The Battle of Hastings

by Jim Bradbury

  However, there was a lake, or at least a pool, close by Caldbec Hill, close to Oakwood Gill on the edge of the wooded area. We also note that taken as it stands, without prior knowledge of where Senlac is, Orderic’s account sounds more like that of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, as if the English dismounted and fought at the point of assembly, rather than marching on a mile or so, and that Senlac was the name of the assembly point. His account is that they came to Senlac and ‘Reaching the spot they all dismounted from their horses’. The Bayeux Tapestry, just as it moves to the story of the battle, depicts three trees – none have been shown since the Norman felling of timber for building the fleet.24 This seems to confirm that woods were in the vicinity of the fighting, though in this case seen from the point of view of the Norman advance, which also shows a hill on the approach.

  There are a few minor points which might cause this pause for thought to seem worthwhile. The battle accounts have always left a few puzzles when historians have tried to relate them to the actual ground of Battle Hill. There are questions about the ‘hillock’ on the Tapestry.25 One has been identified in the flatter ground before the abbey, but it hardly fits, and is very small. The ‘hillock’ also appears on the Tapestry before even the rumour of William’s death. Later, it will be suggested that there was no hillock to look for. Then there is the matter of where the ‘Malfosse’ was, if that is the correct name even to connect with an incident in the battle.26

  It is puzzling given the enormous interest in Hastings, that despite the digging of foundations for the abbey, for the old primary school, for all the houses along the main road, all the digging in gardens, the archaeological digs at various points in the abbey grounds, the road making, not a single trace of the battle has been found. There are a few tales about finds, but none which have ever been verified and which would prove that Battle Hill had been the site of a great battle. Have people simply been looking in the wrong place?27

  Here we shall end this debate. There is no certainty that the battle of Hastings was fought at Caldbec. What needs to be said is that the evidence is not decisive. There are question-marks against placing the site on Battle Hill, and we should keep a more open mind on the matter than has been the case to date. I did not put this case with any particular pleasure. I have had a long association with Pyke House and the traditional battlefield. I shall be perfectly happy if some further proof appears which confirms the traditional location. It is simply that if one looks at the evidence objectively, questions have to be raised. I must confess to a wry grin at the thought that the traditional site just might be wrong, and at all those people who have so carefully measured Battle Hill to calculate how many men stood on it if each had 3 feet of ground, the little signs all over the place to mark who stood where, the confident guides in the abbey, or whatever… .

  The case for Caldbec Hill as the battle site has been put at some length because it has never been done before, not because it is necessarily correct. Yet whatever reservations we have about the Battle chronicler, it does seem likely that the abbey called after the battle would have been built where the battle was fought, and that the monks, who did not know the land or the country, would have sought advice from any one of the thousands who had fought there. But stranger things have happened. We may also question whether the altar is actually on the summit of the hill and was Harold’s command post. But on the ground of probability, there remains a good case for the traditional site.28

  Harold certainly placed a banner to mark his command position on the summit of the chosen hill. Harold may have had two banners: the Wessex dragon banner sometimes called the Wyvern which is shown on the Tapestry, and perhaps also his own personal banner of the Fighting Man. William of Malmesbury says that after the battle the Fighting Man, embroidered with gold and precious stones, was sent to the Pope by the victor.29

  The following account of the battle will be based on the early chronicle evidence, and will not assume a known site, though locations will be discussed where it becomes important to do so, for example, over the Malfosse business. Before we can move to the actual conflict there is one other disputed matter to settle. Did the English set up some kind of palisade or defence to protect themselves during the battle? We can answer fairly certainly: no they did not. The wall comes either from a mistranslation and misunderstanding of Wace, or from Wace himself if you believe he meant a palisade rather than using that simile for the shield-wall. The palisade in front of the English was popularised by Freeman as a ‘development of the usual tactics of the shield-wall’, and has survived in various accounts since, despite Round’s thorough demolition work on it in the last century.

  I have changed my mind over this since 1985. I then believed that Wace got it wrong and had the idea that a shield-wall must be some sort of real wall. This is possible, the matter depends on a translation of a difficult section of his French, and in particular on the translation of ‘escuz’, which could mean either shield or wall/fence. I now feel that Round may have got it right, and that Wace did not mean a solid wall at all, that he realises perfectly well what a shield-wall was, and that his passage is a poetic flight intended as a simile, and that he no more meant an actual wall than Shakespeare thought the sea was a real wall around the scepter’d isle. It is the word ‘escuz’ which persuades me, as it persuaded Round. I think we can credit Wace with deliberate poetic punning. What he is saying is that the shield-wall was like a real wall and so on, with somewhat exaggerated emphasis and detail. Of course, one can always be wrong on such debatable matters.30 In any event, Wace, with his knowledge of twelfth-century warfare, is often interesting on tactics, and added a point we may accept without difficulty in an imagined speech by Harold: ‘all is lost if they once penetrate our ranks’.31 The English did form a solid mass together on the hill, close together, an imposing sight, a difficult obstacle.32

