What is the academic consensus on how many soldiers were at the Battle of Agincourt?

by Casiphoner

In this thread, u/sunagainstgold and u/Valkine recommend Anne Curry's Agincourt: A New History. It seems like a reputable book. However, it looks like some disagree with Curry's assessment on the numbers at the battle. According to Wikipedia, Curry says the English had 9,000 men and the French 12,000. Others, like Juliet Barker, say the English had 6,000 men and the French 36,000. Also according to wikipedia, Curry is in the minority about her opinion, but does that mean it is wrong, or is she even in the minority for that matter?

For example, this amazon review (updated here) attacks Curry's ideas in favor of the more traditional view of Juliet Barker.

Some important quotes from the review:

  • There are serious problems attending Professor Curry's attempt to diminish the heroic quality of the English participation in the Battle of Agincourt by reliance primarily on surviving archival evidence. First, she has to reject the evidence of an educated man-at-arms in the French army (Jehan de Waurin) who was an eyewitness to the battle. This is an absurd approach that seriously undermines the validity of her claim. Secondly, her reliance on archival records ignores the fact that many French archival records from the time of Agincourt were destroyed in the French Revolution. On the other hand, a vast quantity of English records that are relevant to Agincourt still exists in British archives. These British records show that the attendance of most of King Henry V's army in France, including the presence of England's nobility, was purchased by the king. Even royal dukes signed contracts of employment (indentures) for the Agincourt campaign. Finally, and by contrast with English archival records, Professor Curry appears to have failed to appreciate, or perhaps wished to ignore, the historical fact that the massive French army at Agincourt was largely composed of the great nobles of France, their vassal lords, and their knights, squires, and retinues of men-at-arms. These fighting men were present at Agincourt in pursuance of feudal obligations to the French king. They were not mercenaries. It is highly unlikely that these massive feudal levies would have been recorded in any French archival records of hired mercenaries, such as Genoese crossbowmen, used by Professor Curry to create her very questionable revisionist history of Agincourt. Professor Curry produced no convincing historical evidence to support her Agincourt theory, but if she was seeking controversy, public attention, and the probability of increased book sales, she appears to have achieved her purpose.
  • There were intelligent eyewitness chroniclers in both the English and French armies at Agincourt, and I suggest that the most reliable assessment of French numbers on the actual battlefield probably comes from the noble Burgundian man-at-arms Jehan de Waurin who history records not only as a soldier in the French army but also as Lord of le Forestier, politician, chronicler, and bibliophile. I believe that Jehan de Waurin's credibility as an accurate chronicler of the Battle of Agincourt is enhanced by the fact that he actually lists the number of men assigned to each division or "battle" of the French army and the two cavalry formations on the wings. He lists 8,000 men-at-arms, 4,000 archers, and 1,500 crossbowmen in the vanguard; a similar number in the main body, and two heavily armoured cavalry wings numbering in total 1,400. So including supporting cavalry, we have 28,400 French fighting men in the vanguard and main divisions or "battles" without including the rearguard division which probably amounted to at least 6,000 mounted men-at-arms. Without including the numbers for the French rearguard, Jehan de Waurin has driven a "coach-and-four" through Professor Curry's fanciful underestimate of French numbers. On the basis of his listing of numbers in the French divisions or "battles", Dr Barker describes Jehan de Waurin's claim that the French outnumbered the English by six to one as "most likely" (at page 264).
  • To show that Professor Curry's suggested figure of 12,000 for the French army at Agincourt is absurdly low, it is only necessary to deduct from that figure the French archers who would have probably numbered at least 5,000 (based on Jehan de Waurin's figures) and who took no significant part in the battle. Add to that figure at least one thousand French cavalry, and Professor Curry is left with only some 6,000 men-at-arms for her three French divisions of men-at-arms, or 2,000 men-at-arms in each of the vanguard, main body, and rearguard. These figures are simply absurd. The French would not have had only two or even three ranks in the lines of battle of the vanguard and main body as the mass of men-at-arms on foot approached the English battle line. Such thin French line of battle ranks, as apparently envisaged by Professor Curry when she plucked her figure of twelve thousand for the French army out of the air, would have been heavily depleted by the English arrow storm and would have lacked the mass and momentum necessary to break through the English line of battle. Unlike Professor Curry, Marshal of France Jean Boucicaut had the military experience to appreciate that a dense massing of French men-at-arms was necessary to survive in sufficient numbers to break through the deadly English arrow storm and attack the English men-at-arms positioned between the archers. Marshal Boucicaut's plan for the Battle of Agincourt had envisaged densely massed ranks in each French division. His plan was followed, but he was not the commander of the French army at Agincourt. There was no appointed commander of the French army at Agincourt. As a result, all attacks on the English line of battle were spontaneous, uncoordinated, and disastrous.

