The Anglo Saxons at War 800-1066

by Paul Hill

  There is some evidence that Harold was planning a night surprise against William’s camp. This is suggested by William of Jumièges, another twelfth-century writer. If this was the case, Harold need not have waited for huge reinforcements. Perhaps tellingly, Jumièges says that William had already told his men to prepare for it. William of Poitiers, whose bias is enormously in favour of the Normans, often has some revealing things to say. He was, after all, the duke’s military chaplain. For example, he is insistent on Harold’s plan for a night surprise supported by a fleet of 700 ships to finish off the retreaters. The Carmen mentions the surprise attack too. With such weight given by the evidence towards Harold’s plan for a surprise attack on William’s position, in light of what we all know to have been the outcome of Hastings, what do we suppose went wrong? We might remind ourselves of the Worcester scribe’s pronouncement that it was William, and not Harold, who in the event achieved surprise at Hastings. John of Worcester tells us more. He perhaps paints the clearest picture of them all:

  Thereat the king at once, and in great haste, marched his army towards London; and although he well knew that some of the bravest Englishmen had fallen in his two [former] battles, and that one half of his army had not yet arrived, he did not hesitate to advance with all speed into South Saxony [Sussex] against his enemies; and on Saturday the 11th of the kalends of September [22 October–a mistake by John], before a third of his army was in order for fighting, he joined battle with them nine miles from Hastings, where they had fortified a castle. But inasmuch as the English were drawn up in a narrow place, many retired from the ranks and very few remained true to him.

  So, with ‘half’ an army Harold had marched into Sussex. Before even a third of this ‘half’ army had deployed, battle commenced. Someone, it would seem, had been out-generalled in his own landscape.

  But where did it all happen? Here, local tradition has dominated the story. Harold had marched his way through the thickly wooded weald to the place of the hoary apple tree, a known meeting point at the junction of three separate hundreds. We cannot be sure his encampment here was due to the fact he was awaiting reinforcements, but it seems most likely. Here, on the high ground at Caldbec Hill Harold was just a short march from the camp at Hastings some 7 miles away. But this is where the tables were turned on Harold. One of King Edward the Confessor’s Breton ministers had visited the duke in his camp at Hastings to tell him of the expected numbers of English who might swallow him up in the countryside if he ventured out. William must have known by now that the longer he waited the more likely he was to be overwhelmed. He had to get out of Hastings before it was too late.

  William of Poitiers says that before the battle an exchange of embassies took place in the form of monks. Harold had sent a trusted monk to William at Hastings telling him to leave the kingdom. The duke, who responded in person by pretending to be his own seneschal, sent the monk back to Harold with his own embassy Hugh Margot the next day. There was, of course, much coverage of oath taking and breaking, but the response was emphatic. The duke was not going home. Harold then put it to God himself to decide. By now, Harold’s position was known to the Normans and it probably came as a surprise to William to learn just how close he was to Hastings. There is a hint of urgency in the Norman camp at this stage as preparations were hurriedly made for a departure. There was still enough time to steal the final march. He set out from Hastings in an order of march that had his bowmen and crossbowmen (possibly) at the front, the heavy infantry (which are nowhere represented on the Bayeux Tapestry) in the middle and the cavalry at the rear. We cannot be sure of the exact timings of the exchanges of the embassies or of any other scouting or intelligence that took place that morning of 14 October 1066, but William’s army, having camped at Telham Hill, chose to deploy at the base of a slope across the London to Hastings track way. At the top of the slope was a lateral ridge just some 900yd in width with steep drops and forested valleys on either side. To the north was Harold, now aware of the arrival of an army that he had not expected. Somewhere behind him in the weald and beyond, countless English numbers were still snaking their way towards his probable marshalling place at Caldbec Hill. But as Harold sent men down the narrow ridgeway which is now Battle High Street to line the frontage across the road to Hastings, his heart must have sunk. Had he 10,000 more men than he did, he could not have brought them all into play on such a constricted front. For William, the gamble would be to have to fight the most costly of all types of battle–a frontal assault. The day was set for the longest of struggles.

