The BBC explores the history of obscene gestures:
Although scholars and historians continue to debate its origins, according to legend it was first displayed at the battle of Agincourt in 1415.
There, English soldiers waved their fingers at French soldiers who had threatened to cut off captured archers’ first two fingers to prevent them shooting arrows. The English were thus boasting they were still capable of doing so.
Except, they didn’t. There is no evidence whatsoever that the French ever cut off the drawing fingers of English archers and there is no contemporaneous record of such a gesture being used following the French defeat. This one was debunked by QI, when it was noted that the Azincourt myth goes back to about the nineteen seventies and no more – so the BBC should really know better (they make the programme after all). It would seem that we have another example of shoddy journalism here…
So, what’s new, eh?
I’s a remarkably tenacious myth; its origins, even if only fictional, may lie rather closer to home than Azincourt…
‘Looking round, the wayfarers saw a gaunt, big-boned man […] He held up his two hands, and showed that the thumbs and two first fingers hasd been torn away from each of them.
‘Ma foi, camerade!’ cried Aylward. ‘Who hath served thee in so shameful a fashion?’
‘It is easy to see, friend, that you were born far from the march of Scotland’, quoth the stranger, with a bitter smile. ‘North of Humber there is no man who would not knowe the handiwork of Devil Douglas, the black Lord James. […] He hath left me as he hath left many another poor border archer, with no grip for bill or bow.’
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: The White Company
But it’s a great myth though! Often better than the real origin, whatever that is.
It does say “according to legend.” No rule that legends have to be older than the 1970s. 🙂
Apart from the inconvenient fact that the legend is cack…
To be fair, unless they’ve changed it since you posted, it does also say that the Agincourt legend is widely regarded as mythology and the Agincourt picture is subtitled “The legend that the “two-fingered salute” stems from the Battle of Agincourt is apocryphal”. But though incorrect, it is a widespread myth – indeed, one I was taught at school in the 80s….
They have changed it subtly. The relevant section now reads:
Compare that with the same passage pasted above the line.
That said, there is no legend, only what someone made up in the seventies. There is no need, therefore, to even mention it, is there?
I wondered, but I wasn’t sure if you’d done a bit of editing – for brevity of course!
Personally, I think it’s worth mentioning if only to note that it’s not true, given that it is widely believed.
I never edit quotes. If I decide to miss a bit out, then I make it clear by using ellipsis and a line break to make it clear. I would certainly not do so if it changed the meaning as missing out the bolded words does here.