Gone Medieval - Battle of Hastings

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

Over the previous three episodes in our special series, Gone Medieval has taken a close look at the three main contenders for the throne of England in 1066. From Harold Godwinson who sat on it, to Harold Hardrada who might have seemed the most likely to win it, and William the Conqueror, the hardened Duke of Normandy.In this episode, Matt Lewis explores the final clash of that seismic year. Who would wear the crown of England by the end of 1066 was still an open question and there was only one place that question could be answered. This is the story of the Battle of Hastings.This episode was mixed and produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Over the previous episodes in this special series, we've taken a close look at the three main contenders for the throne of England in 1066, from Harold Godwinson, who sat on it to Harold Hardrada, who might have seemed the most likely to win it, and William the Conqueror, the hardened Duke of Normandy. In this episode, we're going to explore the final clash of that seismic year. Harold Godwinson, had won one victory, but time was not a luxury he was to be afforded.

Who would wear the crown of England by the end of 1066 was still an open question. And there was only one place that question could be answered. This is the story of the Battle of Hastings. It's an overused trope that some moment in history is pivotal, so important and seismic that it changes everything in an instant. Most aren't really. But for England, the foreman. 14th of October 1066 is such a date.

The feud between two men would be settled in blood. More than that, the heart, soul and very nature of English society would be decided as two cultures clashed on the South Coast. I'm sure you know how it ends, but to get there, we need to fight our way through the often conflicting and muddled story of the Battle of Hastings. Late September and early October was a busy, even frantic time. It was harvest, and families across England were gathering in

what they'd managed to grow through the summer, laying down provisions they hoped would last the winter. This was the moment that would determine whether they were comfortable with full bellies through the cold months when nothing grew, and darkness seeped in to steal the long days of summer. A wrong step could put the family at serious risk. This was what preoccupied their minds at this time of year, but 1066 would throw up unexpected challenges,

that would radically change the future of every person in England. Edward the Confessor's death in January 1066 had created a crisis. This was initially papered over by Harold Godwinson's swift coronation, but two other rulers refused to accept the setting aside of their claims. Harold had seen off Harold Hardrada, the legendary Viking King of Norway, at the Battle of Stamford Bridge on the 25th of September. For many, the outcome might be able to.

have come as a surprise. Harold was a warrior renowned from the Mediterranean to the North Sea. He's sometimes known as the last Viking, and his death has been used to mark the end of the Viking Age. Some in England may have heard the news of the invasion, seeing one or other of the armies or sought news of the outcome. In front of the winter fires that drove out the chill, the stories might have taken on aspects of the heroic epic in the excited retelling. England had been saved from the greatest threat in a generation. All who heard of it must have relaxed. Their homes were safe, or so they thought.

On the north coast of France, another man stood, staring into the wind and rain, cursing the storms that kept his ships in the harbour. He'd been fighting for as long as he could remember, for his titles, for his lands, for his life. He'd been a duke since he was seven, and men had wanted him dead since before he could swing a sword with any real purpose.

Now he was nearing 40. If he wasn't loved, he knew he was at least respected. He'd lived as a Duke and a Duke of Normandy too, but he meant to die a king, with everything that bought to his name and his dynasty. He could say he'd been promised it. He'd endlessly recounted the story that his childless cousin Edward had promised him the Crown of England on his death.

He told anyone who would listen that Harold, who'd snatched it, He'd sworn solemn oaths on holy relics to support William as Edward's heir. It was Harold's betrayal that kept William from what he claimed was rightfully his. Such an oath-breaker invited divine retribution, and William was about to offer himself up as God's vengeful right hand. It gave him the reason he needed. Right or wrong, he was under no illusion that if he wanted it, He would have to fight for it.

He'd have to fight the man who held the crown he wanted and who had just killed none other than King Harold Hardrada. William Duke of Normandy was just waiting for the wind to change to make his bid to become King William. Then the moment finally came. The chronicler William of Poitier wrote, At length the expected wind blows voices and hands are raised to heaven in thanks and at the same time a tumult arises as each man encourages the other.

