by John France
These remarkable operations in the south were paralleled as feats of organisation by the German expeditions to Italy. Documentation on the military organisation of the German kings is sparse, but the Indiculus Loricatorum is a list of the reinforcements called for by Otto II (973–83) after his defeat in 982 at Cortone. A total of 2,090 mounted men were called to service on the basis of what appears to have been established servitia debita which formed the recruiting base of the imperial army. On the marches of Germany a regular levy, the census, was imposed upon the Slavs in order to maintain the garrisons and military forces of their conquerors.36 In 1026 Conrad II (1024–39) undertook the expedition to Italy which led to his imperial coronation. It is not generally seen as a major military action but Italy was unfriendly. After the crowning in Milan, Conrad ravaged the lands of hostile Pavia, though he was unable to take the city. He had to put down a revolt in Ravenna before proceeding to Rome. The imperial coronation was brilliant, but afterwards a German and a Roman quarrelled over a hide and severe fighting broke out involving the entire German army. The ‘Investiture Conflict’ was a German civil war involving bloody battles in a land where the castle was emerging as an important factor. During its course Henry IV led several major expeditions to Italy including the siege of Rome in 1083 in which Godfrey participated when siege machinery, including rams, was constructed.37 The regularity and scale of the Italian expeditions of the German emperors made a profound impact on the emergence of the German knightly class, the ministeriales. In the twelfth century the codes which governed their conduct were elaborated, particularly with regard to their duties on the ‘complicated and onerous imperial ventures into Italy’, with both heavy fines for failure to comply and fitting out allowances payable from their lord. In 1154 the archbishop of Cologne required that all holding land worth five marks should go, and they were given ten marks for equipment together with supplies, horses and pay of one mark per month once over the Alps. In 1161 the archbishop sent 500 men at a cost of 10,000 marks.38
The organisation of war was the primary concern of government, but even at its best it remained, by our standards, simple. In essence those who held land of the king owed service in one way or another and this obligation co-existed with an older Germanic tradition that all free men had a duty to serve the king in moments of emergency. We have noted the establishment of quotas in Germany and the same process was at work in Normandy, although it should be stressed that ‘feudalism’ was emergent in the late eleventh century and that as yet there was only ‘a tangle of incipient feudal customs, partly built up from below’.39 In any case, powerful rulers had sources other than nascent feudal obligation for the raising of great armies. It is now clear that paid troops had always played a major role, as they did, for example, under William Rufus. The distinctions between mercenary, endowed knight and household knight are not clear – those serving from obligation beyond some fixed period might well be paid, and there was a strong tendency to argue about how far obligations went. The aristocracy and the knightly class certainly provided a large pool of skilled manpower trained in war from which soldiers could be recruited.40 Moreover, it was upon the royal household, their wealth and their leading followers, that the Norman kings relied to raise armies. These professional groupings of household followers around the king – paid and aspirant, or endowed and paid and hoping for better – were what the king relied on for the core of his army and its command. In time of war such a body could expand and serve as the command force of a great army. Through them the sinews of war were channelled, for in the end it was money which made victory.41 Although such bodies, such military households, can only be documented from the early twelfth century, it is unlikely that they were invented – rather they must have evolved over a period of time. In 1101 Henry I negotiated an arrangement with Robert II of Flanders whereby the latter swore to be his man and to provide 1,000 knights in return for a fee. William Rufus almost certainly made the same arrangement when he met Robert in 1093. It is interesting that the treaty specified that each knight was to be provided with three horses.42 It seems likely that this kind of organisation was the secret of Rufus’s reputation for raising and paying armies.43 A medieval army was a composite of forces around a core of loyal leaders whom we can regard as generals. They were not merely military men; they also formed an administrative corps for the vital task of handling and paying out money. Clearly both William Rufus and Henry I needed such a body if they were prepared to take on large Flemish forces. Of course we cannot describe such organisation with any certainty outside the Anglo-Norman sphere, and clearly for Suger such capacity was a matter of wonder. What is of interest is that such capacity had already come into being amongst the Normans on the eve of the First Crusade; they were a major element in the army of conquest which Urban II called into being in 1095. This organisational development indicates the degree to which war in the late eleventh century was not a matter of instinct, of ‘kick and rush’, but of guile and organisation, in short of generalship. This explains the rarity not of battle but of battle on a large scale. They understood the context in which they were making war. To attack your enemy’s economic base, isolate his castles, starve his population, these were surer methods and more applicable to the usually limited objectives for which men fought. However, there were occasions when the stakes were so high that all had to be risked on the throw of battle, and on these occasions the men who directed things sought to ensure that their chances of victory were as great as possible in what was the most risky of all undertakings.
