Chain mail to hate mail. Tourist economy

Chain mail to hate mail

" I've had hate mail and trolling and I've been astonished how seriously people take these things, " she said. Prof Curry thinks this can partly be explained by how Agincourt is seen in England in patriotic terms. When she attended the 600th anniversary of the battle in 2015, people came draped in St George's flags. There is a sense of " how we have fended off France in the past", she said. Prof Curry believes Agincourt's myths persist in part because so many people claim to be descended from soldiers who fought there. Unsurprisingly, her research on the size of the armies has not faced resistance in France.

'Just history'

But Mr Gilliot says patriotism in France is " different". " We had the revolution in 1789, and since this period we don't really care whether a battle was lost or won by what we call the 'ancien regime', " he said. " It is just history. "

Prof Curry says the French have done a " clever thing" by focusing on the fact that the first member of France's Gendarmerie - which still exists today as a branch of the French armed forces - died at Agincourt. " At the 600th anniversary, the Gendarmerie were there and people talked about the battle being the origin of their story, " she said.

Tourist economy

Mr Gilliot says the museum has produced a " parallel economy" for local bed and breakfasts and restaurants, becoming a destination in an area with few tourist attractions. It seems to be paying off - the English make up the majority of the museum's visitors. Mr Gilliot says the level of knowledge of this historical period differs between French and English visitors.

" We are very surprised that a lot of English people know their national history very well and sometimes we have visitors who are descended from a nobleman who participated in the battle, " he said. " English people want to know where the castle was that Shakespeare describes in his play, or to visit the battlefield. " " For the French visitors, the questions are very different, they often ask who won the Hundred Years War. " We are seeing that the Medieval period is not really covered in schools in France. "

'No boasting'

But he has never met English visitors boasting about the result. " Our English visitors are very respectful, interested and well-educated, and they sometimes help us by pointing out problems in our translations, " he said. With Brexit looming, Mr Gilliot says the new centre could play a positive role in future Anglo-French relations when it opens in the autumn.

" In this period of Brexit, the museum in Azincourt is very important to understand why our two countries are friends, " he said. " There is a link between the Agincourt and Somme battlefields, because it helps us understand how we came from enemies to friends, " said the museum director. " The centre will be a good place to understand where national identities come from and to understand that it is important to have an identity.

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