The Battle of Agincourt was an English victory in the Hundred Years' War. It took place on 25 October 1415 near Azincourt, in northern France. The unexpected English victory against the numerically superior French army boosted English morale and prestige, crippled France, and started a new period of English dominance in the war that would last for 14 years until England was defeated by France in 1429 during the Siege of Orléans.
The Battle of Agincourt, 15th-century miniature, Enguerrand de Monstrelet
Monumental brass of an English knight wearing armour at the time of Agincourt (Sir Maurice Russell (d. 1416), Dyrham Church, Gloucestershire)
1833 reconstruction of the banners flown by the armies at Agincourt
Miniature from Vigiles du roi Charles VII. The battle of Azincourt 1415.
The Hundred Years' War was a series of armed conflicts fought between the kingdoms of England and France during the Late Middle Ages. It originated from English claims to the French throne initially made by Edward III of England. The war grew into a broader military, economic, and political struggle involving factions from across Western Europe, fueled by emerging nationalism on both sides. The periodization of the war typically charts it as taking place over 116 years. However, it was an intermittent conflict which was frequently interrupted by external factors, such as the Black Death, and several years of truces.
Clockwise, from top left: the Battle of La Rochelle, the Battle of Agincourt, the Battle of Patay, and Joan of Arc at the Siege of Orléans
Homage of Edward I of England (kneeling) to Philip IV of France (seated), 1286. As Duke of Aquitaine, Edward was also a vassal to the French King (illumination by Jean Fouquet from the Grandes Chroniques de France in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris).
The Battle of Sluys from a BNF manuscript of Froissart's Chronicles, Bruges, c. 1470.
Battle of Crécy, 1346, from the Grandes Chroniques de France. British Library, London