The Battle of Hastings 1066

October 14, 1066

Battle, East Sussex

Saxons under Harold, King of England vs. Norman French under Duke William of Normandy

When Edward the Confessor died he left no direct heir, and the throne of England passed to Harold. However, William of Normandy claimed that Edward had promised the crown to him, and indeed that Harold himself had sworn a sacred oath to relinquish his claim in William's favour.

William prepared an invasion fleet and, armed with a papal bull declaring his right to the throne, he crossed the English Channel to land near Pevensey.

Harold, in the meantime, had another threat to concern him; his brother Tostig allied with Harald Hardrada of Norway and landed in the north of England. They took York, but Harold defeated them soundly at the Battle of Stamford Bridge.

No sooner had the battle dust settled than Harold received news of William's invasion in the south. He marched his tired men from York to Sussex, arriving there on October 13 to face the Normans.

The Battle. Harold took up a defensive position on a high ridge known as Senlac. The battle began with devastating volleys of stone missiles hurled into the Norman infantry by the Saxon "fyrd", or irregular troops levied from the shires. William himself led the centre of the Norman army, and it is said that he carried into battle some of the holy relics upon which Harold had sworn to cede the crown to him.

The Norman infantry made no dent in the Saxon lines, and the cavalry fared no better. But when some of the Norman horsemen turned and fled, a large group of Saxons left their position to chase them. It was a fatal mistake, as William rallied his men and routed the unprotected attackers. The Saxon lines quickly closed, but they had not learned their lesson, and they repeated the same folly of chasing an apparently fleeing enemy twice more as the day wore on. By late afternoon the Saxon lines were wavering under continued Norman attacks. It is then that the most famous arrow in English history was released by an anonymous Norman archer. The arrow took King Harold in the eye, and a final Norman onslaught killed him where he stood. The rest of the leaderless Saxons ceded Senlac ridge yard by grudging yard, but eventually they had no choice but to turn and flee the field. The day belonged to Duke William, soon to be dubbed, "the Conqueror". The body of King Harold was eventually buried in Waltham Abbey.

The Results. Although there were sporadic outbreaks of Saxon resistance to Norman rule after the Battle of Hastings - notably in East Anglia under Hereward the Wake, and in the north of England - from this point on England was effectively ruled by the Normans.

The story of the Norman Conquest does not start in 1066, but 50 years earlier, with another invasion and another group of Norsemen. In 1016, Cnut, King of Denmark, seized the kingdom of England by exploiting the bitter rivalries between king Aethelred Unraed, his son Edmund Ironside and his closest advisors. Cnut stunned the English with the murder of ealdorman Eadric, his supporters and every member of Aethelred's royal family he could get his hands on. Only Edward and his brothers, the younger sons of Aethelred, survived. They fled to Normandy, where they took refuge with Duke Richard II, brother of their mother Emma. In place of the murdered magnates, Cnut installed his own men, both Danish and English, loyal to himself. The most prominent of these were Earls Leofric and Godwine. Edward spent the next 30 years in exile under the protection of his uncle, Duke Richard II and his successors. On his return to England in 1042, as Edward the Confessor, he promoted many of these Frenchmen into positions of influence, as a counterbalance to the overweening power of the Godwine family.

The Godwines had prospered greatly while Edward was away. Under Cnut and his successors, they had amassed so much land that they were second only in power and wealth to that of the King.

William of Normandy. Meanwhile, Normandy was embroiled in its own succession crisis. Duke Richard II's son, Robert, had died in 1035, leaving an 8-year-old bastard son, William as his heir. William was a large man, of exceptional strength and appearance. He promoted his two half-brothers into key positions: Robert became Count of Mortain and Odo became Bishop of Bayeux.

Edward the Confessor. Edward, by contrast, was already an old man. He had spent his entire adult life waiting for the chance to be King of England. In 1051, he acted against the Godwines. Edward was in the most powerful position he had achieved since his accession in 1042. He had got rid of the Godwines and his appointees were in all the positions of power.

The increasing personal power of William is demonstrated by the change in terminology on Norman charters at this time. Norman nobles cease being fidelis (faithful) men, and the duke becomes their dominus (lord). The change is significant. William was now exercising control in Normandy through his own personal patronage, favouring his most powerful friends and supporters. Among these were his childhood friends William fitzOsbern and Roger de Montgomery, who had become his closest and most trusted advisors and confidants, alongside his half-brothers Robert de Mortain and Odo of Bayeux.

On the orders of King William I, the Domesday survey of 1085-6 was drawn up and on the basis of it Domesday Book described in remarkable detail, the landholdings and resources of late 11th-century England, demonstrating the power of the government machine in the 1^st century of the new Millennium, and its deep thirst for information.

Domesday Book - compiled in 1085-6 - is one of the few historical records whose name is familiar to most people in this country. It is the earliest public record, the foundation document of the national archives and a legal document that is still valid as evidence of title to land.

What doesn't appear in Domesday? The Domesday Book does not cover certain important cities, such as London, Winchester, Bristol and the borough of Tamworth; nor Northumberland and Durham or much of north-west England. For Wales, only parts of certain border areas are included. Neither was it ever fully completed, being abandoned at some stage early in the reign of William Rufus, who succeeded to the throne in 1087.

Great and Little Domesday. Domesday was never a single volume but originally two books, Great Domesday and Little Domesday (which was a longer version, covering the counties of Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, which was never written up into the main volume). It is now contained within 5 volumes, having been rebound in 1984 to improve the prospects for its preservation for another millennium. Great Domesday was mostly written by a single scribe, with the hand of a second clerk appearing, checking his work and adding some notes and further entries. Minor errors were inevitable and led to some inconsistencies for later scholars to worry over.

Who appears in Domesday Book? Most of the names that appear are those of landowners. The king and his family held about 17 per cent of the land, bishops and abbots about 26 per cent and around 190 tenants-in-chief held about 54 per cent. Of the 268,984 individuals described in Domesday, some 40 per cent are listed as villani. This Latin term has been translated in different ways by historians, as villein, villager, and villan (? members of the vill). At the bottom of the social pile came the servi or slaves, about 10% of the total population, who had no property rights and could be bought and sold.

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 911