The Normans, he would have us believe, were excited to finally get their invasion underway. The most likely date for William's landing in England is the 28th of September, though it might have been the following morning at Pevensey. This meant he arrived three or four days after King Harold had fought the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Where the Harold was still in the north consolidating and celebrating his victory, or had started south because of the threat from Normandy is unclear. Whilst we don't know how far north the messengers carrying the news had to travel and therefore how quickly he was able to reach his king,

at some point Harold learned of the new threat to his crown. Because we don't know where Harold was, we can't be certain how early or late he learned of William's landing. So it's unclear how much or how little time he had to prepare. Was he pumped up with the adrenaline, of his victory in the north and excited to rush south for another fight. Was he exhausted and aware that his men would be too? Did he wonder whether he had used up what luck he had

or did he rely on the sign that God wanted the Crown of England on his head? We can't know, but what he felt is irrelevant. The Normans were here. Not only were Duke William's men in Harold's lands, they were pillaging. In hostile territory, an army. would take whatever food it needed from the local population. Whether the king was concerned for those who'd laid down provisions for the winter or not,

he couldn't tolerate the impression that he was incapable of protecting his people. Each meal they stole not only nourished his enemies, but also starved him of support. Harold had probably sent most of his army home and would need to raise fresh recruits. He had two choices. He could remain in London, keep bolstering his forces, and make William come and fight on Harold's terms. In the face of the Duke's harassing of the population, Harold opted for the other approach.

He would storm into Williams' camp and take the Norman invaders by surprise. It had worked against Hardrada. Why wouldn't it work again? The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle complains that Harold marched out of his capital before all his host came up. The Anglo-Norman monk, Audrey Vitalis,

wrote in the following century, that Harold had quarreled with his family. His brother Girth counselled that Harold had only just fought the Norwegians and was in too much of a rush to face William. According to Ordrick, Girth offered to lead the English army, adding that he'd swore no oath to William to restrain him. Harold was so enraged by the suggestion he lost his call with his siblings and stormed out of London all the quicker.

Hindsight might inform our view of the decision to confront William in a hurry, but in the tension of 1066, who were we to say what was right and what was wrong? Or how things might have worked out had Harold chosen differently. In truth, we don't know that Harold was poorly prepared. Other mostly Norman sources give him a vast host as he marched on the south coast. Either way, speed and surprise were his allies now. Harold arrived at a spot some seven miles northwest of Hastings on the 14th of October. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that it was a spot where a grey apple tree stood.

In the next century, Audric Vitalis would call it Senlac. From the time of this decisive confrontation until today, it would simply be known as battle. Harold's plan to catch William unawares seems to have been undone by the Duke's careful use of scouts, keeping an eye out for the English approach. The Norman army was aware that Harold was nearby and came out to meet him. William had ordered his men to keep watch and remain prepared for battle throughout the previous night. Between the Normans heightened guard and the English rushed to catch the invaders unawares, both sides were probably pretty tired on the morning of the 14th of October, even before the fighting began.

The English took up a position at the top of a hill, marked now by the ruins of Battle Abbey, erected later by William. The Normans found themselves at a tactical disadvantage. as they looked up to the high ground the enemy held. Still, they could focus on what they believed were superior men, equipment and tactics. Duke William placed archers in front of his lines. Behind them were rows of men at arms, wearing male armour and bristling with steel swords.

At the rear were the mounted men, the knights who formed the Norman cavalry. It was in their midst that William placed himself. Interestingly, one source states that the Duke had intended to place the cavalry behind the archers, but that the speed with which the engagement began prevented him from arranging his army as he'd hoped. Other sources claim that William intended this deployment all along. The English tactics were very different. They dismounted and sent all of their horses to the rear.

Men armed with spears and shields formed the famous shield wall. Harold joined them in the centre. standard at the brow of the hill for all to see. Norman sources, with the benefit of hindsight, would sneer at these English tactics, bemused that they used no cavalry, but this was how the English were used to fighting. Norman sources are silent on whether the English used archers. Later writers would claim the English didn't even know what a bow was, yet the Bayer tapestry shows at least one English soldier holding one. It seems likely that there were some archers amongst Harold's men at arms.

I find it interesting that over the centuries that followed, no doubt in a large part due to the result of this battle, English tactics reflected the continental reliance on mounted knights. By the time of the Hundred Years' War, though, in the 14th century, and the wars of the roses in the 15th, English armies were once again fighting dismounted, now with a heavy reliance on the longbow, but returning to an ancient, long-forgotten tactic,

to the dismay and disbelief of their enemies. Hastings would see the clash of two military styles in a struggle for dominance on the medieval battlefield. For all the later Norman claims that the English knew nothing about how to fight, they were to find it hard work to try and break down the shield wall. Victory was not as easy as they would wish us to believe, neither, perhaps, was it entirely deliberate.