Fulk le Réehin, count of Anjou (1067–1109) described how he fought his brother for the county over a period of eight years:
But still he attacked me yet again, laying siege to my fortress of Brissac. There I rode against him with those princes whom God in His clemency, permitted to join me, and I fought with him a pitched battle in which, by God’s grace, I overcame him; and he was captured and handed over to me, and a thousand of his men with him.44
The repeated invocation of God’s name shows how few illusions Fulk had about the chances of battle. Duke William of Normandy shared his wariness, but in the expedition against England battle was unavoidable. Its risks probably underlay the unwillingness already noted of some of the Norman lords to join in the enterprise. William’s attack on England enjoyed great good fortune. His preparations had taken a very long time, yet he found exceptionally good weather very late in the year for the crossing on 27 September 1066.45 In the passage from Dives to St Valéry his fleet had suffered losses, but none are recorded for the main crossing on 27 September and this suggests that the favourable breeze that day did not exceed Force 3.5, about 10 mph. In any greater wind his precious horses would probably have suffered losses for they were housed in ordinary transports, not ships specially designed for the purpose.46 It seems likely that he had sent out light ships to watch the English fleet and coasts and so would have known of the partial collapse of the enemy defences on 8 September and probably also of Harold’s march north.47 Since William seems to have been well aware of Norse interest in England and had encouraged Tosti, Harold’s estranged brother, in his attacks on England, this was not mere good luck. William’s diplomacy to isolate Harold had been intensive and he was able to unfurl a papal banner before his army.48 After landing at Pevensey William soon realised that Hastings was a better site, and moved there a day later. Immediately he began to fortify his bases, building castles at both to protect themselves and provide safe harbour for the fleet.49 At the same time he raided the countryside, a process shown vividly in the Tapestry. It is possible that this ravaging, in Harold’s own earldom, was intended to provoke the enemy into an overhasty attack, but the feeding of such a large host would have compelled it anyway.50 With a secure base William could dominate the Sussex coast, but in the longer run his situation was not very favourable, for the English fleet would soon threaten his communications which in any case were at risk as the weather deteriorated and the autumn storms blew up. William want
ed a quick solution, as he had probably known all along; he needed to seek battle and to capitalise quickly on his strength and the high morale of his army buoyed up by promises of English land.51 On the other hand, he hardly dared risk deep penetration of an enemy hinterland where he would find difficulties enough later, even unopposed.52 But he was ready for battle. According to William of Poitiers, a Breton servant of the Confessor, Robert Fitz-Wimarch, sent a message warning him of the coming of the Saxon army and urging him to take refuge in his fortifications, but William rejected this advice eagerly stating his desire for battle.53 It was William’s great good fortune that Harold played into his hands, but this was a miscalculation brilliantly exploited by the Norman duke.
