User talk:Aryaman13

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[edit] Citations for Battle of Agincourt

Hi Ignacio. Thanks for your contribution to the Battle of Agincourt article, it's interesting to get a non-British perspective. However, as with all things Wikipedian, please could you provide your sources, so other people can check what you say. For example, when you say that French scholars support Anne Curry's figures, what are the names of the French scholars you are talking about? In which books or articles have they said this? Thanks, merlin. --Merlinme 17:16, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I've replied to your comments on my talk page (because it makes easier to follow the discussion). Regards, merlin. --Merlinme 17:20, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Agincourt campaign

Thanks for the additions- very interesting. I've tidied up the English and so on. When you say the French blockaded the English along the Somme, what do you mean exactly? They were trying to stop the English crossing the river?

The part about the semonce des nobles was particularly interesting. Presumably your view on how many French there were at the battle revolves around how many troops you think answered this call to arms. Was it 3,000, or 20,000? Is there any evidence one way or another? --Merlinme 08:42, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

What I don't understand is if, as you say, the army was relatively small, why were quite so many French nobles there? Their losses are astonishing. If you just count the captured (about 1,500), that seems an enormous proportion in an army of 12,000. I realise that would have included relatively poor knights who were part of someone else's retinue, but even so, are we saying that 1/8 of the army was worth ransoming? If you include all the noble dead (of which there are hundreds), the proportion would probably be more like 1/6. --Merlinme 09:29, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
What Barker says re: numbers could be summarised as follows. The contemporary English chroniclers generally gave 60,000 French, but some went higher (even to 150,000). The French chroniclers give the French numbers as 8,000-50,000. The English chaplain eyewitness believed there were 60,000 French. The second eyewitness account, Jean Le Fevre de St Remy (the Burgundian herald in the English army) suggests 50,000; and the third eyewitness Jehan Waurin, "a Burgundian in the French army", suggests 36,000, "based on his suggestion that the French were six times more numerous than the English". I assume the last figure is where the numbers used in the article come from. Barker places more credence in Waurin's figures, because he details the numbers of each battle: 8000 men at arms, 4000 archers and 1500 crossbowmen in the vanguard; a similar number in the main battle; two wings of 600 and 800 mounted knights; and the remainder in the rearguard. Precise numbers do not of course mean he is definitely correct, but it is an interesting question how he came up with those particular figures.
Barker also says: "Every bailli from the northern provinces had come, each with his assembled host, together with all the militias, crossbowmen and gunners who could be spared from their towns." I don't know enough about the armies (and evidence) from this period to know if this is correct, and if so, how many men that would have been.
One interesting quote is that John the Fearless said that he would send "far more than the five hundred men-at-arms and three hundred archers requested". So, simplistically, you could say that a duke was expected to turn up with 800 men. (Plus the men of his subjects?) Also, apparently the proclamation was made that all available men (in northern France) should go to the dauphin immediately, armed and ready to fight. (Although John the Fearless did not actually fight at Agincourt, and neither did his son. Barker also states that the Duke of Brittany, with 6,000 men, was deliberately slow in answering the call, and did not fight in the battle.)
Also, d'Albret, who guarded the Somme, was said to have a force of 6,000 men to guard the ford at Blance Taque.
One English source gives a figure of 100 dead French barons and 3,000 dead knights and esquires. If we said (simplistically) therefore that each baron turned up with 30 knights; and that the proportions of troops in French army was broadly correct, i.e. there would have been another 1,800 archers/ crossbowmen; and that the proportions of barons in the 1,500 captured were the same as in the dead, i.e. 50% more; and that say, 50% of the French army escaped (or they would have taken far higher casualties than almost any other battle in history); then we could come up with a complete guesswork figure of 15,000. So I think it probably is nearer 12,000 than 36,000. Whether it's actually 12,000, I've no idea, it seems a little low to me, based on numerous sources. However even if it actually was as high as 36,000, another interesting question would be how many of these troops were actually worth anything; if the towns had sent everybody, then presumably quite a lot of them were not very well equipped or trained. It might be that there were thousands who played almost no part in the battle (and in fact, reading the accounts, the crossbowmen and archers, and the mounted knights, played very little part; and the third battle barely seems to have engaged the English at all. The crucial fight was between the first and second battles and the English.) All very speculative. I'd be very interested to see more research on it. --Merlinme (talk) 00:25, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
