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Founded: 1415Category: Statues in France
Historical period: Valois Dynasty and Hundred Year's War (France)
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Azincourt (Agincourt in English) is a town where the key battle of the Hundred Years War took place here on October 25, 1415, in which English outnumbered forces under Henry V defeated a French army. It has gone down in legend as one of England's greatest military victories. Henry's army lost between 200 to 400 men (including the Duke of York and the Earl of Suffolk), while French casualties were estimated as high as 10,000. Among the latter were commander-in-chief Charles of Albret, three dukes, five counts, some 90 barons and over 1500 knights.
No Englishmen were buried at Agincourt; Henry had their corpses piled into a barn which was then burned to the ground. The remains of Albret and 13 French noblemen were entombed in a monastery church in the fortified town of Hesdin (destroyed in 1553), and other slain aristocrats were taken away by their families or retinues. Five days after the battle, Philip Count of Chartlois commissioned the burial of the remaining French dead. Some 5800 bodies were interred in three pits at the eastern edge of the field; the ground was consecrated and surrounded with a stone wall.
In 1734 the Marchioness of Tramecourt built a small chapel there, but this and the cemetery itself were destroyed by pro-revolutionary mobs in 1794. The site of the mass graves is now enveloped by trees and marked only with a wood and stone crucifix, placed around 1820. There is also a more modern memorial on the grounds as well as a museum/tourist center.
References:Saint-Émilion is a picturesque medieval village renowned for its well-preserved architecture and vineyards. The town and surrounding vineyards was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999, owing to its long, living history of wine-making, Romanesque churches and ruins stretching all along steep and narrow streets.
An oppidum was built on the hill overlooking the present-day city in Gaulish times, before the regions was annexed by Augustus in 27 BC. The Romans planted vineyards in what was to become Saint-Émilion as early as the 2nd century. In the 4th century, the Latin poet Ausonius lauded the fruit of the bountiful vine.
Because the region was located on the route of the Camino de Santiago, many monasteries and churches were built during the Middle Ages, and in 1199, while under Plantagenet rule, the town was granted full rights.