In an English school, I was taught quite a lot about Crecy and Agincourt, and also a little about Poitiers: 3 battles the brave English won. I cannot remember any teacher ever mentioning the rather important fact that we lost the war! As you say, history is what people choose to remember, how they choose to interpret it, and what they wish had happened.
I agree whole heartedly with Sam. Thank you guys for showing us all this actual data. I've seen one of the other videos in this series and it is an eye opener! Cheers
The resources that you pull from among each of your colleagues really speaks to your mission to scratch out the truth of historical events, arms and armor. It is really impressive. Love the series.
"their archers, amounting to at least 13,000, let off a shower of arrows with all their might, and as high as possible, so as not to lose their effect"-Monstrelet Chronicle
As always in any argument i say if toby says the sky is green....... it is bloody green lol. His presence for me on the team lends such great weight in his experience and knowledge.
We need to see more of you Dr.Capwell. You are such a humble, modest, and inquisitive intellectual. I wish more influencers in this community, left their ego, and “I know something you don’t” arrogance, at the door.🥰
What a beautiful birthday present and what an exciting project! I could listen to Tobias speaking of English warbows and French bascinets the whole evening!
The English long bow men are a big part of why the French archers were not involved, according to some things I read. The French had hired a large contingent of Italian crossbow men, who were considered the best, but they could not get close enough to be effective, because of the longbows. I read that when the Italian crossbow men attempted to retreat, some of the French knights thought they were changing sides, and kill many of them. I have always thought that the terrain was one of the most important things that assisted the English that day. Thick sticky mud and heavily armoured knights and their armoured horses, are a bad combination. The mud usually wins. That and the narrow English front, protected on both sides by thick stands of trees, was another important factor. Weather and terrain are often huge factors.
@@szarekhthesilent2047 Indeed, a restricted space, too many men charging in, and the deep mud was sort of the perfect storm for the French. The French general ho was nominally the overall commander was ignored and disobeyed by many of the French nobles because the general was not of noble birth. His plan for the battle was rather different from what actually happened.
@@szarekhthesilent2047 That could well be true. Still, the cross bow did not have nearly the effective range of the longbow, so the crossbow men would have still been out matched.
@@macnutz4206 the effective range of the crossbow is higher than that of most bows (less aiming issues). The maximum range isn't (not counting gastrapheta/cheiroballista). And the fire rate. And the Genovese mercs wore heavier armor and had pavese accessible (not sure if those had been brought along for the battle. probably not). On the other hand they were outnumbered by a fair margin here, so - no idea ... Hard to compare.
I can't believe some of the comments below. Having used longbows since I was a child, I lofted arrows at distant targets and aimed flat at close targets. The forward movement of the English army and harassing shooting was enough to spur the already fired-up French forward into destruction. I've also used very many firearms of vary many calibres from .22 to 120mm. At distant targets the business end of your weapon is elevated; at close targets it is flat. Closer and you use very sharp pointy things, just like the English did when they got amongst the exhausted Frenchmen. I suppose my point is that if you drop enough unpleasantness on your enemy at distance you either make him bugger off or goad him into doing what you want him to do.
Battle of Formigny, English got a taste of their own medicine. The French used a pair of culverin cannons to bombard an entrenched force of English archers and men-at-arms at beyond longbow range. The English were goaded out and left their protective perimeter of stakes and ditches to attack the guns. They overran the French gunners but in return were caught in the open by French heavy cavalry. The battle ended in a French victory.
Interesting comment from Mr Capwell about 'twisting history'. Why then is there such an emphasis place upon penetration testing of armour from the front, where it is the thickest, and yet not from the sides where the armour is thinner and there are far more vulnerable areas open to an archer to be able to hit. We know that in every battle fought by the English army from Dupplin Moor onwards the archers were mainly placed on the flanks, being now able to shoot inwards from the sides, which gives a far greater target aspect. In the original video, the first arrow actually clips the bottom edge of the breastplate, and goes through the mail and the gambeson beneath to sink into the gel body, This I think shows the best use of the weapon, not from thumping into areas that arrows have little chance of damaging, but into the sides where the vulnerable areas are.
it is not clear why we are talking about knights. The knight went on a campaign as part of lance.The lance, according to various statutes, usually consisted of 4 to 10 warriors, plus a certain number of servants. But counts and dukes could have more vassals as squires and servants and their lances could number dozens of mounted warriors, so the number of knights in the total composition of the army rarely exceeded a few percent. And accordingly, the principle of choosing armor for testing is not entirely clear. Such armor became massively used by knights only by the time of Joan of Arc, but it became available to the rest of the warriors much later. So that the main armor of the knights at Agincourt was still chain mail, even if in some places it was triple, and if breastplates were used, then mostly copper. In addition, the troops were accompanied by huge carts, say in the descriptions of the winged hussar detachments, for one both comrade and pakholik (postal hussar, squire), there are up to 4 carts, with drivers, they could well be taken into account in the composition of the army and involved in the battles.
Would be nice to know more about details for example what about the violence in combat and battles in general, or about the whole process after the battle, I wonder what happened with the gear, armours, weapons, bodies, etc.
Weapons and armor would have been looted by the victorious side. Some may have been retained by the looter and used as their new weapon or armor, some may have been simply sold off for cash, while some say that the higher ups (the knights and nobles) took the best loot and the common soldier only kept a little. The bodies of the winners were probably taken by their people and buried on the spot while the bodies of the losers might have been left where they fell, or simply buried in a mass grave. It's also possible that the bodies of the knights and members of the nobility were allowed to be recovered by their kin/countrymen, maybe for a "nominal fee".
While the 'decisive phase' of the battle may not have shooting with flight arrows, the engagement is supposed to have started with an advance by the English army and an attack from the archers which provoked the French van to assault. (This provocation would be important even if indecisive in it's own right). It is highly likely that at least a brief shooting at flight ranges was practiced, even if *most* of the harrassment/wounding happened at much closer ranges. Unless the entire understanding of the movements on the day is flawed of course.
But are the sources clear on the exact distance between the lines after Henry had his men move up from the original position? With the assumed power of the bows used at Azincourt standing at 60 to 100 meters does not require much of an arc at all. It could be that the fact the French did not attack after the english moved forward their position allowed the English to get in so close to the French that they could hit them with minimal lifting of the shot?
@BruceR266 With an assumption that the initial velocity losses (10m-25m from this test) are plausibly consistent with the drag over the flight range (which may not be the case, if the arrow is still stabilising from launch disturbances at these distances), then the maximum range of the arrow shot as in this test is likely to be slightly below 200yds. (at ~40 degrees). Lighter arrows with a higher initial velocity should reach further, and it is possible that this is slightly low for the tested arrow if the drag losses within the first 25m are higher than over the subsequent flight.
Grace Sprocket The bow in this video can easily launch those arrows over 200 yards, guaranteed. Joe has shot arrows of just under 1,000 grains over 300 yards with very similar weight bows. Additionally, Mark Stretton shot a 1925 grain arrow 200 yards with a very poor shooting 144 lb bow. Thanks!
Yes, the shooting has to serve a purpose. That purpose isn't simply mowing down enough people with arrows to win the battle. The main purpose would be, I think, to make a cohesive charge in solid formation nearly impossible. Along with the terrain and other factors. For that purpose it should be flat. Another purpose would be to provoke an attack, from an enemy who are well aware what a hellish time they'll have advancing... they;ll be those first volleys at long range.
If anyone knows please tell me. If the archers did not fire in an angle did only the first 1 to 2 ranks shoot? Did they shout like line infantry or have gigantic gaps in their formation? (Excluding the case they were on a steep hill and everyone had a clear line of sight)
Yeah. I'd be nice to what the typical proportion archers took up in a medieval army. I mean, if their numbers are usually times lower than infantry, perhaps they had been deployed w thinner ranks?
@@lcmiracle It would depend on the army and the battle. English had more archers then infantry during this time period, and they were usually on the wings of the army.
I think implying that they did not shoot volleys of arrows because of depictions in art is absolutely ridiculous. These people understood war with their weapons and armor very well. A volley can kill horses and land lucky shots. Longbows with high draw weights can fire very far. The only reasonable assumption would be that armies would advance just beyond bow range, and then advance as quickly as they could without falling to limit the number of volleys they would have to endure.
This exercise in historical experimentation has been so instructive. The French aristocracy must have been astounded (if they were not dead!) to have been resoundingly defeated by such a small force (if they didn’t consider the archers a viable enemy, then it was 8-10 : 1). I can fully accept that the archery did not penetrate frontal armour. But it must at least have made the French Men at Arms and knights have kept their heads down. And hemmed in, as they were, this must have made stumbling a distinct possibility, if not a certainty. Piles of French dead at the height of a man may well have been an exaggeration, but I am absolutely convinced that crowd dynamics must have played their part in the French defeat. Divine intervention is, in my opinion, not a a factor. But choice of ground and the volume of archery surely was.
Interesting that you mention crowd dynamics - the first scientific documentary I saw about Agincourt was the Battlefield Detectives one (here: th-cam.com/video/eyq7RDaWqlc/w-d-xo.html), and it went in depth about crowd dynamics. Old now, but worth a watch if you haven't seen it.
Would you ever be able to discuss the actual location of the battle? It seems more and more that the traditionally accepted location of the battle might not be the real location. Nothing has been found there archaeologically to indicate that the Agincourt-Tramecourt location was the actual battlefield. Other locations closer to Maisoncelles (sp?) seem more likely given the depictions of the terrain from contemporary sources. I'd personally love to see something on this. Thank you for listening, and keep up the great work! This series of videos really is wonderful.
Its not widely realised that the French knights were exhausted from having to wade through muddy fields. Its the suction effect. many french knights were captured intact so their armour was effective. Choice of ground, good command and control came to the English aid. Also French knights may have suffered from heat exhaustion, poor ventilation etc and with visors down impairs fighting capability in hand to hand. Thereis still uncertainty where Agincourt was fought. Its being still researched and where French dead were buried.
@@StoutProper I think that he means where exactly in Agincourt the battle was fought. I'm guessing that the name Agincourt applies to a large enough area that just saying Agincourt doesn't pinpoint a precise location.
I really love this experiment but i have one big question. Dr. Capwell says that there are a lot of written accouts of eyewitnesses. is it possible to produce a small bibliography (or perhaps there is already one and i'm just too blind to see) because this is very interesting.
Just about all of the written accounts of the battle are published in this book www.amazon.com/Battle-Agincourt-Sources-Interpretations-Warfare/dp/1843835118 AFAIK there has been no new narrative sources found since it was published but I could be wrong.
@who we really are I am sure you must have read Ann Curry’s fantastic book on the Agincourt campaign. But if not, I thoroughly recommend it. It has an extremely extensive bibliography addressed wonderfully in the footnotes. I confess, I have barely scratched the surface of the suggested sources myself. But there are so many exceptional individual stories to be gleaned from broad reading about this tiny little battle that I think I shall keep myself occupied studying it (in a very amateur way) for the rest of my life.
@@scorpiodog2 yeah i never read it. I find it a very interesting subject but in the like one year that i tried to find stuff about the medieval way of life, warfare, ect. I haven't been able to touch all the subjects.
@who we really are You have a fantastic and wonderful time ahead of you. The medieval period in Europe is a fascinating study. The politics alone, based as they are on supreme wealth, servitude, intrigue and murder, would reward a lifetime of study. Our antecedents or the Elite, at least, made the reading of their history totally absorbing.
I wonder how "dirty" the fighting would get, you have all those "specialised" daggers for finding gaps ect, but how much of the fighting was rolling in the mud, bashing eachothers head in with rocks ect. eye gouging ect. training with weapons is good but not all where trained the same, but when the fear kicks in, the real life and death struggle is going on how much "caveman" would be going on.
There is the point that if the French armour saw a lot of incoming missiles, whether the missile in question could penetrate their armour or not, surely they would be doing a lot of semi-instinctive ducking which could have led to some of them losing control of their horses and ultimately disrupting the charge. Would only take two or three in a tight packed mass of conroi to cause total chaos
I think Toby is misrepresenting the primary sources, and oversimplifying some things. Some points: -"long" vs "close" range are ambiguous, subjective terms -The Monstrelet chronicle explicitly states that the archers shot at both long and short range. The romantic idea of a long range volley is right there in the source: "the archers...let off a shower of arrows with all their might, and as high as possible, so as to not lose their effect". This occurred right at the start of the fighting when the archers were advancing towards the french, and it is only after they had closed the distance that the sources talk about arrows crashing into visors at "close" range. -the archers were in multiple positions, as per the chronicles. some in the wings, some in the main body, and some in the fields. this was a complex affair. -the arrows had a huge psychological effect on both men and horses during the battle, as per the sources. focusing just on the armor penetration is fun, but it's a narrow perspective. If a "long" range arrow storm causes a group of horses in a crowd to panic, it's a problem for everyone in the vicinity. Arrows don't necessarily have to be lethal to be effective and important. -period artwork is a cartoon. unrealistically condensed to tell a story. -archers don't have to shoot high in the air at an angle to launch the arrows "long" distance. Mark Stretton (warbow archer) had a test once where he shot at 100 yards and the arrows were basically still almost horizontal.
