ammo usage. Logistics back then must have played an even more crucial role than they do now because of how difficult it must've been to move and coordinate. But I'm not a historian of any kind! Just thought it was an interesting point!

What I really liked about this discussion was the awareness that you have on the role you play in making archery and archery history accessible and relevant on a modern platform. These are things that one can read from historical sources and interpretations, without enough research and effort, but to present this to the mass audience who have that tingling curiosity to find out more about what really happened is a unique vision.

English Archers were not solely Archers, they were good Skirmishers too, very adaptable to changing battle conditions.

Here's some food for thought. A bullet from an AR15 typically weighs 5 grams and fired from a 10.5 inch barrel length (as favoured by SF) will achieve a muzzle velocity of around 760m/s. The momentum of this bullet is 3.8 kg.m/s. The momentum of the arrow fired in the demonstration is 4.4 kg.m/s (previous video - arms and armour). By way of contrast a baseball pitched by a professional has p of 5.8 kg.m/s and a baseball bat at full swing has p of 10kg.m/s. If the arrow is fired into a ballistic pendulum weighing 50kg the velocity of the pendulum and arrow will be 0.087 m/s, for the AR15 round the pendulum will achieve a velocity 0.076 m/s and the base ball 0.116 m/s. So the effect of the arrow on a person wearing armour will be worse than the effect of an AR15 hitting a person wearing modern plates. The long bow in effect was used to deliver what we would call suppression fire - the positioning of the archers at Agincourt would in effect allow them to enfilade the french forces with devastating effect. They would have fired flat and from close range (in the main). The effect of even a slow rate of fire, for example 2 arrows per minute from 3,000 archers would deliver six thousand arrows in a minute - the medieval equivalent of facing 5 maxim machine guns on each flank. The net effect would be to drive the flanks in and stall the front - knights would not be able to use arms and mounds of bodies would rapidly form (many of whom would be trapped alive). The noise of arrow strikes would be deafening and the shrapnel of broken arrows and arrow heads would be significant. Those at the front and sides would be repeatedly hit - from a psychological point of view it would be devastating and ultimately fatal. Further points: (1) The French quilted covers (over armour) are analagous to anti spall coatings on modern military armour plates (SAPI) (2) From a military perspective the current proposed location of the battle makes little sense. What does make sense are possible locations slightly further to the NW (to the SSE of Ruisseauville) where there are two shallow valleys running to the SW. (3) Once joined, the battle would have been over very quickly - probably less than an hour. (4) Agincourt is significant in many ways - not only was it a tactical victory, it destroyed the collective French leadership group and ultimately was strategically successful in delivering the Treaty of Troyes (signed in 1420). (5) The battle field should still be littered with many hundreds of arrow heads. (6) I suspect many historians are underestimating the impact of thousands of arrows released at close range and on a flat trajectory (its not simply about penetration of armour) - ask anyone who has been pinned down by a PKM. (7) I'm staggered that historians and archaeologists have not pinned down the actual site of the battle (there sholuld be 100's of artefacts and arrow heads). Once again, great work - and interesting movie.

"Bussaco! You magnificent bastard! I read your book!" - Henry V, probably.

The myth of the 'longbow' is based on what is called the Holy trinity: that is Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt. The result of the battle of Crecy was due in large part to the Longbow, plenty of unarmoured French horses. But after that, the French changed their tactics, they wore more steel armour, better polished and more completely covering, they lapped over their shields (much in the manner of the roman tortoise) and more importantly dismounted from their horses. At smaller battles like Constance the longbow fought crossbowmen that had shields and armour, the longbowmen were defeated. The chroniclers at Auray, clearly point out the longbow was ineffective, and also, at the battle of Poitiers, Baker points out "they were so well polished and so well steeled, that the arrows either shattered on impact, or glanced off towards the heavens". In fact Le Baker points out that the last line of the Frenchmen at Poitiers did this "protecting their bodies with joined shields, and turned their faces to the sides, so the archers wasted their arrows in vein"! I fully expect this comment to get less attention than a hermit’s diary, but I will say the English won because of their men-at-arms NOT because of their longbowmen. Indeed they also won, because French armies’ emphasis neglect. Using large numbers to win the battles, and considered the career goals and rivalry with their comrades in the future, over winning the battle right now. They also had the English problem of the Chevauchée, the English raids undermined the political, economic, and moral authority of the French nobles in the region, and indeed the French peasants pressured the nobles to attack the English, even on unfavourable ground- this was all from a French aristocracy that was taught it is best to avoid direct engagements with the enemy, not strike at them. The idea, that the Hundred Years War (which isn’t even a Medieval term) was about plucky archers massacring hundreds if not thousands of French nobles on unarmoured horses time and time again, is a knackered old cliché. As if the French were unable cognitively, and philosophically from learning from their defeats and just ended up repeating their mistakes. They didn’t.