  A secondary question relating to the ancient apple tree is why Harold needed an assembly point. It usually seems to be assumed that it was to allow the army with him to sort itself out. But the terms in the chronicles very much suggest a meeting point. It was surely here that Harold had arranged to meet troops raised in the southernmost counties. Given the haste of his march and the very minimum of time for troops to answer any summons, such a meeting place was a necessity. In the situation, it again is possible but seems unlikely that he then advanced further towards William and was halted again. If we are right and this was a broader assembly point, it would be a place where Harold would be forced to delay; troops which are assembling do not all arrive and place themselves neatly within minutes. We know that William was informed of Harold’s movements, the likelihood is that he caught him at the assembly place. It is a small point, and given medieval accuracy not one to press, but John of Worcester specifically says that the march was 9 miles, though Battle is only about 7 miles away.33

  Harold probably did intend to march on southwards to the coast and catch the Normans as he had caught Hardrada, though he may have been happy enough to stand on a good defensive site and await the Normans’ coming; again we cannot be certain, though the former always seems to be assumed. Harold was no novice in war, and he had organised something of a trap for the Normans. He had now re-formed the English fleet, and ships had been sent to block any return passage that the Normans might attempt. Orderic says seventy ships performed this task.34

  In any case, William roughly knew Harold’s position and had his army on the alert for a sudden move. We need not take William of Malmesbury’s account of the night before the battle too seriously, he was trying to explain away the result in terms of the godliness, or lack of it, in the conduct of the two armies: ‘the English as we have heard passed the night without sleep, in drinking and singing … the Normans passed the whole night in confessing their sins, and received the sacrament’. Wace as usual makes the most of this idea, carried away with thoughts of English drunkenness: ‘All the night they ate and drank, and never lay down on their beds. They might be seen carousing,
gambolling and dancing and singing; Bublie they cried, and Weissel, and Laticome and Drincheheil, Drinc-hindrewart and Drintome, Drinc-helf, and Drinc-tome …’, while the Normans and French ‘betook themselves all night to their orisons, and were in very serious mood’.35

  William had already been told by Robert fitz Wimarc, who had been in England for some time but acted as an informant for the Normans, of Harold’s victory in the north. According to William of Poitiers, he warned the Conqueror to avoid battle. The chronicler also tells us that there were Norman scouts watching the approaches and informing the Conqueror. William of Jumièges remarks on the duke’s readiness for action: ‘taking precautions in case of a night attack, he ordered hisarmy to stand to arms from dusk to dawn’.36

  The warning of approaching troops came on the night of Friday 13 October. William got his men ready and made a battle speech, reminding those around of the courage needed, that ‘there was no way available for retreat’, and that defeat would mean death. Poitiers says: ‘without losing a moment, the duke ordered all those in camp to arm themselves, although that day a large section of his troops had gone off foraging’. William also arranged for a mass, in which he himself participated. He placed around his neck the relics on which Harold had sworn the oath he was to break.

  It is about 7 miles from the coast to Battle. In his own haste the Conqueror put his hauberk on back to front, but laughed off the mistake so as not to make it appear a bad omen. No doubt, as Gillingham has suggested, it was the result of William feeling nervous about what was to come. William of Malmesbury says he exclaimed over the hauberk ‘thus shall my dukedom be turned into a kingdom’.37 Then they prepared for the march and set off in the very early hours northwards.

  They moved forward behind the papal banner. ‘In the first line William put infantry, armed with bows and crossbows; in the second line he placed more infantry, better armed and in hauberks; finally came squadrons of cavalry, with William in the centre with the stronger force.’38 William took the normal route which brought him to Telham Hill, the summit of which is Blackhorse Hill.

  It was here that his look-outs spotted the English and that William prepared his men in order for a battle. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says: ‘William came against him by surprise before his army was drawn up in battle array.’39 Had both armies been on the march, Harold would have been in no more disarray than William. If he were ready to deploy on Battle Hill he would have been in better state than William. The suspicion recurs that William caught Harold at the assembly point.

  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle also suggests some disloyalty in the English ranks, commenting that Harold was aided only ‘by the men who were willing to support him’. John of Worcester confirms this point.40 Harold had failed to catch the Normans in the way he caught the Scandinavians, but he did have time to arrange his army in a good defensive position on the crest of a hill, whichever hill. ‘They immediately dismounted from their horses and all packed densely together on foot.’ There can be no doubt that the English army fought as an entirely infantry army. No source says otherwise. Even if late in date the opinion of the Carmen is interesting: ‘the English scorn the solace of horses and trusting in their strength they stand fast on foot … all the men dismounted and left their horses in the rear’.41

  THE OPENING PHASE OF THE BATTLE

  The battle of Hastings was fought through most of Saturday 14 October. Wace says, in another unlikely comment, that Harold chose the day on purpose because he had been born on a Saturday and his mother had told him that he would always be lucky on that day. If Wace was right, then the mother was wrong. William of Jumièges says that battle was joined at the third hour, that is at 9 a.m. Duke William was able to direct movements by hand, by arranged signals, and by shouting. Wace also says the Normans shouted ‘God aid us’, and the English ‘Out’.42

  Various later sources suggest that the Breton cavalry made up William’s left wing, men from other parts of France the right wing, and the Conqueror himself commanded the Normans in the centre.

