'THE BATTLEFIELD' by Tim Sutherland -

Chapter 13 from the book  THE BATTLE OF AGINCOURT edited by Anne Curry & Malcolm Mercer 2015

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THE BATTLEFIELD

The battle of Agincourt has stimulated a great deal of historical research over the centuries since it was fought. The archaeological potential of the battlefield, on the other hand, has attracted far less attention and can be summed up through the study of two general investigations; the excavations undertaken in 1818 by John
George Woodford (1785-1879), and the archaeological surveys and excavations which I have carried out since 2002. Woodford’s notes, maps and illustrations have impacted upon this work. Indeed, so much of what we think we know about the battlefield has been shaped by Woodford. 

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Woodford’s Excavations

In 1818 Lt. Col. Woodford, Quartermaster General of the Army of Occupation in northern France following the battle of Waterloo (1815), carried out survey work and excavations on the battlefield. Very little of his notes and artefacts now remain for public scrutiny. He recorded in a notebook during his excavations the location, the area covered and what he discovered, but this book is now missing. His annotated map of the battlefield, dated 1818, can be found in the British Library. Two letters that he wrote to his brother Alexander describing the excavations also survive. In the first letter of 20 February 1818, Woodford simply stated that he found artefacts ‘in the ground where the knights were buried, amongst a quantity of bones & the remains of sculls – particularly teeth’. On his map he noted the ‘Place of Interment of 5800 French Knights’. This location is the site of the Calvaire built in the early 1870s which is still extant today on the eastern side of the acknowledged battlefield.

Woodford’s excavations were carried out between 20 and 25 February. In his letter of 20 February he states that by the end of the first day he had already found ‘...two coins in the highest preservation…They are of Charles’s reign – (Charles 6th – I suppose) very thin & apparently very pure gold like a ducat’. According to Woodford’s biographer, Crosthwaite, by the end of the excavations, he had allegedly found

several gold crowns, ecus d'or of Charles VI...He found four gold rings, which were destroyed by a fire at the Pantechnicon. He also found on the battlefield a very large drinking horn, having engraven on the brass collar in old French, the following inscription :— QVI + NE + DOVT TOVT )1 RECOMECE. + which may be translated thus: ‘Who does not drink it all must drink again’. 

The finger rings and other artefacts were seen by others and were noted in various publications, such as in a review in The Naval and Military Magazine of Harris Nicolas’s study of the battle of Agincourt published in 1827. The reviewer wrote that

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The Roll of Agincourt revives amongst us all the old enthusiasm which the digging up of the ground itself, by Colonel Woodford, after our last continental victories, excited in every Englishman’s breast. We remember, then, handling the relics he found, with as much awe as interest: and particularly a ring, enamelled with the little blue flower we in England call “forget-me-not.” There were also gold coins, and fragments of military weapons. The ring with the flower is discussed and illustrated in Woodford’s second letter to his brother dated 28 February 1818. Another ring is briefly described in 1847: 

Sir John Woodford is in possession of a gold ring, found on the field of Azincourt, which bears the inscription Buro: Berto: Beriora. These mystic words occur likewise in the charm against tooth-ache, given in the Stockholm MS. 

According to Crossthwaite, prompted by a fire at the Pantechnicon, a large warehouse in London used to store the collections of wealthy people, Woodford wrote to the Duke of Richmond on 30 September 1874 with the following disturbing information,

Major-General Sir John Woodford presents his compliments to the Duke of Richmond and begs to inform His Grace that the fac similes of four gold rings, found on the field of battle of Agincourt in 1818, and now in the library at Goodwood, are the only remains recording the existence of those rings, the originals having been unfortunately destroyed in the late fire at the Pantechnicon. There is with them a panoramic view of Agincourt, Maisoncelles, Framecourt, and Ruisscauville, done by Captain Harding of the Royal Engineers, together with one of the gold coins then found. There is an inscription on the inside of one of the rings—buro X berto X beriora— which has never been satisfactorily explained. 

