ANST - History of a gesture - true/false?

[Dennis Grace]

Salut Cozyns,

Lyonel aisai.

Danial de opines:
>I believe that there was no body or finger mutilation of
>English archers, but I have no cites to back that up.

I know the problem--it's always difficult finding data to prove that
something *didn't* happen. I've been hearing for years that the French cut
off either the first two or first three fingers of captured longbowmen's
hands, but I can't recall seeing any support for this anywhere.  I would
have to side with Daniel on this one, though, and label such tales
"probably apocryphal."  The English longbowmen were typically yeomen.  The
French didn't waste time "capturing" yeomen; yeomen brought no ransom.
Rather, a French chevalier would have been enthusiastically willing to
relieve any captured English yeomen of their miserable lives.

Also, to slightly revise my previous post to one of these lists: (1)
removing *just* the middle finger doesn't prevent a bowman drawing a bow,
(2)there is no record in either the OED or the MED of the phrase "pluck
yew" in any context whatsoever, and (3) the part of the bow that is plucked
isn't made of yew, so the phrase "pluck yew" would be nonsensical.

lo vostre por vos servir
Sir Lyonel Oliver Grace


============================================================================
Go to http://www.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.