1. Effect on French Society
The French losses were catatrosphic. This virtual destruction of French nobility changed the old medieval order where the King was allied to the feudal lords to that of the middle class. The new weapons like the English longbow ensured that the old style mounted knights were no longer needed. The power transferred from knights who bore arms to ordinary peasants who could wield longbows (and later on artillery). Indeed by the end of the war, both England and France were able to maintain their own standing armies financed through taxation and thus protect themselves from not only external invaders but internal threats. Agincourt was part of the acceleration wrought by the Hundred Years' War that transformed France from a feudal monarchy to a centralized state and eventually a representative democracy. France was devasted and its people suffered terribly but battles such as Agincourt awakened French nationalism where the people no longer gave their loyalty to their feudal lord but to their King and country.
2. Effect on commerce
In the feudal system of commerce, the people gave their profits to their lords. With the loss of the French nobility and subsequent decline of feudal life, these payments transferred to the King which in turn gave the townspeople independence with the power to govern their own town. A developing long distance trading and growing money economy were further nails to the coffin of serfdom.
http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/Medieval+ages
http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/Medieval+ages
Edited by GemB on October 20 2006 at 3:05 PM
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