I'm not an academic historian my self, I just liked the medieval era since I was a kid and videos like this really help to become more knowledeable about the topic. Thank you for making these highly educative videos, every time I watch a video I learn a lot.

The dysentary explanation makes a lot of sense. It wasn't just an issue of having loose bowel movements. It is actually food poisoning in action. High fevers, severe cramps, extreme weakness and dehydration. Not something you can march 1 mile with, let alone dozens. It was an illness that plagued sieges and long-term camps. It could not have played an active role at Agincourt.

I am a simple man. I see Toby Capwell - I click.

I'd be really interested to see Tod, Dr. Capwell, and possibly Jason Kingsley test sharp lance impacts, couched and non-couched, against a breastplate and/or helmet!

I just absolutely love how respectful Tod is. You can tell he is extremely humble whenever he addresses a point in the discussion.

Thank you so much Tod for this amazing output. Fascinating,informative and superbly presented.

We need a guy in full plate going through mud while being shot at by an archer. Recording it in high-speed to calculate arrow speed. B-)

In one simple video these guys have instilled a burning curiousity for historical science. No extra drama required.

This is a brilliant explanation.ive always had the legendary version playing in my mind while I daydream.how you've concisely explained it has given me a new version to watch as I look at the ceiling.thankyou for making this film.

Hi Todd, sharpened stakes are really easy to knock into the ground. Either lash a short flat end stick to the pointy one and use that to whack it in (which works with any length pole), or for short poles you can just pop a block on the sharp end with a hole to accept the point and whack the block in as you would for traps.

I'm really excited that they're talking about more tests. The plate armor test was fantastic and I'd absolutely love to see more like it!

I think the image of archers driving down a palisade of thick sharpened poles the size of small trees is also something that seems to have been born out of later date assumptions and Hollywood dramas. The thing is we know how thick a pole must be to bring down a horse. It is the thickness of a pike, which is a weapon that has excelled at killing horses and cavalry all through history and of which there are plenty of surviving historical examples so we know its dimensions. (Yes, pikes had iron heads but they were meant to be effective reusable weapons. A stake is just a deterrent that just has to work once.) Tod makes a good point that driving down a thick tree trunk of a stake, ten - fifteen centimetres in diameter, in dense soil would take a lot of effort. You’d probably need both a shovel and a sledgehammer, not to mention an axe to sharpen it, which as was pointed out would then be likely to dislodge it making it all wobbly. On the other hand, setting a stake no thicker than a broom handle into the ground can be accomplish using your body weight and muscles, and even if you have to hammer it down, sharpening it just take some whittling with a knife, which is unlikely to dislodge it again. The thing is both the tree trunk and the broom handle would be just as effective at killing horses and men so both are equally effective as deterrents plus horses don’t care about how thick the stakes are. They are just as likely to shy away from a thin hedge as from a brick wall. Heck just getting a horse to charge into a line of men takes a lot of training to overcome it natural instincts. So, you don’t have to hide behind a large obstacle to make a horse refuse to charge you, you just need any obstacle. In that view thick stakes don’t make sense. While thinner stakes are both more practical and more logical. Plus ask yourself this, if you were an archer marching miles everyday what you prefer to carry. A thick pole weighing ten kilos or more, or a shaft weighing in at two - three kilos.

Can't even remember how many times I've watched this, and continue to learn something new each time. Layers of insight from Toby Capwell, and great questions from Tod that capture what most people want to know. I'll probably watch this again in a month.

