The Battle of Hastings

by Jim Bradbury

  Capetian Kings of France: Hugh Capet to Philip I.

  Gradually, over the years, Richard I emerged as a man of strength and determination. He took as his wife, though perhaps not by a Christian ceremony, a woman of Danish descent called Gunnor, from a family settled in the pays de Caux. By her he had several children, including his eventual successor. Most members of the Norman nobility of the Conqueror’s time claimed some sort of relationship either with Richard I or with Gunnor, which brought a coherence to the ruling group that in turn added strength to their combined efforts at expansion.21 Given the circumstances of the minority, it is hardly surprising that Richard I continued to keep links with Scandinavia, but he also made an agreement with the new king, Lothar, at Gisors in 965. For a long period after this the ruler of Normandy kept on good terms with the king of the West Franks, of importance to them both.

  But Richard I did not continue his support for the old Carolingian family. He had already been closely associated with the duke of the Franks, and took as his ‘official’ wife, Emma, daughter of Hugh the Great, duke of the Franks (d. 956). The Normans were among the firmest supporters of this family. In 968 Richard I recognised Hugh the Great’s son, Hugh Capet, as his overlord, and when Hugh became the first Capetian king of France (987–96) the Normans were among his earliest adherents. Richard also sought to restore Christianity, and from this time on paganism in Normandy waned. One of his most enduring acts was to aid the revival of the monastery at Mont-St-Michel. Richard I’s reign also saw the beginnings of an important monastic revival in Normandy.

  Richard II (996–1026) succeeded his father in a year marked by a peasant revolt in Normandy. The peasants called assemblies, and made ‘laws of their own’, but the movement was brutally suppressed by the nobility.22 When the count of Ivry was approached by rebels to put their case, he cut off their hands and feet. But the new reign was a period of significant economic progress for Normandy. Despite being ‘highly skilled in warfare’, Richard II kept out of the conflicts which raged around him in north-west Europe, though he did push Norman interests beyond his own boundaries. He had ‘decidedly pacific tendencies’, and brought a period of significant stability to the duchy.23

  Richard II married the sister of the count of Rennes, the ‘fair of form’ Judith.24 He also had contacts with the Scandinavian world: Vikings could still be welcomed at Rouen in 1014, and a Norse poet was received at court in 1025. To Franks outside Normandy the rulers still seemed Vikings, and Richer of Reims continually referred to Richard as ‘duke of the pirates’. The name given to the territory itself, ‘Normandy’, came from the same attitude to its inhabitants, meaning the land of the northmen or Vikings.

  But Scandinavian influence was decreasing in Normandy. Place-name studies suggest that the original Scandinavian settlement did not extend evenly throughout Normandy. The names cluster along the coast and the rivers. It is clear in any case that the settlers began to integrate with the existing population through intermarriage. Some Scandinavian attitudes and customs continued but, as is so often the case, the surviving population from the old world recovered its strength, if only in influencing language and a way of life. By the tenth century French was taking over as the main language in Normandy, if it had ever been overtaken. According to David Douglas, by the eleventh century Normandy was ‘French in its speech, in its culture, and in its political ideas’.25

  The administrative system which developed in Normandy was largely Frankish, and similar to that in surrounding counties. We have a nice picture of Richard II at Rouen, in ‘the city tower, engaged in public affairs’. We are told that those in attendance feared to break in upon him unless summoned by his chamberlains or doorkeepers: ‘but if you wish to see him, you can watch him at the usual time, just after dinner, at the upper window of the tower, where he is in the habit of looking down over the city walls, the fields and the river’.26

  Richard II continued the family’s reputation for defending the Church, and was responsible for inviting to Normandy the reformer William of Volpiano. By this time the episcopal organisation of Normandy had developed, and the bishops were able to function normally within their sees. Under Richard II a new social structure of Normandy emerged. It is clear now that this was not the emergence of new families, but of old families in a new guise: as castellans, with stress on primogeniture and lineage. The families were not new, but their way of looking at themselves and their ancestry was.