Very interesting edits to the Agincourt article, a lot of very good stuff. However see recent edits to the talk page re: whether this is original research.
One specific point: your edit says that all the Burgundians claim a total of 50,000 for the French; however Barker says that Jehan Waurin said the French army was 36,000. Presumably these can't both be correct? --Merlinme (talk) 08:10, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Also, to be honest, I think there's an issue with the way you've presented the primary sources. By giving the herald's figures in detail, you make them look the most important. Yet you don't even mention Waurin's detailed figures. The herald may be more accurate, but you need to tell people you are making that assumption (and it is an assumption). This is one of the problems with primary sources: which ones are chosen and how they are presented? Secondary sources have already interpreted the evidence, and we know that it has been done by a reputable historian. Material added by a Wikipedian, however qualified, is much harder to verify. --Merlinme (talk) 08:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Wavrin tells both things, he claims that the French were in all 50.000 and that they outnumbered the English 6 to 1, although he gives the English as 11.000 (1.000 men-at-arms and 10.000 archers, the 36.000 number is made up by Barker) His report could be compared to LeFévre, who talks also about 8.000 men-at-arms and "a few archers"and a ratio of 3 to 1. However both are less precise about the rest of the army.--Ignacio Arrizabalaga (talk) 08:51, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but we're simply not allowed to contradict respected secondary sources unless there is clear evidence that they are wrong (i.e. we can back it up with a reference). I do wonder if you're even necessarily reading the same documents; Barker is quite clear that Waurin gave detailed figures for composition of the vanguard, the main battle and the wings, whereas you have never mentioned these.
This does not necessarily mean that Barker is correct. It looks like what she's done is multiplied the standard figure for the English by six (based on Waurin's estimate of six to one odds), which is rather dubious. However her work is in the public domain, can be checked and peer reviewed and criticised as necessary. On the other hand I simply have no way of knowing whether your interpretation of the original documents is correct; this is why Wikipedia has a "No Original Research" rule.
I'll let most of your edits stand until I've had a chance to do some more research, but I would be a lot happier if you could explain to me why Barker says that Waurin gives detailed figures but you do not. You quite specifically say "{the Burgundians} describe only the French van battle composition and the wings", whereas Barker gives figures (which she says are from Waurin) for the vanguard, the main battle, the wings and the rearguard. --Merlinme (talk) 12:53, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Wavrin says exactly that there were , 8.000 men-at-arms, knights and esquires, 4.000 archers and 1.500 crossbowmen in the first van and as many in the main battle, the remaining being in the third battle (plus 1.600 in the right wing, 800 in the left wing). I think that is not a detailed description but for the van battle and wings, not for the entire army. I have not read Barker, so I have no idea why she thinks that is a detailed description, but Wavrin has been edited in the Rolls Series so there is no problem checking it. Besides, there is a summary of the numbers given by Wavrin in Anne Curry´s Agincourt A New History, Appendix B
So why do you not give these figures in your discussion of the sources for the French army? Surely they are the most detailed figures after the herald's? Also, unless the rearguard was 21,000 men, a figure of 50,000 for entire army seems rather high (the detailed figures only give about 29,000). --Merlinme (talk) 14:58, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I tried to reduce the discussion to the best sources, I gave only the Gesta numbers for the English army, yet there are about a dozen other sources similarly detailed for the English, for the French the Herald of Berry is the more detailed without doubt, so I gave it, if you want all the other sources can be added, but that would require much more comment work, because the Burgundian sources are very difficult, they are close, deriving probably from a common source, but it is very difficult to tell why of their differences, with translation and copists problems. Besides, the numbers they give are also similar but they don´t quite match. As you point, the remainding figure to get 50.000 is very high, yet there is no explanation, but even by its own count they don´t make 6 to 1 to the English 11.000.