  By far the most detailed account of the battle is that of William of Poitiers. He is careful to point out that William was not put off ‘by the difficulty of the place’–a clear reference to the gamble he had made in deploying at the base of a steep slope bounded by impassable terrain either side. As far as the Norman deployment is concerned, however, we must balance the evidence from numerous sources. Wace, in his Roman de Rou of the later twelfth century, is very specific on William’s deployment. He says the Bretons formed up on the left flank in company with the men of Poitou (sometimes called Aquitanians in other sources). With them were also the men of Maine. In the centre section were the men of the duke himself with some of his men spilled over to the right under the command of Roger of Montgomery (who is thought by some not to have arrived in England until the following year) and William FitzOsbern. On this flank too were the men of Poux in Picardy, the men of Boulogne and, in all probability, some Flemish mercenaries.

  Sadly, in comparison to the explicit claims of the Norman sources regarding Norman deployment, we are left with the enigmatic suggestion by William of Malmesbury for the English disposition that Harold merely planted his standards at the highest part of the slope. This gives rise to a number of interpretations when compared to the rest of the evidence, some of which contradicts. It has been suggested that not only did Harold line the ridge, but he also pinned a flank on a small hill on his right. His line, instead of being bent round the contour of the hill would then have been flatter and skewed at right angles to the road to Hastings. It is argued that the lightly armed men seen in the Bayeux Tapestry defending the hillock with all their might are in fact desperately trying to hold this flank. However, there are simply too many references to the constricted nature of the English ranks for this interpretation to gain general acceptance. It is still more likely that the English could not gain effective command and control over the proceedings due to the difficulty of their position. In other words, they were confined to a narrow ridge and could not bring their numbers to bear.

  According to tradition, when the forces were arrayed against each other the battle opened with the approach of Taillefer, a Norman juggler, towards the English lines. Henry of Huntington has him juggling his sword before the enemy and heading straight for the English standard where he slew two men before being inevitably consumed himself. The sound of horns then heralded the true beginning of the battle. It was the Norman infantry, according to Poitiers, who advanced first, probably the bowmen who provoked the English lines with their ‘missiles’. But it seems they got too close and were met with a missile repost.

  Then the Norman cavalry rode to rescue the infantry which had got into difficulties against the English. An exchange of ranks is argued by Poitiers–a very complex evolution–and it resulted in the Norman horsemen being able to hack their way towards the English lines as the bowmen retreated. But the response was emphatic, even by Poitier’s estimation. Soon, the battle plan of the duke was in disarray. Both Poitiers and The Carmen remark upon the difficulty of the place, the latter going as far as saying that the English dead could not even fall down to the ground but remained rooted shoulder to shoulder with their comrades. Poitiers hints that the assistance given to the infantry by the Norman cavalry at this stage came from William’s central command and included the duke himself. But here we enter the mists of tradition again. Was it possible that the Norman response to the difficulties of a frontal assault led the
cavalry into executing a tactic known as a ‘feigned flight’ to lure the English off the ridge to their doom? Poitiers has it done once by accident at this early stage of the battle and twice more deliberately. He is not alone. But is it not the case that if faced with only a frontal assault as an option the Normans would be compelled to try again and again?

  It was the Bretons who were first to yield. They fell back along with the infantry on the left flank and caused almost the whole army to break. The duke then rode in to rally the troops personally and as the rumours of his own untimely demise were spread, the duke lifted his helmet to reveal he was still alive. Why did Harold not unleash his whole line at this point of Norman confusion? Is this episode a mere lift from the classical antecedents around which the designer of the Tapestry based his or her story? Was it the case that the English were so constricted that a proper steamrolling shield wall like the one allegedly used at Sherston could not be organised? Whether the feigned flight was deliberate or a mere necessity based on the need for repeated attacks, the result on the English right flank was that Harold’s men ran from the hill and were cut off and annihilated.