  There is, for example, no mention of the Montgomerys (one member of whom considered himself ‘a Norman of the Northmen’) before a charter dated to 1027 at the earliest, after Richard’s death. Montgomery itself was not fortified until after 1030. The use of toponyms to define an individual and his family did not become common until about 1040.27 It was about this time that the residence at Le Plessis-Grimoult was turned into a castle. During the period of political instability old families began to see themselves as lineages, to build castles, to latch on to offices at the ducal court, to become vicomtes in ducal administration of the duchy, indeed to threaten ducal power itself.28

  Richard II married twice, to the Breton Judith, whose sons, Richard and Robert, succeeded him, and to the Norman Papia, by whom he had two further sons, William of Arques and Mauger, the later Archbishop of Rouen. Richard II used members of his family to rule over divisions of his territory on his behalf: at Mortain, Ivry, Eu, Évreux and Exmes. It was the acknowledgement of the rights of this second family which caused many of the problems of the subsequent period.

  With local magnates called counts came the transfer of the ruler’s title from count to duke, marking his superiority. Those appointed to rule over the new Norman counties, mostly in sensitive areas on or near the frontier, were members of the ducal family. Ducal government also developed, and we begin to hear of vicomtes, who were not deputies for the counts, but were all direct representatives of the count of Rouen himself, that is of the duke. During the period 1020 to 1035 some twenty vicomtes have been identified, and they represent a growing structure for comital government throughout Normandy.

  NORMANDY IN TROUBLE

  After the death of Richard II in 1026, Normandy underwent a long period of difficulty. The next duke, Richard III, survived only a year, until 1027. There was rumour that he had been poisoned, possibly by his successor.29 Robert I (1027–35) was the only member of the family of Rolf who proved something of a failure, despite being known as Robert the Magnificent or sometimes the Liberal, and reputed to be ‘mild and kind to his supporters’, with an ‘honest face and handsome appearance’, and of a ‘fine physique’.30 Others, it must be said, called him Robert the Devil.

  External relations deteriorated, and Normandy faced a period of severe internal disorder. Yet the duchy retained vestiges of its earlier position. When King Henry I of France (1031–60) found himself in desperate trouble in the year of his accession, it was to Normandy that he fled for refuge. Surviving gratitude for this help accounts for his aid to the young William the Conqueror during the latter’s minority, the years of his greatest vulnerability.

  Robert’s decision to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land is something of a puzzle. Perhaps he was overcome with piety, though his life to that date shows little sign of it. Perhaps he was overcome by remorse, for which he no doubt had good cause. However, for his duchy it was a perilous moment to depart on such a distant adventure, from which, as might have been feared, he was never to return, dying unexpectedly at Nicaea during his return journey.

  One of Robert I’s sins was a liaison with Herlève, variously said to be the daughter of a tanner or perhaps an undertaker of Falaise called Fulbert.31 In any case the duke, as dukes will, had his way with her, made her pregnant without any thoughts of marriage, and thus fathered William the Bastard, perhaps Robert’s chief contribution to his duchy.

  When you look down nowadays from the walls of the great stone castle at Falaise (not in that state when Duke Robert lived), you are told that you are standing (presumably approximat
ely) where Robert was when he espied the fair Herlève beside the pond below, outside the castle wall. Another story is that he had ‘accidentally beheld her beauty as she was dancing’. The twelfth-century writer described William’s birth, on rushes laid out on the floor, and said that Herlève had a dream about her new son: she saw her intestines spread out over Normandy and England which forecast William’s ‘future glory’!32

  William the Conqueror (William II, duke of Normandy, 1035–87) thus came to rule the duchy in unpromising circumstances. His father had died when William was aged about nine, possibly even younger. The duchy had passed through decades of instability, which had included a peasants’ revolt and divisions among the aristocracy, while ‘many Normans built earthworks in many places, and erected fortified strongholds for their own purposes’.33

  Added to that, William was not the legitimate son of the old duke. Bastardy was not the stain it was about to become in terms of moral attitude or right to inherit, but it was, nevertheless, a drawback, as one can see from the very fact that he was called ‘the Bastard’, and from the way the citizens of Alençon and others later would taunt him with his bastardy. William’s reaction to this insult at Alençon shows how much it smarted: he ordered the hands and feet of thirty-two mockers to be cut off. A chronicler considered that ‘as a bastard he was despised by the native nobility’.34 The taint of bastardy added to the dissatisfaction of the nobles at having a minor succeed to the duchy.

