Battle of Agincourt Raises Debate

Last weekend British newspapers were up in arms about comments allegedly made by Christophe Gilliot, director of the Centre Historique Médiéval, a museum in Agincourt, France. He was supposed to have accused the British of perpetrating war crimes during the Battle of Agincourt (1415 CE, English led army versus French), a conflict remembered fondly in England as both one of the high points of the Hundred Years War and an example of heroism against the odds. The contentious event occurred with reports of the French army having moved a force round to attack the English baggage train in the rear, and with a fresh assault coming from the front, a situation which prompted England’s King Henry V to order the execution of French prisoners so they could not rejoin the fray. A smirch on Henry’s otherwise grand reputation in England, the executions have been a real bone of contention in modern history, although there was little criticism of them at the time.

Well, historians were drafted in by the media to offer a defence. Andrew Roberts said "It is ridiculous for French historians to use the language of human rights when describing medieval warfare.” Craig Taylor commented “...no serious historian would view [the] decision to kill the French prisoners in those terms. From a moral point of view, Henry V clearly did things that in modern terms would be entirely unacceptable, but which were an entirely acceptable part of medieval warfare." However, Christophe Gilliot is now saying he’s been misquoted by the British press - and to be fair that’s a common occurrence - and actually spoke about the executions without using terms like "war crimes".