How does a museum remember a defeat?

How does a museum remember a defeat?

The battle of Agincourt in 1415 was immortalised in Shakespeare's Henry V as a miraculous underdog English victory over the French.

So why is France investing millions of euros to upgrade the museum near the battlefield in the village of Azincourt in northern France?

The new centre will tell the story of the battle, the weaponry deployed and life in medieval France - and the museum's director, Christophe Gilliot, says it will be a big improvement on the existing exhibition. Perhaps the most striking change is to the statistics used by the centre about the number of troops at the battle. When the old museum opened on the site in 2001, its exhibition boards said 9, 000 English soldiers fought 30, 000 French at Agincourt. The new centre, expected to open in the autumn, will reduce these figures to 8, 500 English and 12, 500 French. It's still an upset, but a long way from Shakespeare's underdog story of Englishmen outnumbered five to one.

Professional armies

Before diehard fans of Henry V cry foul, Mr Gilliot says the numbers were agreed in consultation with historians from England and France. They are based on research by Professor Anne Curry of the University of Southampton, who studied financial records at the National Archives in London.

" Both armies were essentially professional, paid troops so we have a lot of financial records on them - we can find out the size of the armies and even the names of a lot of the soldiers, " said Prof Curry. Records show that Henry V took 12, 000 men with him when he set out from Southampton and left many of them behind to man the garrison after an earlier victory at the port of Harfleur. Prof Curry says her findings are respected by medieval historians, but unpopular with some English fans of the Agincourt story.

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