We hope to do a follow up video with Toby at some point where he can go into more detail and nuance. This one was filmed relatively quickly as material for the main vid, but we thought the unused footage was interesting enough that people would like to see it. There is Much more to be said in a proper interview.
Sorry but you base your assumption of high effectiveness of bow of nothing but your opinion. We have examples from later battles of 100 years war We have examples from war of two roses We have examples even of long bowmen mercenary's fighting with tightly pack Swiss pike mans (Reisläufer) and with no great effect. And we have later XVII century much more accurate examples of effectiveness of bow. Polish Lithuanian forces were fighting constantly with tatars and the effectiveness of they shooting was minimal much less then guns and this is time of little armor. We see their better effectiveness when fighting Swedes army, but mostly becasue of tatars scary reputation and exotic fighting style.
What about French horses? Are they have enough amour? If you put some chemical on arrowhead, like hot peper or something else, that may disturbe horse a lot. Maybe English bowman was targeting horses?
Just a thought. Maybe the archers main role in this battle was to lower morale, with all the "shrapnel and arrow heads" flying around even in armour it would have been very hard to progress even if most arrows did not kill outright. Ps. Obviously men would also have been injured. It does not take a huge impact to put a man of action,a piece of wood flying in the eye would do it...hence the helmets designed to repel. Also if horses were used i doubt they were all clad in the finest armour so would be a very chaotic addition to the battle....imagine an injured battle horse going full berserker mode after getting an arrow stuck in it.
ive been trying to find the source that specifies that archery was not perfomed in s.c. volleys (indirect shooting). The standard historical works on the topic all says they do. So i wonder where is this from?
@@baldr12 I refered to the standard works of academic history, im sure i can find the source if you like. Im not doubting what they say, rather i prefer that when something is stated that contradicts the current consensus, that sources are provided. I do not have anything vested in this, so im not aguing against them.
Even if the French knights themselves were harder to kill with arrows than previously assumed, I can still see concentrated fire stopping a charge, due to the damage and panic inflicted on the horses.
I could be remembering wrong but from what I do remember the English had set up stakes around the hill they where on and the French horses where un-armoured, which resulted in the French charge breaking and being slowed drastically followed promptly by the English archers killing the horses, combine that with the fact that it had rained heavily over night and you have a load of French knights having to climb a hill knee deep in wet mud while under fire (and you saw how hard those arrows where hitting in the video), its little wonder most of them where exhausted and incapable of actually fighting once they reached the English army.
hmm.. physics says that - on earth - in order to increase the trajectory of a projectile you have to aim higher. so at longer range, archers would have had to raise their aim in order to hit the target. artists very often portray events in a way that suits them visually and medieval art is not famous for accuracy of scale or perspective (people bigger than trees?). so, at 50m or more, i'm not going to fire straight, unless i want to hit the earth. initial, high, volleys of arrows from distance makes perfect sense and would certainly be a useful tactic.
Armour changed slowly, so the latest armour is nearly identical to the armor that came before. We can only see obvious change with jumps of 50 years or more, anything less is usually very very similar.
The earliest known example of a longbow was found in 1991 in the Ötztal Alps with a natural mummy known as Ötzi. His bow was made from yew and was 1.82 metres (72 in) long; the body has been dated to around 3,300 BC and another bow made from yew was found within some peat in Somerset, England dated to 2700-2600 BC.
What was the draw weight on them, do you know? Interesting that they knew to use yew even back in those days. I suspect it’s been with us for much longer, didn’t the ancient Egyptians have bows? I know the Syrians did in Ancient Greek times
Why didnt they use Archers in the time of muskets? The longbow would have had great effect, longbows could fire further then what the 2 sides would march up to in order to send there volleys, and the troops didnt have armor. Longbows in that time would have ruled the battle field.
Not true, guns are much more effective, easy to use and with much more psychological effect then bows, and we have record from XVII century when Polish Lithuania fought with tatars and turks arm with bows and they did poorly ;)
@@swietoslaw Actually it is true, I wasn't saying the army should only have bows, i said why didn't they incorporate them into the army, like in the Revolutionary War had one side to had Archers, those arches would have slaughtered the formation of troops, an archer can loose like 15 arrows a minute, Whereas a musket fired 3 rounds a minute, the troops didnt wear any type of armor that would protect them from arrows whereas previous wars they had armor that would protect them from the arrows.
@@azsazs6039 Supposedly, George Washington thought bows could still be of some use on the battlefield. Im too lazy to look up the reference right now...
I wonder how much Toby dislikes how the English warbow is portrayed in Bernard Cornwell's "Archer" series and the stand alone Agincourt novel. Either way, I still enjoyed those books even if I know they don't accurately portray the capabilities of the English warbow.
Are you guys going to address the horses? Seems like a big soft target compared to the armor clad rider. What happens to a knight when his is violently unhorsed?
Main force of the french, basically the main force attacking at middle were on foot, there were smaller forces on horseback that were attacking the flanks though, but horses would not have been decisive factor, I believe.
Henry also had some nice sharp sticks that fit nicely into the chests of horses and a lot of mud to bog those heavy horses and knights down. Henry picked the perfect spot to have his fight. Had the battle happened in a different setting Henry might not have won.
The fact that the French general was a complete moron also contributed to the battle. In Spain's most famous Romance about knights, El Cantar del Mio Cid, there is a sentence that says "que buen vasallo sería, si tuviese buen señor", which means "what a great vassal he would be, if he had a good Lord". I think about that sentence quite a lot when I read about this and many other battles. Lots and lots of warriors and soldiers, sent to be slaughtered because the guy in command is a complete dumbass.
Should do a piece on how so much plate steel was manufactured, we are talking industrial, I watch armour building videos and they all start with pre fabricated sheet steel , sheet steel of constant thickness and quality, between building weapons, and basic everyday needs like horse shoes , how did they fabricate sheet steel to cover armies , and cover them constantly Something does not make sence Also the archers would use found armour or give it to their lords , or use the metal to make weapons, tools or arrow heads, it's not like metal was readily available , according to historians
a lot of hard and highly skilled labour by many smiths and armourers, pounding metal into thin sheets and shaping it into armour. 'industrial' did not exist until the industrial revolution, just lots of bodies doing lots of work. remember, everything took a lot longer then.
It's still much better than relying on Hollywood movies made by people who weren't there centuries after the event. However, there is a much more important fact: if a direct shot a 15m does not pierce it, a ballistic arched shot at 200m, would have no chance at all.
To me it seems like some of the distances shown are much to large fields were smaller in those days ploughing with a plough and ox took a long time even today the area grows mainly wheat so they would have ploughed what was left of the harvest the wooded headlands were probably slightly higher than the field that would be the reason for the water gathering but farmers wouldn't grow wheat in boggy ground and even today the area looks well drained soil when the French knight's attacked it is said the English line was forced back this might have been done intentionally to better ground and bring the archers on the flanks into play the armoured knight's were more vulnerable from the side and rear to arrows Henry and his comanders maneuvered the mass of knight's into a deadly crossfire what they would call now a killing zone but how quickly can you disarm 6000 knight's not by the 1500 holding the front line this is when the archers took up daggers mallets and I think the stakes that won't sharp at both ends nobody in there right mind would go against a four foot sword with a dagger they just needed to push the knight's over and the suction of the mud would do the rest especially if he landed face first and a quick bash on the back of the head forcing that long nosed helmet into the mud suction lack of oxigen and fatigue would do the rest
In films they always have archers firing volleys of arrows like musketeers. All loosing at once like a line of musketeers when given the order by an officer. I wonder how accurate that is.
My money is on most French NOT having most of their body covered with plate, like legs in mail or arms in mail or mail hauberk with plate reinforcements on Arms, which was a bad mistake under threat of longbows. Half of French getting wounded thanks to this, the other half getting stuck in mud or losing morale culminating in their defeat overall.
As a real question, not to troll: Is it fair to speak about the English and the French in this context? Were the knights and soldiers in the English and French armies really from what we call now England and France?
Weren't the archers more Welsh than English? Other than that, they were pretty much British and French, if only starting to think of themselves (especially the English nobility, although that might be unimportant to the myth).
Could they have just shot 7000 arrows all at once from about 50 meters at the French horses in a very narrow space and then rapidly butchered the French knights trying to get off their dying or dead horses? And then repeat this with every charge of the French? Confusion sets in and knights start lifting up their visors to get a better look and instead get another volley of arrows in their face.
@@JustGrowingUp84 Yeah, that's what I was thinking about too. Then there's the armour the horses may have had or not. It seems the charges were indeed a failure as a result of the arrow storms. I don't know much about this battle other than wikipedia and these videos but I'd say this battle was about very careful coordination between the archers and some sort of fast response infantry force that could quickly run out and finish off or capture the French knights as they struggled with their injured or dead horses in the mud.
The other thing to keep in mind is that horses are relatively hardy animals and are not necessarily easy to kill. To kill a quadruped reliably you need a heart shot. That's easier said than done from the front when they've got at least a chamfron, and likely a peytral and criniere at this point as well.
At Agincourt they were on foot. At Patay, 14 years later, they were mounted and they rolled up the strong archer lines in the matter of minutes. Not that cavalry gives a guaranteed success, but it can be scary fast.
Why would they make arrow heads from wrought iron and plate armour from carbon steel? Wouldn't that make arrow heads from stuff at least as good as plate armour?
No one know how common or uncommon it was. But if you and I are to assume it was less common, the reasons would be: Less affordability, less availability and no justification. It probably isn't worth doling out even as much as two or three times per head, and perhaps losing out on suppliers that can't provide it in equal numbers per season or even at all
I can't even envision what 7,000 people would look like at once, much less the devastation of all of those men (sorry but they were all men, I'm positive) raining thousands of arrows directly at you. Damn.
I found out nothing from this video, since it doesn’t actually explain how the English managed to defeat the French. The test seems to indicate that archers were ineffective against armored knights. And yet the armored knights were defeated......
We do know that french knights got in contact with the English lines, and they were defeated there. Plenty of important French nobles were captured by English knights and paid ransom. The pictures of the era, which are shown in this video at 5:45 , also tell us that the English knights fought and contributed to the battle as much as the archers themselves. The 1500 english knights and men at arms (plus the lonbow archers using their mallets), finished the job at melee range, against the exausted French knights that ran through the mud, and fighted uphill, unhorsed by both the effect of the arrows and the effect of the stakes. The purpose of the test is not to discover what won the battle, is to dispel the myth that longbows could pierce through plate.
gustavo iglesias so you are willing, based on one test of a handful of arrows fired at a distance of 10 meters directly at a carefully sculpted breastplate, to make the universal statement that “arrows don’t pierce plate armor.” And yet, archers were successfully used in battle well past 1405. If they were “useless against knights wearing plate armor” why did archers continue to thrive?