Tod this series is absolutely great, but THIS one is the best! So much information and detail, so many answers. Very well done sir.

This your Agincourt project is pure gold. I do appreciate the scientific approach and the amount of discussion you guys put into these videos. Thank you very much for sharing your ideas.

This channel has so many things that I just absolutely love, craftsmanship, history, etc.! Keep on doing amazing things, this was an absolute joy to watch.

Thank you very much for this series i hope you guys do similar stuff for other important battles in history.

I loved this discussion so very much.Thanks so much to you both, but especially to Dr. Toby who did the heavy lifting here. Just loved it.

Wow, just wow. This channel is going to go places.

R.e. stakes- hammer your pointed stake into the ground to a sufficient depth to be stable. Pull it out, turn it 180 degrees, stick the blunt end in the hole and voila. One sharpened stake with sufficient stability to stand and be a threat.

Never been this focused and interested in a youtube video. Thank you for this, amazing content and research

This was amazing. I appreciate the time and effort that the participants put into creating this. I also appreciate how Tod stated that the ability to admit error is necessary in order to learn. Dr. Toby's comment which went something like "another great story destroyed by facts" was priceless. I think the most important point for me was that the English victory was not solely due to their amazing longbow but rather to their knowledge of the French battle plan, their use of the terrain, and their ability to direct the French responses. I think there is a danger in believing that a weapon is the determining factor as people are easily seduced by technology when the use of intel, terrain and knowing how to force the enemy into a reactive mode are much more likely to determine the victor.

I cannot tell you how much I love this series of films you're making. It really is as if you all found out about my interests and decided to dol this great work just for me.

Having hammered a lot of stakes into the ground I can say there are tools to avoid damaging the stake. You can make a cup you place over the top of the stake, with a flat thick metal plate at the bottom. With that you can use full force on thinner stakes without a big flat end to hammer on, and not damage them. It takes half the time to get a stake into the ground with this tool and a mallet. I have no idea whether or not they had them in medieval times but it is a very simple tool made of iron that a blacksmith can hammer together in an hour or so.

Man Tod, for you just being a guy who works with his hands you sure put out some incredibly interesting historical content. +1

SO excited for the next experimental video - such an intriguing topic. Great work, keep it up!

In livonian chronicle from 13th century arcjers and crossbowmen shoot at armored and unarmored targets. The writer speaks always about arrows wounding people, except in a few cases where usually a headshot kills someone. The discource was that arrows wound, not kill.

You guys and a few more on RU-vid are the REAL HISTORY Channel. Much love and respect!

This is fantastic. The combination of engineer and historian is absolutely brilliant. I look forward to more of this. As an archery instructor, Agincourt has a special place in my heart. Thank you So Much. I look forward to seeing more of this sort of thing.

can't wait to see more tests of this battle. This is really cool to learn about thank you for doing this series.

This is exactly why i love history. The stories behind events, what makes it happen, how people thought back then, the list goes on. Thank you for this series.

This is an amazing series, I’m incredibly glad you guys took the time and resources to break this down and analyze all of this. Thank you!

Best video yet! Learned more about Agincourt here than in the half dozen documentaries I've watched. Thanks to Tod and to Dr. Capwell for the time and thought put into this seemingly off-the-cuff conversation.

Great video, thanks for taking the time to create and share; hope most of the viewers took the time to watch it till the end...

this is just fantastic. the obvious love, dedication and knowledge Toby displays is simply astonishing. it pulls you in to the story he's telling and i can't tell you how much i appreciate Tod's attitude towards him: he asks the question, and lets him develop the answer and sits there listening, absorbing it all. thank you so much for this wonderful piece of lecture, keep em comin!

Due to the limitations of the media, most contemporary art from the medieval period depicts armies that are very close to each other. There just isn't enough space on the page to have a big, open no man's land between the armies. Isn't it possible that art work from the period doesn't show archers doing high angle shooting because the armies are so close to each other? If they did show them shooting at a high angle it would look like they're shooting over each other.

This is so well done. You guys do a better job of telling history than TV producers with million pound/dollar budgets. This is real good information.

