Indholdsfortegnelse for All About History 1066 and The Battle Of Hastings i All About History

They had arrived in the dead of night; the darkness had been so thick that the monks had not seen their ship until it landed on the shore. It was too late, they all knew it, to call for help. A brother had run into the halls, waking the monks from their beds with shrill cries of “The demons are here! They’re coming! They’re coming!” Some of the brothers began to scream for help, while others leapt into action, grabbing precious items and concealing them in the folds of their cloaks. But already the doors were down and already the invaders were here. They were huge – bigger than any man the humble brethren had ever seen – with their wild blond hair and mighty weapons grasped in hand. They…

The death of King Edward the Confessor in January 1066 left England and much of Western Europe in complete turmoil as competing claims to the English throne spawned armed conflict. On the day of Edward’s funeral, Harold, Earl of Wessex, rushed to London and claimed the crown, fully aware that his ascension would require defence against his exiled brother Tostig, in league with Norwegian King Harald Hardrada (also known as King Harald III), and the threat of invasion by forces under William, Duke of Normandy. As Harold awaited the Norman assault in the south, the Norse, or Viking, army of Hardrada landed near the mouth of the River Tyne, joining with Tostig’s force to eventually number 10,000. Moving on to establish a base at Riccall, the invaders then marched on…

In the autumn of 1066, Anglo-Saxon King Harold faced two serious threats to his crown. In the south, William, Duke of Normandy, was expected to land at any time, while in the north the Viking army of Norwegian King Harald Hardrada and Harold’s previously exiled brother Tostig marched on the city of York, defeating an army of Northumbrians and Mercians under Earls Edwin and Morcar at the Battle of Fulford on September 20. Harold knew the risk of moving northward to confront the Norse, but he had no choice. Marching his army of 15,000 over 180 miles in four days, Harold met the Viking army at Stamford Bridge, seven miles east of York, on September 25. This was five days after his allies’ resounding defeat at Fulford. Hardrada had left…

One of the most influential conflicts in British history, the Battle of Hastings was a cataclysmic culmination of a war of succession, with three potential heirs to the English throne duking it out for control of the island nation. At the start of the war there were three competing for the throne, which Edward the Confessor had held till his death. These were Edward’s cousin, Duke William of Normandy; Harold Godwinson, the most powerful man in England; and the Norwegian Harald Hardrada, who was king of Norway and distantly related. These three rivals were soon reduced to two however, with Harold Godwinson defeating Harald Hardrada at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire, England, on 25 September 1066. This defeat left just Duke William of Normandy and Harold Godwinson to…

Norman rule proved beyond the pale for many Anglo Saxons, seeking refuge in Scotland, Scandinavia, or Ireland from where King Harold’s family launched invasions without success. An Icelandic saga records the greatest exodus, one consisting of 350 ships (235 in another source) that sailed for the Byzantine Empire. Led by Earl Siward of Gloucester, they sailed to Ceuta on Morocco’s northern coast, killing its Muslim occupants and plundering its treasure. Following the seizure of Majorca and Minorca, they sailed to Constantinople, where for defeating the besieging fleet, the Emperor Alexius I Comneus allowed them to live in service as part of the elite Varangian Guard. This offer was tempting to some since the Varangians only battled at critical junctures, and had first dibs at any spoils. Yet Earl Siward and…

While unable to claim it as being entirely their innovation, the Norman dynasty established trial by jury as a constitutional aspect of English legal custom, greatly enlarging the scale of its deployment to resolve the disputes of the population under their rule. Seventy years before the Conquest, the ‘twelve leading thegns’ of the wapentake (the Anglo-Saxon assembly) who swore never to accuse the innocent or protect the guilty were the foundation of what later became juries. Such juries were used by William the Conqueror to make the Domesday Book; otherwise, disputes between Englishmen and Frenchmen were decided via trial by combat (the European method) or the ‘ordeal by iron’ – carrying or walking across red-hot metal (the Anglo-Saxon method). These methods were replaced by the ‘assizes’ under Henry II, who…

One of the Normans’ most profound and far-reaching effects on England’s culture is in the sphere of language and literacy. At first, William the Conqueror issued his instructions in written English, but he tried and failed to learn English, and with a handful of exceptions it stopped being the official language of government after 1070, and English literature sharply declined too. “Now that teaching is forsaken, and the folk are lost”, lamented one of the few poets using English after 1066, “Now there is another people which teaches our folk. And many of our teachers are damned and our folk with them.” By the end of the 1100s, hardly anyone could read Old English, yet French and Latin from the Normans enriched the Isles’ vernacular. A hallmark of English identity…

