Great. I spot your comment before seeing the video wondering what its about, now I can't concentrate on the video because of frames within frames, within 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!
@Peter Grahame Yes and they try to inject modern, politically correct messaging at the same time. Especially the BBC, they've really gone downhill lately.
@@mrakhoover There are some who would say that their discussion of the execution of Prisoners of War was an injection of modern, politically correct messaging. Those people would be wrong (and may not even exist), but I think the argument could be made.
@Disco Stu so you are just making up a strawman so you can get irrationally triggered at an imaginary scenario you've made up in your head. Why do you do this?
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?)!
These historians who do not have proper scientific attitude, are you sure they are actual historians? Because i have never met unscientific historians. (Not armchair/hobbiest historians?)
@@pyotrilyichtchaikovsky3733 most modern "historians" change history and facts to fit a "politically correct" agenda that "doesn't hurt or offend people's feelings." You can notice this easily with anything relating to the holocaust or bad things that jews have done throughout history, repeatedly
The most famous example of putting that aphorism into practice, imo, is the legendary 300 Spartans (along with several thousand various other Greeks) forcing Xerxes's enormous Persian invasion force into a bottleneck at the Hot Gates in The Battle of Thermopylae. Even though the Spartans eventually fell to the last man, they managed to fight a successful holding action, against a vastly numerically superior force, killing many Persian soldiers and lowering their morale. And all the while buying time for Athens and the other city-states targeted by the Persians.
@@4thamendment237 Unfortunately-- as every remotely competent strategist and tactician knows all too well --getting the enemy to fight on your terms is a difficult task. After all, there is a very good reason that the aphorism _"No plan of battle survives first contact with the enemy"_ It always gives me a lot of pause that, no matter how well you've planned and prepared, just how much of a factor just blind _luck_ was in determining the outcome of so battles through the centuries... The task then becomes nigh impossible when applied to the keeping them fighting on your terms all the way through the whole conflict.
How refreshing to have knowledgeable people sharing their science in a calm and structured way, treating their audience as adults. What a great channel!
@@fixit4387 *'The English, the English, the English are best I could not care tuppence for all of the rest!'* That is all you need to know. Evidence be damned! A Welshman!
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.
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.
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.
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.
O would I wish, that a giant pencil sharpener could feed my archery habits. But no, I still have to ripcut the blanks from timber and plain them round, press the fibers straight and so on and so on... oh that pencil sharpener would be a blessing :D
If the stakes were somewhat uniform, could you not fashion some sort of circular metal clamp to go around the stake, that had flat square parts sticking out either side, allowing those parts to be hammered, rather than the stake itself, pushing said stake into the ground ? I know what I mean, ha, apologies if it's not clear, not sure how to explain it properly.
It does seem that once the stakes were firmly hammered in, it wouldn't be too difficult or time-consuming to hack them to at least somewhat of a point.
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
Wolny Lach Fair points indeed Sir. I’d like to amend/add the following: 1. When speaking of BFT I wasn’t specific and precise enough, for which I apologise. I think that the most important thing is not the ‘sting’ which, as You mention, is well managed by coif, padding and the helmet; but the fact that these, say 50-150 pounds of force, if hitting the body, are dissipated over a large area; however, when they hit the head, they end up having to be taken by the neck. A boxer can hunch and support his head - a knight not only can’t do it, but his head is heavier because of all this protection and still, using basic Newtonian physics, all the force imparted to the head and head armour will need to be dissipated somehow - and the weakest spot between the head and the center of mass are the neck vertebrae. 2. If arrows fly at very flat trajectories, then except for the outermost ranks, vast majority of the formations will end up being struck with arrows to the heads just due to basic physics. I recall sources mentioning French knights trying to look down in order not to get shot in the visors which not only supports the thesis of flat arrow trajectories, but also suggests numerous hits to/around the heads that would prompt that. 3. Tests and acceleration/torsion meters. I’m pretty positive that numbers are sufficient. POTENTIALLY You could try rent one of the mannequins used for car crash tests, as they have relevant sensors already embedded in them; medical literature as well as industry standards contain sufficient data re: forces and their effects. Actually, I’d be honoured to do the search and provide You with numbers existing in the literature for reference :) (Which I may as well do over next few weeks). Regards, Jack
This is a really interesting comment. I’m involved in coaching youth sports and there is an ever-growing awareness of the prevalence and effect of concussions. If a cross country runner can get a concussion by tripping and getting accidentally kicked in the head by a 115-pound distance runner, I would imagine that taking one of Joe’s arrows to the helmet at fifteen meters could easily inflict a concussion.
@@mjfleming319 additionally - think of all the armour clad men in a tight bunch, if one falls, others might think he is dead (or might not even notice) and thus they might trample over him in the horrendous conditions. I wonder how many men either fell from successive hits from arrows and got trampled, or drowned from mud or once fallen over tripped others over and thus exposed vulnerable areas?
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!
We know from the Tower Armoury records the "standard load" for a yeoman archer was a bundle of 24 arrows (no quivers). With several barrels holding bundles in reserve but never more than 1 for each archer with the army. So 48 arrows was usually your lot.
the arrows for longbows had to be made by specialist artisans (hence the name "Fletcher") unlike those used in pre-medieval times. The arrowheads were also quite valuable.
@@jaybluff281 Try the Battle of Nevilles Cross, the main English army is off in France so the Scots decide to invade to distract the English and support the French. The northen Percy and Neville families drag together a scratch force at short notice so the Scots decide they've got the advantage and attack. Unfortunately for them a two miles down the road the English have Durham castle, which is the main armoury and arrow store for the north-east of England. Basically the English are running the battle on high ground with an unlimited ammunition cheat enabled. You can imagine how it worked out!
This was actually common. They were still thinking about line infantry tactics and volley firing. Must have been fun against the artillery and maxim machine guns of the time.
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.
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.
Or at least a full body articulated faux skeleton with ballistic gel body, some mocked up organs and blood vessels, and full period armor and undergear that can be shot at from a variety of angles
Your proposed test is excellent, but, it needs the Mud to be some distance, perhaps 100 meters. The short-range bowman still has seconds, maybe minutes to keep firing.
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.
@@beyergarret123 Well a French knight had to carry a heavy armour and a Lance(remember knights usually fight mounted not dismounted) carrying a heavy long wooden object with a metal point that is jiggling during the cavalry charge does require some sort of upper body strength as well. My opinion is that it wasn't that the French dismounted knights weren't strong or good enough in melee combat,its just they never had a chance to fully engage the englishmen in hand to hand combat, all that mud,heavy armour weighting you down and getting harassed from the flanks all played a major role.
June 18th 1429, battle of Patay. 180 French knights later rejoined by their infantry for a total of around 1600 men defeated 5000 mem lead by John Talbot, killing 2500 British troops with very few losses. It was the end of Longbow archers... Agincourt was just a battle. In the end, France did win many more and did win the war, ending British claims to the French throne. 🇫🇷
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.
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.
I always wondered why the brains of the time never thought about adding a detachable spear head to the top/bottom of the longbow. It didn´t need to be big, just a pointy thingy that the archer keeps on his belt and can use in a pinch against a cavalry attack. De-stringing the bow is done in a couple of seconds, and you end up with a long straight wood pole, just begging for a spear head to be attached to one end, giving you an ad hoc spear. Longbows were as tall or taller than a man, and the heavier ones were really thick, so there is no mechanical disadvantage to use one as a spear. All you need is to prepare the end of the shaft to accept a quickly attachable spear head, like a bayonet. Archers used a short sword or dagger as defense. Wouldn´t it be better to replace that useless shit with a long spear head? Imagine a cavalry charge: Knight Lord-"Oh look, a bunch of unarmored and unarmed archers, let´s skewer them! Chaaaaarge!!" Lowly archer-"Oh look, a bunch of mounted knights, thinking of skewering us! Break out the spears, boyz!" Knight -"Oh shit... Thou art a moron, my liege! They have spears!!"
J F mate you would love the story of the 9th legion from Rome, vanishing in Scotland and nothing found. Not knowing the site of a battle is the norm. It’s hard to pinpoint a battle site from hundreds of years ago
@@Biden_is_demented Unstringing a high poundage war bow and putting on a spearhead is tough to do under attack or cavalry charge. Much better just to have dedicated pikemen who may carry extra arrows to protect the archers. These pike men will hold spears longer than knight lances or even what longbows with spearheads might have.
Tough to do under attack? It´s not like the cavalry charge is invisible until they are on top of you, are they? You see them (and hear them) coming a mile away. That gives you more than enough time to unstring and slap the spear head. The alternative is grabbing your puny short sword and die at the end of a lance. Or running. It takes literally 5 seconds to unstring the bow. Fixing a bayonet is another 5. That´s more than enough time. It´s not often you have the luxury of fielding pikemen to protect archers. If you do, great. But if you don´t, your archers are exposed.
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.
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 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.
@@T_bone Might as well just dig holes as ankle breakers like at Crecy. The water logged ground would have concealed holes very well too. I'm beginning to think something else was going on.
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.
Thanks for this. The HYW is so full of myths, and has always been... As it somewhat cemented the english identity, I can see why there are so many misconceptions about it. It's about time proper historians stir up a hornet's nest.
Sure. The English took thousands upon thousands of longbowmen on their chevauchees because they liked feeding thousands of useless mouths while marauding across hostile territory. And Agincourt was won by even more imbalanced odds than is already generally understood, because the longbowmen contributed nothing to the battle, it was just the men-at-arms who were able to win without any input from anyone else because, uh, (fill in reason later if anyone thinks to ask). I think you're onto something here and don't understand why anyone ever thought anything different.
@@BittermanAndy Yeap, because archers can only shoot bows, they can't scout, they can't pillage, they can only shoot their bows, so it must be concluded that their bows must have been perfect for the job. An army has never made a mistake in history; it has been shown that the British 2pdr gun couldn't penetrate that Pz.iv armour from even close range, but they fitted it to tanks anyway, so it must have worked, experiments and eyewitness accounts must be wrong.