Dr Tobias,..Brilliant,.hope to see more of him..👏👍🇬🇧

In spite of the long comment, I really enjoyed the video. I'm only building upon what you've stated and so I mean no offense by commenting. Two things to add: The first is that in order to understand the actions of the French at the battle, it helps to understand the psychological mindset of the nobility. Honor was still of paramount importance and demonstrating/defending one's honor could take precedence over self-preservation at times. I think the general assessment is that the French nobles upon reaching the battlefield and lacking an overall commander were bickering with each other over what action to take. While many of them had not faced the English before, there were still quite a number of experienced warriors present. Those men, and likely others as well, were able to evaluate the situation and determined that a frontal attack under the current conditions was very unlikely to end well for the French. Hence the hesitation to actually commit - in spite of the fact that cavalry of the period was still notorious for charging without orders. So the fact that the French hesitated much at all shows that there likely was considerable trepidation felt. The forward advance of the English archers in the open, in order to shift the line and their stakes forward, was as much of a direct affront and an attempt to taunt the French as their arrows would subsequently be. When the attack finally began to occur in pieces - as it wasn't coordinated - there is evidence to suggest that the mood wasn't necessarily very optimistic from the get go. At some point it almost became a point of believing along the lines of: I can't stand here observing like a coward while so and so gains glory falling on the field of battle. To such an absurd degree (to modern eyes) that a member of the Bohemian royalty participating in the battle on the side of the French, who was of advanced age and in fact also *blind* at the time, upon hearing the commencement of the battle and even after being informed of the situation by his men, ordered his retainers to help him mount up then to lead he and his horse toward the English line. So as not to be viewed by those around as a coward. His name is one of those on the list of nobles who fell on the French side (I'll have to look it up and come back to post it as I can't recall off the top of my head - also, please don't take my word for the lot of this, investigate further yourselves). One possible reason for why period artwork doesn't show archers firing at the "classic"(modern classic) upward angle would be that if this type of firing was done, it wasn't terribly decisive. Yes, you may have been harassing the enemy etc but you're likely not killing anyone unless you get really lucky. Which means the point in time when the archers are most combat effective with regard to bringing down enemy soldiers is when they are firing along a pretty flat trajectory. And as a medieval artisan and propagandist - which to be fair is what a lot of medieval tapestries that pictured battles and so forth were meant to be, a ruler's statement and representation of victory, i.e. propaganda of a sort - you want to represent the most decisive points in a battle in the limited space that you have to work in. Because, with a few really rare exceptions, you've got a single image (as opposed to modern depictions in multiple photographs or even actual cinematography - to work within. And if you want your image of a battle to have the greatest visual and demonstrative impact, then you're going to show the army at its most decisive/effective. That position for archery is archers firing at a reasonably flat trajectory where they get the most punch out of their arrows and therefore are most deadly - if they're going to be deadly at all. Therefore, its quite possible that the "mythic" or "heroic" *period* depiction of archers was in fact the flat or low trajectory stance, where they were as (for lack of a better word) badass as they could get. Which incidentally is the one that is almost always depicted in medieval artwork. As opposed to the modern or perhaps romanticized depiction which, as you stated, is the high angle shot where you "block out the sun with your arrows" type bit. The artists wanted to show their army at its most heroic (or at least the people commissioning the artwork did) and therefore you can surmise that what we see demonstrated in the art is what people of the time period would have recognized as archers at their deadliest or at least most decisive. The reasons why modern images don't reflect historical reality is because they aren't designed to appeal to people who are familiar with the real warfare being depicted (as the medieval artwork was) and so instead they reflect what modern viewers have been conditioned to expect and find impressive.

Fantastically interesting :bows:. I genuinely clapped to the screen at the end, it was that informative and refreshing. Having in a prior career been a historian and museum curator, it is great to hear a recognised authority clearly say "I don't know" to questions and even better follow up with a variation on "But let's try and find out".

For sharpened stakes, you sharpen them AFTER you drive them into the ground. Hatchets/axes can be used to cut blunt heads, leaving enough to hammer the stake into the ground, then put a finer point on the tip.