@@andrewyarosh1809 because archers didn't need to counter knights or pierce beastplates to be useful on the field. Most of the opossing army is not composed of knights, arrows can kill horses, knights have vulnerable spots (first arrow in this test would kill that knight because it hit maille and not plate), and you can attack infantry with your archers. Also important to remember: England lost the war, despite Agincourt. Among other factors, one of the reasons is what Tobias explain in other video: French knights started to reduce the open weak spots by squaring up, looking down, and slowly marching into archers. However, you are misplacing the burden of proof here. It is the one who claim something can happen who needs to proof it. The opposite is called probatio diabolica. So please find a proof of real, careful researched armor bring pierced by real, careful researched arrows. Or heck, even an historical account will suffice. We have tons of references of knights, nobles and kings being shit down by arrows or blots that hit them through the visor or weak spots. We also have historic references of people being shot down through maille, with historic description of how the arrow pierced mail, leg, and horse, and other similar ones. We do not have any, as far as I'm aware, of people being shot down through plate. Isn't it strange that, among the bunch of examples of records of people being hit and dying by arrows and bolts, all of them mention hits in the visor or weak spots like armpits?
gustavo iglesias I take your points, but they also make mine. The video, which implies that archers and arrows were “ineffective” against plate armor, is inherently misleading in light of the very points you make. Indeed, Henry V himself, was nearly killed by an arrow to the face at the 1403 Battle of Shrewesbury, albeit because he had his visor off. www.medievalists.net/2013/05/prince-hals-head-wound-cause-and-effect/ I’d be fine with this video and experiment if it didn’t present itself as “debunking myths” about Agincourt, and stuck to simply demonstrating that 14th century arrows couldn’t penetrate well designed breastplate at 10 meters. The “myth” isn’t that the arrows of the English longbowmen killed the advancing French knights. The “myth” isn’t that somehow the arrows of the English were superior to French armor, which was not universally made of high quality steel. Clifford Rogers suggests that knights wearing steel breastplate and helm were still vulnerable where their armor was thinner (legs, arms, feet) and that arrows were capable of piercing wrought iron helm and breastplate from a short distance. Agincourt was lost and won because of a combination of weather (rains soaking the plowed field and turning it to mud), terrain (which allowed the English to place their archers on the flanks of the field and join the melée after their arrows ran out) and a deathly contrast between the utter lack of command and control on the French side and the well thought out battle plan and discipline on the English. The results speak for themselves, even in Shakespeare’s “romantic” account of the 10,000 French casualties and their “Royal fellowship of death” as opposed to the loss of “Edward, the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk, Sir Richard Ketly, Davy Gam, esquire, None else if name, and of all other men, But five and twenty.”
@@andrewyarosh1809 Yes, I'm aware that Henry V himself is one of the lots and lots of historic accounts that tell us how someone was wounded through the visor, or armpit, or groin armor weakspots. We also have historic sources telling us how arrows pierced maille, with an especific case telling us how the arrow pierced maille, leg, and horse. We don't have any of these about how someone was wounded or killed by an arrow through the breastplate. Nobody doubts Agincourt was won by the English. That's something we know just as well as we know France won the war in the end. Nobody with a clue doubts also that it was a conjunction of factors, with the huge difference in leadership being one of the main ones, along side with terrain and weather. And, again, very importantly: because English had 1500 knights and men at arms themselves, who are the ones that captured most of the french nobles. But that's not what this video try to dispel. They don't try to convince you that England lost that battle. They are dispelling, specifically, the myth that longbows could pierce plate armor. Which is something commonly said, that I, personally, have heard and read. And that isn't true. Yes, an arrow could kill a knight. The very first arrow in this experiment, did in fact "kill" the ballistic gel knight. But did so, because it hit in a weakspot with a lucky shot, a bounce or deflection. This is what the video is saying, all the time: in order to pierce a plate armor, you need to hit the visor, a weakspot, or maille. Because arrows don't pierce metal, for the same reasons katanas don't cut swords. They just used Agincourt as a base year in order to try to face a bow and arrow from a specific period vs an armor of the same period, because it would make little sense to face viking leaf edge arrows vs XVI century gothic armor, or XVI bodkin arrows vs early norman mail hauberks.
"Pictorial art ... sense of how they shot ... they are shooting straight" So because medieval artists never depicted armies further then a few feet apart we can conclude that medieval armies never been more than a few feet apart. They have depicted people that way because they wanted to draw recognizable people shooting at each other. From that you cannot draw the conclusion that medieval archers shot that way. You have written evidence that (even from Agincourt ) that archers started shooting the enemy from long distances. You have written evidence that archers started shooting at their extreme range of their weapon and continued to shoot until the enemy was a few meters away. You have records of conscription that require an archer to shoot a set of long ranges by various arrow types. . You have written evidence that requires people to practice at long range. You have various medieval long range archery competition (clout shooting) You have written evidence that medieval archers run out of arrows in almost every battle they have fought, which means they were shooting at least 72 arrows over minimum 7 minutes You have surviving medieval archery ranges that are 200-350 yards long. But since Mike Loades came up with that loads of crap that that medieval archers didn't shot long range because it was a waste of arrows since it cannot penetrate armor everybody just regurgitating the same shit. You have just proved that arrows couldn't penetrate plate on a short range. It is obvious that shooting through plate wasn't the purpose of the bows.
A couple points here, though I lack the knowledge to argue all of your points: 1. Just because people practiced at long range doesn't mean that archers shot at long range in battles: Mike Loades explains that sieges and naval warfare require longer-range accuracy than open battles. 2. The video demonstrated that arrows couldn't penetrate a breastplate at short range, but that's the strongest part of the armor. We need further testing to see if arrows can penetrate other elements of plate armor. 3. I haven't seen all the iconography, but assuming that arcing shots don't appear in any medieval art depicting open battles, wouldn't that universal absence among varying styles over the centuries indicate something?
Curiously I also just noticed those same images he was talking about - well, the one at 5:40 - show dead or dying characters with _arrows sticking through the middle of their breastplates._ At least I figure they are suppose to be arrows.. according to that historic image arrows were completely unfletched, and if an arrow from a 160 pound bow can't go through the plate are you telling me a hand-thrusted spear can?
@@Fe7Ace Spear are much much heavier, can have your whole weight behind them and unlike arrows, some of them had fully hardened tips and blade. Spears were also used from horseback in wich case the energy behind it is ridiculous. Some spear had also very very acute point, more than any bodkin arrows. So while it is vey unlikely a spear will pierce plate armor, it can and did sometime happen. At long range mere gabeson will stop arrows and most soldier wore at the very least a gambeson.
Imagine his thoughts each time facing the English: _don't hit a gap, not my hands, legs, don't hit my maille, don't hit my horse..._ And boom, right through your breaths, good night Sir knight!
Crowd dynamics. Abandonment of heavy cavalry tactics. Squishy mud. Being unable to see or hear because you can’t raise your visor for fear you’ll be struck in the face as Henry was a few scant years before. Always looking down because of the above. Fatigue. Hangover. And above all, English desperation in the face of overwhelming odds. Arrows were not the only weapon utilised by Harry. He would have included God’s intervention. I wouldn’t.
Tod, If the french knights had to get off of their horses, due to the deep mud, that would change what they could wear, going into battle! Just as a person, climbing a mountain in the winter must adjust their clothing to the conditions to avoid being too cold, or too hot, A french knight, on a horse would want to wear as much protection as his horse could could carry, but if that knight had to fight on foot, he would be over dressed, and would get very hot, and very exausted! Such a knight would be easy to wound and capture, even with the plate and quilted armour. If, however, the knight knew, long enough before the battle that the mud was to deep for fighting from horse back, he would not only leave his horse, but the plate and quilted armour as well. He would then go into battle, dressed in only the chain mail, knowing that he would not over heat, and thinking that he would beat the English because French knights outnumbered the English, most of whom were comoners. He would then only find out to late, that the chain mail was no protection against the English long bow!
An arrow like the one used in the experiment, shot upwards at 60 degree angle, will come down at about 250 yards hitting the knights as if they were shot at point blank. Ballistic calculators show this, and there has been an experiment with long bow that shows this in real world. The guy who did this used a day to hit his target to mesure the impact energy that far out. He had to hit the target :-) At Agincourt, the horses fell under the arrows from above, then some knights, the rest got stuck in the mud, so the British footsoldiers had an advantage. The pictures from the time are the myths/ propaganda/ stylized art, and some stories also. Your fantastic experiment shows that it was no good to wait for the French to come close and shoot straight forward. Thank you for that! Very cool to watch! But why wait to shoot at point blank, when you can hit the forces with the same power 250 yards out? I'm not saying it was decisive, but it was this way almost all cultures used bow and arrow (and other projectile veapons when a battle started. It was only the crossbow that was shot horizontaly at armored knights. Just my thoughts. And thanks again for the experiment!
Because it's much easier to hit something shooting straight on than to try to range something in at a distance without sights on a muscle-powered weapon? Longbows were used in a direct fire capacity. Almost all medieval ranged weapons were. Arcing arrows into the air is mostly a Hollywood fabrication.
@@patliao556 Ok. But let us use logic here. The longbow was not effective at 25 meters at all. We agree on that point. And according to you they did not fire volleys at a distance at this battle. So the 7000 archers were more or less combat inefective in this battle if that is true. That means this must have been a fantastic victory for the footsoldiers against the oncoming French cavalry. Or, the 7000 thousand archers fired at a massiv target (the whole French army at a narrow piece of land) from a distance, and made the horses fall in the mud to slow the advance, making the battle field a killing pit. I shoot a lot with traditional bows, and I can promise you that an armored Knight on an Armored horse comming at you 30 mph will be hard to hit even at 25 meters, and it would not matter. After the one arrow you got off, you would be dead. But we know houndreds of thousands of arrows were fired. Now, every battle is different. At Visby 1361, the Danish won by cutting off the feet of the local millitia, because the millitia had no leg protecting armor. That is a fact. We have the bodies. Who know what won the Agincourt battle if it was not due in some part to long range archery? One thin is certain, 3-4000 will loos against 14000 armored knights allways :-)
@@mortenoen434 Who said that it wasn't effective at all? Were they always shooting the French knights in their breastplates? Do men not quail when they are shot at by high powered archery? Do gaps in the armor not exist anymore? Moreover, as has been pointed out by noted historians including Dr. Capwell here in other lectures, the battle turned when the archers engaged the knights in close combat, not under the weight of their archery. You seem to think a knight was an invincible peerless warrior, but even I could kill Connor McGregor or whomever if he had to advance several hundred yards through mud and terror under 30 kilos of armor and I had three of my mates with me. And an archer of 1415 was fairly well equipped, they had breastplates, fighting swords, and bucklers. They were better in close combat than other commoners at the time, because English longbowmen were yeomen, a generation of middle class people who were well fed enough to pull heavy bows; they were no slouches in close combat either. The terrain, the mud, and the tactics did the French in. People put too much emphasis on weapons and human prowess.
@@patliao556 I agree with you on all points. And because of that I would fire arrows at 250 to 180 meters, and then wait for the enemy to come real close. You will always try to hit the enemy when your weapon makes the most impact, and those are the critical distances. If I can kill 5% (just to pick a number) at a distance, and say 10% at close range, why not do both? And then finish what all the chaos left alive? Great info, by the way! My neighbour makes medieval armor, he's from London. We have talked about this at length. Very interesting battle.
@@mortenoen434 It's just not a good tactic man. Why shoot at 250 meters if you can barely properly range out your shot to that distance? A half of centimeter of trembling can result in entire meters of deviation at that distance, plus variable wind since you're lofting the arrow up high. That's a thirteen pence arrow that you've just wasted shooting at nothing, and it's coming down at an angle where the best target in the armor is between the helmet and the neck, and this is usually protected by an aventail or the brim of a kettle hat, or the lobstertail of a sallet.... Even targets on the horse are less appealing, as the back is covered by the knight and saddle, and the top of the neck and the head are small moving targets that are also well armored. Further, if you miss your target, you're probably shooting the dirt. Compare this to shooting head on at 40 or so meters, where if you miss your shot entirely, you can probably hit someone else behind them, and your available targets are eyeslits, armpits, groin, and neck. On the horse, you can at least shoot them in the breast and possibly put them down instead of merely wounding them. You have more control over your shot and you can pick out targets of opportunity. Plus, shooting someone in front of a charging mass might slow him down or trip him down, which is going to disrupt and slow down the entire rush. That thirteen pence arrow is going to have a guaranteed effect, not something you can say when you're lofting arrows up like it's LoTR. About the only historical account I can even think of where lofting arrows was explicitly mentioned is in accounts from some Crusade, I can't remember which, where the Arabs supposedly outranged their Crusader contemporaries by using their feet to hold the bow and pulling the string back with both hands. And I'm not even certain that isn't a hazy memory I invented or just apocrypha. Almost ever depiction of the longbow shows it used in a direct fire capacity. You say that's propaganda, but there's no basis to that. What is it propaganda for? Why would it be advantageous for multiple artists over the years, in the service of multiple different masters and in multiple nations to depict bows being used in this manner? Artists at the time drew what they knew, what they saw. They saw archers shooting flat, so that's probably what happened.
... Popular belief: french knights forced to slowly advance through swamp were obliterated by legendary longbowmen. Thorough experiment: well, it doesn't penetrate the breastplate. People: what the hell was going there then, how on earth have they won?
All you have to do is put on a suit of armor, carry a sword and shield and try to make your way through 400 yards of muddy soil and you'll find that the elements themselves push you to exhaustion before an enemy soldier even gets to you.