Woodfords first letter stated that he found at least ‘two coins’. One gold coin had been illustrated before 1874 by the artist William Turner with the annotation ‘A gold coin fund at Agincourt Presented to Walter Fawkes Esq. by Maj’r Genl Sir Edward Barnes KCB 1823’. (Fig. 1) This coin IS still within the Fawkes residence, the location in which it was painted. It shoul not be regarded as the same artefact as that relating to Goodwood, which was described much later.

Descriptions of several of Woodford’s finds therefore seem to corroborate his version of events. A report from a M. Leroi to Ravier, Chef d’Escadron de Gendarmerie, dated ‘Montreuil 20 March 1818’, also confirms that Woodford had carried out excavations and that ‘the bones were re-interred the 12th of this month in the presence of the Prefect of Saint Pol and the Mayor of Bucamp’.

Modern Excavations

In 2002 myself as battlefield archaeologist, and a metal detectorist colleague, Simon Richardson, and myself were invited to investigate the accepted battlefield site for Granada Television as guests of the Centre Historique Médiéval d'Azincourt. The Agincourt Battlefield Archaeology Project was thus initiated. Sutherland and Richardson had already carried out successful archaeological research on the battlefield at Towton, North Yorkshire (1461), locating over 1,000 artefacts from the battle, including hundreds of medieval arrowheads. It was therefore considered likely that similar prospection techniques could locate evidence of the battle of Agincourt. During the initial Agincourt fieldwork, several of the fields still contained crops and were therefore not accessible to be surveyed, but enough fields were available for a reasonable archaeological sample of the battlefield to be undertaken using metal detectors. (Fig. 2) This was carried out by walking up and down the field under investigation in a systematic manner using the lines of crops or soil marks as a guide. 

Around 100 diagnostic artefacts were recorded from a total of many hundreds of modern and insignificant artefacts recovered over a period of several days. These included 32 coins, ranging in date from the Roman period to the twentieth century. However, even though a silver Roman coin was found, (Fig. 3) suggesting that very early artefacts still survived in the soil, no medieval coins were recovered. Projectiles discovered consisted almost entirely of examples of ballistic ammunition, comprising three small lead round shot and several cylindrical heads of bullets and cases, obviously deriving from later periods. Examples of post-medieval silver and copper-alloy military and civilian buttons were also located, as well as evidence of prehistoric surface finds, such as a flint tool core. Additionally, there were many sherds of pottery dating from the Roman period to the twentieth century. However, there was a significant dearth of medieval pottery across the area searched. This is unusual given that this is an agricultural landscape lying between two medieval villages. A possible interpretation is that this land was not cultivated in the medieval period. The abundance of artefacts from many different periods, other than medieval, suggests that if medieval artefacts had been present on the site, then the survey should have located at least some of them.

Only one artefact was located that, at the time, was considered might possibly have derived from the medieval battle. This looked at first like an arrowhead but after being radiographed by the Royal Armouries, Leeds, this was considered unlikely as it lacked a socket. (Fig.4) It is remarkably similar to an artefact found during Woodford’s excavations of the graves from the battle which he described as an arrowhead in his first letter. (Fig. 5) A question must therefore be raised as to the correct interpretation of the Woodford arrowhead. Unfortunately its whereabouts is unknown, if indeed it still exists. 

It is important to state that the metal detecting survey did not find any evidence of medieval conflict. In fact, although the results of this very brief survey should not be seen as conclusive, it did not find any artefact that could definitely be dated to the medieval period.

