The Little Grey Horse - Henry V's Speech at Agincourt and the Battle Exhortation in Ancient Historiography

Abstract

This article is a continuation of M. H. Hansen, 'The Battle Exhortation in Ancient Historiography,' Historia 42 (1993) 161-180, hereafter referred to as Hansen, and at the same time a reply to W.K. Pritchett, 'The General's Exhortation in Greek Warfare,' in Essays in Greek History (Amsterdam 1994) 27-109, hereafter referred to as Pritchett. In my reply I argue (a) that Pritchett's (repeated) view of how King Henry V addressed his army at Agincourt is (still) unconvincing, and (b) that Pritchett misrepresents my view of battle exhortations while, in his own treatment of the genre, he endorses what is one of the main points of my article, viz., that apophthegms and short addresses to individual men and small contingents shouted to the soldiers as the general passed along the lines were later written up in rhetorical form as if the general had been standing in front of his army and addressed his men with a genuine speech. The article is concluded with a typology of battle exhortations to be developed in future studies.