I think the thing Tobias Fails to mention is that the professionalism of the English army was the deciding factor almost none of the army were Levees like the French army was still using the vast majority were retainers in the service of a knight or lord who were for that time period as close as we could get to a professional soldier he also fails to mention that in the case of the English army unlike the French even the what we would term as knights were not all aristocratic warriors like the French army were a large number of the English men at arms just like the longbowmen were retainers professional soldiers paid to kill that must add to the favour and skill of the English army over the French these men were not just warriors because they were born in the purple these men were soldier because they were hardened killers who had no qualms about putting a knife through the mouth of an enemy combatant
Strange, most of the sources I've come across put the English force at close to ~6000 total ~5000 Archers and ~1000 men-at-arms. Also, at least one (maybe two) high volleys were recorded, not to hurt the French, but to anger them and so encourage them to begin attacking. I also have to question the veracity of the pictorial sources of the time. They were mostly done years after the battle, and had no guarantee of honesty. They're probably no more viable as primary sources than films.
And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon TOD's day !
There simply wasn't any, nor was there really a 'France' at the time. The two main forces on the 'French' side were the Royalists and the Burgundians who both blamed each other for the loss. As the French side was essentially a reaction against an English incursion the records, if any, would be scattered as troops were called up to respond. The English set up their raid in advance and had to have detailed record-keeping to fund it and justify those funds. Note that it's not sure how many French actually fought at any time. Dr Lucy Curry states that the French were spread all down the river watching for the Enlish to cross and as these forces heard of the battle and were recalled they were flung into the battle to wear the English down. This would have worked except the English, knowing they were going to be overwhelmed, started butchering their prisoners and to stop this the French let them go.
I added this in a comment but it bears repeating. Note that it's not sure how many French actually fought at any time. Dr Lucy Curry states that the French were spread all down the river watching for the English to cross and as these forces heard of the battle and were recalled they were flung into the battle to wear the English down. This would have worked except the English, knowing they were going to be overwhelmed, started butchering their prisoners and to stop this the French let them go.
Just an accent thing I think. It's not more"right" or "wrong" than the other English pronunciation without the"t" as the French pronunciation is different to both. It's more like "Az-in-cor" in French
Nope cannot agree with that analysis of "what history is about" to my mind it's fundamentally about learning from the past - not about what we want it to have been in some abstract sense
I think that was his point. We (as in humans) want our history to be emotionally satisfying, so it tends to get written that way, therefore it is the job of the historian to cut through that layer of "myth" if they want to find out the truth.
Battle on the Ice is a prime example of this - people in Russia and elsewhere are convinced of the image of Teutonic knights sinking under the ice... because they've seen it in the Eisenstein movie, basically. (There's so much romantisation of this period in Novgorod/Pskov history in general, but it feels too awesome for some people to let go of it.)
I always had the impression that so many English had been fired into the air that day that the sky was dark for the French and it was only as they closed on the English lines that arrows were shot straight at the French horsemen, oh well, drat!
Referencing pictorial sources as 'evidence' that plunging shot arrow attacks weren't employed by the English during the Battle is frankly ridiculous. I really do have to question your scholarship if you actually believe that. Next you'll be suggesting that the armour depicted in these historical images is an exact likeness of the armour use in the Battle or, that there were only 3 or 4 archers present at the Battle because that's the total number depicted in the image. These images are ex post-facto stylized impressions of the Battle, not photographic records. There are a couple of other serious problems with your proposition: 1) We know from the written record that Henry provoked the French into attacking his line by using his archers to 'prod' the French line. To do that in the way you suggest would require the English archers to close to within about 50 yards of the enemy, due to the parabolic nature of an arrow's trajectory. Now, assuming the French then attack, that's really not going to give you much time to deconstruct the ensuing cavalry charge, now is it? 2) to shoot point blank as you suggest, directly into the face of the oncoming charge, would require the English archers to stand, shoulder to shoulder in a single row facing the enemy. Ranks of archers can't shoot directly into the front of an oncoming cavalry charge without endangering or killing the men in their front ranks. Seriously, have you actually thought this through, because it really doesn't sound like it?
" to shoot point blank as you suggest, directly into the face of the oncoming charge, would require the English archers to stand, shoulder to shoulder in a single row facing the enemy." Why? And are you thinking in volleys? " Ranks of archers can't shoot directly into the front of an oncoming cavalry charge without endangering or killing the men in their front ranks." Sure. If they do not deploy in a block 10+ men deep, and if they spread out a bit... And of course, unless they cannot duck/kneel, or walk away from the front or walk to the front for some reason, why not? " Seriously, have you actually thought this through, because it really doesn't sound like it? " Well then, grab your longbow, point your arrow high up und show us the effect it has on gambeson, coat of arms, mail.
@@szarekhthesilent2047 During this period, English battle formations typically consisted of men-at-arms arranged in ranks in the center, with ranks of archers on each flank. Given the narrow front at Againcourt and the ever present need to protect the army from a flanking attack, there is little reason to believe that this traditional English battle formation would not have been employed. When engaged in direct fire against an enemy i.e. shooting point blank, it is only practical, in such circumstances, for the front one or two ranks to shoot. Not only because the rear ranks might hit the front ranks of archers but because the rear ranks of archers may not be in a position to even see the enemy. In such circumstances, indirect high angle plunging fire is the most effective means of utilizing your entire force. It is also the only way for the archers to engage the enemy at extended ranges. However, once the two sides are engaged in direct hand to hand combat, indirect fire would be much less effective and in some situations quite impractical.
@@davidaitchison1455 " In such circumstances, indirect high angle plunging fire is the most effective means of utilizing your entire force." Unless of course, it doesn't even penetrate thick cloating, let alone raised shields. In which case, it'd be rather ineffective. Also I'd love to see how you aim like that. Now how about you test that, film it, and upload it? Sorry, I've never heard of Archers being deployed (and staying) in tight ranks. "Not only because the rear ranks might hit the front ranks of archers but because the rear ranks of archers may not be in a position to even see the enemy. " How about - 1m distance to the neighbouring archers then? Should'nt take too much extra space. and everyone can target and release.
@@szarekhthesilent2047 We know from the seemingly endless testing of bodkin heads against plate that, for the most part, arrows wouldn't have penetrated the armour of this period. What this suggests is that the main effect of the English plunging arrow attacks at Againcourt was probably the killing of the much less well armoured horses. These would have constricted the battlefield and doomed the French attack to something akin to a stampede in a football stadium.
@@davidaitchison1455 I wasnt talking about plate. I am not sure, that the arrow can penetrate any type of armor, when released like that. Horses tended to also be armored and are not stopped by arrows even when not armored. As a comparison - for a 500-1000kg horse an arrow is what a long toothpick would be to you. Another issues with horses is/was, that they can keep running for quiet a while even when having received a mortal wound. plunging arrows can 1 not easily hit the vulnerable part (belly and lower part of the flanks) and 2 lack the cinetic energy of a straight or slightly angled shot. In Short - when the arrow drops from high above, the accelartion will be at 9,81m/(s^2). Considering the low mass of the arrow , even a 150m fall, will not pack much of a punch, especially if there is even the slightest wind. Another problem would be impact angle (which, unless your arrow is unsually tip heavy and not aorodynamic at all, will also be an issue), and accuracy. Even the slightest breeze will greatly increase these problems, and moderatly strong wind will make firing in such a fashion very interesting. That is why I said - it needs to be tested.
What interests me is how many fully armored Knights does the french had. What did the common soldier wear in that time? gambeson, gambeson and mail, gambeson and plate? What could a common foot soldier afford. When we say the french has superior numbers, which doesn't mean they had the superior force. Lets say the french had 3000 fully armored knights and the rest were common foot soldier, the english force were superior. When 7000 bowmen fire a volley at low to medium armored soldiers, that must have been devastating. And how many arrows per minute could they fire? 15 to 20 perhaps. And we saw what a arrow does to mail in the other video... that man is dead...
What do you mean by "common soldier"? To answer the question though - most of the knights would have worn fullplate set, then 1-2 Riders per Knight, some of the "men at arms" and the Italian mercenaries might have had breastplate or something of similar cost. They had their Knights, each of them followed by his house's troops and the italian mercenaries. 3000 Kights still sounds like a lot, though. Maybe too much... Keep in mind that for every knight there needs to be a/at least one castle somewhere. And at least 2-3 other armed riders, as well as a bunch of potentially armed serfs, and whatever other armed men he can afford to take with him from said castle. Each Knight being followed by 3 men/horses per knight sounds fairly reasonable (3 horses and 6men/"lance" ). "15 to 20 perhaps." Not for long.... " And we saw what a arrow does to mail in the other video... that man is dead... " The distance was 10 m, though. And those who did not wear any type of plate, would have had shields.
@@szarekhthesilent2047 So for me, the common soldier is the infantrymen with spear, pike or any other polearm in mail, chainmail or textile armor. And do you really think every knight had his own castle? Not every knight had his own landholdings. Ever heard of the term courtier? That were knights who were so poor that they lived in the cities or at the court of the king.
@@IWFDI "And do you really think every knight had his own castle?" Those who didn't would typically fight as armored men-at-at-arms" and on foot. It is them who fit the bill of what you called "common" soldier. Those who could afford the " 3 horses" (which btw, appeared to have been batshit expensive.) would have been knights with landholdings (/castles) of their own. "So for me, the common soldier is the infantrymen with spear, pike or any other polearm in mail, chainmail or textile armor. " I suspected as much, that's why I asked ... And needless to say, that these would be wearing way more metal on them than the peasents a Knight might have brought along (also fitting the bill of common soldier)...
Having watched the main video and now this one, I'm thinking that 7000 arrows hitting armor would make this battle a seriously loud place to be.
A pleasure to see Toby Capwell!
I could listen to him all day!
Yes. Does he remind you of Bill Paxton too?
Not really, no.
@@philvalz Yawn
Dude is great.
In an English school, I was taught quite a lot about Crecy and Agincourt, and also a little about Poitiers: 3 battles the brave English won. I cannot remember any teacher ever mentioning the rather important fact that we lost the war! As you say, history is what people choose to remember, how they choose to interpret it, and what they wish had happened.
"brave English" 😅🤣😂
Thank you Tod and Tobias I'm very excited about you working together on a series.
I agree whole heartedly with Sam. Thank you guys for showing us all this actual data. I've seen one of the other videos in this series and it is an eye opener! Cheers
The resources that you pull from among each of your colleagues really speaks to your mission to scratch out the truth of historical events, arms and armor. It is really impressive. Love the series.
I appreciate the cautious, responsible and informed approach to history :)
My childhood knowledge has been crushed......love it
"their archers, amounting to at least 13,000, let off a shower of arrows with all their might, and as high as possible, so as not to lose their effect"-Monstrelet Chronicle
I suspect that the single dislike is from a History Channel employee.
Or maybe it is aliens.. probably aliens!
The dislike is from an undereducated mislead american.
Noice!
@uncletigger nope, we liked all about those videos! At least the pesky English know TH-cam :)
No doubt they want their pyramids back. The History Channel really is dreadful.
Crossbow fans
As always in any argument i say if toby says the sky is green....... it is bloody green lol. His presence for me on the team lends such great weight in his experience and knowledge.
We need to see more of you Dr.Capwell. You are such a humble, modest, and inquisitive intellectual.
I wish more influencers in this community, left their ego, and “I know something you don’t” arrogance, at the door.🥰
One of my very favorite people to listen to about history, I'm looking forward to reading his book
What a beautiful birthday present and what an exciting project! I could listen to Tobias speaking of English warbows and French bascinets the whole evening!
Excellent production quality. Dayum.
The English long bow men are a big part of why the French archers were not involved, according to some things I read. The French had hired a large contingent of Italian crossbow men, who were considered the best, but they could not get close enough to be effective, because of the longbows. I read that when the Italian crossbow men attempted to retreat, some of the French knights thought they were changing sides, and kill many of them.
I have always thought that the terrain was one of the most important things that assisted the English that day. Thick sticky mud and heavily armoured knights and their armoured horses, are a bad combination. The mud usually wins. That and the narrow English front, protected on both sides by thick stands of trees, was another important factor.
Weather and terrain are often huge factors.
" but they could not get close enough to be effective, because of the longbows"
and because of the rain previously...
@@szarekhthesilent2047 Indeed, a restricted space, too many men charging in, and the deep mud was sort of the perfect storm for the French.
The French general ho was nominally the overall commander was ignored and disobeyed by many of the French nobles because the general was not of noble birth.