Trumpets blared from both sides to announce the beginning of hostilities at around 9 a.m. Arrows filled the sky, one source describing them delivering a shower of blows like a storm of hail. We're told that English shields were split, that the crack of wood was drowned out by the screams of men pierced by the falling missiles. Despite this punishment, the shield wall held. The English remained planted at the top of the hill, holding tightly to their own. advantage against the crashing waves of arrows. The archery assault done, the Norman infantry moved forward up the hillside to engage the English. The sources describe vicious hand-to-hand fighting, even the Norman writers conceding that the shield

wall proved impossible to dismantle. As spears flew and jabbed, swords sliced and axes hacked, the ring of metal clashing against metal and the smash of weapons. on shields, mixed with the howls of pain, the groans of the wounded, and the iron smell of blood mingling with the salt sweat of hard work. It was during this brutal melee that one source tells of a Norman, Taylorfer, riding forward. Whether he was a knight amongst William's retinue or some sort of jester, or perhaps both, is unclear. We're told he gave a rousing speech, juggling his sword as he did so in an effort to encourage,

the Norman infantry. One Englishman was so outraged at the display that he broke rank and charged down the hill at Taylorford. The Norman swiftly spurred his horse at the attacker and ran him through with a lance before springing down to cut the man's head off, holding it high to taunt his countryman. Maybe this happened.

Maybe it was just a Norman writer's way of glossing over the fact that after hours of fighting, they hadn't made a dent in the defences of an English army, they described as having no skill at all in war. Harold had seized the tactical advantage of the high ground and the Anglo-Saxon shield wall was holding strong. The Norman cavalry couldn't launch a full-scale assault up the hill.

Instead, they tried to ride in, throw spears and offer a blow with a sword and retreat, but even this failed to have the desired effect. English javelins and battle axes cleaved Norman armour and more blood ran down Senlac Hill. Precisely what turned the tide of the Battle of Hastings is in no doubt. Why it happened is less certain.

The Norman ranks broke and ran. One chronicler, William of Poitier, wrote that those on the left flank had grown so disheartened with their hours of toil for no progress, they turned and trudged away. At the same time, a rumour sprang up that William himself had been killed,

It spread like fire through dry kindling and more of the Norman army began to flee. William was forced to lift his helmet, a moment captured in the Bayer tapestry as he yelled at his men that he wasn't dead, encouraging them to return to the fray. The Carmen, a song written about the battle not long after it took place,

tells a slightly different story. Maybe with hindsight or to cover up a near catastrophic moment, the writer here claims the withdrawal was a ploy, a deliberate tactic to make the English think the Normans were leaving. In both stories, it's this retreat, whether real or feigned, that finally causes the English shield wall to break. Harold's men charged down the hill, relinquishing the high ground that had served them so well in order to drive the Normans from the field altogether. The Normans now turn and fight, either motivated by their Duke's exhortations or spring.

bringing the trap they'd laid. In the Carmen's version, the trick backfires as the English fight with more skill and determination than expected, causing the Normans to turn tail and run in an actual retreat. It's now in this version that William calls them back and encourages them to fight on. Whatever really happened, it's clear that after hours of stalemate, a Norman withdrawal, either genuine or as a trick,

caused the English to lead the hill. It's also clear that the English accredited with more skill at fighting than the sources try to give them, and that William's intervention to shore up his own forces was decisive. With the Norman cavalry now able to engage to full effect, the English must have regretted relinquishing the hill

and the safety of their impenetrable shield war. In the open field, it became a slaughter. The cacophony of men, metal, wood, horse and scream, and the scent of blood and sweat filled the air with a new intensity. The fighting lasted sporadically throughout the day, and exhaustion surely began to take hold as the adrenaline wane. What sealed the outcome is unanimously agreed amongst the sources. The Battle of Hastings was only ended by the death of King Harold. For a long time, the story that he was hit in the eye by an arrow was taken as the undistening.

disputed version of his downfall. In the centuries that followed Hastings, a story did emerge that this was what had happened. It was cemented by the Bayer Tapestry, which now shows a figure beneath the name Harold, clutching an arrow lodged in his eye. Raising a visor and being struck in the face was not unusual, and perhaps it was assumed of Harold,

a mark of folly or military inexperience. Next to this figure in the tapestry is another, carrying an axe and being moan down by a man. mounted knight. This death takes place beneath the words, was killed, in reference to Harold. It's unclear whether either of these are supposed to represent the way in which Harold died. One thing that does appear clear now is that the figure with an arrow in his eye was doctored as part of an extensive 19th century restoration of the tapestry. It's now believed this figure was originally pictured about to launch a spear towards the enemy.