So, is this review right in that Ann Curry is completely wrong and Barker is right, or are both reasonable arguments, or is Curry right and Barker wrong? How divided are historians on the numbers at Agincourt? I know little about Agincourt (or the entire HYW for that matter) aside from this video, so I'm interested in learning more. This book is also on my to read list.

Thanks!

BTW - This was originally asked here but it didn't receive an answer.

Hergrim

The French tend towards supporting Anne Curry, while the English tend toward Juliet Barker. In fact, Anne Curry isn't the first to argue for a smaller French force than is typical for English scholarship. Hans Delbrück, based on one of his students' thesis, thought that the English outnumbered the French 9000 to 6000, and Ferdinand Lot calculated that the two forces were roughly equal in size. Philippe Contamine thought that the French had 9000 men-at-arms and 4000 to 5000 crossbowmen, archers and infantry.

On the English side of the scholarship, A. H. Burne, estimated the French force as around 24 000 men, a figure that Clifford J. Rogers agrees with based on both previously raised armies and numbers given by the Berry Herald. He admits the possibility the army was larger, with more than the 4000 Commons he has allowed in his figures. Juliet Barker herself does not, in fact, accept Waurin's totals, saying that "it is improbable that the French could have fielded an army of this size, especially without the full support of the dukes of Burgundy and Brittany." So far as I can remember and tell from searching her book, Barker doesn't attempt to offer an estimate of the French army's size, only that it significantly outnumbered the English.

Regarding Anne Curry's estimate for English numbers, Juliet Barker has added an appendix to the 2015 edition of her book that addresses Curry's arguments.

  1. Curry arbitrarily divides the number of sick men whose rank is unknown equally between the men-at-arms and the archers, whereas the army was recruited on the basis of 3 archers for every 1 man-at-arms, and had expanded more towards 4:1.

  2. Curry treats the number of men sent home sick as a maximum, even though the rolls are incomplete and one roll is damaged. She also removes members of households sent home sick whom she sees as non-combatants, but some of these can be shown to have also served as archers. There are also indications from post-campaign list that the pre-Agincourt sick lists are missing large numbers of men.

  3. Barker doesn't find the listed 37 deaths during the siege as convincing and feels that there must have been more deaths not found in the often incomplete records. She found another 41 casualties with a brief search, and adds that there were combatants sent back with the sick, injured and dead and that casualties were taken during the march to Agincourt, both from skirmishes and natural attrition.

  4. Barker argues that the "replacements" that Curry sees as filling out some of the more depleted retinues were actually smaller retinues, also depleted, being folded into larger ones, or else troops who hadn't been able to come over with the first fleet movement due to a lack of ships. There is certainly some evidence, as noted by Curry, of smaller depleted retinues or retinues whose leader had died, being folded into larger ones. Either of these would mean a large reduction to Curry's estimate.

On the whole, I'm inclined towards Barker's assessment that the English were most likely around 6000 strong, and Burne and Roger's estimate of around 24 000 for the French. The sources are just too imperfect to make a perfect estimate, but these figures are plausible.

  • Agincourt: Great Battles, by Anne Curry

  • Agincourt: Myth and Reality 1915-2015, by Stephen Cooper

  • The Hundred Years War (part II): Different Vistas, edited by L. J. Andrew Villalon, Donald J. Kagay

  • Agincourt: the King, the Campaign, the Battle, by Juliet Barker.