During the same visit in 2002, two geophysical surveys were also undertaken along three sides of the modern enclosure surrounding the Calvaire. These comprised an area earth resistivity survey (Fig. 6) and an area magnetic survey (Fig. 7). These areas were made up of fourteen 20 x 20 metre grid squares for each survey. In 2007 the inside of the enclosure was also investigated with geophysical surveys and several small excavations undertaken. (Fig. 8)

In 2002, a resistivity survey identified several features, including what appeared to be a large rectilinear enclosure or building in the field outside the enclosure to the north. The magnetic survey also identified a very large buried magnetic anomaly in the same area. In 2007 the ‘structure’ like anomaly was investigated but no obvious evidence remained other than very compacted soil in the same location. The magnetic anomaly was also investigated revealing a large and broken pipe from a vertical bore drill which lay more than one metre below the surface. The pipe, which had obviously fractured off, had been left in the ground and reburied. (Fig. 9) Conversations with local inhabitants subsequently revealed that this had been the location of a drilling rig set up in the 1960s to apparently ‘search for oil’. The ‘structure’ comprised intensely compressed earth in the region of the anomaly which suggested that some former structure once existed in the location. It is possible that this might have been a compressed earthen bank associated with the drilling rig.

As Woodford’s map had indicated the area, later to be the enclosure of the Calvaire as the site of mass graves from the battle, excavations within the enclosure obviously expected to find evidence either of human remains or of large pits which had once held them. All of the test pits and augur holes, made to check for changes within the sub-soils, revealed relatively clean and apparently undisturbed material. The soil just below the surface revealed significant quantities of small brick fragments. No evidence of either skeletal remains or any buried features of artefacts were discovered. At the present entrance to the enclosure a few large stone protruding from the surface prompted an excavation of the topsoil. The stones were set in a row of eighteenth or nineteenth-century bricks and had had holes cut into them and filled with molten led in order to serve as supports for an iron fence. (Fig. 10) An early photograph of the Calvaire shows a metal fence in this precise location. (Fig. 11) 

Other very brief metal detector surveys, one on the Ruisseauville-Azincourt border (Fig 12) and another in the field behind the church in the village of Azincourt (Fig. 13), recorded very similar and generally negative results. An augur survey within the field behind the church found evidence of large deep pits, some of which contained sherds of medieval pottery. Although this might be expected within a medieval village it confirmed that, given the correct circumstances, an augur survey could find evidence of disturbances within the buried subsoil.

Many artefacts were recovered from all of the excavations and the metal detector surveys around Azincourt, but the majority were either older than the time of the battle or were relatively modern. Only those discovered through the augur survey behind the church could be identified as being definitely medieval. The dearth of medieval artefacts from what is supposed to be the location of a medieval battlefield is disturbing. It had been possible, however, to confirm that the enclosure of the Calvaire marked the site of a chapel, built in 1734 but demolished in 1793. This was signified by the small fragments of brick found during the excavation of the enclosure. This chapel is noted on the eighteenth-century Cassini map (Fig. 14) and on the plan cadastre of 1825 (Fig. 15). Neither map indicates the location of mass graves. 

It is feasible that the 2007 archaeological excavations had missed evidence both of the graves and of Woodford’s work. They had been very limited shallow sub-surface investigations and were far from extensive, given the conditional and restricted permission to excavate on each occasion. Another explanation might be the depth of the hidden features. Woodford stated in one of his letters that he had excavated to a depth of three and a half feet although Leroi’s letter gives the depth as ‘two and a half feet’. It is also possible that Woodford removed all traces of one grave and backfilled his excavations with relatively clean, sieved soil, making the grave difficult to determine now without a large open area excavation. 

Bearing in mind the current lack of archaeological evidence of the battle, it is worth revisiting other evidence related to Woodford’s notes and maps that he made in 1818. Although he drew up his map informed by the standard interpretation of where the battle took place, his annotations provide potential points of interest. For example, around the south-west of Azincourt he suggests the route of the ‘March of 400 Men at Arms’, which highlights his belief that a number of troops were used in this area. He does not tell us where he got this information from but it may have been what he was told by the locals. He also noted along this route a location known as ‘Mont Morial’ although the map does not explain what its relevance to the battle is. Crosthwaite enlightens us by stating that Woodford 

noticed the elevated ground on the left of the English position, called Le Mont Morial. The inhabitants have always understood from their fathers that the battle commenced on the Mont Morial, and it was probably over this ground that the English detachment marched. 