His plan for the battle was rather different from what actually happened.
@@macnutz4206 I think i red, that the genovese Mercs didn't manage to keep their crossbows strings dry, while the english did.
@@szarekhthesilent2047 That could well be true. Still, the cross bow did not have nearly the effective range of the longbow, so the crossbow men would have still been out matched.
@@macnutz4206
the effective range of the crossbow is higher than that of most bows (less aiming issues). The maximum range isn't (not counting gastrapheta/cheiroballista). And the fire rate.
And the Genovese mercs wore heavier armor and had pavese accessible (not sure if those had been brought along for the battle. probably not).
On the other hand they were outnumbered by a fair margin here, so - no idea ...
Hard to compare.
I can't believe some of the comments below. Having used longbows since I was a child, I lofted arrows at distant targets and aimed flat at close targets. The forward movement of the English army and harassing shooting was enough to spur the already fired-up French forward into destruction. I've also used very many firearms of vary many calibres from .22 to 120mm. At distant targets the business end of your weapon is elevated; at close targets it is flat. Closer and you use very sharp pointy things, just like the English did when they got amongst the exhausted Frenchmen. I suppose my point is that if you drop enough unpleasantness on your enemy at distance you either make him bugger off or goad him into doing what you want him to do.
Battle of Formigny, English got a taste of their own medicine. The French used a pair of culverin cannons to bombard an entrenched force of English archers and men-at-arms at beyond longbow range. The English were goaded out and left their protective perimeter of stakes and ditches to attack the guns. They overran the French gunners but in return were caught in the open by French heavy cavalry. The battle ended in a French victory.
@@kovonaand your point is?
@@sirwi11iam You got problem with history, mate?
@@kovona not at all, just don't understand point you are trying to make, mate.
@@sirwi11iam Not making any point, just providing a historic tidbit relevant to Grendel's comment. Do you have a point to make?
Interesting comment from Mr Capwell about 'twisting history'. Why then is there such an emphasis place upon penetration testing of armour from the front, where it is the thickest, and yet not from the sides where the armour is thinner and there are far more vulnerable areas open to an archer to be able to hit. We know that in every battle fought by the English army from Dupplin Moor onwards the archers were mainly placed on the flanks, being now able to shoot inwards from the sides, which gives a far greater target aspect. In the original video, the first arrow actually clips the bottom edge of the breastplate, and goes through the mail and the gambeson beneath to sink into the gel body, This I think shows the best use of the weapon, not from thumping into areas that arrows have little chance of damaging, but into the sides where the vulnerable areas are.
I always am impressed when I learn a new fact that enriches what I already knew about a particular part of history.
Fantastic series, thank you so much for publishing this experiment!
it is not clear why we are talking about knights. The knight went on a campaign as part of lance.The lance, according to various statutes, usually consisted of 4 to 10 warriors, plus a certain number of servants. But counts and dukes could have more vassals as squires and servants and their lances could number dozens of mounted warriors, so the number of knights in the total composition of the army rarely exceeded a few percent. And accordingly, the principle of choosing armor for testing is not entirely clear. Such armor became massively used by knights only by the time of Joan of Arc, but it became available to the rest of the warriors much later. So that the main armor of the knights at Agincourt was still chain mail, even if in some places it was triple, and if breastplates were used, then mostly copper.
In addition, the troops were accompanied by huge carts, say in the descriptions of the winged hussar detachments, for one both comrade and pakholik (postal hussar, squire), there are up to 4 carts, with drivers, they could well be taken into account in the composition of the army and involved in the battles.
Would be nice to know more about details for example what about the violence in combat and battles in general, or about the whole process after the battle, I wonder what happened with the gear, armours, weapons, bodies, etc.
Weapons and armor would have been looted by the victorious side. Some may have been retained by the looter and used as their new weapon or armor, some may have been simply sold off for cash, while some say that the higher ups (the knights and nobles) took the best loot and the common soldier only kept a little. The bodies of the winners were probably taken by their people and buried on the spot while the bodies of the losers might have been left where they fell, or simply buried in a mass grave. It's also possible that the bodies of the knights and members of the nobility were allowed to be recovered by their kin/countrymen, maybe for a "nominal fee".
While the 'decisive phase' of the battle may not have shooting with flight arrows, the engagement is supposed to have started with an advance by the English army and an attack from the archers which provoked the French van to assault. (This provocation would be important even if indecisive in it's own right).
It is highly likely that at least a brief shooting at flight ranges was practiced, even if *most* of the harrassment/wounding happened at much closer ranges.
Unless the entire understanding of the movements on the day is flawed of course.
But are the sources clear on the exact distance between the lines after Henry had his men move up from the original position? With the assumed power of the bows used at Azincourt standing at 60 to 100 meters does not require much of an arc at all. It could be that the fact the French did not attack after the english moved forward their position allowed the English to get in so close to the French that they could hit them with minimal lifting of the shot?
@BruceR266 With an assumption that the initial velocity losses (10m-25m from this test) are plausibly consistent with the drag over the flight range (which may not be the case, if the arrow is still stabilising from launch disturbances at these distances), then the maximum range of the arrow shot as in this test is likely to be slightly below 200yds. (at ~40 degrees).
Lighter arrows with a higher initial velocity should reach further, and it is possible that this is slightly low for the tested arrow if the drag losses within the first 25m are higher than over the subsequent flight.
Grace Sprocket The bow in this video can easily launch those arrows over 200 yards, guaranteed. Joe has shot arrows of just under 1,000 grains over 300 yards with very similar weight bows. Additionally, Mark Stretton shot a 1925 grain arrow 200 yards with a very poor shooting 144 lb bow. Thanks!
Which is consistent with the suspicion that initial drag is significantly above the "settled" drag coefficient.
Yes, the shooting has to serve a purpose. That purpose isn't simply mowing down enough people with arrows to win the battle. The main purpose would be, I think, to make a cohesive charge in solid formation nearly impossible. Along with the terrain and other factors. For that purpose it should be flat.
Another purpose would be to provoke an attack, from an enemy who are well aware what a hellish time they'll have advancing... they;ll be those first volleys at long range.
LFG for Continent raid
(Got a nice helmet, a buckler, a sturdy bow and decent social skills. Can bring mats for arrows)
Amazing films. Much needed
I still think the French didn't have high ground and they lost the ability of their deadly taunt.
I think I smell elderberries.
Should have followed the teachings of General Kenobi.
Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!
If anyone knows please tell me.
If the archers did not fire in an angle did only the first 1 to 2 ranks shoot?
Did they shout like line infantry or have gigantic gaps in their formation?
(Excluding the case they were on a steep hill and everyone had a clear line of sight)
Yeah. I'd be nice to what the typical proportion archers took up in a medieval army. I mean, if their numbers are usually times lower than infantry, perhaps they had been deployed w thinner ranks?
@@lcmiracle It would depend on the army and the battle. English had more archers then infantry during this time period, and they were usually on the wings of the army.
could watch Toby spinning wisdom for hours... infact I have... on my 4th our of Capwell right now!. haha, keep up the good work guys
I appreciate the insight and context. Well done.
I think implying that they did not shoot volleys of arrows because of depictions in art is absolutely ridiculous. These people understood war with their weapons and armor very well. A volley can kill horses and land lucky shots. Longbows with high draw weights can fire very far. The only reasonable assumption would be that armies would advance just beyond bow range, and then advance as quickly as they could without falling to limit the number of volleys they would have to endure.
This exercise in historical experimentation has been so instructive. The French aristocracy must have been astounded (if they were not dead!) to have been resoundingly defeated by such a small force (if they didn’t consider the archers a viable enemy, then it was 8-10 : 1). I can fully accept that the archery did not penetrate frontal armour. But it must at least have made the French Men at Arms and knights have kept their heads down. And hemmed in, as they were, this must have made stumbling a distinct possibility, if not a certainty. Piles of French dead at the height of a man may well have been an exaggeration, but I am absolutely convinced that crowd dynamics must have played their part in the French defeat.
Divine intervention is, in my opinion, not a a factor. But choice of ground and the volume of archery surely was.
Interesting that you mention crowd dynamics - the first scientific documentary I saw about Agincourt was the Battlefield Detectives one (here: th-cam.com/video/eyq7RDaWqlc/w-d-xo.html), and it went in depth about crowd dynamics. Old now, but worth a watch if you haven't seen it.
This guy is a great host.
Welcome! This is the kind of knowledge we needed, based in empirical evidence!
one question, volley of arrows, myth or truth, how effective was it against armor?
Would you ever be able to discuss the actual location of the battle? It seems more and more that the traditionally accepted location of the battle might not be the real location. Nothing has been found there archaeologically to indicate that the Agincourt-Tramecourt location was the actual battlefield. Other locations closer to Maisoncelles (sp?) seem more likely given the depictions of the terrain from contemporary sources. I'd personally love to see something on this.
Thank you for listening, and keep up the great work! This series of videos really is wonderful.
this Is Great but is there a one of these on the Early part of the 100 years war such as 1350
Its not widely realised that the French knights were exhausted from having to wade through muddy fields. Its the suction effect. many french knights were captured intact so their armour was effective.
Choice of ground, good command and control came to the English aid.
Also French knights may have suffered from heat exhaustion, poor ventilation etc and with visors down impairs fighting capability in hand to hand.
Thereis still uncertainty where Agincourt was fought. Its being still researched and where French dead were buried.
Robert Barrey you mean it wasn't Agincourt?
@@StoutProper I think that he means where exactly in Agincourt the battle was fought. I'm guessing that the name Agincourt applies to a large enough area that just saying Agincourt doesn't pinpoint a precise location.
I really love this experiment but i have one big question. Dr. Capwell says that there are a lot of written accouts of eyewitnesses. is it possible to produce a small bibliography (or perhaps there is already one and i'm just too blind to see) because this is very interesting.
Just about all of the written accounts of the battle are published in this book www.amazon.com/Battle-Agincourt-Sources-Interpretations-Warfare/dp/1843835118 AFAIK there has been no new narrative sources found since it was published but I could be wrong.
@@Vonstab thanks man!
@who we really are I am sure you must have read Ann Curry’s fantastic book on the Agincourt campaign. But if not, I thoroughly recommend it. It has an extremely extensive bibliography addressed wonderfully in the footnotes. I confess, I have barely scratched the surface of the suggested sources myself. But there are so many exceptional individual stories to be gleaned from broad reading about this tiny little battle that I think I shall keep myself occupied studying it (in a very amateur way) for the rest of my life.
@@scorpiodog2 yeah i never read it. I find it a very interesting subject but in the like one year that i tried to find stuff about the medieval way of life, warfare, ect. I haven't been able to touch all the subjects.
@who we really are You have a fantastic and wonderful time ahead of you. The medieval period in Europe is a fascinating study. The politics alone, based as they are on supreme wealth, servitude, intrigue and murder, would reward a lifetime of study. Our antecedents or the Elite, at least, made the reading of their history totally absorbing.
I wonder how "dirty" the fighting would get, you have all those "specialised" daggers for finding gaps ect, but how much of the fighting was rolling in the mud, bashing eachothers head in with rocks ect. eye gouging ect. training with weapons is good but not all where trained the same, but when the fear kicks in, the real life and death struggle is going on how much "caveman" would be going on.
Hellspijker Even simpler, killing prisoners after they surrendered
If the french weren’t so keen on surrendering maybe they’d have survived.
There is the point that if the French armour saw a lot of incoming missiles, whether the missile in question could penetrate their armour or not, surely they would be doing a lot of semi-instinctive ducking which could have led to some of them losing control of their horses and ultimately disrupting the charge. Would only take two or three in a tight packed mass of conroi to cause total chaos
I think Toby is misrepresenting the primary sources, and oversimplifying some things.
Some points:
-"long" vs "close" range are ambiguous, subjective terms
-The Monstrelet chronicle explicitly states that the archers shot at both long and short range. The romantic idea of a long range volley is right there in the source: "the archers...let off a shower of arrows with all their might, and as high as possible, so as to not lose their effect". This occurred right at the start of the fighting when the archers were advancing towards the french, and it is only after they had closed the distance that the sources talk about arrows crashing into visors at "close" range.
-the archers were in multiple positions, as per the chronicles. some in the wings, some in the main body, and some in the fields. this was a complex affair.
-the arrows had a huge psychological effect on both men and horses during the battle, as per the sources. focusing just on the armor penetration is fun, but it's a narrow perspective. If a "long" range arrow storm causes a group of horses in a crowd to panic, it's a problem for everyone in the vicinity. Arrows don't necessarily have to be lethal to be effective and important.