It was William the Conqueror who built Battle Abbey; its construction was ostensibly an act of piety to atone for the slaughter of the Battle of Hastings and the brutal suppression that followed his victory in 1066. However, it was also considered an architectural assertion of his power and his authority – a Norman thumbprint on the face of England. William founded the abbey around 1070, after church authorities ordered him to do penance for the bloodshed of the Norman Conquest. He declared that it should be built on the battlefield itself – specifically the area where King Harold had died. This was easier said than done, as the fiercest fighting had taken place on top of a narrow ridge that sloped steeply down to marshy ground. The ridge had…

What were the goods worth? 1 FEMALE SLAVE = 1 COW AND 1 OX 1 SUIT OF CHAIN MAIL = 2 HORSES OR 4 MALE SLAVES 1 HORSE = 3 COWS 1 STIRRUP = 1 SWORD OR 125G OF SILVER Although raiding and pillaging provided a quick intake of wealth, it was not a stable way to live or to build a civilisation. Instead, the Vikings dedicated far more of their time to building up a prosperous and powerful trading network. Because of their superior ship-building skills they were able to travel to trade in faraway lands, obtaining a host of exotic and valuable goods. Their specially designed trading ships were able to carry up to 35 tonnes of cargo, including silver and even livestock. Trading markets began to emerge…

William was engaging in his favourite pastime, hunting, when the messenger reached him: Harold had been proclaimed king of England. The duke returned to Rouen in silent anger. William believed that Edward had promised him the throne. What’s more, when Harold had stayed with him two years before, he had given the duke an oath that he would support William’s claim to the throne. That the throne might not be in Edward’s power to give, or that Harold had been in no position to refuse such an oath, seems not to have entered William’s mind. But brooding in his duchy, William realised that if he would have would he believed was his right, then he would have to fight for it. At least his duchy was secure. William’s two great…

“And here Duke William in a great ship has crossed the sea and come to Pevensey.” On 12 September 1066, William’s fleet set sail from Normandy. However, the fleet immediately ran into storms ferocious enough to sink several of the ships and so limped into Sain-Valerysur- Somme, a commune on the northern coast of France, until they died down. The journey recommenced on 27 September with the fleet arriving in England the following day at Pevensey on the coast of East Sussex. Quite a lot of space was given on the tapestry for William’s channel crossing and this is perhaps to illustrate the sheer strength in numbers of his fleet as it is thought that up to 7,000 men disembarked in Pevensey. Harold’s army marched about 240 miles to intercept…

“The great two-handed Dane axes were their characteristic weapon” What set the housecarls of late Anglo-Saxon England apart from their warrior predecessors was their weapon of choice – the Dane axe – and their increasing use of the teardrop-shaped ‘Norman’ shield. As with all Anglo-Saxon warriors, they fought on foot, although as highstatus warriors they rode to battle, forming up as the front rank of the shield wall and the personal bodyguard of the king and earls. The Dane axe was a formidable weapon. Its haft, usually between three and four feet long (although display weapons had longer hafts), was held in both hands. The axe head was light and forged to be thin, with a reinforced, carbon-steel cutting edge. As wielding the Dane axe required both hands, the housecarl…

The Bayeux Tapestry tells the story of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. It was likely commissioned in the 1070s by William the Conqueror’s half-brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeux, and so the embroidered events are told from the Norman point of view, casting some doubt over its historical accuracy. Incidentally, the fact that the linen cloth was embroidered rather than stitched means that it’s not even a tapestry at all. What’s more, it’s thought to have been made in England, but it was re-discovered in Bayeux Cathedral in the 18th century and the name stuck. At 50 centimetres tall and 70 metres long, the Bayeux Tapestry is about the length of three swimming pools. It contains over 50 scenes that take us from the events leading up to the…

“As the morning of 15 October 1066 dawned on the devastation around Senlac Hill, William knew that his all-ornothing gamble, to bring Harold to battle and kill him, had paid off” Harold lay dead, his face so hacked that it was all but impossible to identify his body. Nearby lay his brothers, Gyrth and Leofwine. William, duke of Normandy, had laid waste the family that had dominated England through the last years of the childless King Edward the Confessor. As the morning of 15 October 1066 dawned on the devastation around Senlac Hill, William knew that his all-or-nothing gamble, to bring Harold to battle and kill him, had paid o. . The duke – for he was still not the king – withdrew his forces to Hastings and, in the…