Very good conversation, very good! It’s the type of conversation that the listener doesn't have to be a Historian, a Military Historian and or a Medieval weapons expert to understand & enjoy.

can't wait for the follow up tests to this discussion! I hope they are still in the works

I love content like this! Reminds me of the good old documentaries on PBS and such. No drama, no overused cutting, no music. Just good information presented in a clean, understandable tone. The world needs more like this.

Fascinating series of videos. Have totally enjoyed watching them and they are so informative. My dad died in the 90s before the internet really got going. He would have loved to be able to watch a series such as this.

It seems that we are coming into a golden age for historical combat discussion, and you guys have played a huge part. Thank you! This is fascinating stuff!

Good discussion, I really enjoy your approach to these subjects.

At 20:14, another piece of evidence that strongly suggests the contemporary depictions of the longbow archers of Agincourt were correct is your own previous video, in particular Joe's stance as he lined up and then shot his arrows. I'd previously always thought those medieval depictions were fascinating, and a little bit comical. Because they're always standing like my P.E. teacher told me NEVER to stand, because it'll give you bad posture: they're leaning forward, with legs that look a bit off-kilter, but then they're also pushing out their butt just a little bit. It seems like you'd just collapse if you did that. So I assumed that, like with the snails painted into the margins of holy medieval books, this was some kind of meme-ified artistic style and reflected the goofiness of the artists who depicted them, not the archers themselves. But now, after watching your video, I get it: you HAVE to stand that way to work the bow. When shooting his 160 lb bow and shooting STRAIGHT ahead, your buddy Joe there had that same kind of leaning forward, butt-protruding stance (no offense intended, Joe! We all like your butt!) that we see in one of the 1415 paintings, for example. I guess it's like a lizard with its tail--you have to stick it out for balance. And it's very different than how people look when shooting arrows up-and-over. So those artists weren't dumb. And it seems like if they got the stance right, they must have at least SEEN soldiers fighting or training with straight-ahead shots. That speaks to their authenticity.

Referencing the debate about longbowmen's efficacy against armour, from the front and flanks/rear, I read these pieces from the Wikipedia description of the Battle of Flodden in 1513 ( a mere 98 years after Agincourt): "The Scots had placed their most heavily armoured men in the front rank, so that the English archers had little impact." and "The last English formation to engage was Stanley's force, after following a circuitous route from Barmoor, finally arrived on the right of the Scottish line and unleashed volleys of arrows into the Argyll and Lennox's battle who lacked armour or any other effective defence against the archers; after suffering heavy casualties the Highlanders scattered." It may well be worth considering the two battles in parallel as there could be something to learn about Agincourt from Flodden, even allowing perhaps for improvements in armour over the time between the two battles.

When you are treading through thick, clay like mud, getting hit (even if you're lucky in not getting shot through weak spots) in the head and other areas, it knocks the wind out of you and disorients you greatly. Think of it like getting punched while you walk through mud, then come to English dismounted Knights and Man-at-Arms that are fresh. That has a huge effect on the outcome of a battle.

Forty minutes of pure cultural gold. A big thank you! Such a clear, interesting and educational video, I cannot express my gratitude well enough

I really like the way you guys are going about this and in some sense, I am actually shocked that this is apparently not the standard approach.

Great interview. Very well done.

if you two did a podcast going through the details of various medieval battles and sieges i would listen to every one of them

Excellent, very much enjoyed this, I'm sure there is a way of driving a pointed stake into the ground at an angle.We have lost so many skills handed down over generation (luckily you and others are keeping some alive) There would have been a wy, we just have to figure it out. My work partner and I have been hammering in 3 inch square posts today to fix a chainlink wire fence to. Some parts of the ground were soft enough to drive the posts in about 18 inches with a sledge hammer. Other parts we had to dig out a small diameter hole (6 inches) to about 14 inches and drive the post in the last 4 inches with a sledge hammer. Ramming the soil back up around the post a bit at a time with a 2 inch by 1 inch stake made those posts just as solid, if not more so, than the ones driven all the way in with a sledge hammer. Or how about the stake was pointed one end only, the pointed end was driven into the ground at the required angle to about 18 inches or so. Then pulled out and the flat end sharpened with an axe apart from the last inch or so (left flat). The fully pointed end then re-inserted into the same hole and driven in all the way, then the last inch flat fully sharpened with a knife whilst the stake was supported from up and down, and side to side movement, preventing it from loosening. And then for good measure the surrounding soil is rammed up hard. Or the stake pointed both ends is pulled into the ground with a thick rope wrapped round it by more than one person?? There could be other ways, if the paintings show it, it probably happened.

