by Marc Morris
22 WP, 100–3; Wace, 157–8; WM, Gesta Regum, 448–9.
23 WP, 100–1, 106–7; Wace, 159.
24 WM, Gesta Regum, 448–9: ‘The soldiers grumbled in their tents …“his father had the same idea, and was prevented in the same way’”.
25 Wace, 159; EHD, ii, 606. For more on the ordinance, see below, 236–7.
26 M. Chibnall, ‘Military Service in Normandy Before 1066’, Anglo-Norman Warfare (Woodbridge, 1992), 28–40.
27 Wace, 159.
28 E. M. C. van Houts, ‘The Ship List of William the Conqueror’, ANS, 10 (1988), 159–83.
29 Wace, 158–9 (see also HH, 24–5); WP, 106–7.
30 B. Bachrach, ‘On the Origins of William the Conqueror’s Horse Transports’, Technology and Culture, 26 (1985), 505–31, suggests that the Normans did not have the technology to transport horses, and must have procured ships from the Mediterranean. But (at 514) his argument relies heavily on a mistranslated line in The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio, ed. C. Morton and H. Muntz (Oxford, 1972), 18–19. Cf. Carmen, 14–15, and C. M. Gillmor, ‘Naval Logistics of the Cross-Channel Operation, 1066’, ANS, 7 (1984), 111–13.
31 WP, 106–7; ASC C and D, 1066; GND, ii, 162–3.
32 Snorri, 135–6; OV, ii, 141–3. Freeman, Norman Conquest, iii, 708–13 (‘The Movements of Tostig after his Banishment’) states that Orderic’s testimony is supported by William of Jumièges, unaware that the passage in question is a later interpolation by Orderic himself: GND, ii, 162–3.
33 JW, ii, 600–1, adds ‘returning from Flanders’ to the Chronicle’s account; Gaimar, Estoire, 280–1, says that the majority of Tostig’s force were Flemings.
34 ASC C, D and E, 1066.
35 Ibid.; above, 76; JW, ii, 600–1.
36 ASC C, 1066. See also WP, 106–7.
37 Recueil des actes des ducs de Normandie de 911 à 1066, ed. M. Fauroux (Caen, 1961), 442–3, no. 231; Brown, Normans and the Norman Conquest, 127.
38 Wace, 163; Gillmor, ‘Naval Logistics’, 109–16. In 1997 more ships were found on the site of the museum itself, including one datable to Cnut’s reign that measured thirty-six metres – the longest ever discovered.
39 Van Houts, ‘Ship List’, 166, 176, 179; GND, ii, 164–5; Wace, 163
40 Van Houts, ‘Ship List’, 170, 176, 179; OV, ii, 144–5; WP, 102–3, 130–1.
41 Ibid., 102–3, 116–17; OV, ii, 168–9; Carmen, 8–9; van Houts, ‘Norman Conquest Through European Eyes’, 846, n3.
42 Lawson, Battle of Hastings, 176–86, gives a useful overview of the evidence, but his case for accepting the very large chronicle figures fails to convince.
43 WP, xxiv–xxvi, 102–3. Cf. Bates, Conqueror, III; Morris, Great and Terrible King, 272–3; C. and G. Grainge, ‘The Pevensey Expedition: Brilliantly Executed Plan or Near Disaster?’, Battle of Hastings, ed. Morillo, 130–42.
44 B. Bachrach, ‘Some Observations on the Military Administration of the Norman Conquest’, ANS, 8 (1986), 1–25. Note, however, the criticisms of Davis, ‘Warhorses of the Normans’, 69, 80.
45 WP, 102–5.
46 ASC C, 1066.
CHAPTER 10
1 Adam of Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, trans. F. J. Tschan (Columbia, 2002), 128; WP, 116–17; Arnold, Vikings, 187–8.
2 Snorri, 20–1, 24, 29.
3 Ibid., 33, 58–62.
4 Ibid., 65–81.
5 E.g. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 560, 569, 575; Douglas, Conqueror, 173, 180; above, 60–1.
6 Barlow, Confessor, 209; ASC D, 1048, 1058; above, 62.
7 Snorri, 122–9, 180–1.
8 Above, 147–8; ASC C, 1066.
9 Snorri, 135–8; Gaimar, Estoire, 280–1; W. H. Stevenson, ‘Notes on Old-English Historical Geography’, EHR, 11 (1896), 301–4.