In the standard modern interpretation of the battlefield this small hill plays no part in the engagement as it is significantly distant from the accepted site. The map of 1825 shows an adjoining valley annotated along its length as La (or le) Morival. (Fig.16). Woodford was mistaken or misinformed regarding its true name. The suffix (val) presumably relates to the valley. ‘Mori’ could be taken as ‘to die’. The connection of the two words might suggest a meaning of ‘death valley’, an intriguing field name possibly similar to other medieval battles sites such as the ‘Bloody Meadows’ of Towton (1461) and Tewkesbury (1471). A location for the battle of Agincourt in close proximity to a valley is highlighted in the Gesta Henrici Quinti (c. 1417). 

The French forces] in compact masses, battles and columns, their numbers being so great as not to be even comparable with ours, at length took up a position facing us and rather more than half a mile away, filling a very broad field like a countless swarm of locusts, and there was only a valley, and not so wide at that, between us and them. 

In the Chronique de Normandie (1460s), the author comments that 'on that day they [the two armies] were drawn up in order of battle in a valley near Agincourt.

The 1825 map annotates an area of land to the south of the valley and to the northwest of Maisoncelle as L’Anglais (the English). This suggests a tradition of a possible location for the English camp. Chronicle accounts generally suggest that the English camped at or near Maisoncelle. Immediately to the left of this field we see on the map of 1825 an area of woodland, Bois Roger. The Gesta comments that 

when for a short while the enemy from their positions had watched us, taken our measure, and noted how few we were, they withdrew to a field, at the far side of a certain wood which was close at hand to our left between us and them, where lay our road to Calais. 

The valley called Morival lies just to the north of this woodland. It is therefore potentially where the armies might have engaged if the English had moved from L’Anglais northwards to meet the French on the higher ground. 

We are therefore faced with a conundrum. The 1825 map does not give any battle-related names on the traditional site to the east of Azincourt but it does includenames which might suggest that the battle took place to the west or south-west of Azincourt. The Cassini map of the late eighteenth century also places the battle to the west of Azincourt. (Fig. 14) The plan in Nicolas’s Battle of Agincourt (1827) places the English baggage to the west-northwest of Maisoncelle, approximately in the same location as the field named L’Anglais. It also places the battle to the west of Agincourt in about the same location as the valley noted as Morival. (Fig. 16) This suggests a belief that the battle either began or generally took place to the southwest and west of Azincourt. This does not rule out the possibility that the battle was also fought in the area between Azincourt and Tramecourt: medieval battles could be fought over a large area of land, potentially including all areas around the village of Azincourt.

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Conclusion

Although Woodford’s excavations appear to have been successful in that evidence of the conflict was allegedly recovered, the subsequent loss of this evidence means it cannot now be assessed. It therefore remains uncertain whether the site he marked on his map as the burial site (and which is now the site of the Calvaire and which was also the site of the chapel erected in 1734) is the location of the majority of the mass graves. Might this site only contain a small number of the battle fatalities? Do additional mass graves lie immediately outside the enclosure of the Calvaire or elsewhere in the area as a whole? Might we learn more about the battle by investigating additional areas around the village of Azincourt, such as to the south-west? 

To answer these questions, further archaeological work needs to be carried out on this important site of conflict. It is worth bearing in mind that archaeological investigations at Towton have now answered many questions related to that conflict. The location of a small chapel at Towton marks only a small number of graves of the fallen. The majority of the dead are shown to have lain in mass graves in the centre of the battlefield almost one kilometre to the south, amidst concentrations of artefacts and arrowheads recorded in their many hundreds. Much additional work needs to be carried out on the battlefield of Agincourt to compare it with the results from Towton. This will rely on extensive cooperation between everyone who believes that the site is not only valued and should be protected but also investigated further. The Agincourt Battlefield Archaeology Project plans to continue looking for evidence as there is currently still no recorded physical evidence of the battle ever having taken place!

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