as our strength becomes lesser. Here lies our lord. A noble man, in blood and mud. Those who turn their back now will regret it forever. I am old. I will not leave here. I will lie beside my lord — the man I love most dearly.’
Having battled the Vikings valiantly and with considerable success for some two hundred years, the Saxons finally succumbed to a Danish King in 1013. His son, Canute, ruled a Scandinavian empire that included England, the Scottish islands, Greenland, Norway and Denmark.
Elsewhere in northern Europe, another dynasty of Vikings had done very well for themselves. These were the Northmen of northern France or Normans. In the 9th century, they advanced deep into France, attacked Paris, and the French monarchy eventually made a deal with them. The Northmen recognised French rule, but received land of their own in what became known as Normandy The fate of this realm and England soon became intertwined. A son of the last Saxon king of England, Edward, was brought up in the Norman court and became king of England in 1042. Edward, however, left the rule of his country largely to a powerful noble family called Godwin and principally Harold, who harboured royal ambitions. When Edward died, Harold assumed the throne. William duke of Normandy, claimed that both Edward and Harold had promised it to him. The stage was set for the most famous invasion in British history.
Crowned in January 1066, Harold was soon under attack from different directions. William assembled an invasion force in Normandy. Harold’s estranged brother Tostig raided the south coast of England before sailing to Norway. There he allied himself with the king, Harold Hardrada who planned an invasion of his own. All summer Harold kept his army and fleet on the alert. The Norwegians landed first, together with their English allies, capturing York in early September. Harold rushed northwards and caught them off guard at Stamford Bridge. Both Tostig and the king of Norway were slain in the rout. Harold’s triumph was shortlived, however; three days later, the duke of Normandy landed at Pevensey on the East Sussex coast.
MAKING MAIL
Mail, or ‘chain-mail’ as it has been wrongly called, was the main form of armour worn throughout the early medieval period in Britain. Saxons, Vikings and Normans all wore mail tunics, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, but all essentially made of interlinking iron rings. The process of making mail was time-consuming and required some skill, thus making mail shirts expensive and well worth looting from dead warriors on a battlefield.
Making mail began with the construction of the rings, which was achieved by winding iron wire tightly around a metal bar. This coil was then chopped off the bar to produce open-ended links. The links were forced through a tapering hole until they overlapped. The ends of the overlap were hammered flat with a small chip of metal inserted in a hole in the overlap to form a rivet. The closed rings were then linked with open-ended links which were then similarly hammered together. Each ring was linked with four others and thus a dense flexible armour was built up in the T-shape of a shirt. Fringes of brass or even gilded rings, some with lucky or magical words inscribed on them, were added to the most expensive forms of mail shirt.
Making mail armour in the traditional way. Mail was the most popular armour in the early medieval period in Britain and consisted of numerous interlinked rings. It was a complex and costly process to make a mail shirt and only the wealthier warriors wore such armour. [Regia Anglorum]
Recreated late Roman officer c. AD 400. He wears lamellar armour made out of numerous little plates laced together. His helmet is of the Sassanian or Heavy Ridge type with a nasal and broad cheek-guards. [Dan Shadrake/English Heritage]
Harold marched south at impressive speed to arrive with some 6,000 men about 12 miles inland from Pevensey. A present-day war journalist with experience of marching with peasant armies in Afghanistan has recently contended that, like the mujahideen, medieval footsoldiers were used to exertions that would exhaust modern men and the English probably arrived fit for battle. In any case, many of them were mounted. Whether Harold was hoping to make another surprise attack will never be known. His arrival detected the previous afternoon, on the morning of October 14th, Harold assembled his army in a defensive formation: a shield wall on the crest of Senlac Hill.
The battlefield of Hastings is well preserved today and it needs little imagination to see how the hillside must have handicapped the Norman attack. William began the combat with a storm of arrows and then sent his armoured cavalry forward to test the shield wall, flinging their lances as spears, but the English remained unmoved. The steep slope weakened the impact of the Norman charge and by the end of the morning William was in trouble. Under the hail of arrows, stones, and spears, it was rumoured that the duke had been killed and he was forced to lift his helmet and ride before his men to prove he lived. Warfare often hinges on psychological moments when fear overwhelms confidence and this was particularly so in medieval battles when kings and commanders fought in the lines with their troops. Bretons in the service of the Duke had broken and were pursued by English sensing victory, but the counter-attack was poorly judged and William cut them down with his cavalry.
Recreation of Viking settlement. Once Viking raids on Britain proved successful, many Vikings decided to settle on land conquered in the eastern part of the country. [The Vikings (N.F.P.S.)]
William ordered his troops up the hill again and again. Finally, Harold’s shield wall faltered and Normans broke in among his warriors. Furious hand-to-hand combat ensued, axes and swords clashed, arm muscles burned and weakened. Harold was himself wounded by an arrow in his right eye, but his personal bodyguard of house-carls stoutly defended him, armed with long two-handed Viking-style battleaxes and shouting ‘Out! Out! Out’ A group of Norman knights now saw the opportunity for great honour and concentrated on breaking through to Harold. In the turmoil, Harold’s royal banner fell to the ground and four Norman knights finally pushed into the tight circle around him, hacking at the wounded Harold until his body was dismembered. The spirit of the English was broken and though many fought on, the battle came to an end as the English line disintegrated and Normans hunted the fleeing soldiers mercilessly through the night.
Recent evidence shows that Hastings was not the only battle William had to fight before he was crowned king of England. Archaeological discoveries in the City of London have revealed the bodies of English soldiers killed in a battle fought on land beneath the north side of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Such was London’s resistance to the Normans that one chronicler records that William was forced to construct siege towers and battering rams. English traitors eventually opened the gates of the city to William, but a considerable body of soldiers resisted his advance. The Normans triumphed, but it had been hard work and one can speculate that if the English had survived a siege successfully, an English warlord may well have cut off William and reversed the decision achieved at Hastings. However, on Christmas Day 1066, William was crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey. A Norman dynasty now ruled Britain.
Recreated Norman crossbowmen are paid for their services by a Norman knight. Mercenaries were always an important element of medieval armies, helping to swell the numbers recruited through feudal vows of service. [Hannah Jenkins]
TESTING MEDIEVAL WARFARE
The battle of Hastings recreated on the actual battlefield in Sussex. In this scene, English warriors have charged down from the shield wall on the ridge of the hill to attack the faltering Bretons, but the Normans launch a counter-attack which severely shakes English resolve. [Peter Newark’s Military Pictures]