10 E.g. C. Jones, The Forgotten Battle of 1066: Fulford (Stroud, 2006), 101–44.
11 Snorri, 135–8; K. DeVries, The Norwegian Invasion of England in 1066 (Woodbridge, 1999), 233–40; OV, ii, 142–5.
12 Snorri, 139, 141; ASC D and E, 1066; JW, ii, 602–3.
13 Snorri, 141–2; ASC C, D and E, 1066.
14 Ibid.
15 OV, ii, 144–5; DeVries, Norwegian Invasion, 263. Cf. Douglas, Conqueror, 191, and Freeman, Norman Conquest, iii, 343.
16 ASC C, 1066.
17 Ibid.; Snorri, 69, 142–4.
18 ASC C, 1066; JW, ii, 602–3.
19 ASC C, 1066. Snorri, 145, claims the Norwegians established a camp at Stamford before the fall of York, but does not suggest why. Modern suggestions include the site’s geographical convenience and its proximity to Harold Godwineson’s manor at Catton. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 589; I. W. Walker, Harold: The Last Anglo-Saxon King (Stroud, 2004), 182.
20 ASC C, 1066.
21 Ibid.; Snorri, 146–53; van Houts, ‘Norman Conquest Through European Eyes’, 839, n2.
22 ASC D, 1066; VER, 88–9.
23 OV, ii, 168–9; WM, Gesta Regum, 468–9.
CHAPTER 11
1 WP, 102–3. Cf. M. Chibnall, Anglo-Norman England, 1066–1166 (Oxford, 1986); R. A. Brown, ‘The Battle of Hastings’, Battle of Hastings, ed. Morillo, 201, n2O. Chibnall was perhaps inspired by the seventeenth-century historian John Hayward, who speculated that William was waiting for Harold Hardrada to invade: Chibnall, Debate, 32.
2 Carmen, xiii–xix, xxiv–xlii.
3 Ibid., xxix, xlii–liii.
4 Ibid., 4–5.
5 WP, 108–9.
6 Carmen, 4–5; WP, 108–9; R. H. C. Davis, ‘William of Poitiers and his History of William the Conqueror’, idem, From Alfred the Great to Stephen (1991), 103; above, 161–2.
7 Carmen, 6–7; WP, 110–11.
8 Douglas, Conqueror, 397; Carmen, lxv–lxviii, 8–9.
9 Van Houts, ‘Ship List’, 166, 168, 172–3.
10 WP, 110–11; Carmen, lxviii–lxix, 8–9.
11 WP, 112–13.
12 Carmen, lxviii–Ixx, 8–11.
13 Douglas, Conqueror, 196–7; HH, 25. The chronicler at Waltham Abbey, writing after 1177, improbably claims that Harold heard the news while at Waltham. The Waltham Chronicle, ed. and trans. I. Watkiss and M. Chibnall (Oxford 1992), xliii, 44–5.
14 OV, ii, 172–3.
15 WP, 116–17.
16 Ibid., 116–23; Carmen, 14–21.
17 Ibid., 10–11.
18 ASC E, 1066; JW ii, 604–5; OV, ii, 170–3.
19 Lawson, Battle of Hastings, 62–3, 110–11; WP, 122–5.
20 GND, ii, 166–7; WP, 124–5.
21 Carmen, 18–21; WP, 122–5.
22 GND, ii, 168–9.
23 ASC D, 1066; OV, ii, 172–3; Lawson, Battle of Hastings, 56–8.
24 ASC D, 1066; GND, ii, 166–9; WM, Gesta Regum, 452–5.
25 WP, 124–5; The Chronicle of Battle Abbey, ed. and trans. E. Searle (Oxford, 1980), 34–7; ‘The Brevis Relatio de Guillelmo nobilissimo comite Normannorum’, ed. E. van Houts, idem, History and Family Traditions, VII, 31.
26 WP, 124–7; Carmen, 20–1; WM, Gesta Regum, 422–3; Wace, 178. ASC D also says that Harold’s army was large.
27 WP, 126–7; Carmen, 22–3; Chronicle of Battle Abbey, ed. Searle, 44–5.
28 wp; 128–9; Carmen, 24–5; Carmen, ed. Morton and Muntz, 112–15; HH, 26.