@@BittermanAndy you make a straw man argument there. He never said the long bow men were ineffective. Just that they were not some super soldiers and everyone else showing up for battle was daft. And a longbowmen not fighting as an archer is not an archer. Incidently veteran longbowmen sought to get the kit and training together to become a man at arms because those were better paid than longbow archers, a lot better. And it is a fact that the battle deciding events in both Poitier and Agincourt was by men at arms in melee, in the former case cavalry flanking the French army and charging the rear causing a mass rout, Agincourt the French line hit the English line but could not capitalize on their numbers. In both instances the English longbowmen are mentioned to skip shooting arrows and join the melee instead as well. That does not mean the archers weren't important as flanking and harassing forces to prevent cavalry charges and flanks and essentially suppressing the enemy so their charges were less effective (and forcing them on foot), but they were only one component of the English army which relied on defensive battle doctrine to face superior French numbers and arguably offensive capabilities in open battle and you do raids essentially because you are broke and cannot really defeat the enemy in a headon fight, you need French nobles to switch sides, which they did because like in England and Germany they did not like strong kings. Also it was not a EnglishFrench struggle, it was a FrenchFrench struggle where the English king (being from a French noble House) used the remnants of his Avegnin Empire lineage to claim the French throne over the other French noble House. Plenty of French fought for him, throughout the entirety of the war Gascony and Guyenne were his territory. In the same vein Brittany and Burgundy were large military allies to the English king in serveral phases of the war and it was Burgundy which was considered having the supreme military force and organization of the late Middle Ages because her territory from Flanders was so filthy rich, outspending the French and English king despite "only" being a duke. Incidently the 100 Years war was lost for the English king not due to some big misfortune in battle, but because both Brittany and Burgundy firmly switched to the other side.
@@mangalores-x_x That is very true. Tho indeed, battles were not won beacause of the soldiers, but also beacause of the pressure put on the french commanders who had do act quickly, and to eventually make mistakes. But of course, if the first part of this war (wich is in fact constitued of 4 wars) was globally won by the english forces (or rather the french contestants of the throne and their french and english armies), the second half wasn't so successful to them. In fact, i suspect the myths of azincourt, crécy and poitiers to be the few "mythicized" stories to keep a bit of honour to the humiliating defeats that came. The french commandants believed in the power of cannons, and started using them since the 14th century. The battle of castillon was won beacause of the massive deployment of canons, bombards and couleuvrines (wich showed to be a little more effective than bows). But of course, if heavy artillery have been a french tradition for centuries, heavy cavalry was a tradition for millenia. After the english defeat at orléans (they lost the city), jeanne of arc and her army pursued the english army at Beugency, then at meung, and then a few knights accompanied with small troops of heavy cavalry (about 1500, some say more, some say less), attacked the english camp at Patay, killing 2500 of them, capturing 500, and chasing the rest. Of course it is now estimated that about 50 french cavaliers died this day (but that's a reasonable ratio to me). So some people believe so hard at the "trinity" battles, that they forgot that in 100 years, there was plenty of other exemples... this time won by the french. And it is also true that some people quickly forget that, well, the english ended up being kicked out anyways.
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.
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.
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.
I have ridden plenty of horses in my day, and I have to say, I would be shocked if you could ever get a horse to run headlong into anything that looked remotely pointy, because horses aren't stupid or suicidal, they have pretty good eyesight and they are capable of recognising danger. I would expect that as soon as a horse recognised that you're trying to get it to run straight into an array of long spikey objects, the horse would just stop, and it might even throw you if you tried to push it. While I've never tried to get a horse to run into sharpened stakes, I have had plenty of experiences of trying to get them to jump fences they don't like the look of, or run into brush or into woods with protruding branches that they don't like where they've just noped out on me and refused to continue forward. The only way I can see someone getting a horse to move through an array of sharpened stakes would be to dismount and lead the horse through them on foot. I strongly suspect that sharpened stakes were effective against cavalry simply because horses would refuse to charge into them, making the stakes a kind of anti-cavalry area denial tool.
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.
In historical books I have read, the armies used to camp overnight before the battle and the armies used to be no more than a mile or so apart. With regard to the archers, a wise commander would always try to secure the high ground, so that the enemy had to trudge uphill to engage. The archers could then fire either a flat or downhill. The enemy soldiers would be quite tired and potentially make mistakes, leaving vulnerable spots for the well practiced archers to exploit. Leg shots could wound and if immobilised, a wounded soldier could form a barrier for others coming from the rear to have to overcome in order to get to the enemy line. If enough were incapacitated that may for quite an effective barricade.
I just think it's not worth wasting arrows doing it. You don't have an endless supply, and it's much better to save that for when the enemy is coming at you. You could quite easily expend all your arrows in the time it takes the enemy to advance towards you. It just seems like a later invention, as with many things in Medieval media.
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.
John of Luxembourg was the blind Czech/Bohemian king who charged chained to his two retainers into the battle of Crecy. The story goes that when his retainers advised him to retreat, he said: It won't be that the King of Bohemia would ever retreat! Or so the story we are taught at school goes...
@@janiser4711 ack, was thinking it was Agincourt- srry. thank you for the adjustment. And yes, it's a story/myth perhaps, though there does seem at least to be a record of his death at the battle. To his credit, I live in the US and I've read it in books as well. :-)
@@zorkwhouse8125 Kudos for knowing about him! Perhaps your country is not lost after all ;-) He is remember in the Czech Republic as a skilled diplomat and great tournament fighter, who sadly in his search of glory and prestige mismanaged the day to day operations of the kingdom. And he was the father of the probably greatest king we ever had, Charles IV, king of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Bohemia#Popular_saying
@@janiser4711 Ah, Jan the Blind and his son, Karol (since Jan was so often abroad chasing glory, Karol was probably more involved in running the country and day to day diplomacy), were dangerous and troublesome neighbors for Poland. Jan titled himself a king of Poland, even though he was never crowned as such. That wasn't without a reason, of course, he had - as contemporaries would say - valid claims over the title. As many do over many titles. ;) He sold those claims to - some would say the greatest king we ever had - Kazimierz the Great, for an exorbitant sum.
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.
From books I have read on the battle, the english archers carried heavy mallets. These were used to pound the stakes into the ground, and as the french line closed with the english line, the archers used the same mallets, together with falchions and daggers, to engage the french. I can not say which contemporary account this is taken from, as there are no footnotes in the books that sites the exact document, but I don't find the information unlikely.
I've just added a note elsewhere on this comment board. Once a stake has been driven into the ground its easy to sharpen in with a tool that those men would have been very used to. Using a billhook just sharpen it with a couple of blows from above, rather than try to do so by cutting from below in an upwards fashion. Its much quicker than lashing other sticks to it. usually one to four blows are all that's needed depending on diameter of the pole & what sort of point you want. I'm an ex forester who used to build the odd cleft fence & have done it many times.
@Getpojke that's a good point, it usually is easier if e.g. there's a good supply of Hazel in the area and youre preparing at the trapping site. I'm generally thinking about having things prepared in advance so the actual laying process is as quick to deploy and clean up as possible.
@@tinkeringtim7999 Yep, preparation makes everything easier. The block on top version especially would be very useful. But in emergencies or when speed counts like where they had to up stakes & move like was mentioned this would be a quick solution. It's good hearing different solutions to problems from differing background, I like hearing others solutions to common problems.
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.
Regarding the archers and using stakes. They could have had one bloke in five or ten, carrying a additional boring stake to prep channels for other stakes to be wedged into afterwards. But heres an interesting thing, if you deliberately bore the channel larger, you preserve your dedicated stake without needing to blunten it, you can tighten the inended spike then by wedging any other random stick that you can bludgen with a hammer to your hearts content inside the small gap. The second advantage of the dedicated boring stake, is that you can have dedicated handholds and maybe even a firehardened tip to preserve it longer. Far moreenergy efficient and resource efficient. Wouldnt be surprised if someone did it back in the day, same brains and all.
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".
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.
Interesting idea but pulling it out would be REALLY difficult. I considered some sort of hole making option as well but can't come up with a really easy and portable solution. Perhaps a crossbow cranequin type of setup where you use a windlass to pull the stakes out quickly? Some lever system and a notch in the stakes?
@@adamtennant4936 speaking from personal experience of doing exactly this process using a metal wrecking bar whilst working in construction for years it's far far easier than it sounds. And remember the stake doesn't have to be set solid, it only needs to be secure enough to not fall over and present a threat.
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.
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.
Politics is the reason the French managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at Agincourt. One competent leader leading the whole army would never fall for such a trap and Henry would be an idiot who got himself captured/killed like his detractors said would happen.
@@squamish4244 The King of France was insane. Worse, poor Henry V married the Princess in that over-bred family and her child was also literally insane and caused Henry V's French holdings to fall into the hands of the French again and drove England into a very long war we call 'The War of the Roses.' So the 'victory' in France was really a poison pill.
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.
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.
They don't have to be sharp. The horses will see them and rear/shy away. This is also the animal behavior behind the success of the square in the gunpowder age...
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.
Battle archery was made effective by sheer numbers. A barrage of arrows shot point blank from hundreds/thousands of archers, with a concerted cycle rate of so many arrows per second, shot at unison, might have not penetrated armor but could and would dismount a knight by blunt force, kill his unarmored mount; either one would start a chain collision across the line that would dislodge horse and knight at the same time like a tidal wave. The terrain took care of the rest. There were grisly accounts of knights drowning in mud after being trampled by the successive charges and crowd crush.
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.
Would like to add, according to this NCBI article which used a 19th century surgical treatise as reference, arrows often seem to be fatal if it can hit a target in the lungs or intestines, Peritonitis is the biggest cause of mortaility if I'm reading it right, any arrow that went through the lung had a 72% mortality rate. I couldn't find an overall mortality rate from wounds. Troops in the past might have worn quite a bit of armor and in addition to a shield might have prevented many of the arrows from being so lethal, based off the armor found in Visby many of the poorer soldiers were buried with mail hauberks/coifs, depictions from Jean Froissart often depict even archers in brigandines and mail underneath www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5999391/
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.
Tod, you and Tobias should really consider continuing with this series. I am not English, not even European (by birth), but I like archery, armour and war history and this is extremely informative, not merely entertainment as many big company channels are doing these days.
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
"One bow, one plate for me is never conclusively going to prove much." I don't think they were _trying_ to prove much in the original video. In fact, I think they were working off the concept of using the scientific method (as Dr. Capwell notes at 24:19 and 25:32 ) to *disprove* a single hypothesis -- a common myth that the Longbow was such a superior weapon that it was blowing through the French armor like paper and they were stupid for wearing it (or at least behind the technology curve).
@@Chasmodius don't get me wrong the test was brilliant, however alot of other programmes had done simalar tests, using flat steel, breastplates, bows or air guns, different arrow heads etc.. to try and penatrate plate, some did some didnt. For me I always believed that an arrow couldn't penatrate plate or they wouldn't hsve used it. If that was the case why did so many die? So again really we should be moving away from a single plate and have a full replicated harness as a test subject. This would find the weak spots in harnesses that may answer the huge losses at Agincourt if in fact it was down to arrows. I certainly wouldnt have liked walking into thousands of arrows. I'm pretty sure Todd and co will do it , hopefully soon.
