HSS 211               Spring 1999 Dr. Lynch
 
 

Annotated Bibliography [Topic: "The English Strategy at Agincourt"]
 
 

Burke, James. "The Battle of Agincourt, 1415 A.D." 29 May 1996.

          (http://user.aol.com/plaszo/burke/done/artagin.htm).

This excerpt from Burke’s Connections, the book derived from his

popular educational television series, analyzes the power of the

Welsh longbow, the weapon that determined the outcome of the fighting

at Agincourt. Burke says that the longbow had a range of 400 yards

and, at closer range, could penetrate armor. The longbow, he says,

was the weapon that "turned the medieval social order upside down."
 
 

 Keegan, John. The Face of Battle. New York: Viking Press, 1976. Keegan describes the ordinary soldier’s experience of war by focusing

on three of the most intense battles in European military history:

Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme. In his chapter on Agincourt,

Keegan emphasizes the logistical problems of the French cavalry when

faced by a much more maneuverable army of English archers and lightly

armored infantry.
 
 

 Lynch, Robert E. "Agincourt, Battle of."  International Military Encyclopedia. Ed. Norman Tobias.  Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic

International Press, 1996, III, 84-88.

According to this entry, the Battle at Agincourt produced one of the

most one-sided outcomes in military history. Despite the numerical

superiority of the French, the English strategy of luring the French

cavalry onto a muddy field and their tactical use of the longbow

illustrates the value of strategy in medieval warfare.
 
 

 Perroy, Edouard. The Hundred Years War. 1945. Trans. David Douglas. New York: Capricorn Books, 1965.

This account of the long conflict between England and France provides

a French perspective on the political issues which lay behind the

conflict. Perroy stresses the lack of strong leadership at court and

the resulting dissension among the French nobility for their military

setbacks. He devotes only one paragraph to Agincourt and argues that

the English campaign there had no long-term significance.
 
 

 Royal, Derek. "Shakespeare’s Kingly Mirror: Figuring the Chorus in Olivier’s and Branagh’s Henry V." Literature/Film Quarterly. 25

(1997): 104-10.

This article analyzes the image of the king as epic hero in two

film versions of Shakespeare’s Henry V. The author concentrates on

the visual effects of the Agincourt sequences to show a historical

figure evolving through a dramatic hero into a film icon.
 
 

 Seward, Desmond. Henry V: The Scourge of God. New York: Viking Press, 1987.

This biography of Henry V includes a chapter, "That Dreadful Day of

Agincourt," which describes Henry’s strategy both in building

his small army’s morale and in enticing the French horsemen to charge

into a killing field upon which the English archers could fire on

them from relatively safe positions. The outcome of the battle was

so overwhelming and so unexpected that the victors became convinced

that they had divine assistance and that Henry’s claim to the throne

of France was valid.