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Medieval suits of armour were so exhausting to wear that they could have affected the outcomes of famous battles, a study suggests. Scientists monitored volunteers fitted with 15th Century replica armour as they walked and ran on treadmills. They found that the subjects used high levels of energy, bore immense weight on their legs and suffered from restricted breathing. The research is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The effect of the heavy armour was so great, that the researchers believe it may have have had an impact on the Battle of Agincourt. "It is a huge...

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. snip...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...

The Day Of the Battle It rained for most of the night turning the ground sodden with ankle deep mud in some places. Both armies rose before dawn and assembled for battle, the English numbering 5000 archers and 900 men-at-arms and the French between 20-30,000. The rules of chivalry dictate that the field of battle should favor neither side but the French freely took up a position that was disadvantageous to them. They assembled perhaps 1000 yards apart, separated by a recently ploughed field. A slight dip between them ensured that the armies were in full view of each other....

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...

The scale of Henry V’s triumph at Agincourt, which has been feted as one of the greatest victories in British military history, has been exaggerated for almost six centuries, a new book is to reveal. The English and Welsh were still outnumbered, according to Anne Curry, professor of medieval history at Southampton University — but only by a factor of three to two. For the last 50 years historians have believed the odds were at least four to one. Curry is the first academic to untangle the true scale of Henry’s victory in 1415 by sifting through original enrolment records...

The future King Henry V was hit by an arrow to the face at the Battle of Shrewsbury -- how did he survive? This was the topic of a paper given by Michael Livingston at the 48th International Congress on Medieval Studies. Livingston, an Associate Professor at The Citadel, explains what happened in one of the most remarkable cases of battlefield surgery from the Middle Ages -- the arrow wound suffered by the future Henry V at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. Prince Henry was only 16 years old when he marched with his father's forces to Shrewsbury in...

During the Hundred Years' War, England had a centralized, state-controlled organization for manufacturing arrows in bulk. These were then issued as required to the soldiers on campaign. In June 1413, for example, Henry V appointed Nicholas Mynot to be “keeper of the king's arrows,” based in the Tower of London. Mynot was responsible for making arrows, but the royal fletchers alone could not supply the total need, so additional orders were placed with outside suppliers. In August 1413, for example, London-based fletcher Stephen Seler was paid for 12,000 arrows. We have some total figures available. In 1418, Henry V's government...