--Ignacio Arrizabalaga (talk) 07:37, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough- but I think it's going to be hard to argue this isn't Original Research. I've added a new section on the Agincourt talk page. --Merlinme (talk) 07:38, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I think you can more or less reconcile Waurin and the Herald's accounts. If you assume that Waurin exaggerated by a factor of about two, and the Herald only reported on the men-at-arms (who would have been knights etc. and worth recording if you are a herald), then it works reasonably well. Waurin gives a figure of 7,500 men-at-arms in each of the first two lines; if you assume that it was actually 7,500 men-at-arms in total, that's very close to the Herald's figure of about 8,100 in the first two lines. They both seem to agree more or less on the number of mounted knights. If we say that the Herald didn't bother to list the archers and crossbowmen (and as far as I'm aware he doesn't give any breakdown for the types of troops), but that Waurin doubled their numbers, that would give another 5,500 archers and crossbowmen. Including the 1,200 mounted nobles on the wings, that would give a total professional army of about 14,200, slightly over half of them men-at-arms, which seems consistent with all the sources we have talked about. It then remains to account for the eyewitnesses, none of whom thought the English were outnumbered by less than 3-1. We can do this however if we say that the 'third line' was composed almost entirely of the less professional troops that had answered the call-to-arms. Waurin implies that this group was 50% larger than either of the other two battles. Assuming he was doubling the numbers that would mean about 10,000 troops, for about 25,000 overall, giving odds of 3-1 or more, but almost none of the third line actually entered battle.
As for the English, if we say that of the 5,000 "archers", at least 1,000 were actually armed with billhooks or similar (which would be consistent with the numbers of different troops at Crecy, for example), then the French men-at-arms of 4,800 would have been engaging 900 men-at-arm and perhaps 1,000 billmen, plus the 4,000 longbowmen when they joined the melee. (This is also assuming the 5,900 figure is not too low.) In other words the French first line would have actually been slightly outnumbered, especially when you take into account the factors previously talked about (the terrain, the mud, any casualties from longbow fire). The terrain meant that the second line of men-at-arms could not contribute usefully to the melee until the first line had been defeated. The French archers and crossbowmen played little part, and the third line barely engaged at all.
All speculation of course, but I think it's possible. --Merlinme (talk) 16:25, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
I basically agree with you. I think the Burgundian sources, which are all in agreement for 8.000 men-at-arms in the van battle, reported the entire strength and added the rest, non detailed battles for effect. I wouldn´t be bothered by the odds reported by eyewitness, even in case of non biased accounts it is very difficult for an eyewitness to calibrate that, and on the other hand a French source, the Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris 1404-1449 (edited by C. Beaune, Paris 1990) citing an eyewtiness the French were one and a half times the English. To sum up, in my opinion the c.10.000 men-at-arms is basically correct, 4.000 real bowmen are way too many for the French, I would rather trust LeFevre "a few archers", and then some crossbowmen and urban militia, and mostly valets. I would say that 15.000 would be an overall estimate, the "third battle" would rather be the mass of camp followers with maybe some late arrivals to the battle field. In all, 15.000 is also in accordance with the size of other armies of the period (and it is not far from 3 to 1) as given in secondary sources, as I already pointed out, while 25.000 is a massive army that only in the next century, with the massive use of Pikemen, would be reached.--Ignacio Arrizabalaga (talk) 08:04, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
The large size of the French camp is something about the Gesta talks, and no wonder, Men-at-arms were accompained by at least one page each, and a minimum of two horses, while the English less than 1.000 men-at-arms didn´t add much, the c.8.000 French men-at-arms, with their pages, servants and horses surely will make for a very impressive camp.--Ignacio Arrizabalaga (talk) 18:15, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your recent edits

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