How did warfare develop between the battles of Hastings and Agincourt?

Answer 1

The enormous technological advance between Hastings and Agincourt was the development of the English longbow. Armor plate also improved substantially, but the longbow trumped it.

At Hastings, the decisive weapon was the sword; at Agincourt, the longbow carried the day. After a week of retreating in the rain, the English forces were backed up to a river, pursued by a French army more than twice as large. The English made their stand in a muddy meadow between two forests on Saint Crispin's Day, 1415. The English also made sharpened wooden stakes and planted them pointed toward the French.

When battle was joined, the English archers fired, the French knights charged, but the horses were mired in the mud and impaled on the stakes. The knights and horses were easy pickings for the archers, and the English won the day.

Two hundred years later, William Shakespeare would memorialize the battle in his play "Henry V", in which the King gave an inspirational speech to the troops. Shakespeare was good for a myriad of marvelous quotes, but the following passage gave us one of them.

King:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.