-period artwork is a cartoon. unrealistically condensed to tell a story.
-archers don't have to shoot high in the air at an angle to launch the arrows "long" distance. Mark Stretton (warbow archer) had a test once where he shot at 100 yards and the arrows were basically still almost horizontal.
We hope to do a follow up video with Toby at some point where he can go into more detail and nuance. This one was filmed relatively quickly as material for the main vid, but we thought the unused footage was interesting enough that people would like to see it. There is Much more to be said in a proper interview.
Sorry but you base your assumption of high effectiveness of bow of nothing but your opinion.
We have examples from later battles of 100 years war
We have examples from war of two roses
We have examples even of long bowmen mercenary's fighting with tightly pack Swiss pike mans (Reisläufer) and with no great effect.
And we have later XVII century much more accurate examples of effectiveness of bow. Polish Lithuanian forces were fighting constantly with tatars and the effectiveness of they shooting was minimal much less then guns and this is time of little armor.
We see their better effectiveness when fighting Swedes army, but mostly becasue of tatars scary reputation and exotic fighting style.
Go get your PhD then.
What about French horses? Are they have enough amour? If you put some chemical on arrowhead, like hot peper or something else, that may disturbe horse a lot. Maybe English bowman was targeting horses?
Just a thought. Maybe the archers main role in this battle was to lower morale, with all the "shrapnel and arrow heads" flying around even in armour it would have been very hard to progress even if most arrows did not kill outright.
Ps. Obviously men would also have been injured. It does not take a huge impact to put a man of action,a piece of wood flying in the eye would do it...hence the helmets designed to repel. Also if horses were used i doubt they were all clad in the finest armour so would be a very chaotic addition to the battle....imagine an injured battle horse going full berserker mode after getting an arrow stuck in it.
ive been trying to find the source that specifies that archery was not perfomed in s.c. volleys (indirect shooting). The standard historical works on the topic all says they do. So i wonder where is this from?
You need a source that proves that volleys were done lol not the opposite
@@baldr12 he did refer to the standard historical works. And they do actually make that claim
@@baldr12 I refered to the standard works of academic history, im sure i can find the source if you like. Im not doubting what they say, rather i prefer that when something is stated that contradicts the current consensus, that sources are provided. I do not have anything vested in this, so im not aguing against them.
Did the longbows remove the horses from the battle field?
Even if the French knights themselves were harder to kill with arrows than previously assumed, I can still see concentrated fire stopping a charge, due to the damage and panic inflicted on the horses.
I could be remembering wrong but from what I do remember the English had set up stakes around the hill they where on and the French horses where un-armoured, which resulted in the French charge breaking and being slowed drastically followed promptly by the English archers killing the horses, combine that with the fact that it had rained heavily over night and you have a load of French knights having to climb a hill knee deep in wet mud while under fire (and you saw how hard those arrows where hitting in the video), its little wonder most of them where exhausted and incapable of actually fighting once they reached the English army.
Love this video, thank you
"I've seen the evidence, and the common conception is wrong. No, we're not going to look at the evidence."
You're saying Laurence Olivier films aren't perfectly historically accurate!? ;P
@Michael Cote Now that's a metaphor I haven't heard before.
hmm.. physics says that - on earth - in order to increase the trajectory of a projectile you have to aim higher. so at longer range, archers would have had to raise their aim in order to hit the target. artists very often portray events in a way that suits them visually and medieval art is not famous for accuracy of scale or perspective (people bigger than trees?). so, at 50m or more, i'm not going to fire straight, unless i want to hit the earth. initial, high, volleys of arrows from distance makes perfect sense and would certainly be a useful tactic.
What impact would all those concussive blows have had on a man in armour?
What proportion would have been equipped with the latest armour?
Armour changed slowly, so the latest armour is nearly identical to the armor that came before. We can only see obvious change with jumps of 50 years or more, anything less is usually very very similar.
The earliest known example of a longbow was found in 1991 in the Ötztal Alps with a natural mummy known as Ötzi. His bow was made from yew and was 1.82 metres (72 in) long; the body has been dated to around 3,300 BC and another bow made from yew was found within some peat in Somerset, England dated to 2700-2600 BC.
What was the draw weight on them, do you know? Interesting that they knew to use yew even back in those days. I suspect it’s been with us for much longer, didn’t the ancient Egyptians have bows? I know the Syrians did in Ancient Greek times
Why didnt they use Archers in the time of muskets? The longbow would have had great effect, longbows could fire further then what the 2 sides would march up to in order to send there volleys, and the troops didnt have armor. Longbows in that time would have ruled the battle field.
azsazs it took a lifetime to train someone to use a longbow. However militia could be trained to use muskets in mass numbers in a much shorter time
Not true, guns are much more effective, easy to use and with much more psychological effect then bows, and we have record from XVII century when Polish Lithuania fought with tatars and turks arm with bows and they did poorly ;)
@@swietoslaw Actually it is true, I wasn't saying the army should only have bows, i said why didn't they incorporate them into the army, like in the Revolutionary War had one side to had Archers, those arches would have slaughtered the formation of troops, an archer can loose like 15 arrows a minute, Whereas a musket fired 3 rounds a minute, the troops didnt wear any type of armor that would protect them from arrows whereas previous wars they had armor that would protect them from the arrows.
@@azsazs6039 Supposedly, George Washington thought bows could still be of some use on the battlefield. Im too lazy to look up the reference right now...
Me @5:45, lower right: "Well, I guess I'll die now."
I get a "I should have stayed in bed" vibe from him.
I wonder how much Toby dislikes how the English warbow is portrayed in Bernard Cornwell's "Archer" series and the stand alone Agincourt novel. Either way, I still enjoyed those books even if I know they don't accurately portray the capabilities of the English warbow.
@@tods_workshop Thanks for the reply. That video did give me some perspective. Thanks again.
Are you guys going to address the horses? Seems like a big soft target compared to the armor clad rider. What happens to a knight when his is violently unhorsed?
Main force of the french, basically the main force attacking at middle were on foot, there were smaller forces on horseback that were attacking the flanks though, but horses would not have been decisive factor, I believe.
In some older battles, Knights were taunted to come Off Their High Horse and fight like men
Henry also had some nice sharp sticks that fit nicely into the chests of horses and a lot of mud to bog those heavy horses and knights down. Henry picked the perfect spot to have his fight. Had the battle happened in a different setting Henry might not have won.
The fact that the French general was a complete moron also contributed to the battle.
In Spain's most famous Romance about knights, El Cantar del Mio Cid, there is a sentence that says "que buen vasallo sería, si tuviese buen señor", which means "what a great vassal he would be, if he had a good Lord". I think about that sentence quite a lot when I read about this and many other battles. Lots and lots of warriors and soldiers, sent to be slaughtered because the guy in command is a complete dumbass.
Should do a piece on how so much plate steel was manufactured, we are talking industrial, I watch armour building videos and they all start with pre fabricated sheet steel , sheet steel of constant thickness and quality, between building weapons, and basic everyday needs like horse shoes , how did they fabricate sheet steel to cover armies , and cover them constantly
Something does not make sence
Also the archers would use found armour or give it to their lords , or use the metal to make weapons, tools or arrow heads, it's not like metal was readily available , according to historians
a lot of hard and highly skilled labour by many smiths and armourers, pounding metal into thin sheets and shaping it into armour. 'industrial' did not exist until the industrial revolution, just lots of bodies doing lots of work. remember, everything took a lot longer then.
Relying on pictures drawn by people who weren't there years if not decades after the event is tenuous to say the least
It's still much better than relying on Hollywood movies made by people who weren't there centuries after the event.
However, there is a much more important fact: if a direct shot a 15m does not pierce it, a ballistic arched shot at 200m, would have no chance at all.
To me it seems like some of the distances shown are much to large fields were smaller in those days ploughing with a plough and ox took a long time even today the area grows mainly wheat so they would have ploughed what was left of the harvest the wooded headlands were probably slightly higher than the field that would be the reason for the water gathering but farmers wouldn't grow wheat in boggy ground and even today the area looks well drained soil when the French knight's attacked it is said the English line was forced back this might have been done intentionally to better ground and bring the archers on the flanks into play the armoured knight's were more vulnerable from the side and rear to arrows Henry and his comanders maneuvered the mass of knight's into a deadly crossfire what they would call now a killing zone but how quickly can you disarm 6000 knight's not by the 1500 holding the front line this is when the archers took up daggers mallets and I think the stakes that won't sharp at both ends nobody in there right mind would go against a four foot sword with a dagger they just needed to push the knight's over and the suction of the mud would do the rest especially if he landed face first and a quick bash on the back of the head forcing that long nosed helmet into the mud suction lack of oxigen and fatigue would do the rest
In films they always have archers firing volleys of arrows like musketeers. All loosing at once like a line of musketeers when given the order by an officer. I wonder how accurate that is.
On of the big issues of gunpowder weapons was, that they created a lot of fog when fired. That's why people came up with volley fire.
My money is on most French NOT having most of their body covered with plate, like legs in mail or arms in mail or mail hauberk with plate reinforcements on Arms, which was a bad mistake under threat of longbows. Half of French getting wounded thanks to this, the other half getting stuck in mud or losing morale culminating in their defeat overall.
This test lacks context! A wider set of parameters would make it more valid
Enjoyed your video and gave it a Thumbs Up
This is great stuff!
As a real question, not to troll: Is it fair to speak about the English and the French in this context? Were the knights and soldiers in the English and French armies really from what we call now England and France?
Yeah, kinda? The powerbase and most of the soldiers for the English came from Britain, while the French were... Well French.
Weren't the archers more Welsh than English? Other than that, they were pretty much British and French, if only starting to think of themselves (especially the English nobility, although that might be unimportant to the myth).
8 minutes and 45 seconds I will never get back
Could they have just shot 7000 arrows all at once from about 50 meters at the French horses in a very narrow space and then rapidly butchered the French knights trying to get off their dying or dead horses? And then repeat this with every charge of the French? Confusion sets in and knights start lifting up their visors to get a better look and instead get another volley of arrows in their face.
How would one position 7000 men, in a relatively narrow space, so that they could shoot all at once, and from relatively the same distance?
@@JustGrowingUp84 Yeah, that's what I was thinking about too. Then there's the armour the horses may have had or not. It seems the charges were indeed a failure as a result of the arrow storms. I don't know much about this battle other than wikipedia and these videos but I'd say this battle was about very careful coordination between the archers and some sort of fast response infantry force that could quickly run out and finish off or capture the French knights as they struggled with their injured or dead horses in the mud.
The other thing to keep in mind is that horses are relatively hardy animals and are not necessarily easy to kill. To kill a quadruped reliably you need a heart shot. That's easier said than done from the front when they've got at least a chamfron, and likely a peytral and criniere at this point as well.
At Agincourt they were on foot. At Patay, 14 years later, they were mounted and they rolled up the strong archer lines in the matter of minutes. Not that cavalry gives a guaranteed success, but it can be scary fast.
Why would they make arrow heads from wrought iron and plate armour from carbon steel? Wouldn't that make arrow heads from stuff at least as good as plate armour?
No one know how common or uncommon it was. But if you and I are to assume it was less common, the reasons would be:
Less affordability, less availability and no justification. It probably isn't worth doling out even as much as two or three times per head, and perhaps losing out on suppliers that can't provide it in equal numbers per season or even at all
Beornen Mannr hmmm... And yet there's a lot more iron in armour than an arrow head
Total non-sequitur.
I can't even envision what 7,000 people would look like at once, much less the devastation of all of those men (sorry but they were all men, I'm positive) raining thousands of arrows directly at you. Damn.
See the film WATERLOO (1970) it used 15,000 soldiers, obviously no CGI, but no 'of the time' tricks such as matte painted backdrops either.
thank yew
I found out nothing from this video, since it doesn’t actually explain how the English managed to defeat the French. The test seems to indicate that archers were ineffective against armored knights. And yet the armored knights were defeated......
We do know that french knights got in contact with the English lines, and they were defeated there. Plenty of important French nobles were captured by English knights and paid ransom. The pictures of the era, which are shown in this video at 5:45 , also tell us that the English knights fought and contributed to the battle as much as the archers themselves.
The 1500 english knights and men at arms (plus the lonbow archers using their mallets), finished the job at melee range, against the exausted French knights that ran through the mud, and fighted uphill, unhorsed by both the effect of the arrows and the effect of the stakes.