Harold’s victory over the Danes at York on 25 September was, by all accounts, a bloody affair which, coming on top of the losses at Fulford on 20 September, must seriously have reduced the available effectives in the Anglo-Saxon army. Traditionally, he is supposed to have heard of William’s landing on or shortly after 1 October and then to have been obliged to retrace his thirteen-day 190 mile march to London, arriving at Hastings on 13 October. If this chronology is in any way correct, then we can suppose that not all of his army came with him, for Ordericus says he spent five days in London raising forces. This may or may not be precisely true, but Harold would have needed some time to concentrate troops and surely no considerable army could have moved so far so fast.54 Harold then set off and reached Battle on the evening of 13 October. We do not know what his intentions were. It is possible that he hoped to take the Normans by surprise as he had the Norse and this was certainly what the Normans later thought, even fearing a night attack which caused the army to spend an uncomfortable and sleepless night.55 It is equally possible that he wanted to force William’s army to concentrate by its fortifications, cutting it off from food – a tactic we have noted used by William himself. In either case his error was to march as close to his enemy as Battle, a mere seven miles from the main enemy encampment. This was the edge of the wooded lands and he could go no further for, like all Anglo-Saxon forces, his army was used to fighting on foot – although its leading members travelled on horseback. On the open Downs such an infantry force could be cut to pieces by the Norman cavalry. The error was compounded because William pounced on it. For William had been at pains to keep a close watch for enemy movements – his emphasis on good reconnaissance was a life-long characteristic.56 Early on the morning of 14 October he marched quickly to Battle and deployed his army catching Harold unawares, as the Chronicle E has it: ‘before all the army had come’ and D more interestingly: ‘And William came against him by surprise before his army was drawn up in battle array. But the king nevertheless fought hard against him with the men who were willing to support him’. Florence of Worcester says that only half Harold’s army had assembled and only a third deployed when the Normans struck.57 Harold managed to seize a strong position at the mouth of a funnel through the woods on the main road by the present village of Battle.58 He had a strong position for defence and his men were determined. But they had no way of attacking the enemy who could retreat easily and attack once more, unless they obligingly panicked. Nor could Harold’s forces retreat for the enemy were upon them. Harold’s impetuous rush forward meant that his army was immobilised, unable to go forward or back, and though it barred William’s route inland the initiative in the forthcoming battle would lie with the Normans. This is the force of William of Poitiers’s famous comment: ‘What a strange contest then began, in which one of the protagonists attacked freely and at will, the other enduring the assault as though rooted to the ground’.59 Moreover, there was an additional problem springing from Harold’s haste; his army appears to have had very few archers.60 This does not mean that they were without missile throwers – javelins, axes and clubs fly through the air in the Tapestry. But the bow outranged all these: it was a striking vulnerability, and William’s deployment was organised to exploit it. His army advanced in three lines with archers thrown forward, followed by armoured foot and then the cavalry. In addition his line was divided into three divisions, with the Bretons on the left, the Normans in the centre and the French on the right.61 In effect William was assaulting a fortress – the close-packed Anglo-Saxon and Danish infantry settled in a strong position on top of the hill.62 Of these many were professionals as well armed as their enemies, but as the Tapestry shows there were many lesser folk, lacking anything except a spear.
William clearly intended that his archers should weaken the enemy by their fire, probably from about fifty yards, protected from enemy sally by the presence of heavily armed infantry who would then charge in to the assault making breaches which the cavalry could exploit. The strength of the Saxon position and the effectiveness of their weapons balked the Normans.63 The cavalry then joined in the melée until, on the left, the Bretons were repulsed and pursued by the English: William rallied his men by showing them that the rumour of his death was untrue and they fell upon the exposed English with great slaughter. It was perhaps a result of this near disaster that William resorted to feigned flight, twice drawing out substantial forces of his enemy who were then cut to pieces.64 This attrition was reinforced by direct assault on the English position, supported by volleys of arrows. In his description of this final stage of the battle, William of Poitiers makes it clear that the English continued to fight hard but were gradually surrounded, losses forcing the contraction of their line. However, it was probably the death of Harold and his brothers which led to the eventual flight.