  Piecing together what we can from the other sources as William of Poitiers descends into a sycophantic rant about his master, it is just possible to suggest the next step in the battle sequence. Harold’s brother Gyrth, according to The Carmen, is set against the duke himself. William of Normandy is supposed to have mistaken Gyrth for his brother Harold. It is probably here that Gyrth fell in battle, having been at his brother’s side for so long. The war of attrition was now edging towards the Normans. The English were unable to manoeuvre tactically and had to stand there and take the repeated onslaught.

  Now we enter a further realm of legend as the sources deceive us once more. It is at this point that it seems Harold moved his standards to the eastern flank of his army away from the summit. Here it is said by the Brevis Relatio (written by a monk from Battle Abbey) that the High Altar of the Abbey Church was set in remembrance of where Harold fell. There must have been some trouble on this flank for the English. It was the shallower of the two flanking slopes of the English lines and it is probable that the Franco-Flemish wing had been gradually carving its way up the English flank. The king came forwards to his lines to reinforce a desperate situation and it seems this was where the famous last stand took place. Historians have struggled to reconcile this interpretation with William of Jumièges’ statement that Harold fell in the first wave of attacks. It could be a question of how we interpret our Latin. Jumièges’s words are that Harold fell ‘in primo militum congressu’, meaning ‘in the first military encounter’. For Harold, the move to the eastern flank and the stepping into the front line to shore up a problem would indeed have been his first military encounter in the battle if we accept William of Malmesbury’s notion that the king had set his standards way up at the top of the hill. Therefore, this was the first (and the last) of Harold’s actions on the battlefield and very dramatic and furious it was too.

  More arrows were ordered into the English lines as William spotted his counterpart fighting in the thick of it. The Normans looked for the kill and sent men towards the English standards. Robert of Ernies managed to race forward to grab a standard but was cut down by English blades, his mangled body later found at the foot of the fallen English standard. But the pressure on Harold’s household troops was too much. He was slaughtered there on Senlac Ridge, hacked at the chest, beheaded with blows, pierced in the torso and chopped at the leg. A proud and accomplished warrior died defending a kingdom of great antiquity. It is because the story has gained such an importance for English cultural identity that one cannot help but feel a tinge of emotion about this battle and the fate of Harold Godwinson. No matter what we might say about the Scandinavian influence in Later Anglo-Saxon England (Harold himself was half Danish and many of the troops around him at Hastings may even have been the Danes from whom he had openly solicited help), the death of Harold has had a deep impact on the English psyche, something that will never go away.

  So, Harold lay dead on the field at Hastings. His army began to retreat as it saw the standards fall. They had not been able to withstand such a protracted battle fighting purely on the defensive. Their king had not intended to fight on Senlac Ridge, he had other surprises in store for William, but was out-thought at the last moment by a man who had taken the time to come to know his enemy. The line of retreat should hardly be in dispute. This army, like most others, had no choice but to retreat along the route it had come, such was the constriction of the landscape. Back along what was to become Battle High Street, and towards the baggage at Caldbec Hill which they had left earlier that day. Those of any rank who were left must have held onto thoughts of making it back to London, or linking up with earls Edwin and Morcar, but for the most part the English army’s morale was utterly destroyed and they were in rout.

  Something, however, happened towards the coming of darkness at the end of the battle that would get historians arguing for centuries. No less than five separate sources speak of an incident in which Norman horsemen chasing after the vanquished English succumbed to a catastrophe at a huge ditch they knew nothing about. William of Poitiers says that the Normans rode after the English until the English found an excellent position on a steep bank with numerous ditches. William of Jumièges says that some long grass had hidden from the Normans an ‘ancient causeway’ into which they fell with their horses. William of Malmesbury, however, is a little more expansive. The English had taken possession of an ‘eminence’ and drove the Normans down as they strove to gain the higher ground. The English had arrived by a short passage known to them thus avoiding a deep ditch. They trod underfoot so many Normans as virtually to make the ditch level with the ground. The name given to this famous ditch is provided by the twelfth-century Chronicle of Battle Abbey. ‘Between the two armies lay a dreadful chasm’ it says–the ‘malfosse’ (‘evil ditch’). It was a natural cleft or something that had been ‘hollowed out by storms’. Bushes and brambles had obscured it from the Normans.