  William’s own relatives were among those who stirred up trouble during his minority, suggesting the unwise nature of Richard II’s acknowledgement of families by two wives. The period was marked by a series of internal rebellions and external threats. At times, William’s security, and even his life, was at risk. At Valognes, he was once roused from sleep to be warned that conspirators were about to kill him; William got away half-dressed on a horse. He was protected by a few loyal retainers and given some support from the Church and by the king of France, but he often escaped by the skin of his teeth. Among those around him who were killed were his guardian Gilbert de Brionne, his tutor Turold, and his steward Osbern.35

  The worst period of anxiety ended when Henry I of France came to his aid against the Norman rebels, enabling the young William to win his first major engagement at the battle of Val-ès-Dunes in 1047. The duke’s enemies gathered in the west of the duchy and advanced to the Orne, where their way was blocked by the duke’s supporters. The rebels broke, and many drowned in the river. If Wace is to be trusted, horses were seen running loose on the plain, while mounted men rode haphazardly in their efforts to escape. William of Poitiers confirms that riders drove their mounts into the Orne trying to get away, till the river was full of soldiers and horses.36

  The Conqueror’s main enemy and rival at this time had been Guy de Brionne, but the victory at Val-ès-Dunes crushed his ambitions. However, William showed little gratitude to the French king. Once freed from his greatest fears, he began to flex the muscles of his Norman war machine, and to attack neighbouring powers in a way that his predecessors had avoided. This caused growing resentment and hostility from those neighbours, and from the king.

  We do not know the precise reasons, but it was in this context that the king of France joined the enemies of Normandy from 1052, and turned to attacking the duke he had previously defended. Possibly it was because of Norman participation in a rebellion against the king in the Ile-de-France. Whatever the reason, the king’s hostility added considerably to Normandy’s dangers in the mid-eleventh century.37

  William was equal to the new threat, and in the 1050s transformed Normandy into a greater military power. A serious problem was posed by the building of private castles during the worst of the disturbances. Now William had to spend much of his time besieging, destroying, or taking over these strongholds. Any rebel of standing could shelter behind the walls of his own castle. In the early part of the decade his own uncles, Count William of Arques and Mauger, Archbishop of Rouen, remained the greatest internal threats, and they could now look to assistance from France and the growing rival of Normandy, the county of Anjou.

  Count William of Arques’ opposition turned into rebellion against his nephew by 1053. He had never readily accepted the succession of his brother’s illegitimate child. In 1053 Henry I of France tried to relieve Arques, but was beaten in a conflict at St-Aubin-sur-Scie by some of the Conqueror’s men, using a feigned flight. The surrender of Arques and the submission of Count William symbolise the triumph of the Conqueror over the rebels. His uncle was treated leniently and allowed to go into exile.38

  In 1054 the enemies of William combined in rebellion and invasion, but he thwarted their attack by a great victory at Mortemer. Here, according to William of Poitiers, the invading army was decimated. At midnight, William ordered a herald from the top of a tree to cry the details of the victory to the defeated king, who then fled.39 One of the duke’s enemies in the field was the neighbouring Count Guy of Ponthieu. Guy was captured during the battle and submitted to the Conqueror, transferring allegiance to him. A few years later this move would have important consequences.

  At this time, William was building a close group of familiars and friends from the Norman nobility, who would form a strong support to his activities throughout his life, men such as William fitz Osbern and Roger Montgomery, William de Warenne and Roger de Beaumont, together with his own half-brothers Robert, count of Mortain, and Odo, Bishop of Bayeux (sons of William’s mother, Herlève, by the husband Duke Robert had found for her). William II was beginning to take a grip on his duchy, and the great families and the lesser lords swung in behind his lead. He was also building a sound administration, revived after the period of troubles.