The battle illustrates the skills of a late eleventh-century commander. The marshalling of resources speaks volumes for the duke’s ability to exploit the peasant surplus. Many of the soldiers in the Norman army were paid professionals from all over France, and there were similar people, English and Danish, in Harold’s force. William sought battle, but he had obviously planned to fortify his bases and to live off the country. He kept a close watch on his enemy who failed to surprise him. Unable to advance or retreat, Harold was himself caught, on the morning of the 14 October, by the speed with which the Normans advanced and deployed, but he managed to seize a strong position. The Norman order of battle was well designed, for the assault and the mobility which had given them the initiative was used with skill to erode the English strength. A feature of the battle was William’s control of his army. He led by example, an essential quality of a medieval commander, having three horses killed under him, while at the same time supervising his forces and encouraging them even at the very end when some English made a stand at the Malfosse.65 Harold’s failure to await reinforcements meant that he lacked archers and so exposed his men cruelly.
The decisive arm in the battle was, however, the Norman cavalry. It was not that they could charge home sweeping all before them, for clearly they could not. The Tapestry shows them not so much charging into the enemy as jabbing and hacking at them. The mass charge with the lances couched, which would be the feature of cavalry warfare later in the twelfth century, was not a feature of Hastings: in the Tapestry some figures carry their lances couched, but for the most part those with spears jab at their enemies overarm or underarm, or even throw them, while others hack with their swords. The question of when this style of ‘shock tactics’ was developed, with riders en masse in close order clamping their long and heavy lances under their arms, has been much debated. It is now generally accepted that the technique was only in its infancy in 1066, but views of when it became a widely accepted method vary from about 1100 to the 1140s. Inevitably much of the discussion has been based on medieval illustrations and their interpretation, a factor which has also complicated discussion of the size of horses. However, the illustrations used too often show individual warriors and discussions have focussed on these portrayals. In fact mounted soldiers must quite often have tucked their lances under their arms; it was a natural and useful way of using the weapon, though others could be just as useful as the Bayeux Tapestry shows. What was novel was the employment of thi
s technique by large numbers in disciplined units, a matter on which the illustrative material is not very helpful. It would appear to the present writer that the First Crusade represents a critical stage in the evolution of this technique, as will be indicated later.66 The Normans who fought at Hastings probably owed their cohesion and discipline, which enabled them to manoeuvre as in the feigned flights, to long practice in fighting alongside their neighbours grouped around the local lord.67 This was not the triumph of cavalry over infantry as portrayed by Oman, rather it was the triumph of a good commander who used all the means at his disposal to break down a courageous enemy. His campaign was methodical and his battle formation well adapted for its purpose. The archers weakened the enemy and were guarded by heavy foot who then moved to the assault followed up by cavalry. The resilience of Harold’s force blunted this plan but William was able to extemporise the feigned flights which weakened his enemy for the final bloody assault in which, amongst the English, it seemed as though the dead as they fell moved more than the living.68 It was not the shock value of the cavalry which triumphed, but their disciplined mobility and courage. Unbroken infantry was always highly dangerous to cavalry. At Bourgethéroulde in 1124 some of the rebels rejoiced when the English king’s household troops dismounted, but the experienced Amaury de Montfort took a more realistic view. ‘A mounted soldier who has dismounted with his men will not fly from the field – he will either die or conquer’.69 At Tinchebrai in 1106 Henry I of England (1099–1135) dismounted much of his force and it was these that halted Robert Curthose’s last charge.70 Indeed, the value of infantry in anchoring a line of defence was always recognised – Leo VI ‘the Wise’ (886–912) had suggested that infantry be posted behind cavalry in the line of battle so that the latter could withdraw behind them if things went badly, and King Baldwin of Jerusalem (1118–32) would use just this formation at Hab in 1119.71 An eleventh-century Spanish Muslim writer, Abu Bakr at-Turtusi suggested a rather more complex though not dissimilar tactical formation:
