Customer Reviews

Agincourt: A New History

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is evidently the product of extensive and painstaking research over what must have been a very long time. I, like many others, know about Agincourt mainly from Henry V as portrayed by Shakespeare. Anne Curry has been to extraordinary lengths to get right into the detail of events and extrapolate from the available information quite a different story. Fascinating insight into the period. Sometimes a little heavy eyelidded to keep going through some of the details but on the whole an intriguing read and well worth the effort. If accurate history is what you are looking for, told with authority, then this is a 'must have' book. Anne Curry I salute you, the hours that went into this and the efforts you have gone to are obvious, well done. Loved it, thankyou.

As noted by other reviewers, the book is a snore; however I soldiered through to the end. Again as another reviewer remarked, Juliet Barker's book is by contrast, a delightful read.

In fairness, I believe the size of Henry's army is accurate because it is based on pay records for the most part and these tend to be fairly accurate. The size of the French army is a very different story and while I don't believe the silly estimates of its size, I see nothing in the text to convince me of the accuracy of Ms. Curry's numbers. There aren't any hard and fast records of pay or remuneration for services rendered. It must also be remembered that, while the English lords signed terms of indenture, the French did no such thing. In fact, it could be argued that any fiscal records on the French side are meaningless because the Grandees of France substituted military service in lieu of taxation. Under such a system, it is impossible to ascertain the numbers engaged as the records are literary rather than fiscal.

Having walked the ground,I believe the discussion of topography as it relates to a 600 year old battlefield is misleading. Especially in an area of such intense agricultural production as Agincourt. Any discussion of the ground must be limited to distance separating the opposing armies, the distance traveled by each side to the point of contact and lastly and most important, the condition of the soil especially after a night of rain.I believe the figure three bow shots or 450 to 500 meters to be empirically more defensible than that of 1000 meters separating the armies.

The "killing of the prisoners" is, I believe at best an exaggeration and at worst a falsehood. Why didn't the Heralds object? They were after all,the "umpires" of the day. Why didn't the French exploit the propoganda value offered by this murdering in cold blood of the unarmed and defenseless. The thesis that the murders were accepted because they were deemed necessary at the time, simply does not ring true. Logistically, how long did it take and how many were killed? Were the prisoners as sheep to the slaughter? I am sure there were incidents of the killing of the unarmed, but I seriously question these actions as being pervasize throughout the English army. As to the 200 archer-murders, this number is ridiculously small when compared to the number of prisoners allegedly killed.

A book which provides a terrific perspective of not only the longbow,but military history during the Hundred Years War is "The Great Warbow" by Matthew Strickland and Robert Hardy( a Master Archer)

Although the book could be praised for its excrutiatingly thorough detail, I was personally disappointed. The book is more suited to a "credit class" scholarly group than the casual reader, such as I, searching simply for an entertaining understanding of the event. Despite the fact that the author includes minute detail such as pay records, important illustrations such as maps relating to the campaign and battles are not included in the text at point of discussion and lack clarity when found in the Appendix. Adding to my personal confusion was the omission of a glossary defining a multitude of terms which would be familiar only to those with a background in medieval warfare.

I am frankly amazed by this book; and amazed that I am only the third reviewer in the USA, to give it the 5 stars it so richly deserves.

Anne Curry is the doyenne of Agincourt studies. She has studied the subject for an academic lifetime and published a magisterial summary of the main literary sources as long ago as 2000. She is Professor of History at Southampton. She has walked the route of the Agincourt campaign on many occasions. She is the first to study the French archives in any detail. Her conclusions are based firmly on the evidence. Her text is packed with information and helpful illustrations. Her footnotes will take the sceptical reader to wherever he wants to go. Yet, her 'New History' is vilified by some of my fellow reviewers, who cannot know more than a fraction of what she does about the subject.

Curry does make some controversial statements. For example, that Henry V's army was overwhelmingly English, and that the Welsh played only a small part. This view is based firmly on the considerable archive evidence; but she has received hate mail as a result, since it contradicts the view held by many Welsh patriots (which is based on emotion), and that held by some French historians (which is based on a desire to belittle the English role).

The main thesis is not that the English outnumbered the French (something which only Hans Delbruck and Ferdinand Lot have tried to assert); but that the English were not so outnumbered by the French as the chroniclers and William Shakespeare would have us believe. The fact that some things have always been accepted as true, does not make them true; and Curry's argument is once again based firmly on a careful examination of the archives, particularly the French. They may be only a snapshot; but they are all we have. Yet many, including Bernard Cornwell, who does not profess to be a historian, feel 'instinctively' that she must be wrong. To which Curry, like patience on a monument, smiling at ignorant grief, is entitled to reply that she has presented the evidence.

Where I would part company with her is in her statement that Agincourt (141) has not been regarded as a decisive battle, but that it deserves to be. Granted, it was a resounding victory, whatever the odds; but on one view, its effects were short-term. The period of English military dominance which it ushered in ended in 1435 at the latest, when the Burgundians withdrew from their alliance with England; and arguably it ended with the arrival of Joan at Arc at the siege of Orleans in 1429. It was certainly not in the same league as Nicopolis (1396) or Tannenberg (1410), or for that matter Castillon (1453), when the French ejected the English from Gascony for the last time, and killed their commander.

Stephen Cooper

Southampton University's Professor Anne Curry purports to have exposed the famous English victory over the French at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 as a "myth". When launching her book in 2005, she claimed that her researching of English and French archival records of hired mercenaries, including archers, crossbowmen, and men-at-arms, suggested that the English were outnumbered by a factor of only four to three rather than by at least four to one as previously believed by generations of military historians since 1415.

The professor appears to be ignoring the fact that the siege of Harfleur took a heavy toll on the English army and King Henry V had already sent several thousand wounded and sick soldiers back to England. She also appears to be ignoring the fact that the French force at Agincourt was largely composed of the great nobles of France, their vassal lords, and their knights, squires, and retinues of men at arms. It is very unlikely that these men would be recorded in the French archival records of hired mercenaries used by Professor Curry to create her revisionist history of Agincourt. Professor Curry is a Medieval historian but that does not necessarily mean that she is qualified to write military history.

I recommend that those interested in the Battle of Agincourt 1415 read Dr Juliet Barker's very readable and better researched Agincourt: The King, the Campaign, the Battle(2005).

An extremely thorough and engaging effort. Clearly, Curry has done extensive research in this 'new history' of the battle of Agincourt. Never has there been a better portrait than Curry's of the strengths and weaknesses of Henry V, and the army he led.

Highly recommended for those interested in an in-depth consideration of this important historical battle. The Notes, Appendices, maps and Bibliography would lead one to think that only historians will be led to this book. However, even an interested hobbyist or layperson will find it highly engaging reading.

For the non-specialist, this book might be a bit too much. Also, the paperback cover really looks like it is for assigning to undergrads.

Juliet Barker an equally if not more eminent historian along with the vast majority of international historians specialising in the 100 Year War make mincemeat of Dr Curry's research regarding the numbers of French troops at the battle. This is historical revisionism at it's worst, avoid like the plague.

I recommend Juliet Barkers Agincourt: Henry V and the Battle That Made England or for a fast-paced action-filled fictional account of a archer within King Henry's army [albeit based on extensive research] try Bernad Cornwell's Agincourt: A Novel