  Poitiers mentions Norman infantry on the march but practically ignores them in the battle, his interest is all with the socially superior cavalry. But later sources do say that the first Norman attack was by infantry, which given the composition of the army and its order on the march, seems highly likely. Orderic, for example, describes the first move when ‘the Norman infantry closed to attack the English’. The Carmen has the archers opening the battle, which is also likely, and says that the crossbowmen deliberately aimed at ‘the faces of the English’ to cause them to fall back. The writer adds that shields are no protection against crossbow bolts. Thebolts ‘destroyed the shields as if by a hailstorm’.43

  The Tapestry beautifully depicts the cavalry riding casually and then moving to a charge, one with a sword, most with lances held overhead, some grasping them underarm and a few couched – including, perhaps significantly, the rider who first makes contact with the English shield-wall. The Tapestry also shows a group of four Norman archers aiming to shoot, one in a hauberk. One of the foremost pair seems to be standing on the far edge of a ditch, his left foot braced on the slope.44

  The battle was begun promptly. Trumpets sounded on both sides. ‘The duke and his men, in no way dismayed by the rising slope, began to advance slowly up the steep hill.’ The Normans took the initiative, as in the circumstances they were forced to do. The Norman infantry opened the attack with ‘missiles’. One would expect the archers to be engaged at this point, but Poitiers does not specifically mention them, though they are shown at the start of the fighting on the Tapestry. The cavalry followed in.

  The Tapestry has a vivid picture of the shield-wall resisting the first impact, spears above the English heads, one man with a small hand axe, one with a two-handed battle axe.45 A single diminutive archer appears beside the English, perhaps to represent a small force on the flank. The gap in the stitching to represent the ground might suggest a ditch in front of the English line, into which tumble the first victims of the conflict.

  At this point in the Tapestry, the shield-wall is first shown facing left, and then directly right. This surely shows us the technique of the artist in order to continue the flow of the narrative and does not stand for two shield-walls facing in opposite directions. This method of depiction should be noted for a later discussion. The English hurled back their own missiles, chiefly spears. The advancing Normans were faced with the front-line axemen and others wielding a type of club.

  This first impact showed that William could not expect an easy victory. The English line held firmly and there was no breakthrough. William had clearly hoped that this infantry onslaught would make gaps for his cavalry to exploit, but when the latter now advanced they found a solid line, the poetically named shield-wall, with spears and axes able to injure the horses. Poitiers describes them keeping in close position, side by side in the line. The slope was doing its job. Horses could not gallop fast up a steep slope and a cavalry charge lost much of its impact.

  I was present on the occasion when Ian Peirce and Allen Brown, dressed in Norman armour made by the former, rode up the slope to test the difficulty. The back garden of Pyke House is the only area on the main section of Battle Hill to retain its open grassy nature. Whether the two riders were charging up the actual hill of 1066 we shall not reconsider. To charge up any similar steep slope would make the point.

  The experiment showed how well medieval cavalry needed to be trained. Professor Brown was almost pierced accidentally by his comrade’s lance, and his horse bolted through the assembled ‘Saxons’ until, like Don Quixote, he was charging rather worryingly straight towards the brick walls of Pyke House. Later, his steed bolted down the hill, where Allen managed to guide it through a narrow gate which was an obstacle the Normans did not have to contend with. Ian and Allen’s horses were not trained destriers, and although Allen had been in the cavalry, he had not ridden for some years. The experiment was therefore not totally authentic, but does not detract from its i
nterest. The main lesson was how difficult it is on such a slope to gain much speed for a charge.

  The Tapestry has vivid depictions of the action, axe against horse, falling men, bodies littering the lower margin, sometimes sliced off heads.46 At one point, horses are shown at the foot of the hill, falling heavily into what appears to be water or possibly marsh. It is here that the supposed ‘hillock’ appears. Recalling a previous comment, this surely again is the artist simply showing the main hill of the battle in two views, as with the shield-wall, so that the action may continue. In which case, we do not need to search the ground for isolated hillocks.

  The height of their position helped the English to deal out blows with an advantage as the enemy came within distance for close combat. ‘The noise of the shouting from the Normans on one side and the barbarians on the other could barely be heard over the clash of weapons and the groans of the dying.’ Poitiers says that the English with their weapons, presumably the axes in particular, were able to slice through shields and armour.

  The English held off the Normans with swords; the first attack was halted and petered out. Poitiers says ‘they began to drive them back’, which surely implies some English movement forward. We should not view the shield-wall as an immobile force, as some historians have. It was quite capable of forward movement and advance; how otherwise could battles ever have been won, how was Stamford Bridge won?