Digging Up The Battle Of Agincourt's Lost Dead | Medieval Dead | Unearthed History

A couple of things have been over looked here. Though it is estimated that the English embarked with 10 to 12 thousand me there is no mention of the siege to the city of Harfleur. The city was placed under siege for around 6 weeks and during that time it is estimated that the English force lost 20 to 30 percent of their force due to starvation and pestilence. Another thing which was not mentioned was the description of the battlefield itself. The English were backed by a woodland and they faced a freshly ploughed field that had been turned into a quagmire from days of rain. When the French advanced the cavalry was forced to dismount due to the mud which horses apparently did poorly in. The French had to slog over the field towards the English which gave the English a fair amount of time to use their arrows before actually coming into physical contact with the enemy. Knights and aristocracy did very poorly in the mud as they exhausted themselves fighting the mud while wearing 80 to 120 pounds of armour. Infantry wearing chain mail were also adversely affected by the mud and expended much of their energy so that when the two sides merged in battle the French were at a distinct disadvantage fighting against lightly armoured and fresher men. It has been noted in some accounts that many of the armoured French died from asphyxiation when they fell face first into the mud and could not get back up so following troops pushed them down even further. One thing that favoured the English was the use of the longbow versus the crossbow. The long bow tends to have a greater range than the crossbow so the French would have been under fire for a longer period of time before the crossbows came into range. Another problem with the crossbow is, although it may be more accurate, it is slow to load. An average archer with a long bow can loose 5 to 7 arrows (good archers 10 - 12) a minute while a crossbow is limited to 2 to 3 bolts in the same time. Crossbows were greater for taking down heavily armoured men on horseback because they could fire a heavier projectile more accurately than a long bow but they were at a disadvantage when facing massed infantry where quick blanket fire is far more effective. For comparison a 150 lb longbow will cast a 1,350 grain arrow a little faster and farther than a 1200 lb steel crossbow will a 1,350 grain bolt. About 235 yds for the bolt, about 250 yds for the arrow. About 30 arrows in 5 minutes for the longbow, about 10 bolts in 5 minutes for the crossbow. Source: https://www.google.com/search?q=medival+crossbow+range+versus+longbow&rlz=1C1PRFI_enCA895CA897&oq=medival+crossbow+range+versus+longbow&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIJCAEQIRgKGKABMgkIAhAhGAoYoAHSAQkxMjAzN2owajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Was a little disapointed we did not see any actual digging or searching with of the ground surface with radar. Thank you fir sharing God bless

Imagine the stuff that old storage and trading place had in it before it burned. There were probably a lot of priceless historical items there.

Likely that your field was not the actual battlefield. It is hard to have a battle of that size and not have artefacts somewhere, even if the area has been ploughed for 600 years. There were a smattering of WWI and WWII artefacts for example. DId you try ground penetrating radar? (expensive I know, especially if it is the wrong place). Anyway, thanks for trying, it would be great to find that battlefield.

enjoyed the program, Tims work at Towton has been a favorite subject and now here at Agincourt as well, good stuff

While it may have happened that some knights of old were buried in their armour, that armour would most likely have been removed, being quite valuable. Most likely, the battlefield was cleared of most valuables, the nobles returned to their families, the commoners buried in a common grave after being relieved of their earthly possessions. Then those fields would have been searched carefully by the locals for any remaining valuables.

Great innuendo history!!!

We know that the Romans returned to the forest in Germania where they were defeated by the barbarians led by Arminius and buried the soldiers' skeletons. The site of the mass grave was recently discovered and excavated. So, what is most surprising is the apparent lack of interest on the part of the French. Didn't they return to the site of the battle of Agincourt to give the defeated soldiers a decent burial? Are there no historical records of something similar in France?

Why in these type of documentary the music is always SO loud?? Maybe because the spoken part is considered irrelevant so it doesn’t matter if we can’t understand what tyey say?

I think that the French dead were nobility, or at least the cavalry were. Point being that any noble who could be identified was buried in their family mausoleums. Meaning any dead left would mostly be soldiers with average armour, if any, As well as more average weapons if any survived. Some armour and weapons would have become trophies, too.

Interesting

So I essentially just watched 50 minutes of his story and looking for something that they didn’t find. That’s 50 minutes I’ll never get back.

I love archaeological programs and this one is exceptional. Those who said they learnt nothing is truly abhorrent. I learnt ancient medieval history of the 100 years war, how nobility in France may have thought it a great adventure & that they could take a gauntlet off & be let go, not knowing it would be 100 years before their lineage recovered if at all, that armies then were made up of mostly common folk fighting for their own country on native soil, battle tactics, types of weapons & protection, political upheaval that the cause for the start of the 100 Years War had been forgotten with legend replacing facts . How someone can say this was a waste of time truly isn't intelligent, apparently unable to being mindful of anything but skeletons & finds. SMH.

LARS Top notch!!!!!!

gotta love how deadly arrows were in those times, but when you adapt that to video games its often an embarrassing joke xD

Also the inglish held up ⬆️ their two fingers that were utilized to draw up ⬆️ the longbow in a mocking gesture against the FRENCH who could do nothing about the situation 😢

As someone who has read about Agincourt I didn’t learn much from this.

Good morning old boy. Yes we are looking for dead frogs of the older type. Have you seen them old chap lol

Battle fields were picked clean by local people as soon as the armies left. Relatives would come to recover remains. Even the teeth of the dead were removed and sold to make dentures. Most of the unclaimed bodies would be fallen mercenaries and even these may have been taken by battle field pickers, but nothing of value would be left behind or buried. There must still be trophy weapons taken back to England from Agincourt in private collections which would show military or feudal marks.

Thats 46 minutes I will never get back.