Two thoughts about this. First, a man-at-arms facing archers on their flanks or ahead but off to the side would tend to move away from them and consequently be bunched up in the center even to the point of not having enough room to swing a sword or mace. I think this was intended by the English. Secondly, having arrows shot at you would make you lower your eyes instinctively to protect your face, like when you get caught in a downpour, and you may well trip or bump into another man-at-arms on you right or left. No one wants an arrow through your visor.
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...
Yeah, not to mention focus fire from all sides would be very draining and LOUD, I can only imagine the clangor. Also they haven't tested side or thinner plates/armour pieces so it could be things were solid when they marched in, but as they became encircled things started to become more risky.
@@Lurklen also the arm and leg armour would have more gaps/thinner areas, and taking an arrow in the arm (or maybe the knee...) would also be a nuisance
If you get the chance to look at plate armours in a museum, I think you will see that virtually all from this late medieval period won't have plates covering the rear of the legs, or not the entire leg. If they did get the chance to shoot from the rear, the French would have been quite vulnerable.
@@danyoutube7491 Based on Dr Toby's book and other writing - fully enclosed arms and legs was an English armour thing, based on their preference for fighting on foot. French armour would probably not have had fully enclosed Cuisses (thighs), as the French Knights relished their role as cavalry and apparently it is easier to control a horse without armour between you and said horse. So your right, the back of the thigh might "only" have been protected by maille.
It would also have a very significant effect on the French formation. If you're getting shot from behind, you ARE going to turn around and become pretty much combat ineffective because you're not adding momentum or reinforcement to those in the fighting line any more (or the morale boost of knowing there are more of you backing you up). And it would have been really demoralising too, standing in a bog being shot at from all sides. So it's not just purely the numbers of casualties being caused.
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.
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.
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 ;)
That's interesting, because I'm not aware of a nation that focuses more on their failures than the British, and more specifically the English. To the point of it being pathetic. I mean look at the coverage of the second world war - the UK willingly cucks itself to the Americans and the Americans are all too eager to cuck the UK because they have a "focus purely on the victories because we're amazing" attitude. Though I think this "focusing on defeats" attitude is more of a modern thing (perhaps since the first world war) as the culture shifted very much against war due to the scale and brutality of that war; and it's quite likely that people treat things in the distant past very differently, and often with a certain romance. Agincourt is one of the very, very few examples of an English victory you'll ever hear about, and that's honestly probably just due to the collective momentum of literally hundreds of years of England and France being at one another's throats; and we're kind of just hearing the echos of generations of now dead English pride
One way of looking at it is when you have so many victories, the losses become more remarkable. When your nation is able to say "we took on every major power on the continent and won", losses are more surprising, and reflected on, so they aren't repeated. What do they remember about Rome's military exploits? Not their many, many wins, but their three massive losses to Hannibal. People don't remember every guy Muhammad Ali ever beat, but they remember Joe Fraiser, because he was one of Ali's few losses in his entire career. Even Sun Tsu said "Hence his victories bring him neither reputation for wisdom nor credit for courage." about great generals who always win, meaning they don't seek out praise for being great, thats just what is expected of them, meaning when they lose, it is more remarkable, and notable in history.
It's fairly common phenomena. Eg. in Poland they celebrate all the failed uprisings, the bigger the failure, the bigger the celebrations, peaking at the Warsaw uprising, completly pointless effort that lead to city being razed and roughly 200 000 people dying.
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.
Mark Vrankovich I once watched a documentary about a coyote and a roadrunner (it’s a bird) and they would ride ontop of the dynamite maybe they could have tried that
I’m an Australian Dr Toby, I just want the facts! There is so much bullshit about Agincourt. For example I only just found out that archers never shot high arching volleys of arrows. In fact the first time that was shown anywhere was in a movie in the 40’s or there abouts. When you think about it there would only be shallow angle glancing blows and small person crossection sized targets as well, plus or minus really, the arrows are being robbed of energy through drag and speed is vital for armour penetration and the faster you are going the more drag you have and that isn’t linear but a square rule, double the speed is four times the drag.
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.
I think we often jumped to the erroneous conclusion that the artist didn't know what they were drawing when we find things that look odd. Although, of course, that is the case for some things. You can clearly tell when a medieval artist is drawing an elephant that they're basing it off a description. But in cases where it's objects or people engaged in relatively familiar and common activities, then we should be more open to the fact that it's probably pretty authentic. Albeit stylised in some cases. This is also a great example of why experimental archaeology, like the arrows vs. armour series, is so valuable. Instead of just concluding one way or the other based on assumptions, it can be tested directly.
I find it telling enough that no one, absolutely 0% of people seem to be willing to be shot at with a warbow and a lethally tipped period accurate arrow head to disprove that these things don't hurt or kill you in armor. I'm sure it could be arranged to do that. Take it as hearsay but Kevin Hicks was the Warwick castle archer and tells a story of 2 knights in armor betting they could get to him before he drives them off with blunt arrows, and he placed his arrows so expertly that they both gave up after 2-3 hits.
It's alway nice to have a discussion on a french-english battle, done by english that does not go directly to french bashing but a discussion based on the facts, logic etc. Very intresting points
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.
"there is no thin, narrow stick so blunt that I would consider sprinting into it" - awesome phrase right here and would lend support to Todd's theory of you hammer in the sharp end by the blunt end.
Won't work well. Been there , done that. I do gardening and have planted stakes for supporting stuff. If you can push it down it can be easily pushed aside, or it may even fall on its own weight. Pulling off a hammered stake is easy. - Just grab the end and rock it a few times to loosen the hole. The stake is a lever.
@@JanoTuotanto Yes, but a few hundred of them planted at 45 degrees, would a horse run into that? Anyway, if they did it wouldn't matter if the stake came out of the ground once it's given the horse a good poke.
@@JanoTuotanto I definitely respect that with regards to establishing any kind of permanent or semi-permanent structure. But as far as 'easily pushed aside' go, perhaps we're talking here about something whose only purpose is to cause a fast(ish) moving infantry man to break stride for a moment, when at extremely close range to a bunch of archers. Anything that lets them turn say 2-3 shots into 3-4 (especially when adding another near point blank shot) has already more than done its job. So unless it's completely effortless to nudge it aside (again, while 'running', in armor, on a muddy field), there's still some value to it. (Perhaps. Since apparently the French all went straight for the king anyway, and many of the archers went unmolested the whole battle, it might have been a moot point anyway.) Still completely fascinating how a one sentence aside from Tod can provoke this whole train of thought, complete with educated responses from actual gardeners, eh. =)
I checked the Rolls of the battle. My ancestor was a "Lance in the retinue of John Talbot" Which is nice. Those Rolls are available for anyone to check, for free, online.
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.
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.
16th-century military manuals are clear that archers did shoot at 240 yards or so at times. I doubt that was some new practice, given the range 15th-century archers practiced at.
@@benjaminabbott4705 I'm not familiar with the manuals you're referencing, but that seems consistent with my current understanding of it. The book "With a Bended Bow: Archery in Mediaeval and Renaissance Europe" has a chapter on "Range and Penetration" and while I don't remember the specifics, it mentions several contemporary sources putting the maximum range of a bow to around 200-400 yards, of course depending on the time period, the equipment, and the archer.
But they aren't terribly worried about the distance or realism in the contemporary depictions, and as Capwell notes they use the pose in sieges and nautical battles, so if it was done why not there? Of course we have no way of knowing. Though one could argue that those in the past found the image of the archer shooting straight on more iconic than one with a raised bow, and that explanation would be just as likely. It's far from a nail in the coffin, but it is an indicator that maybe it was not as much a thing as we think, though not one of great weight, it does raise the question. We won't really know until we get a bunch of archers together and do it (with proper weight bows and era specific arrows) and see the result. If we find that it is really ineffective that will explain things. (I'm betting it's possible it was used in earlier eras as the armour wasn't as arrow proof, and/or it was still used against under armoured enemies, but that it's ineffectiveness against heavy armour lead to more straight on shooting. But I'll be very interested in any tests done on the subject.)
I think it probably wasn't considered a matter worth recording- the paintings are invariably about the battle proper, aren't they? In which case we shouldn't necessarily expect to see such activity (which is basically skirmishing) to be depicted. The meat of the battle, the typical way in which the soldiers fought, was probably as shown in the paintings.
I would greatly object to the notion artist from medieval periods would not be interested in displaying the correct use of weapons and their use. Don't forget that those who wanted this painted would have wanted a correct depiction. Some of the artist may even have been eye witness to such events as well. It certainly was part of their daily lives and at that point in time artist had become secular craftsmen rather than monks as well. I noticed some time ago that even the Bayeux tapestry and later illustrations had clearly depicted a lance across the horse body (diagonally) as I recently heard discussed in another youtube hema channel (knightly arts?) about knight versus footmen instruction book. In general I expect the illustrations to have tried to convey as much detail as they could.
Why oh why is it always said that henry the fifth sailed to harfleur from Southampton..he didn't he sailed from Portchester which is a few miles from Portsmouth!!
That may be my (Editor who made the map) mistake, rather than Toby's. We might do a video soon with a few corrections to various things, so I'll add that to the list. Thanks!
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?
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.
Amazing analysis! Time, and time again, the French behaved as a Gallic bull, goaded was not attack by a more disciplined or a more talented commander. I shudder to think of how many examples the history has offered of this. But, when the Gallic Bull is directed by a strong hand of a talented general, there is not much that can stop it.
Regarding the myth of archer insults... At Agincourt, the French flew the Oriflamme, meaning they would take no prisoners whatsoever. Even without that, archers were not nobility. Their ransom value was zero, and they had no expectation of surviving captivity. With or without their bow fingers. Speaking of which... correct me if I'm wrong, but they used 3 fingers on the bow string while the V gesture has only 2.
This stake in the ground point is really bothering me too now, especially considering the English moved to within shooting distance of the French. I have had to put fence posts and even bamboo shoots for vegetables in the ground and it is often not easy. Perhaps the English had some sort of cheval de frise, the individual stakes carried by archers might have been parts to a more complicated defence. It might all be down to how things were translated and words understood at the time, coukd stakes and chemin de frise have considered analogous?
they smash them in with a mallet then quickly renew the point with an axe i should think, lets say if me and you was doing this ,id hold the stake three parts the way up making it stable enough for you to put a rough point on
It had been raining for days, so the ground was soft & muddy rather than baked hard. The mud & soft ground was one of the things that slowed the French advance & many French who fell drowned trampled into it.
40:30 What if one carried a stake, sharp at both ends, hammered it into the ground, then used an ax to refurbish the point by striking on the end toward the base, driving the stake farther into the ground while sharpening the point?
