Battle of Patay The Battle of Patay ( 18 June 1429 ) was the culminating engagement of the Loire Campaign of the Hundred Years ' War between the French and English in north - central France . It was a decisive victory for the French and turned the tide of the war . This victory was to the French what Agincourt was to the English . Although credited to Joan of Arc , most of the fighting took place at the vanguard of the French army and the battle was over before the main body could arrive . Background . After the relief of the Siege of Orléans , the French recaptured several English strongholds in the Loire valley . This regained bridges for the subsequent French assault on English and Burgundian territory to the north . Nearly all of France north of the Loire river was under foreign control . The French victory at Orléans had destroyed the only French - controlled bridge . Three smaller battles had recovered bridges along the Loire . The French Loire Campaign of 1429 consisted of five actions : The Battle of Patay took place the day after the English surrender at Beaugency . In this battle , the English attempted to use the same tactics it had in the victorious battles of Crécy in 1346 , Poitiers in 1356 , and Agincourt in 1415 . These tactics called for having extensive numbers of longbowmen defended by sharpened stakes driven into the ground in front of their army , the stakes slowing and hampering a cavalry assault while the longbowmen massacred the enemy . However , in the Battle of Patay , the French knights were finally able to catch the English unprepared . No other country in Europe used the longbow as extensively as England . Although the weapon itself was relatively inexpensive to produce , it was difficult to amass a large pool of trained bowmen : years of constant practice were required to develop the skills and muscle power needed to use the longbow effectively . In order to ensure a sufficient number of skilled longbowmen , the English government required yeomen and peasants to train with their bows regularly . The large number of longbowmen the English could field as a result of this policy gave them a great military advantage during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries . Longbowmen had a serious weakness , however : due to their light armor ( or complete lack thereof ) , they were at a distinct disadvantage in hand - to - hand combat when faced with armored men - at - arms . At Patay , the French army took advantage of this critical weakness . The battle . An English reinforcement army under Sir John Fastolf departed from Paris following the defeat at Orléans . The French had moved swiftly , capturing three bridges and accepting the English surrender at Beaugency the day before Fastolf ' s army arrived . The French , in the belief that they could not overcome a fully prepared English army in open battle , scoured the area in hopes of finding the English unprepared and vulnerable . The English reconnoitered with remaining defenders at Meung - sur - Loire . The French had taken only the bridge at this location , not the neighboring castle or the town . Retreating defenders from Beaugency joined them . The English excelled at open battles ; they took up a position whose exact location is unknown but traditionally believed to be near the tiny village of Patay . Fastolf , John Talbot , 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and Sir Thomas Scales commanded the English . The standard defensive tactic of the English longbowmen was to drive pointed stakes into the ground near their positions . This prevented cavalry charges and slowed infantry long enough for the longbows to take a decisive toll on the enemy line . However , at Patay the English archers inadvertently disclosed their position to French scouts before their preparations were complete when a lone stag wandered onto a nearby field and the archers raised a hunting cry . On hearing the news of the English position , about 1 , 500 men under captains La Hire and Jean Poton de Xaintrailles , composing the heavily armed and armoured cavalry vanguard of the French army , immediately attacked the English . The battle swiftly turned into a massacre , with every Englishman on a horse fleeing while the infantry , mostly composed of longbowmen , were cut down in droves . Longbowmen were never intended to fight armoured knights unsupported except from prepared positions where the knights could not charge them . For once the French tactic of a large frontal cavalry assault succeeded , with devastating results . Captain Jean Dagneau captured the famous General John Talbot . After this feat of arms , Dagneau was ennobled in March 1438 by Charles VII , King of France , which is at the origin of the family name of Dagneau de Richecour . As for the English , Talbot accused Fastolf of deserting his comrades in the face of the enemy , a charge which he pursued vigorously once he negotiated his release from captivity . Fastolf hotly denied the charge and was eventually cleared of the charge by a special chapter of the Order of the Garter .