Was the Battle of Agincourt as One-Sided as History Claims?

[Astronuc]

Historians Reassess Battle of Agincourt
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/world/europe/25agincourt.html

MAISONCELLE, France — The heavy clay-laced mud behind the cattle pen on Antoine Renault’s farm looks as treacherous as it must have been nearly 600 years ago, when King Henry V rode from a spot near here to lead a sodden and exhausted English Army against a French force that was said to outnumber his by as much as five to one.

No one can ever take away the shocking victory by Henry and his “band of brothers,” as Shakespeare would famously call them, on St. Crispin’s Day, Oct. 25, 1415. They devastated a force of heavily armored French nobles who had gotten bogged down in the region’s sucking mud, riddled by thousands of arrows from English longbowmen and outmaneuvered by common soldiers with much lighter gear. It would become known as the Battle of Agincourt.

But Agincourt’s status as perhaps the greatest victory against overwhelming odds in military history — and a keystone of the English self-image — has been called into doubt by a group of historians in Britain and France who have painstakingly combed an array of military and tax records from that time and now take a skeptical view of the figures handed down by medieval chroniclers.

The historians have concluded that the English could not have been outnumbered by more than about two to one. And depending on how the math is carried out, Henry may well have faced something closer to an even fight, said Anne Curry, a professor at the University of Southampton who is leading the study.
. . . .

Related site - http://www.icmacentre.ac.uk/soldier/database/index.php

I found only one relative who was an archer.

The Soldier in later Medieval England
http://www.icmacentre.ac.uk/soldier/database/som.php
http://www.icmacentre.ac.uk/soldier/database/conf.php
www.medievalsoldier.org

 

[phyzmatix]

Thanks for the links provided, makes for some interesting reading.

 

[Auron]

This is interesting reserch, but a long way to go before accepted history gets changed I think. Even if the numbers were quite even, it was still a great victory as a group of archers defeated a group of better trained, higher class knights.