Sharpened stakes vs. horses. The end does not need to be particularly sharp to deter a horse. I'm thinking of a Cheval-de-frise where typically the stakes weren't particularly large and it is the quantity of them that provides the deterrent. The ends do not need to be particularly sharp, just pointed. If they were carrying these stakes, then they couldn't have been very heavy, so, thick enough not to bend or break easily, and long enough to present an obstacle to a mounted knight. Maybe about 2-3 centimeters thick? About 2-3 m long? Sort of like a short pike, without the steel end. It's be easy enough to sharpen both ends and drive one end into the ground, especially mud, and then sharpen off the outer end. You weren't clear if the sources said 'pound' which implies a mallet, or drive, which could mean just using hand-strength to force it in, but I can't seen the French just standing around while the English hammered away at their line of stakes just nearby. Several thousand of these laid out in front of the line means they would not be a single line, but a thick band several deep. Even if any given stake could be knocked aside, anyone trying to push through would have to push several stake aside at the same time. Ever tried to force a way through a hedge? Even though the individual branches in the hedge are very small and thin and weak, it's still hard to do, never mind someone shooting arrows at you from a distance that, even if they didn't penetrate armour, could still knock someone over. Horses would simply not cross such an obstacle, unless they were trained as hunter-jumpers, which they didn't have. So let's picture the archers pulling up stakes, moving forward, then the first group drives their stakes into the ground at an angle, the next group drives theirs in a bit behind the first to quickly create a thick band, 2m wide, of 3cm thick stakes, angled up at chest height, in front of the English archers. Occasional thin gaps for armoured men-at-arms to move through, or to channel the enemy on foot. Something that cannot be simply knocked aside. Horses would not cross it, men on foot would have a pretty tough go. Especially as the battle-field itself drops off sharply to either side, which makes for very, very slippery, difficult land to walk over, even in modern lug-soled boots, never mind smooth-soled medieval shoes. The cavalry could not go through the wooded undergrowth, could not go past the lines of stakes protecting the flanks, and so were useless in that terrain. The dismounted French would have been channeled by the narrowing strip of land in towards the centre, where their numbers were not overwhelming, much like the frequent tales of large armies arrested by a few men on a bridge.
From what I've read the stakes would have been pounded in with a mallet - sharpened on both ends as you described. The sharpness of the stakes on the pointing end wasn't really that big an issue b/c a stake doesn't have to be very sharp to impale a horse moving at speed, and the purpose usually wasn't even for the cavalry to contact the stakes, just to cause the horses to rear if not outright turn before reaching the line. The archers themselves were rather bulky folks, needing quite a bit of strength to draw a bow of the period, and additionally when you're knocking something in that's intended to save your life you could imagine that they were pretty quick about it. The positioning would vary depending on where they were located in the line. Usually at least some archers would be positioned on the flanks, slightly forward, and their stakes would be aligned at a bit of an angle to the main line - sometimes even like > shape on the flanks. And then if there were enough archers, you would also have some placed in the center with their stakes in roughly a line. And I think you're right about the look of the stakes. They didn't actually have to be capable of piercing charging horses - they were intended just to present an obstacle that horses would refuse to charge into. So they actually wouldn't have been placed so close together as to stop unmounted soldiers, who normally could just walk right between them. That is partly because you wanted there to be plenty of room for the archers and men at arms to move forward through the stakes quickly after the archers had fired all their arrows. So these obstacles didn't really have the same purpose as later pike formations or the like did, dissuading both cavalry and infantry. They were strictly intended to keep the archers, who were usually placed at the very front of the formation, from being directly charged by cavalry while they were firing. As far as height, I'm not entirely sure. But they wouldn't have needed to be high enough to directly threaten the rider on the horse - they were solely designed to dissuade the horses rather than both horse and rider. Because as you noted if the horse won't cross it, then the rider won't either. The order to move forward given to the English archers at Agincourt was actually very rare and risky maneuver and probably only attempted in this case because of the muddy condition of the ground. Typically archers did not move in the open while in sight of the enemy cavalry because of how quickly the riders could close on them. The shift forward was, as they mentioned, part of the taunt that was presented to the French to provoke them to attack. The English also got away with hammering in the stakes within sight of the French because the French were so disorganized and no one was there to order a charge. Ironically, at the time period, an equally important job of battlefield leadership was to attempt to restrain the cavalry as well. As the impetuous knights and mounted men at arms on occasion would literally charge on sight of the enemy, with no coordination whatsoever. This spontaneous decision to advance is what the English were attempting to provoke and ultimately what ended up happening at Agincourt. Sort of a situation of - "Is that so and so attacking with his men? I can't stand by and let him go take all the glory - forward men!" And so the French nobles and their retinues just about attacked willy nilly - essentially the worst case scenario for a battle of this period. Also, with regard to the strategic use of archers - they would all carry either a sword or long dagger in addition to their bows and would be expected to move forward to engage disabled, immobilized or wounded enemies. Also, they needed to be able to pass forward quickly because of the practices regarding the capture and ransom of higher status combatants, which the archers would frequently join in on these efforts - groups running out and grabbing someone who's already down and pulling them back through the lines. On a special note, at Agincourt there was a bit of a mix-up which ended a bit tragically, resulting in the English being ordered to kill their captives - and this is one reason the fatality count was so high amongst the French nobility at the battle. Men who normally would have expected to be taken prisoner, ransomed and returned at some arranged later date.
If you can carry sharp stick and a mallet you can also carry small device that will allow you to hammer that stick into ground without ruining the tip.
@@vant4888 I think the issue was that the tip being actually sharp didn't really matter that much. B/c a man on horseback doesn't actually have to be moving that fast for the horse to be impaled upon running into such a stake. The stakes weren't intended to block approaching infantry and so they didn't need to be sharp enough to poke a man coming up to them. Really, they just needed to appear to the horses to be threatening and in doing so get them to either rear up if directly approaching the stakes or change direction/swerve before coming to them. And in that function they worked really well essentially because horses can be far smarter than people sometimes when it comes to self-preservation. Also, I don't think the soldiers would really expend the time to carve these stakes down to a fine point to begin with. They were hacked into rough points on both ends - to more easily allow for knocking or I suppose possibly shoving them into the ground (if the ground was soft enough). Ultimately I think expediency was the most important factor for these soldiers when it came to carving these things up and putting their stakes into the ground. It is likely that whatever method was fastest would be the one that they would have employed - b/c until those things are in the ground you're an easy target for charging cavalry. Also, I'm pretty sure I've seen period representations that actually show the men with mallets knocking the stakes into the ground. I'll have to hunt around for the specific images, but I'm almost positive the images exist.
Very enjoyable Tod. re pointed stakes: Drive pointed end in - waggle it back out. Reverse it and waggle it back in, then firm around it with feet - OR, use dirk to dig shallow angled hole, loop spare bowstring at stake's pointy end and peg other end into the ground with dirk so stake leans towards oncoming cavalry, this second option being both quicker to execute AND to 'up stakes and move', (which of course, they did and also giving quick access to a spare if your bowstring is damaged.
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.
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Those are some nicely framed frames you have framing your frames
Xzibit approved
They heard having more frames in your video makes it look better...
Great. I spot your comment before seeing the video wondering what its about, now I can't concentrate on the video because of frames within frames, within frames.
They had to put things in the right frame of mind.
The proper framing is everything.
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!
@Peter Grahame Yes and they try to inject modern, politically correct messaging at the same time. Especially the BBC, they've really gone downhill lately.
@@mrakhoover There are some who would say that their discussion of the execution of Prisoners of War was an injection of modern, politically correct messaging. Those people would be wrong (and may not even exist), but I think the argument could be made.
@Disco Stu Exactly, our subverted history courtesy of the BBC.
@@mrakhoover what politically correct messaging??? Or is it just messages you don't like.... we both know which one it is don't we.
@Disco Stu so you are just making up a strawman so you can get irrationally triggered at an imaginary scenario you've made up in your head. Why do you do this?
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?)!
These historians who do not have proper scientific attitude, are you sure they are actual historians? Because i have never met unscientific historians. (Not armchair/hobbiest historians?)
It helps that Dr Capwell is also a modern jouster. He gets HEMA
@@pyotrilyichtchaikovsky3733 most modern "historians" change history and facts to fit a "politically correct" agenda that "doesn't hurt or offend people's feelings." You can notice this easily with anything relating to the holocaust or bad things that jews have done throughout history, repeatedly
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.
That statement could have come directly from Sun Tzu's The Art of War.
This applies to all adversarial pursuits
The most famous example of putting that aphorism into practice, imo, is the legendary 300 Spartans (along with several thousand various other Greeks) forcing Xerxes's enormous Persian invasion force into a bottleneck at the Hot Gates in The Battle of Thermopylae.
Even though the Spartans eventually fell to the last man, they managed to fight a successful holding action, against a vastly numerically superior force, killing many Persian soldiers and lowering their morale.
And all the while buying time for Athens and the other city-states targeted by the Persians.
If you do that all the way through you won't ever lose.
@@4thamendment237 Unfortunately-- as every remotely competent strategist and tactician knows all too well --getting the enemy to fight on your terms is a difficult task. After all, there is a very good reason that the aphorism _"No plan of battle survives first contact with the enemy"_
It always gives me a lot of pause that, no matter how well you've planned and prepared, just how much of a factor just blind _luck_ was in determining the outcome of so battles through the centuries...
The task then becomes nigh impossible when applied to the keeping them fighting on your terms all the way through the whole conflict.
How refreshing to have knowledgeable people sharing their science in a calm and structured way, treating their audience as adults. What a great channel!
This channel has become really excellent in the last year.
Definitely.. seriously looking forward the follow-up videos . The contents been fantastic.
Yes, he found a british scientist without a british bias. Hard work, but well done ;)
@@fixit4387 Toby is American actually. He works and lives in the UK
@@PieterBreda Oh no, please dont destroy my last hope. :)
@@fixit4387 *'The English, the English, the English are best I could not care tuppence for all of the rest!'* That is all you need to know. Evidence be damned! A Welshman!
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.
I have watched this several times now, and with each i learn more and have more questions. History is now in the spot light and showing us more.
I shoot on the right side of the bow
All that without once talking about the real causes for the war. Typical of the history channels youtube promotes. Catholic propaganda.
@@joshportie In this instance, the hundred years war its more about the claims to the french throne.
@@joshportie The reasons for the war are beyond the scope of this video. If that interests you then why don't you make a video about it?
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
After the archers pulled them in. Yep, pretty much.
And now I'm gonna play Rammus and call myself Henry ;)
@@bastianstiefler3390 Well there is the Hero Fernando in Paladins that wears shiny armor.
he was on the defensive from the start, although he rarely actually tanked thanks to the stakes
Why use the term raid?
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.
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.