The purpose of the test is not to discover what won the battle, is to dispel the myth that longbows could pierce through plate.
gustavo iglesias so you are willing, based on one test of a handful of arrows fired at a distance of 10 meters directly at a carefully sculpted breastplate, to make the universal statement that “arrows don’t pierce plate armor.” And yet, archers were successfully used in battle well past 1405. If they were “useless against knights wearing plate armor” why did archers continue to thrive?
@@andrewyarosh1809 because archers didn't need to counter knights or pierce beastplates to be useful on the field. Most of the opossing army is not composed of knights, arrows can kill horses, knights have vulnerable spots (first arrow in this test would kill that knight because it hit maille and not plate), and you can attack infantry with your archers.
Also important to remember: England lost the war, despite Agincourt. Among other factors, one of the reasons is what Tobias explain in other video: French knights started to reduce the open weak spots by squaring up, looking down, and slowly marching into archers.
However, you are misplacing the burden of proof here. It is the one who claim something can happen who needs to proof it. The opposite is called probatio diabolica. So please find a proof of real, careful researched armor bring pierced by real, careful researched arrows. Or heck, even an historical account will suffice. We have tons of references of knights, nobles and kings being shit down by arrows or blots that hit them through the visor or weak spots. We also have historic references of people being shot down through maille, with historic description of how the arrow pierced mail, leg, and horse, and other similar ones. We do not have any, as far as I'm aware, of people being shot down through plate. Isn't it strange that, among the bunch of examples of records of people being hit and dying by arrows and bolts, all of them mention hits in the visor or weak spots like armpits?
gustavo iglesias I take your points, but they also make mine. The video, which implies that archers and arrows were “ineffective” against plate armor, is inherently misleading in light of the very points you make. Indeed, Henry V himself, was nearly killed by an arrow to the face at the 1403 Battle of Shrewesbury, albeit because he had his visor off.
www.medievalists.net/2013/05/prince-hals-head-wound-cause-and-effect/
I’d be fine with this video and experiment if it didn’t present itself as “debunking myths” about Agincourt, and stuck to simply demonstrating that 14th century arrows couldn’t penetrate well designed breastplate at 10 meters.
The “myth” isn’t that the arrows of the English longbowmen killed the advancing French knights. The “myth” isn’t that somehow the arrows of the English were superior to French armor, which was not universally made of high quality steel. Clifford Rogers suggests that knights wearing steel breastplate and helm were still vulnerable where their armor was thinner (legs, arms, feet) and that arrows were capable of piercing wrought iron helm and breastplate from a short distance.
Agincourt was lost and won because of a combination of weather (rains soaking the plowed field and turning it to mud), terrain (which allowed the English to place their archers on the flanks of the field and join the melée after their arrows ran out) and a deathly contrast between the utter lack of command and control on the French side and the well thought out battle plan and discipline on the English.
The results speak for themselves, even in Shakespeare’s “romantic” account of the 10,000 French casualties and their “Royal fellowship of death” as opposed to the loss of “Edward, the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk, Sir Richard Ketly, Davy Gam, esquire, None else if name, and of all other men, But five and twenty.”
@@andrewyarosh1809 Yes, I'm aware that Henry V himself is one of the lots and lots of historic accounts that tell us how someone was wounded through the visor, or armpit, or groin armor weakspots. We also have historic sources telling us how arrows pierced maille, with an especific case telling us how the arrow pierced maille, leg, and horse. We don't have any of these about how someone was wounded or killed by an arrow through the breastplate.
Nobody doubts Agincourt was won by the English. That's something we know just as well as we know France won the war in the end. Nobody with a clue doubts also that it was a conjunction of factors, with the huge difference in leadership being one of the main ones, along side with terrain and weather. And, again, very importantly: because English had 1500 knights and men at arms themselves, who are the ones that captured most of the french nobles.
But that's not what this video try to dispel. They don't try to convince you that England lost that battle. They are dispelling, specifically, the myth that longbows could pierce plate armor. Which is something commonly said, that I, personally, have heard and read. And that isn't true. Yes, an arrow could kill a knight. The very first arrow in this experiment, did in fact "kill" the ballistic gel knight. But did so, because it hit in a weakspot with a lucky shot, a bounce or deflection. This is what the video is saying, all the time: in order to pierce a plate armor, you need to hit the visor, a weakspot, or maille. Because arrows don't pierce metal, for the same reasons katanas don't cut swords.
They just used Agincourt as a base year in order to try to face a bow and arrow from a specific period vs an armor of the same period, because it would make little sense to face viking leaf edge arrows vs XVI century gothic armor, or XVI bodkin arrows vs early norman mail hauberks.
"Pictorial art ... sense of how they shot ... they are shooting straight"
So because medieval artists never depicted armies further then a few feet apart we can conclude that medieval armies never been more than a few feet apart.
They have depicted people that way because they wanted to draw recognizable people shooting at each other. From that you cannot draw the conclusion that medieval archers shot that way.
You have written evidence that (even from Agincourt ) that archers started shooting the enemy from long distances.
You have written evidence that archers started shooting at their extreme range of their weapon and continued to shoot until the enemy was a few meters away.
You have records of conscription that require an archer to shoot a set of long ranges by various arrow types. .
You have written evidence that requires people to practice at long range.
You have various medieval long range archery competition (clout shooting)
You have written evidence that medieval archers run out of arrows in almost every battle they have fought, which means they were shooting at least 72 arrows over minimum 7 minutes
You have surviving medieval archery ranges that are 200-350 yards long.
But since Mike Loades came up with that loads of crap that that medieval archers didn't shot long range because it was a waste of arrows since it cannot penetrate armor everybody just regurgitating the same shit.
You have just proved that arrows couldn't penetrate plate on a short range. It is obvious that shooting through plate wasn't the purpose of the bows.
A couple points here, though I lack the knowledge to argue all of your points:
1. Just because people practiced at long range doesn't mean that archers shot at long range in battles: Mike Loades explains that sieges and naval warfare require longer-range accuracy than open battles.
2. The video demonstrated that arrows couldn't penetrate a breastplate at short range, but that's the strongest part of the armor. We need further testing to see if arrows can penetrate other elements of plate armor.
3. I haven't seen all the iconography, but assuming that arcing shots don't appear in any medieval art depicting open battles, wouldn't that universal absence among varying styles over the centuries indicate something?
Absolutely agree!
Curiously I also just noticed those same images he was talking about - well, the one at 5:40 - show dead or dying characters with _arrows sticking through the middle of their breastplates._ At least I figure they are suppose to be arrows.. according to that historic image arrows were completely unfletched, and if an arrow from a 160 pound bow can't go through the plate are you telling me a hand-thrusted spear can?
@@Fe7Ace Spear are much much heavier, can have your whole weight behind them and unlike arrows, some of them had fully hardened tips and blade. Spears were also used from horseback in wich case the energy behind it is ridiculous. Some spear had also very very acute point, more than any bodkin arrows. So while it is vey unlikely a spear will pierce plate armor, it can and did sometime happen.
At long range mere gabeson will stop arrows and most soldier wore at the very least a gambeson.
@@Fe7Ace I believe what you are referring to in that painting is a lance point that has broken off.
And the obvious big Question is 'how did England win if the arrows couldn't penetrate armour?'
Imagine his thoughts each time facing the English: _don't hit a gap, not my hands, legs, don't hit my maille, don't hit my horse..._
And boom, right through your breaths, good night Sir knight!
Crowd dynamics. Abandonment of heavy cavalry tactics. Squishy mud. Being unable to see or hear because you can’t raise your visor for fear you’ll be struck in the face as Henry was a few scant years before. Always looking down because of the above. Fatigue. Hangover. And above all, English desperation in the face of overwhelming odds. Arrows were not the only weapon utilised by Harry. He would have included God’s intervention. I wouldn’t.
Toby reminds me heavily of Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec... And obviously this is a great thing.
Tod, If the french knights had to get off of their horses, due to the deep mud, that would change what they could wear, going into battle! Just as a person, climbing a mountain in the winter must adjust their clothing to the conditions to avoid being too cold, or too hot, A french knight, on a horse would want to wear as much protection as his horse could could carry, but if that knight had to fight on foot, he would be over dressed, and would get very hot, and very exausted! Such a knight would be easy to wound and capture, even with the plate and quilted armour. If, however, the knight knew, long enough before the battle that the mud was to deep for fighting from horse back, he would not only leave his horse, but the plate and quilted armour as well. He would then go into battle, dressed in only the chain mail, knowing that he would not over heat, and thinking that he would beat the English because French knights outnumbered the English, most of whom were comoners. He would then only find out to late, that the chain mail was no protection against the English long bow!
An arrow like the one used in the experiment, shot upwards at 60 degree angle, will come down at about 250 yards hitting the knights as if they were shot at point blank. Ballistic calculators show this, and there has been an experiment with long bow that shows this in real world. The guy who did this used a day to hit his target to mesure the impact energy that far out. He had to hit the target :-) At Agincourt, the horses fell under the arrows from above, then some knights, the rest got stuck in the mud, so the British footsoldiers had an advantage. The pictures from the time are the myths/ propaganda/ stylized art, and some stories also. Your fantastic experiment shows that it was no good to wait for the French to come close and shoot straight forward. Thank you for that! Very cool to watch! But why wait to shoot at point blank, when you can hit the forces with the same power 250 yards out? I'm not saying it was decisive, but it was this way almost all cultures used bow and arrow (and other projectile veapons when a battle started. It was only the crossbow that was shot horizontaly at armored knights. Just my thoughts. And thanks again for the experiment!
Because it's much easier to hit something shooting straight on than to try to range something in at a distance without sights on a muscle-powered weapon? Longbows were used in a direct fire capacity. Almost all medieval ranged weapons were. Arcing arrows into the air is mostly a Hollywood fabrication.
@@patliao556 Ok. But let us use logic here. The longbow was not effective at 25 meters at all. We agree on that point. And according to you they did not fire volleys at a distance at this battle. So the 7000 archers were more or less combat inefective in this battle if that is true. That means this must have been a fantastic victory for the footsoldiers against the oncoming French cavalry. Or, the 7000 thousand archers fired at a massiv target (the whole French army at a narrow piece of land) from a distance, and made the horses fall in the mud to slow the advance, making the battle field a killing pit. I shoot a lot with traditional bows, and I can promise you that an armored Knight on an Armored horse comming at you 30 mph will be hard to hit even at 25 meters, and it would not matter. After the one arrow you got off, you would be dead. But we know houndreds of thousands of arrows were fired. Now, every battle is different. At Visby 1361, the Danish won by cutting off the feet of the local millitia, because the millitia had no leg protecting armor. That is a fact. We have the bodies. Who know what won the Agincourt battle if it was not due in some part to long range archery? One thin is certain, 3-4000 will loos against 14000 armored knights allways :-)
@@mortenoen434 Who said that it wasn't effective at all? Were they always shooting the French knights in their breastplates? Do men not quail when they are shot at by high powered archery? Do gaps in the armor not exist anymore?
Moreover, as has been pointed out by noted historians including Dr. Capwell here in other lectures, the battle turned when the archers engaged the knights in close combat, not under the weight of their archery.
You seem to think a knight was an invincible peerless warrior, but even I could kill Connor McGregor or whomever if he had to advance several hundred yards through mud and terror under 30 kilos of armor and I had three of my mates with me. And an archer of 1415 was fairly well equipped, they had breastplates, fighting swords, and bucklers. They were better in close combat than other commoners at the time, because English longbowmen were yeomen, a generation of middle class people who were well fed enough to pull heavy bows; they were no slouches in close combat either.
The terrain, the mud, and the tactics did the French in. People put too much emphasis on weapons and human prowess.
@@patliao556 I agree with you on all points. And because of that I would fire arrows at 250 to 180 meters, and then wait for the enemy to come real close. You will always try to hit the enemy when your weapon makes the most impact, and those are the critical distances. If I can kill 5% (just to pick a number) at a distance, and say 10% at close range, why not do both? And then finish what all the chaos left alive? Great info, by the way! My neighbour makes medieval armor, he's from London. We have talked about this at length. Very interesting battle.
@@mortenoen434 It's just not a good tactic man. Why shoot at 250 meters if you can barely properly range out your shot to that distance? A half of centimeter of trembling can result in entire meters of deviation at that distance, plus variable wind since you're lofting the arrow up high. That's a thirteen pence arrow that you've just wasted shooting at nothing, and it's coming down at an angle where the best target in the armor is between the helmet and the neck, and this is usually protected by an aventail or the brim of a kettle hat, or the lobstertail of a sallet.... Even targets on the horse are less appealing, as the back is covered by the knight and saddle, and the top of the neck and the head are small moving targets that are also well armored. Further, if you miss your target, you're probably shooting the dirt.