29 WP, 128–9; Carmen, 24–5.
30 Ibid.
31 WP, 128–9; Carmen, 22–3.
32 Ibid., 26–9; WP, 128–31.
33 Ibid., 132–3.
34 Carmen, 26–7; WP, 128–9, 132–3; GND, ii, 102–5.
35 WP, 132–3.
36 Carmen, 32–3; WP, 136–7; GND, ii, 168–9. In the same paragraph Jumièges contradicts himself by saying that Harold fell ‘during the first assault’. For a possible solution, see Gillingham, ‘William the Bastard’, 101, n36.
37 Brown, Bayeux Tapestry, 174 (a translation of Baudri); WM, Gesta Regum, 454–5; HH, 28.
38 D. Bernstein, ‘The Blinding of Harold and the Meaning of the Bayeux Tapestry’, A
NS, 5 (1983), 41–8; Lawson, Battle of Hastings, 255–66.
39 Bernstein, Mystery, 171–4; idem, ‘Blinding of Harold’, 60–4.
40 M. K. Foys, ‘Pulling the Arrow Out: The Legend of Harold’s Death and the Bayeux Tapestry’, Bayeux Tapestry, ed. Foys, Overby and Terkla, 158–75; C. Dennis, ‘The Strange Death of King Harold II’, The Historian (2009), 14–18.
41 Carmen, 32–3; Bernstein, Mystery, 160.
42 Brown, ‘Battle of Hastings’, 215.
43 J. Gillingham, ‘“Holding to the Rules of War (Bellica Iura Tenentes)”: Right Conduct Before, During and After Battle in North-Western Europe in the Eleventh Century’, ANS, 29 (2007), 8–11; above, 81–2; Carmen, lxxxii–lxxxv.
CHAPTER 12
1 WP, 136–9; GND, ii, 168–9 (also OV, ii, 176–7); Chronicle of Battle Abbey, ed. Searle, 38–9. Although there has been much debate about the timing of the Malfosse episode, there can be little doubt that WP and OV were correct to place it after the battle. William of Malmesbury later described a similar incident during the battle, apparently based on a scene in the Bayeux Tapestry—a source well known for putting events in a different order for dramatic or artistic purposes. Cf. Brown, ‘Battle of Hastings’, 215–18.
2 WP, 138–43; ASC D, 1066; Carmen, 32–5; Gillingham, ‘“Holding to the Rules of War’”, 4–7.
3 WP, 140–1; Waltham Chronicle, ed. Watkiss and Chibnall, xliii–xliv, 54–7; Carmen, 34–5.
4 Ibid.; WP, 142–3.
5 Ibid., 146–7; Carmen, 38–9.
6 ASC D, 1066; OV, ii, 180–1; JW, ii, 604–5.
7 ASC D, 1066; WP, 142–5; Carmen, 36–7.
8 Ibid., 36–9; WP, 144–5.
9 Carmen, 38–9; WP, 146–7.
10 Ibid.; ASC D, 1066; JW, ii, 606–7. Cf. WM, Gesta Regum, 460–1.
11 F. Baring, ‘The Conqueror’s Footprints in Domesday’, EHR, 13 (1898), 17–25. Cf.J.J. N. Palmer, ‘The Conqueror’s Footprints in Domesday’, The Medieval Military Revolution, ed. A. Ayton and J. L. Price (1995). 23–44.
12 Williams, English and the Norman Conquest, 100–1; GND, ii, 170–1; B. English, ‘Towns, Mottes and Ring-Works of the Conquest’, Medieval Military Revolution, ed. Ayton and Price, 51.
13 WP, 100–1, 146–7.
14 ASC D, 1066; JW, ii, 606–7; WM, Gesta Regum, 460–3.
15 ASC D and E, 1066; WP, 146–7.
16 G. Garnett, Conquered England: Kingship, Succession and Tenure, 1066–1166 (Oxford, 2007), 3–4; WP, 146–9.
17 Ibid., 148–9.
18 GND, ii, 170–1 (cf. OV, ii, 180–1);WP, 160–3.
19 Carmen, 38–41; OV, ii, 182–3.
20 For debate on the service, cf. G. Garnett, ‘The Third Recension of the English Coronation ordo: The Manuscripts’, Haskins Society Journal, 11 (2003), 43–71 and J.L. Nelson, ‘Rites of the Conqueror’, idem, Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (1986), 375–401; Maddicott, Origins of the English Parliament, 44–5; JW, ii, 606–7.