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 had the good fortune to work as a volunteer at the Wallace for several years and came across Toby from time to time
I think its pretty obvious that archers simply carried large pencil sharpeners
Brilliant! I think it's reasonable to go a step further and assume that the stakes were lead tipped to poison the French horses.
@@ironpirate8 Not lead, lol
O would I wish, that a giant pencil sharpener could feed my archery habits. But no, I still have to ripcut the blanks from timber and plain them round, press the fibers straight and so on and so on... oh that pencil sharpener would be a blessing :D
If the stakes were somewhat uniform, could you not fashion some sort of circular metal clamp to go around the stake, that had flat square parts sticking out either side, allowing those parts to be hammered, rather than the stake itself, pushing said stake into the ground ? I know what I mean, ha, apologies if it's not clear, not sure how to explain it properly.
It does seem that once the stakes were firmly hammered in, it wouldn't be too difficult or time-consuming to hack them to at least somewhat of a point.
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!
He did a small test with "wax on arrowheads" ... the results were interesting!
ruclips.net/video/oC30A6noRmY/видео.html
I just absolutely love how respectful Tod is. You can tell he is extremely humble whenever he addresses a point in the discussion.
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
Wolny Lach
Fair points indeed Sir. I’d like to amend/add the following:
1. When speaking of BFT I wasn’t specific and precise enough, for which I apologise. I think that the most important thing is not the ‘sting’ which, as You mention, is well managed by coif, padding and the helmet; but the fact that these, say 50-150 pounds of force, if hitting the body, are dissipated over a large area; however, when they hit the head, they end up having to be taken by the neck. A boxer can hunch and support his head - a knight not only can’t do it, but his head is heavier because of all this protection and still, using basic Newtonian physics, all the force imparted to the head and head armour will need to be dissipated somehow - and the weakest spot between the head and the center of mass are the neck vertebrae.
2. If arrows fly at very flat trajectories, then except for the outermost ranks, vast majority of the formations will end up being struck with arrows to the heads just due to basic physics. I recall sources mentioning French knights trying to look down in order not to get shot in the visors which not only supports the thesis of flat arrow trajectories, but also suggests numerous hits to/around the heads that would prompt that.
3. Tests and acceleration/torsion meters. I’m pretty positive that numbers are sufficient.
POTENTIALLY You could try rent one of the mannequins used for car crash tests, as they have relevant sensors already embedded in them; medical literature as well as industry standards contain sufficient data re: forces and their effects. Actually, I’d be honoured to do the search and provide You with numbers existing in the literature for reference :) (Which I may as well do over next few weeks).
Regards,
Jack
This is a really interesting comment. I’m involved in coaching youth sports and there is an ever-growing awareness of the prevalence and effect of concussions. If a cross country runner can get a concussion by tripping and getting accidentally kicked in the head by a 115-pound distance runner, I would imagine that taking one of Joe’s arrows to the helmet at fifteen meters could easily inflict a concussion.
@@mjfleming319 additionally - think of all the armour clad men in a tight bunch, if one falls, others might think he is dead (or might not even notice) and thus they might trample over him in the horrendous conditions. I wonder how many men either fell from successive hits from arrows and got trampled, or drowned from mud or once fallen over tripped others over and thus exposed vulnerable areas?
Arrows have nowhere near enough energy to cause such injuries to an armored head.
I second this idea. How do we get it funded for you to do Tod?
In one simple video these guys have instilled a burning curiousity for historical science. No extra drama required.
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!
We know from the Tower Armoury records the "standard load" for a yeoman archer was a bundle of 24 arrows (no quivers). With several barrels holding bundles in reserve but never more than 1 for each archer with the army. So 48 arrows was usually your lot.
DrStevenBul I'm 25 minutes in and that was the one part that stuck with me and was profound so far!
the arrows for longbows had to be made by specialist artisans (hence the name "Fletcher") unlike those used in pre-medieval times. The arrowheads were also quite valuable.
@@jaybluff281 Try the Battle of Nevilles Cross, the main English army is off in France so the Scots decide to invade to distract the English and support the French. The northen Percy and Neville families drag together a scratch force at short notice so the Scots decide they've got the advantage and attack.
Unfortunately for them a two miles down the road the English have Durham castle, which is the main armoury and arrow store for the north-east of England.
Basically the English are running the battle on high ground with an unlimited ammunition cheat enabled.
You can imagine how it worked out!
This was actually common. They were still thinking about line infantry tactics and volley firing. Must have been fun against the artillery and maxim machine guns of the time.
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.
Yes, we definitely need the scientific method and we must overall agree to say that we don't know for sure. :)
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.
You guys and a few more on RUclips are the REAL HISTORY Channel. Much love and respect!
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-)
Please sir, i want to volunteer to be the man in the armour in the mud , Mr Mannering Sir!!
Or at least a full body articulated faux skeleton with ballistic gel body, some mocked up organs and blood vessels, and full period armor and undergear that can be shot at from a variety of angles
They could partner with Slowmo guys to get the slow motion camera
@@pauln7422 Remind us about how little they like the Steel!
Your proposed test is excellent, but, it needs the Mud to be some distance, perhaps 100 meters. The short-range bowman still has seconds, maybe minutes to keep firing.
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.
English Archers were not solely Archers, they were good Skirmishers too, very adaptable to changing battle conditions.
and they had melee weapons
They would have had very well developed upper body strength, compared to the French aristocracy who probably were not as strong.
So pretty much like the modern sniper? The primary weapon being long range and then having that back-up side arm like a sword, mace, knife etc?
@@beyergarret123 Well a French knight had to carry a heavy armour and a Lance(remember knights usually fight mounted not dismounted) carrying a heavy long wooden object with a metal point that is jiggling during the cavalry charge does require some sort of upper body strength as well.
My opinion is that it wasn't that the French dismounted knights weren't strong or good enough in melee combat,its just they never had a chance to fully engage the englishmen in hand to hand combat, all that mud,heavy armour weighting you down and getting harassed from the flanks all played a major role.
June 18th 1429, battle of Patay.
180 French knights later rejoined by their infantry for a total of around 1600 men defeated 5000 mem lead by John Talbot, killing 2500 British troops with very few losses.
It was the end of Longbow archers...
Agincourt was just a battle.
In the end, France did win many more and did win the war, ending British claims to the French throne. 🇫🇷
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.
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.
I always wondered why the brains of the time never thought about adding a detachable spear head to the top/bottom of the longbow. It didn´t need to be big, just a pointy thingy that the archer keeps on his belt and can use in a pinch against a cavalry attack. De-stringing the bow is done in a couple of seconds, and you end up with a long straight wood pole, just begging for a spear head to be attached to one end, giving you an ad hoc spear. Longbows were as tall or taller than a man, and the heavier ones were really thick, so there is no mechanical disadvantage to use one as a spear. All you need is to prepare the end of the shaft to accept a quickly attachable spear head, like a bayonet. Archers used a short sword or dagger as defense. Wouldn´t it be better to replace that useless shit with a long spear head?
Imagine a cavalry charge:
Knight Lord-"Oh look, a bunch of unarmored and unarmed archers, let´s skewer them! Chaaaaarge!!"
Lowly archer-"Oh look, a bunch of mounted knights, thinking of skewering us! Break out the spears, boyz!"
Knight -"Oh shit... Thou art a moron, my liege! They have spears!!"
J F mate you would love the story of the 9th legion from Rome, vanishing in Scotland and nothing found. Not knowing the site of a battle is the norm. It’s hard to pinpoint a battle site from hundreds of years ago
@@Biden_is_demented Unstringing a high poundage war bow and putting on a spearhead is tough to do under attack or cavalry charge. Much better just to have dedicated pikemen who may carry extra arrows to protect the archers. These pike men will hold spears longer than knight lances or even what longbows with spearheads might have.
Tough to do under attack? It´s not like the cavalry charge is invisible until they are on top of you, are they? You see them (and hear them) coming a mile away. That gives you more than enough time to unstring and slap the spear head. The alternative is grabbing your puny short sword and die at the end of a lance. Or running. It takes literally 5 seconds to unstring the bow. Fixing a bayonet is another 5. That´s more than enough time. It´s not often you have the luxury of fielding pikemen to protect archers. If you do, great. But if you don´t, your archers are exposed.
@@Biden_is_demented Because bows bend too much to do any good in that role. And you're better off just shooting at advancing cavalry.
I am a simple man. I see Toby Capwell - I click.
Rumblefin Homeboy knows his shit...
I love the thoughtfulness of it. He's a star.
He’s been one of my heroes for quite some time. It’s awesome seeing more of his talks.
Apes strong together. Me also click!
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.
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!
Getting them all together to do this would be fantastic!
But, lol...
Man Tod, for you just being a guy who works with his hands you sure put out some incredibly interesting historical content. +1
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.
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.
Good point. I can imagine them using those tools if they wanted to reuse their equipment.
Dig a hole, stick shaft or pike in. Hole would probably be 1 to 2 feet deep. Angle pike and tamp down the ground.
True, I'd put a blunt stick into the ground then cut it with a hatchet amd sharpen it then.
@@T_bone Might as well just dig holes as ankle breakers like at Crecy. The water logged ground would have concealed holes very well too. I'm beginning to think something else was going on.
It probably wasn't too difficult getting the stakes in the ground since the soil was soft from the rain
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.
Thanks for this. The HYW is so full of myths, and has always been... As it somewhat cemented the english identity, I can see why there are so many misconceptions about it. It's about time proper historians stir up a hornet's nest.
Sure. The English took thousands upon thousands of longbowmen on their chevauchees because they liked feeding thousands of useless mouths while marauding across hostile territory. And Agincourt was won by even more imbalanced odds than is already generally understood, because the longbowmen contributed nothing to the battle, it was just the men-at-arms who were able to win without any input from anyone else because, uh, (fill in reason later if anyone thinks to ask). I think you're onto something here and don't understand why anyone ever thought anything different.
@@BittermanAndy Yeap, because archers can only shoot bows, they can't scout, they can't pillage, they can only shoot their bows, so it must be concluded that their bows must have been perfect for the job.
An army has never made a mistake in history; it has been shown that the British 2pdr gun couldn't penetrate that Pz.iv armour from even close range, but they fitted it to tanks anyway, so it must have worked, experiments and eyewitness accounts must be wrong.
@@BittermanAndy you make a straw man argument there. He never said the long bow men were ineffective. Just that they were not some super soldiers and everyone else showing up for battle was daft. And a longbowmen not fighting as an archer is not an archer. Incidently veteran longbowmen sought to get the kit and training together to become a man at arms because those were better paid than longbow archers, a lot better.
And it is a fact that the battle deciding events in both Poitier and Agincourt was by men at arms in melee, in the former case cavalry flanking the French army and charging the rear causing a mass rout, Agincourt the French line hit the English line but could not capitalize on their numbers. In both instances the English longbowmen are mentioned to skip shooting arrows and join the melee instead as well.
That does not mean the archers weren't important as flanking and harassing forces to prevent cavalry charges and flanks and essentially suppressing the enemy so their charges were less effective (and forcing them on foot), but they were only one component of the English army which relied on defensive battle doctrine to face superior French numbers and arguably offensive capabilities in open battle and you do raids essentially because you are broke and cannot really defeat the enemy in a headon fight, you need French nobles to switch sides, which they did because like in England and Germany they did not like strong kings.
Also it was not a EnglishFrench struggle, it was a FrenchFrench struggle where the English king (being from a French noble House) used the remnants of his Avegnin Empire lineage to claim the French throne over the other French noble House. Plenty of French fought for him, throughout the entirety of the war Gascony and Guyenne were his territory.
In the same vein Brittany and Burgundy were large military allies to the English king in serveral phases of the war and it was Burgundy which was considered having the supreme military force and organization of the late Middle Ages because her territory from Flanders was so filthy rich, outspending the French and English king despite "only" being a duke.
Incidently the 100 Years war was lost for the English king not due to some big misfortune in battle, but because both Brittany and Burgundy firmly switched to the other side.
@@mangalores-x_x That is very true. Tho indeed, battles were not won beacause of the soldiers, but also beacause of the pressure put on the french commanders who had do act quickly, and to eventually make mistakes.
But of course, if the first part of this war (wich is in fact constitued of 4 wars) was globally won by the english forces (or rather the french contestants of the throne and their french and english armies), the second half wasn't so successful to them.
In fact, i suspect the myths of azincourt, crécy and poitiers to be the few "mythicized" stories to keep a bit of honour to the humiliating defeats that came. The french commandants believed in the power of cannons, and started using them since the 14th century. The battle of castillon was won beacause of the massive deployment of canons, bombards and couleuvrines (wich showed to be a little more effective than bows). But of course, if heavy artillery have been a french tradition for centuries, heavy cavalry was a tradition for millenia. After the english defeat at orléans (they lost the city), jeanne of arc and her army pursued the english army at Beugency, then at meung, and then a few knights accompanied with small troops of heavy cavalry (about 1500, some say more, some say less), attacked the english camp at Patay, killing 2500 of them, capturing 500, and chasing the rest. Of course it is now estimated that about 50 french cavaliers died this day (but that's a reasonable ratio to me).
So some people believe so hard at the "trinity" battles, that they forgot that in 100 years, there was plenty of other exemples... this time won by the french. And it is also true that some people quickly forget that, well, the english ended up being kicked out anyways.
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.
Yes! And no more ancient alien BS on the history channel
Thinking the world always needs more of what you like is the height of arrogance.
@@fromthebackseat4865 Not at all.
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.
Forty minutes of pure cultural gold. A big thank you! Such a clear, interesting and educational video, I cannot express my gratitude well enough
Tod knows nothing about history. Agincourt is the most useless victory in history.
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.
I have ridden plenty of horses in my day, and I have to say, I would be shocked if you could ever get a horse to run headlong into anything that looked remotely pointy, because horses aren't stupid or suicidal, they have pretty good eyesight and they are capable of recognising danger. I would expect that as soon as a horse recognised that you're trying to get it to run straight into an array of long spikey objects, the horse would just stop, and it might even throw you if you tried to push it. While I've never tried to get a horse to run into sharpened stakes, I have had plenty of experiences of trying to get them to jump fences they don't like the look of, or run into brush or into woods with protruding branches that they don't like where they've just noped out on me and refused to continue forward. The only way I can see someone getting a horse to move through an array of sharpened stakes would be to dismount and lead the horse through them on foot. I strongly suspect that sharpened stakes were effective against cavalry simply because horses would refuse to charge into them, making the stakes a kind of anti-cavalry area denial tool.
Two great men discussing one of the most impactful battles in European history. Sincere thanks to you both. I enjoyed it immensely.
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.
Possible, but people of the time would be used to the scale.
In historical books I have read, the armies used to camp overnight before the battle and the armies used to be no more than a mile or so apart. With regard to the archers, a wise commander would always try to secure the high ground, so that the enemy had to trudge uphill to engage. The archers could then fire either a flat or downhill. The enemy soldiers would be quite tired and potentially make mistakes, leaving vulnerable spots for the well practiced archers to exploit. Leg shots could wound and if immobilised, a wounded soldier could form a barrier for others coming from the rear to have to overcome in order to get to the enemy line. If enough were incapacitated that may for quite an effective barricade.
I just think it's not worth wasting arrows doing it. You don't have an endless supply, and it's much better to save that for when the enemy is coming at you. You could quite easily expend all your arrows in the time it takes the enemy to advance towards you.
It just seems like a later invention, as with many things in Medieval media.
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.
John of Luxembourg was the blind Czech/Bohemian king who charged chained to his two retainers into the battle of Crecy. The story goes that when his retainers advised him to retreat, he said: It won't be that the King of Bohemia would ever retreat!
Or so the story we are taught at school goes...
@@janiser4711 ack, was thinking it was Agincourt- srry. thank you for the adjustment. And yes, it's a story/myth perhaps, though there does seem at least to be a record of his death at the battle. To his credit, I live in the US and I've read it in books as well. :-)
@@zorkwhouse8125 Kudos for knowing about him! Perhaps your country is not lost after all ;-) He is remember in the Czech Republic as a skilled diplomat and great tournament fighter, who sadly in his search of glory and prestige mismanaged the day to day operations of the kingdom. And he was the father of the probably greatest king we ever had, Charles IV, king of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Bohemia#Popular_saying
@@janiser4711 Ah, Jan the Blind and his son, Karol (since Jan was so often abroad chasing glory, Karol was probably more involved in running the country and day to day diplomacy), were dangerous and troublesome neighbors for Poland. Jan titled himself a king of Poland, even though he was never crowned as such. That wasn't without a reason, of course, he had - as contemporaries would say - valid claims over the title. As many do over many titles. ;) He sold those claims to - some would say the greatest king we ever had - Kazimierz the Great, for an exorbitant sum.
There no blind Bohemian King at the battle of Agincourt..... wrong battle. Wrong century
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.
From books I have read on the battle, the english archers carried heavy mallets. These were used to pound the stakes into the ground, and as the french line closed with the english line, the archers used the same mallets, together with falchions and daggers, to engage the french. I can not say which contemporary account this is taken from, as there are no footnotes in the books that sites the exact document, but I don't find the information unlikely.
I've just added a note elsewhere on this comment board. Once a stake has been driven into the ground its easy to sharpen in with a tool that those men would have been very used to. Using a billhook just sharpen it with a couple of blows from above, rather than try to do so by cutting from below in an upwards fashion. Its much quicker than lashing other sticks to it. usually one to four blows are all that's needed depending on diameter of the pole & what sort of point you want. I'm an ex forester who used to build the odd cleft fence & have done it many times.
@Getpojke that's a good point, it usually is easier if e.g. there's a good supply of Hazel in the area and youre preparing at the trapping site. I'm generally thinking about having things prepared in advance so the actual laying process is as quick to deploy and clean up as possible.
@@tinkeringtim7999 Yep, preparation makes everything easier. The block on top version especially would be very useful. But in emergencies or when speed counts like where they had to up stakes & move like was mentioned this would be a quick solution. It's good hearing different solutions to problems from differing background, I like hearing others solutions to common problems.
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.
Nothing better than listening to someone talk about something they're passionate about and love
Regarding the archers and using stakes. They could have had one bloke in five or ten, carrying a additional boring stake to prep channels for other stakes to be wedged into afterwards. But heres an interesting thing, if you deliberately bore the channel larger, you preserve your dedicated stake without needing to blunten it, you can tighten the inended spike then by wedging any other random stick that you can bludgen with a hammer to your hearts content inside the small gap. The second advantage of the dedicated boring stake, is that you can have dedicated handholds and maybe even a firehardened tip to preserve it longer. Far moreenergy efficient and resource efficient. Wouldnt be surprised if someone did it back in the day, same brains and all.
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".
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.
Interesting idea but pulling it out would be REALLY difficult. I considered some sort of hole making option as well but can't come up with a really easy and portable solution. Perhaps a crossbow cranequin type of setup where you use a windlass to pull the stakes out quickly? Some lever system and a notch in the stakes?
@@adamtennant4936 speaking from personal experience of doing exactly this process using a metal wrecking bar whilst working in construction for years it's far far easier than it sounds. And remember the stake doesn't have to be set solid, it only needs to be secure enough to not fall over and present a threat.
@@WozWozEre True, I guess even if it looks like a potential problem it's good enough.
Plus, we know the ground was wet.
Surely it's easier to just sharpen both ends?
"Bussaco! You magnificent bastard! I read your book!" - Henry V, probably.
Boucicaut ;)
@@sirwi11iam And this is why I couldn't find any info on him. I thought he was Italian. Sad.
Rag Plays to be fair, it does sound Italian.
Charles I d'Albret: "Has Henry nothing to offer me but these Amazons?"
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.
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.
As an American...I second this!
As a Scotsman, i third.
Politics is the reason the French managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at Agincourt. One competent leader leading the whole army would never fall for such a trap and Henry would be an idiot who got himself captured/killed like his detractors said would happen.
@@squamish4244 The King of France was insane. Worse, poor Henry V married the Princess in that over-bred family and her child was also literally insane and caused Henry V's French holdings to fall into the hands of the French again and drove England into a very long war we call 'The War of the Roses.' So the 'victory' in France was really a poison pill.
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.
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.
They don't have to be sharp. The horses will see them and rear/shy away. This is also the animal behavior behind the success of the square in the gunpowder age...
You simply hammer a stake into the ground pointy end first then sharpen the exposed blunt end with any handy blade (axe, knife, etc)
I thought the same thing.
He answered this in the video - sharpening a stake once it was in the ground would probably loosen the hole to the point where it provided no support.
@@GaudiaCertaminisGaming I don't really see this as a problem. Several men could hold the stake firmly in position while it was being sharpened.
Or hammer it pointy end in slide it out and turn it round then slide it back in
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.
Battle archery was made effective by sheer numbers. A barrage of arrows shot point blank from hundreds/thousands of archers, with a concerted cycle rate of so many arrows per second, shot at unison, might have not penetrated armor but could and would dismount a knight by blunt force, kill his unarmored mount; either one would start a chain collision across the line that would dislodge horse and knight at the same time like a tidal wave. The terrain took care of the rest. There were grisly accounts of knights drowning in mud after being trampled by the successive charges and crowd crush.
I loved this episode and i CAN'T WAIT to see some more field testing.
Ty for your scientific work in search of the truth.