Compare this to shooting head on at 40 or so meters, where if you miss your shot entirely, you can probably hit someone else behind them, and your available targets are eyeslits, armpits, groin, and neck. On the horse, you can at least shoot them in the breast and possibly put them down instead of merely wounding them. You have more control over your shot and you can pick out targets of opportunity. Plus, shooting someone in front of a charging mass might slow him down or trip him down, which is going to disrupt and slow down the entire rush. That thirteen pence arrow is going to have a guaranteed effect, not something you can say when you're lofting arrows up like it's LoTR.
About the only historical account I can even think of where lofting arrows was explicitly mentioned is in accounts from some Crusade, I can't remember which, where the Arabs supposedly outranged their Crusader contemporaries by using their feet to hold the bow and pulling the string back with both hands. And I'm not even certain that isn't a hazy memory I invented or just apocrypha.
Almost ever depiction of the longbow shows it used in a direct fire capacity. You say that's propaganda, but there's no basis to that. What is it propaganda for? Why would it be advantageous for multiple artists over the years, in the service of multiple different masters and in multiple nations to depict bows being used in this manner? Artists at the time drew what they knew, what they saw. They saw archers shooting flat, so that's probably what happened.
...
Popular belief: french knights forced to slowly advance through swamp were obliterated by legendary longbowmen.
Thorough experiment: well, it doesn't penetrate the breastplate.
People: what the hell was going there then, how on earth have they won?
All you have to do is put on a suit of armor, carry a sword and shield and try to make your way through 400 yards of muddy soil and you'll find that the elements themselves push you to exhaustion before an enemy soldier even gets to you.
I think the thing Tobias Fails to mention is that the professionalism of the English army was the deciding factor almost none of the army were Levees like the French army was still using the vast majority were retainers in the service of a knight or lord who were for that time period as close as we could get to a professional soldier he also fails to mention that in the case of the English army unlike the French even the what we would term as knights were not all aristocratic warriors like the French army were a large number of the English men at arms just like the longbowmen were retainers professional soldiers paid to kill that must add to the favour and skill of the English army over the French these men were not just warriors because they were born in the purple these men were soldier because they were hardened killers who had no qualms about putting a knife through the mouth of an enemy combatant
I'm such a Tobi simp. What a god.
Strange, most of the sources I've come across put the English force at close to ~6000 total ~5000 Archers and ~1000 men-at-arms. Also, at least one (maybe two) high volleys were recorded, not to hurt the French, but to anger them and so encourage them to begin attacking.
I also have to question the veracity of the pictorial sources of the time. They were mostly done years after the battle, and had no guarantee of honesty. They're probably no more viable as primary sources than films.
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon TOD's day !
@@tods_workshop Of course. You got a great team together. But I could only really substitute one name for "Crispin's"
soz still love the show
Does this gentleman’s voice remind anyone else of Norm Macdonald’s?
So why did the French not engage their archers?
His rapper name is T Cap.
Dont you think that shooting with high arc would be more lethal because of hitting different armour part?
Yeah Toby!
Who destroyed the French records? The Jacobins?
There simply wasn't any, nor was there really a 'France' at the time.
The two main forces on the 'French' side were the Royalists and the Burgundians who both blamed each other for the loss. As the French side was essentially a reaction against an English incursion the records, if any, would be scattered as troops were called up to respond. The English set up their raid in advance and had to have detailed record-keeping to fund it and justify those funds.
Note that it's not sure how many French actually fought at any time. Dr Lucy Curry states that the French were spread all down the river watching for the Enlish to cross and as these forces heard of the battle and were recalled they were flung into the battle to wear the English down. This would have worked except the English, knowing they were going to be overwhelmed, started butchering their prisoners and to stop this the French let them go.
A good book on the battle - "24 Hours At Agincourt," by Michael Jones
I added this in a comment but it bears repeating.
Note that it's not sure how many French actually fought at any time. Dr Lucy Curry states that the French were spread all down the river watching for the English to cross and as these forces heard of the battle and were recalled they were flung into the battle to wear the English down. This would have worked except the English, knowing they were going to be overwhelmed, started butchering their prisoners and to stop this the French let them go.
why is he pronouncing the T in Agincourt :P
Just an accent thing I think. It's not more"right" or "wrong" than the other English pronunciation without the"t" as the French pronunciation is different to both. It's more like "Az-in-cor" in French
Oh whatever
Because this is England and it sounds nice.
Ah the Historical Interpretation War 😇
Nope cannot agree with that analysis of "what history is about" to my mind it's fundamentally about learning from the past - not about what we want it to have been in some abstract sense
Комментарий к видео
We want our history to be emotionally satisfying? Crap, then its NOT history, it's Hollywood!
I think that was his point. We (as in humans) want our history to be emotionally satisfying, so it tends to get written that way, therefore it is the job of the historian to cut through that layer of "myth" if they want to find out the truth.
Battle on the Ice is a prime example of this - people in Russia and elsewhere are convinced of the image of Teutonic knights sinking under the ice... because they've seen it in the Eisenstein movie, basically. (There's so much romantisation of this period in Novgorod/Pskov history in general, but it feels too awesome for some people to let go of it.)
barry lucas historians also often embellish the facts. any account is subjective.
No Englishman remember the end of 100 years war... 😂😂😂
I always had the impression that so many English had been fired into the air that day that the sky was dark for the French and it was only as they closed on the English lines that arrows were shot straight at the French horsemen, oh well, drat!
History is tool for steering social superstructures.
Yeah, just look at WWI, WWII, millions of Europeans sacrificed for a new world order! Sickening
Referencing pictorial sources as 'evidence' that plunging shot arrow attacks weren't employed by the English during the Battle is frankly ridiculous. I really do have to question your scholarship if you actually believe that. Next you'll be suggesting that the armour depicted in these historical images is an exact likeness of the armour use in the Battle or, that there were only 3 or 4 archers present at the Battle because that's the total number depicted in the image. These images are ex post-facto stylized impressions of the Battle, not photographic records.
There are a couple of other serious problems with your proposition: 1) We know from the written record that Henry provoked the French into attacking his line by using his archers to 'prod' the French line. To do that in the way you suggest would require the English archers to close to within about 50 yards of the enemy, due to the parabolic nature of an arrow's trajectory. Now, assuming the French then attack, that's really not going to give you much time to deconstruct the ensuing cavalry charge, now is it? 2) to shoot point blank as you suggest, directly into the face of the oncoming charge, would require the English archers to stand, shoulder to shoulder in a single row facing the enemy. Ranks of archers can't shoot directly into the front of an oncoming cavalry charge without endangering or killing the men in their front ranks. Seriously, have you actually thought this through, because it really doesn't sound like it?
" to shoot point blank as you suggest, directly into the face of the oncoming charge, would require the English archers to stand, shoulder to shoulder in a single row facing the enemy."
Why?
And are you thinking in volleys?
" Ranks of archers can't shoot directly into the front of an oncoming cavalry charge without endangering or killing the men in their front ranks."
Sure. If they do not deploy in a block 10+ men deep, and if they spread out a bit...
And of course, unless they cannot duck/kneel, or walk away from the front or walk to the front for some reason, why not?
" Seriously, have you actually thought this through, because it really doesn't sound like it?
"
Well then, grab your longbow, point your arrow high up und show us the effect it has on gambeson, coat of arms, mail.
@@szarekhthesilent2047 During this period, English battle formations typically consisted of men-at-arms arranged in ranks in the center, with ranks of archers on each flank. Given the narrow front at Againcourt and the ever present need to protect the army from a flanking attack, there is little reason to believe that this traditional English battle formation would not have been employed. When engaged in direct fire against an enemy i.e. shooting point blank, it is only practical, in such circumstances, for the front one or two ranks to shoot. Not only because the rear ranks might hit the front ranks of archers but because the rear ranks of archers may not be in a position to even see the enemy. In such circumstances, indirect high angle plunging fire is the most effective means of utilizing your entire force. It is also the only way for the archers to engage the enemy at extended ranges. However, once the two sides are engaged in direct hand to hand combat, indirect fire would be much less effective and in some situations quite impractical.
@@davidaitchison1455
" In such circumstances, indirect high angle plunging fire is the most effective means of utilizing your entire force."
Unless of course, it doesn't even penetrate thick cloating, let alone raised shields.
In which case, it'd be rather ineffective.
Also I'd love to see how you aim like that.
Now how about you test that, film it, and upload it?
Sorry, I've never heard of Archers being deployed (and staying) in tight ranks.
"Not only because the rear ranks might hit the front ranks of archers but because the rear ranks of archers may not be in a position to even see the enemy. "
How about - 1m distance to the neighbouring archers then?
Should'nt take too much extra space. and everyone can target and release.
@@szarekhthesilent2047 We know from the seemingly endless testing of bodkin heads against plate that, for the most part, arrows wouldn't have penetrated the armour of this period. What this suggests is that the main effect of the English plunging arrow attacks at Againcourt was probably the killing of the much less well armoured horses. These would have constricted the battlefield and doomed the French attack to something akin to a stampede in a football stadium.
@@davidaitchison1455
I wasnt talking about plate.
I am not sure, that the arrow can penetrate any type of armor, when released like that.
Horses tended to also be armored and are not stopped by arrows even when not armored.
As a comparison - for a 500-1000kg horse
an arrow is what a long toothpick would be to you.
Another issues with horses is/was, that they can keep running for quiet a while even when having received a mortal wound.
plunging arrows can 1 not easily hit the vulnerable part (belly and lower part of the flanks) and 2 lack the cinetic energy of a straight or slightly angled shot.
In Short - when the arrow drops from high above, the accelartion will be at 9,81m/(s^2). Considering the low mass of the arrow , even a 150m fall, will not pack much of a punch, especially if there is even the slightest wind.
Another problem would be impact angle (which, unless your arrow is unsually tip heavy and not aorodynamic at all, will also be an issue), and accuracy.
Even the slightest breeze will greatly increase these problems, and moderatly strong wind will make firing in such a fashion very interesting.
That is why I said - it needs to be tested.
THE word shooting?'
What interests me is how many fully armored Knights does the french had. What did the common soldier wear in that time? gambeson, gambeson and mail, gambeson and plate? What could a common foot soldier afford. When we say the french has superior numbers, which doesn't mean they had the superior force. Lets say the french had 3000 fully armored knights and the rest were common foot soldier, the english force were superior. When 7000 bowmen fire a volley at low to medium armored soldiers, that must have been devastating. And how many arrows per minute could they fire? 15 to 20 perhaps. And we saw what a arrow does to mail in the other video... that man is dead...
What do you mean by "common soldier"?
To answer the question though - most of the knights would have worn fullplate set, then 1-2 Riders per Knight, some of the "men at arms" and the Italian mercenaries might have had breastplate or something of similar cost.
They had their Knights, each of them followed by his house's troops and the italian mercenaries.
3000 Kights still sounds like a lot, though. Maybe too much...
Keep in mind that for every knight there needs to be a/at least one castle somewhere. And at least 2-3 other armed riders, as well as a bunch of potentially armed serfs, and whatever other armed men he can afford to take with him from said castle.
Each Knight being followed by 3 men/horses per knight sounds fairly reasonable (3 horses and 6men/"lance" ).
"15 to 20 perhaps."
Not for long....
" And we saw what a arrow does to mail in the other video... that man is dead...
"
The distance was 10 m, though.
And those who did not wear any type of plate, would have had shields.
@@szarekhthesilent2047 So for me, the common soldier is the infantrymen with spear, pike or any other polearm in mail, chainmail or textile armor. And do you really think every knight had his own castle? Not every knight had his own landholdings. Ever heard of the term courtier? That were knights who were so poor that they lived in the cities or at the court of the king.
@@IWFDI
"And do you really think every knight had his own castle?"
Those who didn't would typically fight as armored men-at-at-arms" and on foot.
It is them who fit the bill of what you called "common" soldier.
Those who could afford the " 3 horses" (which btw, appeared to have been batshit expensive.) would have been knights with landholdings (/castles) of their own.
"So for me, the common soldier is the infantrymen with spear, pike or any other polearm in mail, chainmail or textile armor. "
I suspected as much, that's why I asked ...
And needless to say, that these would be wearing way more metal on them than the peasents a Knight might have brought along (also fitting the bill of common soldier)...
play deliverance, kid.