The earliest source for the events of the Battle of Hastings is the Carmen, the song of what took place that day. This is clear about how Harold died. As the fighting became spread across the landscape, William spotted King Harold on foot, cutting down foes. Gathering a group of mounted knights, he launched a charge at the king's location. This death squad rode at Harold and hacked him down. The Carmen detailing him being impaled by a lance,

disemboweled with a spear and beheaded. with a sword. It's understood that William ordered the high altar of Battle Abbey to be located on the spot where Harold fell. One argument against the Carmen's version of events is that it isn't repeated elsewhere. William of Poitiers seems to have heard and perhaps relied on the Carmen's version. He says nothing but fails to counter the Carmen's version. There may be a good reason for failing to trumpet the killing of an anointed king. Whatever

However William's justification for his claim to the throne of England, Harold had been crowned and anointed, lifting him beyond the status of a mere mortal and into the realms of those selected by God for something greater. William would become a king himself. Bragging about gathering a gang to slay God's anointed might not only create a dangerous precedent for glory-seekers, but risked painting William as the wicked slayer, the usurping murderer rather than the rightful king. However, Harold fell, whether an Arrow or a Norman hit squad, William could not allow him to leave the field alive if he was to be victorious. With Harold's death, the English were deprived of a reason to continue the fight. The day was over. The Norman invaders were victorious.

The Battle of Hastings, the 14th of October, and now England belonged to William, forever known as the conqueror. In the aftermath of the battle, the Anglo-Saxon government tried to protect England as best it could. The Wittan, the Council of Anglo-Saxon England, had the power to elect a monarch, and on Harold's death, they quickly chose Edgar Etheling as the next king of England. Edgar was the grandson of King Edmund Ironside, the great-grandson of Ethelred the Unready. At the start of 1066, he was passed over because he was still a young boy in his early teens. By the end of 1066, he was the final option to preserve English independence from the Norman invasion. Edgar didn't make it to a coronation.

William arrived at London and stamped his newly won authority on the Wittan. Edgar was set aside. His story is fascinating, full of travel, adventure, rebellion, and inexplicable forgiveness from William the Conqueror. We might spare a thought for Gither Thorkels Dottier, the mother of Harold Godwinson. A Danish noblewoman already widowed, she'd lost four sons to the violence of 1066.

Tostig had died fighting his brother Harold at Stamford Bridge, only for Harold, Girt and Leofwine to fall at Hastings. Her only remaining son, Wolfnoth, was sent to Normandy as William's prisoner. Her daughter Edith, the widow of Edward the Confessor, was left with no power. Her grandchildren, Harold's sons, were driven into exile in Ireland from where they would launch unsuccessful bids to invade England themselves. Githa only lived until 1069 and Edith died in 1075 when William paid for her to be buried with her

husband at Westminster Abbey. The human cost of this fateful year for one mother was an immense weight to bear. It would have been similar for others across the kingdom who mourned what had passed and feared what was to come. On Christmas Day 1066, having driven out thoughts of an Anglo-Saxon revival after Hastings, William was crowned at Edward the Confessor's Westminster Abbey. It was an inauspicious start to his reign as London burned around him, but he was to leave no one in any doubt as to who was in charge. As the Anglo-Norman chronicler, Audric Vitalis wrote,

In Constant Fortune frequently causes adverse and unexpected changes in human affairs. persons being lifted from the dust to the height of great power, while others suddenly falling from their high estate grown in extreme distress. The effect of 1066 on England is undeniable, as is its impact on the central figures we've met along the way. Most ordinary people in England would, I think, have hoped for a return to normality, to worrying about making supplies last through the dark and cold of winter. Yet they would feel the Norman yoke settle on their shoulders. Norman rage bit during the harrying of the north,

as William fought to impose his control at the expense of the population. Husbands, fathers and sons have been lost in the fighting of 1066. Entire families would be destroyed in its brutal aftermath. England was being forged in white-hot fire. The kingdom would never be the same again, all as a result of the bottom. Battle of Hastings. There are new episodes that have gone medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please join us next time for more from the greatest millennium in human history.

Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us wherever you get your podcasts from, and to tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. If you have a moment, please drop us a review or rate us anywhere that you listen to your podcasts. It really does help new listeners to find us. Anyway, I'd better let you go. I've been been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with history hits.