  But William’s difficulties were far from over, and in 1057 he faced a new invasion from France and Anjou. The Angevin counts had expanded their territories in a manner even more remarkable than the successes to date of the Norman dukes. The Angevins had started from smaller beginnings, had no obvious frontiers to work towards, and were surrounded by hostile powers. At this time, Anjou was ruled by one of its greatest counts, Geoffrey Martel (1040–60). Normandy and Anjou were almost inevitably rivals since between them, and of interest to both, was the county of Maine, while both hoped to intervene also in Brittany.

  William responded with energy to the new invasion and again defeated his enemies, this time at Varaville in 1057. Here William caught the invaders attempting to cross a ford on the River Dives, and attacked the rear section, when the change of the tide caused the river to rise. About half the enemy army had crossed and could not return. According to Wace, the Normans used archers and knights with lances to annihilate the men at their mercy.40 Because of the tide, William was unable to pursue those on the far side, but Henry I was forced to flee from the duchy.

  Even this victory did not ensure William’s triumph. Both the king of France and the count of Anjou had escaped and continued to oppose him with some success. It is sometimes overlooked that although William made claims upon Brittany and Maine, while Geoffrey Martel lived the latter was more successful.

  Counts of Anjou, 987–1109.

  For William the year which brought great change and transformed his position and his hopes was 1060. His two greatest enemies died: Henry I of France, leaving an eight-year-old son, Philip I (1060–1108); and Geoffrey III Martel of Anjou, whose death resulted in a conflict between his nephews, Geoffrey IV the Bearded (1060–7, d. 1096) and Fulk IV le Réchin (1067–1109), to control the principality.

  It was at this point that William could seriously undertake a programme of expansion beyond Normandy. However, even in 1060 his first concern was not with England, where any success must have still seemed a fairly distant likelihood. His first action was against Maine, situated on Normandy’s southern border. William captured the stronghold of his opponent, Geoffrey de Mayenne, by ‘throwing fire inside its walls’, and for a time from 1063 Maine fell under the power of Normandy.41

  Without Geoffrey Martel, A
njou went through a period of internal troubles from which William took advantage. In the following year he moved into the second area where Norman ambitions had been thwarted by Anjou and Brittany. This was the campaign in which Harold Godwinson took part.

  Counts of Flanders, 988–1111.

  The reason why Harold went to Normandy is not clear. Edward the Confessor seems to have sent him, and at least one of his aims was to try and help two relatives who were hostages in Normandy. The Durham chronicler, perhaps rightly, claims that the trip was made at Harold’s initiative and against the king’s advice: he ‘begged the king’s permission to go to Normandy and liberate his brother and nephew, who were detained there as hostages, and to bring them back with him in freedom’.42 William of Poitiers has William the Conqueror later in England claiming: ‘the king [Edward] gave me Godwin’s son and grandson as hostages. What is more, he sent Harold himself to Normandy, so that he might swear in person in my presence what his father and the others whom I have mentioned had sworn … he confirmed in writing that the kingship of England should without question be mine.’43

  There is a puzzle over this matter of the hostages. From the Norman sources they were handed over to guarantee Edward’s promise of the throne to William of Normandy, and it is difficult to think of an alternative reason. That then raises the question of why the hostages should be Harold’s younger brother, Wulfnoth, and his nephew, Hakon. The apparent answer would be to guarantee the Godwin family’s support for William. This in turn raises the question of the Godwin family’s attitude. It would surely have been impossible for Edward and William to arrange for such hostages without Harold’s consent. This would suggest that Harold favoured or at least accepted the idea of William’s succession.

  If in 1064 Harold was seeking the release of the hostages, he could hardly obtain it without convincing William that he could trust in his support even without the hostages. This is conjectural, but it at least explains the nature of the oath. The probable explanation is that the Godwin interest in the throne through most of Edward’s reign was not in seeking it for themselves, but in ensuring that, whoever came to the throne, the Godwin position would be secure. They were therefore not especially opposed to either Edgar the Aetheling or William, if their own family position was guaranteed.