You simply hammer a stake into the ground pointy end first then sharpen the exposed blunt end with any handy blade (axe, knife, etc)

Cracking! Thank you both very much.

Late to the party but very impressed by this content. Great structure and execution. Im a fan of Toby but I dont think Ive seen a better interview/discussion with him. Awesome!

As an Englishman I’d like to recommend Maurice Druon’s books, set 100 years before Agincourt but really delve into the complications of medieval French politics of the court.

The point about the archers having the opportunity to shoot from the sides or even behind is really interesting. Given plate back defence wouldn’t have necessarily been universal at that point, maybe that could account for some of the casualties? I’m thinking of that low shot from the test video that went clean through the mail...

Thanks for an interesting discussion!

I can't wait for the follow up videos!

re: stakes, hammering stakes in and re-sharpening is entirely practical if using greenwood hazel etc providing your billhooks, knives etc are keen enough. They wouldn't need to be that sharp to discourage cavalry in any case provided they planted in sufficient density.

When I was young there was a show on TV called the Dukes of Hazard. In that show they used arrows tipped with sticks of dynamite. They would light the fuse, then launch them at a target, and that target would then blow up. Maybe it was those types of arrows the English were using at Agincourt? I can provide you with episode numbers if you want to include this historic evidence in your book's footnotes.

Yes, I agree with both of these chaps. They admit being proven wrong is a possibility of course especially when studying a battle that took place so long ago. Indeed, to be proven wrong isnt a bad thing but should be applauded as it elevates us to a new level of conciousness. I studied this multi-disciplined approach at University (history and later archaeological conservation) and have walked down the Agincourt to Tramecourt road which was said to be Henry V's line of Battle. Little has changed. The problem is, what excavations have been allowed found that most of the archaeological remains have long since rotted away apart from a very few arrowheads that were the type known as a Bodkin. There was a documentary a few years ago that suggested that some of these found deep in the ground were still at an angle that suggested that they were fired in a high arc, to fall like a deady rain, not to target the heavily armoured Knights, but their lesser protected horses, which fell heavily throwing their armoured riders into a muddy morasse (in the centre of the field, bordered by forest so that it resembled an hour-glass shape) that it was well nigh impossible to rise from. All the archers had to do then, was stow their bows and run into the prone mass of downed Knights and finish them off with their lead axes and steel spikes through the eye-holes in their helmets.

As a veteran of decades of street protest with charges, and clashes and manouvres in numbers with varying levels of discipline. The greatest risk of disaster in my mind was the crush created when crowd momentum comes across a barrier where the front people lose their footing. It happens tragically in modern crowd events - rock concerts and football matches- I would expect crowds of heavily armoured soldiers would often find this situation very dangerous indeed.

One of the best historical discussions on the technical aspects I’ve ever heard. Five stars! And as a side note: the scientific method works well for the study of historical evidence; who would have thought!

Two great men discussing one of the most impactful battles in European history. Sincere thanks to you both. I enjoyed it immensely.

I know nothing about this battle or much about any of this but I love learning and I want more of this , good work keep it up!

You didn't mention the chronicle reports of heaps of bodies. I've a hypothesis that what happened at Agincourt was a crush. You're fighting at the front; you get pushed back; you trip backwards over a body; men from behind you keep pushing forward. I've seen reenactors showing great agility in full plate. I doubt if they could do so in a crowd wading through 6 inches of Pas-de-Calais mud. I also have a feeling that video footage of horrors like Hillsborough and the Heysel give some idea of what a pre-gunpowder battle may have been like.