  Of all the accounts of the malfosse incident the twelfth-century writer Ordericus Vitalis has the most vivid. An ancient rampart had been concealed by long grasses. The Norman horsemen fell into it at a gallop. The English then saw that they could be sheltered by the ‘broken rampart and labyrinth of ditches’ and so re-formed their ranks and made a stand against the Normans killing 15,000 (sic) of them.

  It would seem churlish to argue that this incident did not happen, but where in the local landscape could such a feature be? Could it be on the battlefield itself or is it more likely to be somewhere to the rear? Candidates have been put forward over the years. E.A. Freeman, a famous Victorian scholar, thought it was a ditch behind Battle church, whereas Francis Baring in 1906 had it on the western side of the battlefield at a place called Manser’s Shaw. Far more likely is that the Normans chased the English to their baggage and camp at Caldbec Hill and carried on chasing them to the north as the English retreated. Just 600yd to the north of the camp at Caldbec Hill just to the north of Virgin’s Lane is a colossal chasm in the ground known to locals as Oakwood Gill (see Map 6). The ground falls away sharply into a wooded glade. It is so remarkably huge that it is easy to miss.

  Map 6. The aftermath of Hastings, 1066.

  Eustace of Boulogne and Duke William both believed that those English lining the northern side of the ditch were newly arrived reinforcements. Certainly, for a group of men to form up in an orderly way upon such a feature indicates that they may not have been part of the fleeing army, but members of a fresh command or least had been rallied by the same. Who, however, could have turned up at this late stage? Whoever he was, could he have been the commander Harold was waiting for at Caldbec Hill, the well-known meeting place? Earl Waltheof is one such candidate. Waltheof continued to struggle with the Normans in the years after Hastings. Earls Edwin and Morcar may also have come down from London after all, as John of Worcester hints that they ‘withdrew fro
m the conflict’ after hearing of Harold’s death and went to London.

  Whoever the Englishmen of the malfosse were, it was surely clear to them that the Battle of Hastings had been lost. Less clear at this time, however, was the huge difference it would all make in the long term. The Battle of Hastings for which we have a wealth of historical and topographical evidence clearly shows the difficulties of interpretation. Even if we had a field littered with the archaeological remains of the dead (who are conspicuously absent), we would make some great advances, but would we be any closer to understanding how the battle was fought? It is the allure of Anglo-Saxon military studies that there is always something to find out.

  Sieges

  Sieges in the Anglo-Saxon period were not quite the stuff of Medieval legend. For example, there were no giant siege engines or pyrotechnics which we are used to seeing in popular recreations from the period. There were in all probability siege ladders, grappling hooks, missiles and torches. There is some evidence that sieges could involve specialist equipment, however. The Exeter riddle no. 53 may well refer to a battering ram. Also, the Vikings’ famous siege of Paris in 885–6, according to Abbo of St Germain-des Preéés, apparently involved a wheeled battering ram. More often than not, however, the English evidence points to protracted sieges ending in starvation, desperation and surrender, while on other occasions direct assaults of fortifications were made. That there were campaigns that culminated in siege after siege of strategic fortifications is undoubted. But what was the nature of this kind of warfare? The examples chosen below of Rochester, London and Chester show how sieges could be conducted at re-fortified towns, whereas the example at Buttington shows the personal cost of such sieges at the temporary fortifications thrown up by the Danes in England. In the tenth century under Edward the Elder and his Mercian sister Æthelflæd, Anglo-Saxon siege warfare was at its peak, with both leaders devoting incredible amounts of resources into the strategy with great successes (pp. 108–9). Here, however, with the help of some colourful semi-legendary material, we are concerned with showing the approaches to (and effects of) siege warfare in Anglo-Saxon England.