Free Agincourt by Juliet Barker Page A

p. 330). At Agincourt de Rambures fought in the vanguard with the other royal officers (see above, p. 265). (back to text)
    22Louis de Bourdon’s name is variously given as Bourbon, Boisredon and Bosredon in the different sources. He is not to be confused with Louis de Bourbon, count of Vendôme. (back to text)
    23Bradbury,
The Medieval Archer
, p. 124. (back to text)
    24Despite this absence of evidence, Curry asserts that the French army was only
c.
12,000 strong (as against
c.
9000 English), a figure she is unable to substantiate. While contemporaries vary wildly in their estimates of numbers, all agree that the French greatly outnumbered the English and that this was a contributory factor in their defeat. Although they also agree that French casualties were very high, not one of them goes so far as to suggest that half of all the French forces at the battle were killed, which follows inevitably from Curry’s figures since she accepts that the dead numbered
c.
6000. Such a proportion of fatalities is unrealistic in a medieval battle. See Curry,
Agincourt: A New History
, pp. 187, 192, 233, 248. (back to text)
    25Bacquet, pp. 101, 104. Juvénal des Ursins, a dedicated Armagnac, even went so far as to suggest that there were 8000 Frenchmen in the vanguard and main battle, but claimed that they were defeated by an English army 20,000-22,000 strong! There is a useful table giving the various chroniclers’ estimates of numbers in both armies and of the dead on each side in Curry, p. 12, but it should be used with caution, as some of the figures (for example, those given for Morosini) are not accurate and others do not distinguish between the numbers of English who invaded and those present at the battle. (back to text)
    26
GHQ
, p. 94; le Févre, i, p. 247; Waurin, i, pp. 206-7. Waurin’s actual numbers add up to 28,400 but a rearguard of 7600 seems appropriate, given the size of the other battles. (back to text)
    27Bradbury,
The Medieval Archer
, pp. 127-8; le Févre, i, pp. 247-8; Monstrelet, iii, pp. 103-4. (back to text)
    28
St-Denys
, v, p. 558; Monstrelet, iii, pp. 103-4; Bouvier, p. 69; Bacquet, pp. 103-4. Fenin,
Mémoires
, p. 64. (back to text)
    29Waurin, i, p. 206; le Févre, i, p. 248;
St-Denys
, v, p. 562; Bouvier, pp. 68-9. Monstrelet, iii, pp. 103-4, is alone in attributing the leadership of this wing to Guichard Dauphin but his text is obviously corrupt and unreliable at this point: Waurin and le Févre both correct this to Vendôme. (back to text)
    30Bouvier, pp. 68-9;
St-Denys
, v, p. 560. (back to text)
    31
St-Denys
, v, p. 560; Monstrelet, iii, p. 104; le Févre, i, pp. 85, 102, 105, 248, 288; Waurin, i, pp. 206, 213. (back to text)
    32Bacquet, pp. 112-13. This account of Agincourt, in a court case of 1460, makes it clear that Bouvier, p. 69, is right in saying that the count of Marle and his company were in the main battle, not in the rearguard as in Monstrelet, iii, p. 104, Waurin, i, p. 206 and le Févre, i, p. 248. (back to text)
    33
GHQ
, p. 81; Fenin,
Mémoires
, p. 64; Allmand (ed),
Society at War
, p. 195. (back to text)
    34Le Févre, i, p. 248, using the phrase “tout le surplus des gens de guerre.”
Gens de guerre
is a general term, meaning all soldiers; it is different from
gens d’armes
or
hommes d’armes
, which specifically refers to men-at-arms. (back to text)
    35
St-Denys
, v, p. 548. (back to text)
    36Ibid., v, pp. 558-60; Waurin, i, p. 206; W&W, ii, p. 53. The decision was not without precedent. Jean II had similarly dismissed most of the “poorly equipped and ill-disciplined foot-soldiers raised by the
arrière ban
” before the battle of Poitiers (1356) on the grounds that their presence at Crécy (1346) had hampered the more professional troops and contributed to the defeat. See Strickland and Hardy, p. 234. (back to text)
    37See above, pp. 59-60. (back to text)
    38
GHQ
, pp. 81-3. (back to text)
    39Ibid., pp. 82-3; le Févre, i, p. 244. (back to text)
    40It was customary practice