An other fact about the overwelming mythology of agincourt/azincourt type battle where the english longbow beats the french is the inclination of french people to focus on remenbering defeats more than celebrating victories, weird aspect of our view of history i suppose. Love your channel And i hoppe you will Never cross it Again (the channel) you damn godons ;)

Great video. I'm happy to see Tobias slightly walking back his claims about long/short range shooting, because I've seen a lot of people saying something along the lines of "Archers never shot at long range because Tobias Capwell said so" (Metatron said something to this effect in his recent review of the movie "The King"). Also I personally don't think the lack of artistic depictions of archers shooting upwards is evidence that it didn't happen, or that it was uncommon. Artistic depictions of the time are unreliable for specific details like that and should be taken lightly. Perhaps the artists didn't want to depict archers shooting upwards because it would either require the archers to be shooting upwards despite being at close range, or it would require the two armies to be depicted very fary apart which would require them to be either drawn very small or for a very large canvas to be used.

This is fast becoming one of my favourite channels!

Nothing better than listening to someone talk about something they're passionate about and love

If you can draw a 150 pound bow, you (and a couple of mates perhaps) might also be able to stick a sharpened stick in the muddy ground just by holding and pushing? (This assumes a stick sharpened at both ends, I guess? Or at least slightly tapered at the ground end to assist with driving it in.) Especially if you're none too concerned with the stability of the stake, I mean it's just there to annoy a guy running at you in medium armour, or a horse, etc. Especially again, if you want to be able to rapidly relocate and refortify (for want of a better word) another position. Another view is that there is no thin, narrow stick so blunt that I would consider sprinting into it, so perhaps the lethality of the sharpened point is beside the point? Quite aside, having an obstruction that could cause advancing infantry to stall at virtually point blank range for *any* length of time is a major boon for an archer.

Modern antitank rounds don't have a "washer", what it is is that they tend to be subcaliber - a 120mm gun fires a much narrower projectile. Now, for this to work, you need a sabot surrounding the projectile so that it fills the entire bore. Once the shot exits the muzzle, the sabot pieces are discarded, and the projectile continues on to the target. The idea is that with a subcaliber dart, you can get all that energy focused on a much smaller, much lighter projectile than a full-diameter shell, and thus get it to go a lot faster, and this get more kinetic energy for busting through heavy armor. None of this would apply to archery, as archery doesn't use barrels. Rubbing beeswax on arrowheads would do absolutely nothing to increase their penetrative power.

What a very excellent and enjoyable conversation

lol love that you frame the frames here. Some people forget that frames can be just as interesting as the paintings they border.

So I could listen to Dr Capwell all day especially on my favourite medieval topic, Henry V & Agincourt. As a former infantry soldier, I still believe that it would have been highly unlikely that the French cavalry would have watched as Henry's archers hammered in stakes to make a defensive position. Only 300yds or so away. Lets face it a modern-day athlete could run that distance in less than a minute, how fast could war horse cover at charge' the same distance? For me it makes sence that the defensive position was erected by a large number of archers behind a line of archers obscuring the view whilst preparing to loose off their arrows, Without the French actually seeing it. On loosing off arrows it gowded the French into a charge to which the archers then quickly retired behind the defences. This certainly would catch the cavalry out and perhaps force a turn exposing their unprotected horse's flanks and lighter side armour of the knights themselves. Now a 150 pound war bow had the ability to stop and cause mayhem for the cavalry. There needs to be more trails with a dummy wearing a complete full harness, maybe with a number of war bows shooting at it from different ranges and angles, to see if penetration is achievable. One bow, one plate for me is never conclusively going to prove much. Regarding prisoners I read that alot were actually released after the battle and made promises to their captives to meet back up with them at Calais, and return back into captivating. If this is true then it questions how many were murdered, what mind did those prisoners have after witnessing a masacre to keep their promises? Almost all kept thier word and met back with the English at Calais. Its always perplexed me. Keep up the good work Dr Capwell and Tod

40:04 ...What if they didn't whack stakes into the ground? What if they whacked bare timber, THEN sharpen it into a stake? Maybe it had a sharpened point first too, but what if that was for the end going into the ground?

articulate, informative dialog...thank you!

The more you know the less you know. I got learnt and the bubble of what I know expands and the surface area of that bubble being what I don't know keeps getting larger .. thanks so much