21 WP, 148–9; ASC D, 1066.
22 WP, 150–1; Garnett, Short Introduction, 19–21; OV, ii, 184–5.
23 WP, 150–5, 178–9; Douglas, Conqueror, 209.
24 WP, 156–61; EHD, ii, 945; ASC D, 1066.
25 WP, 160–3. Poitiers’ statement that Eadwine and Morcar submitted at Barking is at odds with the account of the D Chronicle, which names the two brothers among those who surrendered the previous year at Berkhamsted. There is no easy way to reconcile these two statements. Most historians have preferred the English version, despite the fact Poitiers’ account is far more detailed and there is no obvious reason for him deliberately to have misdated the earls’ surrender. Some have argued that he confused Barking with Berkhamsted (Douglas, Conqueror, 207). Others have rejected this, and suggested instead that Eadwine and Morcar might have submitted twice (Baxter, Earls of Mercia, 270–1). But Poitiers’ account—especially his line ‘they sought his pardon for any hostility they had shown to him’—hardly sounds as if he is describing a second submission. It seems equally if not more likely that Poitiers has it right on this occasion, and that the much shorter account in the Chronicle, which says nothing of the Barking episode, has telescoped the two events into one. John of Worcester follows the Chronicle in saying that Eadwine and Morcar submitted at Berkhamsted, but his earlier statement that the earls had left London with their army and gone home strongly suggests they had retreated into northern England. Such a scenario would be consistent with the Conqueror’s reported reluctance to be crowned while ‘some people were still rebelling’, and his subsequent willingness to return to Normandy in the New Year once the Barking submissions had taken place.
26 WP, 162–3;ASC E, 1066; Williams, English and the Norman Conquest, 8–9.
27 EHD, ii, 918; WP, 164–5.
28 WP, 162–3, 166–9; ASC E, 1067.
29 WP, 168–81.
30 Ibid., 154–5, 176–7, 180–1; OV, ii, 198–9.
CHAPTER 13
1 OV, ii, xiii–xvi, xxix–xxx.
2 Ibid., iii, 6–9, 150–1. Orderic’s modern translator, Marjorie Chibnall, was also born in Atcham in 1915.
3 Ibid., ii, xxxii, 184–5, 258–61.
4 WP, 114–15; OV, ii, 170–1. Similarly, Orderic provides quite different versions of the Malfosse incident and the violent scenes that marred the Conqueror’s coronation – differences we might in each case attribute to his English origins. Above, 189, 200.
5 OV, ii, 202–3 (cf. 196–7, a slightly less harsh verdict). The phrase ‘Norman yoke’, coined by Orderic, owes its modern fame to seventeenth-century polemicists. Barber, ‘Norman Conquest and the Media’, 11–15.
6 R. Eales, ‘Royal Power and Castles in Norman England’, The Ideals and Practice of Medieval Knighthood III, ed. C. Harper-Bill and R. Harvey (Woodbridge, 1990), 50–4; English, ‘Towns, Mottes and Ring-Works’, 45–61. It will be apparent from what follows that I do not agree with more recent, revisionist arguments. Cf. e.g. R. Liddiard, Castles in Context: Power, Symbolism and Landscape, 1066 to 1500 (Macclesfield, 2005), 12–38.
7 A. Williams, ‘A Bell-house and a Burh-geat: Lordly Residences in England before the Norman Conquest’, Medieval Knighthood IV (Woodbridge, 1992), 221–40.
8 ASC E, 1051; OV, ii, 218–19.
9 ASC E, 1051; ASC D, 1066.
10 OV, ii, 202–3 (cf. WP, 182–3).
11 JW, iii, 4–5 (cf. OV, ii, 194–5); S. Reynolds, ‘Eadric Silvaticus and the English Resistance’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 54 (1981), 102–5.
12 WP, 182–5; OV, ii, 204–7; Carmen, 30–3; DNB Eustace.
13 SD, History, 143–4; Fletcher, Bloodfeud, 161, 169–71; Kapelle, Norman Conquest of the North, 106; WP, 162–3, 184–7.
14 For this interpretation, see J. O. Prestwich, The Place of War in English History, 1066–1214 (Woodbridge, 2004), 27–31.