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.
Would like to add, according to this NCBI article which used a 19th century surgical treatise as reference, arrows often seem to be fatal if it can hit a target in the lungs or intestines, Peritonitis is the biggest cause of mortaility if I'm reading it right, any arrow that went through the lung had a 72% mortality rate. I couldn't find an overall mortality rate from wounds. Troops in the past might have worn quite a bit of armor and in addition to a shield might have prevented many of the arrows from being so lethal, based off the armor found in Visby many of the poorer soldiers were buried with mail hauberks/coifs, depictions from Jean Froissart often depict even archers in brigandines and mail underneath
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5999391/
Wow, just wow. This channel is going to go places.
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.
Tod, you and Tobias should really consider continuing with this series. I am not English, not even European (by birth), but I like archery, armour and war history and this is extremely informative, not merely entertainment as many big company channels are doing these days.
Sorry, I see now you are busy. Thank you!
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
"One bow, one plate for me is never conclusively going to prove much."
I don't think they were _trying_ to prove much in the original video. In fact, I think they were working off the concept of using the scientific method (as Dr. Capwell notes at 24:19 and 25:32 ) to *disprove* a single hypothesis -- a common myth that the Longbow was such a superior weapon that it was blowing through the French armor like paper and they were stupid for wearing it (or at least behind the technology curve).
@@Chasmodius don't get me wrong the test was brilliant, however alot of other programmes had done simalar tests, using flat steel, breastplates, bows or air guns, different arrow heads etc.. to try and penatrate plate, some did some didnt. For me I always believed that an arrow couldn't penatrate plate or they wouldn't hsve used it. If that was the case why did so many die? So again really we should be moving away from a single plate and have a full replicated harness as a test subject. This would find the weak spots in harnesses that may answer the huge losses at Agincourt if in fact it was down to arrows. I certainly wouldnt have liked walking into thousands of arrows. I'm pretty sure Todd and co will do it , hopefully soon.
can't wait for the follow up tests to this discussion! I hope they are still in the works
I also force the enemy to attack me with my longbows in Total War. I'm basically an expert. ^.^
Two thoughts about this. First, a man-at-arms facing archers on their flanks or ahead but off to the side would tend to move away from them and consequently be bunched up in the center even to the point of not having enough room to swing a sword or mace. I think this was intended by the English. Secondly, having arrows shot at you would make you lower your eyes instinctively to protect your face, like when you get caught in a downpour, and you may well trip or bump into another man-at-arms on you right or left. No one wants an arrow through your visor.
"He's like an anglerfish." Classic!
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...
Yeah, not to mention focus fire from all sides would be very draining and LOUD, I can only imagine the clangor. Also they haven't tested side or thinner plates/armour pieces so it could be things were solid when they marched in, but as they became encircled things started to become more risky.
@@Lurklen also the arm and leg armour would have more gaps/thinner areas, and taking an arrow in the arm (or maybe the knee...) would also be a nuisance
If you get the chance to look at plate armours in a museum, I think you will see that virtually all from this late medieval period won't have plates covering the rear of the legs, or not the entire leg. If they did get the chance to shoot from the rear, the French would have been quite vulnerable.
@@danyoutube7491 Based on Dr Toby's book and other writing - fully enclosed arms and legs was an English armour thing, based on their preference for fighting on foot. French armour would probably not have had fully enclosed Cuisses (thighs), as the French Knights relished their role as cavalry and apparently it is easier to control a horse without armour between you and said horse. So your right, the back of the thigh might "only" have been protected by maille.
It would also have a very significant effect on the French formation. If you're getting shot from behind, you ARE going to turn around and become pretty much combat ineffective because you're not adding momentum or reinforcement to those in the fighting line any more (or the morale boost of knowing there are more of you backing you up). And it would have been really demoralising too, standing in a bog being shot at from all sides. So it's not just purely the numbers of casualties being caused.
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.
Sounds like Sun Tzu would have a field day lecturing about this battle.
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.
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.
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 ;)
That's interesting, because I'm not aware of a nation that focuses more on their failures than the British, and more specifically the English. To the point of it being pathetic. I mean look at the coverage of the second world war - the UK willingly cucks itself to the Americans and the Americans are all too eager to cuck the UK because they have a "focus purely on the victories because we're amazing" attitude. Though I think this "focusing on defeats" attitude is more of a modern thing (perhaps since the first world war) as the culture shifted very much against war due to the scale and brutality of that war; and it's quite likely that people treat things in the distant past very differently, and often with a certain romance. Agincourt is one of the very, very few examples of an English victory you'll ever hear about, and that's honestly probably just due to the collective momentum of literally hundreds of years of England and France being at one another's throats; and we're kind of just hearing the echos of generations of now dead English pride
One way of looking at it is when you have so many victories, the losses become more remarkable. When your nation is able to say "we took on every major power on the continent and won", losses are more surprising, and reflected on, so they aren't repeated.
What do they remember about Rome's military exploits? Not their many, many wins, but their three massive losses to Hannibal. People don't remember every guy Muhammad Ali ever beat, but they remember Joe Fraiser, because he was one of Ali's few losses in his entire career.
Even Sun Tsu said "Hence his victories bring him neither reputation for wisdom nor credit for courage." about great generals who always win, meaning they don't seek out praise for being great, thats just what is expected of them, meaning when they lose, it is more remarkable, and notable in history.
It's fairly common phenomena. Eg. in Poland they celebrate all the failed uprisings, the bigger the failure, the bigger the celebrations, peaking at the Warsaw uprising, completly pointless effort that lead to city being razed and roughly 200 000 people dying.
Or alternatively, the English look back a lot more favourably on their aristocracy than the French do.
@@Robert399 "Look back"? - the English aristocracy was never overthrown - it's still current.
Dr Tobias,..Brilliant,.hope to see more of him..👏👍🇬🇧
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.
Mark Vrankovich I once watched a documentary about a coyote and a roadrunner (it’s a bird) and they would ride ontop of the dynamite maybe they could have tried that
I’m an Australian Dr Toby, I just want the facts! There is so much bullshit about Agincourt. For example I only just found out that archers never shot high arching volleys of arrows. In fact the first time that was shown anywhere was in a movie in the 40’s or there abouts. When you think about it there would only be shallow angle glancing blows and small person crossection sized targets as well, plus or minus really, the arrows are being robbed of energy through drag and speed is vital for armour penetration and the faster you are going the more drag you have and that isn’t linear but a square rule, double the speed is four times the drag.
if you two did a podcast going through the details of various medieval battles and sieges i would listen to every one of them
My question is.
Who stole all the paintings?
Nick Cage
@@Abudzin no, he stole the declaration of independence
@@Legitpenguins99 But he got the TREASURE 😊
Ocean did.
Those ARE the paintings.
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.
I think we often jumped to the erroneous conclusion that the artist didn't know what they were drawing when we find things that look odd. Although, of course, that is the case for some things. You can clearly tell when a medieval artist is drawing an elephant that they're basing it off a description.
But in cases where it's objects or people engaged in relatively familiar and common activities, then we should be more open to the fact that it's probably pretty authentic. Albeit stylised in some cases.
This is also a great example of why experimental archaeology, like the arrows vs. armour series, is so valuable. Instead of just concluding one way or the other based on assumptions, it can be tested directly.
Something that'll never not bother me, especially in this amazing video, is how Azincourt will apparently always be misspelled with a G.
Bloody Frogs!
I find it telling enough that no one, absolutely 0% of people seem to be willing to be shot at with a warbow and a lethally tipped period accurate arrow head to disprove that these things don't hurt or kill you in armor. I'm sure it could be arranged to do that. Take it as hearsay but Kevin Hicks was the Warwick castle archer and tells a story of 2 knights in armor betting they could get to him before he drives them off with blunt arrows, and he placed his arrows so expertly that they both gave up after 2-3 hits.
Never been this focused and interested in a youtube video. Thank you for this, amazing content and research
It's alway nice to have a discussion on a french-english battle, done by english that does not go directly to french bashing but a discussion based on the facts, logic etc. Very intresting points
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.
"there is no thin, narrow stick so blunt that I would consider sprinting into it" - awesome phrase right here and would lend support to Todd's theory of you hammer in the sharp end by the blunt end.
I agree with your reasoning. 2-3" stake, soft ground, a strong guy could push it in fairly easily.
Won't work well. Been there , done that.
I do gardening and have planted stakes for supporting stuff.
If you can push it down it can be easily pushed aside, or it may even fall on its own weight.
Pulling off a hammered stake is easy. - Just grab the end and rock it a few times to loosen the hole. The stake is a lever.
@@JanoTuotanto Yes, but a few hundred of them planted at 45 degrees, would a horse run into that? Anyway, if they did it wouldn't matter if the stake came out of the ground once it's given the horse a good poke.
@@JanoTuotanto I definitely respect that with regards to establishing any kind of permanent or semi-permanent structure. But as far as 'easily pushed aside' go, perhaps we're talking here about something whose only purpose is to cause a fast(ish) moving infantry man to break stride for a moment, when at extremely close range to a bunch of archers. Anything that lets them turn say 2-3 shots into 3-4 (especially when adding another near point blank shot) has already more than done its job.
So unless it's completely effortless to nudge it aside (again, while 'running', in armor, on a muddy field), there's still some value to it.
(Perhaps. Since apparently the French all went straight for the king anyway, and many of the archers went unmolested the whole battle, it might have been a moot point anyway.)
Still completely fascinating how a one sentence aside from Tod can provoke this whole train of thought, complete with educated responses from actual gardeners, eh. =)
I heard that, the winners kept elite prisoners for ransom and they killed the men wearing unchiseled armor.
I checked the Rolls of the battle. My ancestor was a "Lance in the retinue of John Talbot"
Which is nice. Those Rolls are available for anyone to check, for free, online.
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.
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.
16th-century military manuals are clear that archers did shoot at 240 yards or so at times. I doubt that was some new practice, given the range 15th-century archers practiced at.
@@benjaminabbott4705 I'm not familiar with the manuals you're referencing, but that seems consistent with my current understanding of it. The book "With a Bended Bow: Archery in Mediaeval and Renaissance Europe" has a chapter on "Range and Penetration" and while I don't remember the specifics, it mentions several contemporary sources putting the maximum range of a bow to around 200-400 yards, of course depending on the time period, the equipment, and the archer.
But they aren't terribly worried about the distance or realism in the contemporary depictions, and as Capwell notes they use the pose in sieges and nautical battles, so if it was done why not there? Of course we have no way of knowing. Though one could argue that those in the past found the image of the archer shooting straight on more iconic than one with a raised bow, and that explanation would be just as likely. It's far from a nail in the coffin, but it is an indicator that maybe it was not as much a thing as we think, though not one of great weight, it does raise the question.
We won't really know until we get a bunch of archers together and do it (with proper weight bows and era specific arrows) and see the result. If we find that it is really ineffective that will explain things. (I'm betting it's possible it was used in earlier eras as the armour wasn't as arrow proof, and/or it was still used against under armoured enemies, but that it's ineffectiveness against heavy armour lead to more straight on shooting. But I'll be very interested in any tests done on the subject.)
I think it probably wasn't considered a matter worth recording- the paintings are invariably about the battle proper, aren't they? In which case we shouldn't necessarily expect to see such activity (which is basically skirmishing) to be depicted. The meat of the battle, the typical way in which the soldiers fought, was probably as shown in the paintings.
I would greatly object to the notion artist from medieval periods would not be interested in displaying the correct use of weapons and their use. Don't forget that those who wanted this painted would have wanted a correct depiction. Some of the artist may even have been eye witness to such events as well. It certainly was part of their daily lives and at that point in time artist had become secular craftsmen rather than monks as well. I noticed some time ago that even the Bayeux tapestry and later illustrations had clearly depicted a lance across the horse body (diagonally) as I recently heard discussed in another youtube hema channel (knightly arts?) about knight versus footmen instruction book. In general I expect the illustrations to have tried to convey as much detail as they could.
Why oh why is it always said that henry the fifth sailed to harfleur from Southampton..he didn't he sailed from Portchester which is a few miles from Portsmouth!!
That may be my (Editor who made the map) mistake, rather than Toby's. We might do a video soon with a few corrections to various things, so I'll add that to the list. Thanks!
Shakespeare?
Longbow while you’re about it, tell him there’s only one ‘H’ in Southampton. Schoolboy error.
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?
Why wouldn’t you hammer it pointy end in, take it out and turn it round and slide it back in? Easy
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.
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...
Dr. Capwell is a sharp dresser. I really like the color of that shirt.
Amazing analysis! Time, and time again, the French behaved as a Gallic bull, goaded was not attack by a more disciplined or a more talented commander. I shudder to think of how many examples the history has offered of this. But, when the Gallic Bull is directed by a strong hand of a talented general, there is not much that can stop it.
I subbed because of your 'arrows versus breastplate' video but I can see why you have 313k subs! As a writer, I adore your attention to detail.
Choosing the battlefield is always a great advantage.
I try to do the same thing on the paintball field.
Regarding the myth of archer insults...
At Agincourt, the French flew the Oriflamme, meaning they would take no prisoners whatsoever. Even without that, archers were not nobility. Their ransom value was zero, and they had no expectation of surviving captivity. With or without their bow fingers.
Speaking of which... correct me if I'm wrong, but they used 3 fingers on the bow string while the V gesture has only 2.
This stake in the ground point is really bothering me too now, especially considering the English moved to within shooting distance of the French. I have had to put fence posts and even bamboo shoots for vegetables in the ground and it is often not easy. Perhaps the English had some sort of cheval de frise, the individual stakes carried by archers might have been parts to a more complicated defence. It might all be down to how things were translated and words understood at the time, coukd stakes and chemin de frise have considered analogous?
they smash them in with a mallet then quickly renew the point with an axe i should think, lets say if me and you was doing this ,id hold the stake three parts the way up making it stable enough for you to put a rough point on
It had been raining for days, so the ground was soft & muddy rather than baked hard. The mud & soft ground was one of the things that slowed the French advance & many French who fell drowned trampled into it.
Also something to consider there could be a hammering cleat on the ground side that is lashed or rivited to the stake
40:30 What if one carried a stake, sharp at both ends, hammered it into the ground, then used an ax to refurbish the point by striking on the end toward the base, driving the stake farther into the ground while sharpening the point?
Sharpened stakes vs. horses. The end does not need to be particularly sharp to deter a horse. I'm thinking of a Cheval-de-frise where typically the stakes weren't particularly large and it is the quantity of them that provides the deterrent. The ends do not need to be particularly sharp, just pointed.
If they were carrying these stakes, then they couldn't have been very heavy, so, thick enough not to bend or break easily, and long enough to present an obstacle to a mounted knight. Maybe about 2-3 centimeters thick? About 2-3 m long? Sort of like a short pike, without the steel end. It's be easy enough to sharpen both ends and drive one end into the ground, especially mud, and then sharpen off the outer end. You weren't clear if the sources said 'pound' which implies a mallet, or drive, which could mean just using hand-strength to force it in, but I can't seen the French just standing around while the English hammered away at their line of stakes just nearby.
Several thousand of these laid out in front of the line means they would not be a single line, but a thick band several deep. Even if any given stake could be knocked aside, anyone trying to push through would have to push several stake aside at the same time. Ever tried to force a way through a hedge? Even though the individual branches in the hedge are very small and thin and weak, it's still hard to do, never mind someone shooting arrows at you from a distance that, even if they didn't penetrate armour, could still knock someone over.
Horses would simply not cross such an obstacle, unless they were trained as hunter-jumpers, which they didn't have.
So let's picture the archers pulling up stakes, moving forward, then the first group drives their stakes into the ground at an angle, the next group drives theirs in a bit behind the first to quickly create a thick band, 2m wide, of 3cm thick stakes, angled up at chest height, in front of the English archers. Occasional thin gaps for armoured men-at-arms to move through, or to channel the enemy on foot. Something that cannot be simply knocked aside. Horses would not cross it, men on foot would have a pretty tough go.
Especially as the battle-field itself drops off sharply to either side, which makes for very, very slippery, difficult land to walk over, even in modern lug-soled boots, never mind smooth-soled medieval shoes. The cavalry could not go through the wooded undergrowth, could not go past the lines of stakes protecting the flanks, and so were useless in that terrain. The dismounted French would have been channeled by the narrowing strip of land in towards the centre, where their numbers were not overwhelming, much like the frequent tales of large armies arrested by a few men on a bridge.
From what I've read the stakes would have been pounded in with a mallet - sharpened on both ends as you described. The sharpness of the stakes on the pointing end wasn't really that big an issue b/c a stake doesn't have to be very sharp to impale a horse moving at speed, and the purpose usually wasn't even for the cavalry to contact the stakes, just to cause the horses to rear if not outright turn before reaching the line. The archers themselves were rather bulky folks, needing quite a bit of strength to draw a bow of the period, and additionally when you're knocking something in that's intended to save your life you could imagine that they were pretty quick about it. The positioning would vary depending on where they were located in the line. Usually at least some archers would be positioned on the flanks, slightly forward, and their stakes would be aligned at a bit of an angle to the main line - sometimes even like > shape on the flanks. And then if there were enough archers, you would also have some placed in the center with their stakes in roughly a line. And I think you're right about the look of the stakes. They didn't actually have to be capable of piercing charging horses - they were intended just to present an obstacle that horses would refuse to charge into. So they actually wouldn't have been placed so close together as to stop unmounted soldiers, who normally could just walk right between them. That is partly because you wanted there to be plenty of room for the archers and men at arms to move forward through the stakes quickly after the archers had fired all their arrows. So these obstacles didn't really have the same purpose as later pike formations or the like did, dissuading both cavalry and infantry. They were strictly intended to keep the archers, who were usually placed at the very front of the formation, from being directly charged by cavalry while they were firing. As far as height, I'm not entirely sure. But they wouldn't have needed to be high enough to directly threaten the rider on the horse - they were solely designed to dissuade the horses rather than both horse and rider. Because as you noted if the horse won't cross it, then the rider won't either.
The order to move forward given to the English archers at Agincourt was actually very rare and risky maneuver and probably only attempted in this case because of the muddy condition of the ground. Typically archers did not move in the open while in sight of the enemy cavalry because of how quickly the riders could close on them. The shift forward was, as they mentioned, part of the taunt that was presented to the French to provoke them to attack. The English also got away with hammering in the stakes within sight of the French because the French were so disorganized and no one was there to order a charge. Ironically, at the time period, an equally important job of battlefield leadership was to attempt to restrain the cavalry as well. As the impetuous knights and mounted men at arms on occasion would literally charge on sight of the enemy, with no coordination whatsoever. This spontaneous decision to advance is what the English were attempting to provoke and ultimately what ended up happening at Agincourt. Sort of a situation of - "Is that so and so attacking with his men? I can't stand by and let him go take all the glory - forward men!" And so the French nobles and their retinues just about attacked willy nilly - essentially the worst case scenario for a battle of this period.
Also, with regard to the strategic use of archers - they would all carry either a sword or long dagger in addition to their bows and would be expected to move forward to engage disabled, immobilized or wounded enemies. Also, they needed to be able to pass forward quickly because of the practices regarding the capture and ransom of higher status combatants, which the archers would frequently join in on these efforts - groups running out and grabbing someone who's already down and pulling them back through the lines. On a special note, at Agincourt there was a bit of a mix-up which ended a bit tragically, resulting in the English being ordered to kill their captives - and this is one reason the fatality count was so high amongst the French nobility at the battle. Men who normally would have expected to be taken prisoner, ransomed and returned at some arranged later date.
If you can carry sharp stick and a mallet you can also carry small device that will allow you to hammer that stick into ground without ruining the tip.
@@vant4888 I think the issue was that the tip being actually sharp didn't really matter that much. B/c a man on horseback doesn't actually have to be moving that fast for the horse to be impaled upon running into such a stake. The stakes weren't intended to block approaching infantry and so they didn't need to be sharp enough to poke a man coming up to them. Really, they just needed to appear to the horses to be threatening and in doing so get them to either rear up if directly approaching the stakes or change direction/swerve before coming to them. And in that function they worked really well essentially because horses can be far smarter than people sometimes when it comes to self-preservation. Also, I don't think the soldiers would really expend the time to carve these stakes down to a fine point to begin with. They were hacked into rough points on both ends - to more easily allow for knocking or I suppose possibly shoving them into the ground (if the ground was soft enough). Ultimately I think expediency was the most important factor for these soldiers when it came to carving these things up and putting their stakes into the ground. It is likely that whatever method was fastest would be the one that they would have employed - b/c until those things are in the ground you're an easy target for charging cavalry. Also, I'm pretty sure I've seen period representations that actually show the men with mallets knocking the stakes into the ground. I'll have to hunt around for the specific images, but I'm almost positive the images exist.
Very enjoyable Tod. re pointed stakes: Drive pointed end in - waggle it back out. Reverse it and waggle it back in, then firm around it with feet - OR, use dirk to dig shallow angled hole, loop spare bowstring at stake's pointy end and peg other end into the ground with dirk so stake leans towards oncoming cavalry, this second option being both quicker to execute AND to 'up stakes and move', (which of course, they did and also giving quick access to a spare if your bowstring is damaged.
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.