15 WM, Gesta Regum, 480–1, 570–1; Baxter, Earls of Mercia, 300; DNB Harold II.
16 JW, iii, 6–7; WP, 182–3; OV, ii, 208–9.
17 Ibid., ii, 212–13.
18 Ibid.;JW, iii, 4–5.
19 OV, ii, 212–13; WM, Gesta Regum, 462–3; ASC D, 1067; JW, iii, 6–7.
20 OV, ii, 212–15; ASC D, 1067; Garnett, Short Introduction, 49–50; Williams, English and the Norman Conquest, 21.
21 Historia Ecclesie Abbendonensis: The History of the Church of Abingdon, ed. J. Hudson (2 vols., Oxford, 2002, 2007), i, 222–3.
22 OV, ii, 210–11; J. F. A. Mason, ‘William the First and the Sussex Rapes’, 1066 Commemoration Lectures (Historical Association, 1966), 37–58.
23 WP, 162–3; EHD, ii, 430–1, 601–3; SD, History, 144.
24 RRAN, 594–601 (no. 181); Baxter, Earls of Mercia, 272–3.
25 Williams, English and the Norman Conquest, 12–13; ASC E, 1067; OV, ii, 222–3; WP, 164–5 (cf. OV, ii, 194–5).
26 Gaimar, Estoire, 284–5; Kapelle, Norman Conquest of the North, 105, 109.
27 OV, ii, 214–17; Baxter, Earls of Mercia, 284–6.
28 OV, ii, 216–19; ASC D and E, 1067.
29 WP, 162–3; OV, ii, 216–17; ASC D, 1067.
30 Ibid.; OV, ii, 218–19.
31 Ibid.; ASC D and E, 1067.
32 ASC D, 1067; JW, iii, 6–9.
33 OV, ii, 218–21; B. Golding, Conquest and Colonisation: The Normans in Britain, 1066–1100 (2nd edn, Basingstoke, 2001), 72.
34 ASC D, 1067; JW, iii, 6–9; OV, ii, 220–1; RRAN, 78.
35 Kapelle, Norman Conquest of the North, 110–11.
36 OV, ii, 220–3; Gaimar, Estoire, 294–5; SD, History, 136; ASC D and E, 1068.
37 SD, Libellus, 182–5.
38 OV.ii, 222–3.
39 Ibid.; ASC D, 1068.
40 OV, ii, 222–3; SD, Libellus, 184–5.
41 OV, ii, 222–5; ASC D, 1068; JW, iii, 6–9; GND, ii, 180–3. Cf. Williams, English and the Norman Conquest, 35.
42 DNB Gytha; OV, ii, 208–9, 224–7 (cf. WP, 126–7); above, 121.
43 OV, ii, 224–7; Adam of Bremen, History, trans. Tschan, 108, 123; Barlow, Confessor, 58, 109, 138, 214.
44 ASC D and E, 1069; OV, ii, 226–7.
45 Ibid.; JW, iii, 8–9.
46 Ibid., 8–11; ASC D, 1069.
47 OV, ii, 228–31.
48 Ibid, 230–1 (cf. 226–7).
49 Below, 242–3; Kapelle, Norman Conquest of the North, 115–16; ASC D, 1069; JW, iii, 10–11.
50 OV, ii, 230–1; ASC D, 1069; SD, History, 137.
51 JW, iii, 10–11.
52 OV, ii, 230–3.
53 Below, 313–14.
54 JW, iii, 10–11; SD, History, 137; Thomas of Marlborough, History of the Abbey of Evesham, ed. and trans. J. Sayers and L. Watkiss (Oxford, 2003), 166–7.
55 OV, ii, 232–3.
CHAPTER 14
1 ASC D, 1069; Hugh the Chanter, The History of the Church of York, 1066–1127 (Oxford, 1990), 2–3; OV, ii, 232–3.
2 Ibid.; SD, History, 138.
3 OV, ii, 234–7; J. J. N. Palmer, ‘War and Domesday Waste’, Armies, Chivalry and Warfare in Medieval Britain and France, ed. M. Strickland (Stamford, 1998), 259–61.
4 ASC D, 1070.
5 OV, ii, 234–7.
6 Fleming, Kings and Lords, 166–7; P Dalton, Conquest, Anarchy and Lordship: Yorkshire, 1066–1154 (Cambridge, 1994), 65.
7 JW, iii, 10– 11; Historia Ecclesie Abbendonensis, ed. Hudson, i, 226–7; OV, ii, 236–7.