Of the 18 kings who reigned between the Conquest and the accession of Henry VII in 1485, ten died violently In pre-Conquest England, the geld (public tax) was a dependable cash cow for the rulers. The lion’s share of it was needed to pay off invaders and maintain a large fleet to repel invasions and make conquests (except under Edward the Confessor who did away with his fleet in 1051). By 1066 and some time after, however, the king was gradually receiving less money for several reasons. The amount of lands eligible for assessment (hides) was being eroded due to concessions granted in exchange for the king’s ear. Due to the Normans’ genocidal rampages in the north and along the southern coast and Welsh borders, as well as castlebuilding projects…

Centuries before Christopher Columbus would stumble upon the land now known as America, the Vikings had claimed the Atlantic Ocean as their own backyard. They had mastered Russia’s river system and reached the Middle East; their impressive voyages helped them to become leaders of a rapidly developing world and this new Viking civilisation thrived thanks to the power of a single creation: the ship. The entire Viking society was built around their ships, which were bigger, lighter and faster than any before. These vessels had been perfected over many years, with the power to brave the vicious storms of the Atlantic Ocean, but also the sleek construction to skim through shallow rivers. These powerful and efficient ships enabled their mighty passengers to create colonies all over the world, and the…

“Here they gave the royal crown to Harold”. Towards the end of 1065, King Edward the Confessor fell into a coma, regaining consciousness briefly before his death on 5 January 1066 to place his widow and kingdom under the protection of Harold Godwinson, or rather Harold II as he would become known on 6 January, the day of his coronation. Prior to the depiction of his coronation in the tapestry, Harold is shown being offered the crown by one man while a guard holds an axe. The positioning of Harold’s own axe places his head between the two blades, perhaps hinting at an ill-fate surrounding his royal appointment. The presence of Archbishop Stigand in the tapestry, seen presiding over the coronation, was a contentious issue for the Normans, who questioned…

Tostig was the third son of Earl Godwin. With the exile and death in 1052 of the eldest brother, Sweyn, Tostig became the second most important member of the Godwinson family, his status underlined by his being given the earldom of Northumbria. In the 11th century, the territory ruled by the earl of Northumbria really did stretch from the Humber to the border with Scotland, making Tostig one of the most powerful men in the country. With Tostig ruling Northumbria from 1055, Harold Earl of Wessex, Gyrth Earl of East Anglia and Leofwine Earl of Kent, the brothers effectively commanded most of the country. Such power bred resentment, a resentment that broke out against Tostig in 1065 when some of the men of his earldom launched an open revolt against…

“ Hardrada was demonic on the battlefield, driven by a seemingly unnatural force in a pursuit of his enemy’s blood, transcending into a berserker state that no mere man could oppose” Hardrada’s lineage Great great grandfather Harald Fairhair 850 – 932 CE Noted by many historians to be the first King of Norway, Fairhair became a legendary figure during the Viking Age, with his deeds relayed in numerous epic sagas. He supposedly won many battles against Norwegian opponents on his way to becoming the country’s ruler, and famously had anywhere between 11 to 20 sons. Great grandfather/ grandfather Halfdan Sigurdsson of Hadafylke 935 – 995 CE Little is known about Hardrada’s grandfather, other than that he was supposedly Halfdan Sigurdsson, the alleged son of King Sigurd Hrise of Norway, Hardrada’s…

Most people know of 1066. But how many people know that England was conquered 50 years earlier, in 1016? The invader then was Cnut – the king now known for vainly trying to turn back the tide. His victory marked the culmination of a century and a half of Viking attacks on England. However, having conquered the country, the Danes left England pretty much as it was. Their main innovation was the introduction of a new class of warrior – the housecarl. When the Normans landed in 1066, the spine of the army that faced William was composed of King Harold’s own housecarls. In one of history’s great ironies, this meant one set of Viking-derived warriors faced another: the knights of Normandy. The Normans were descendants of Vikings too, and…

“Here King Harold has been killed”. This is perhaps the most famous scene depicted in the tapestry, that of King Harold being stricken by an arrow to the eye. But is this an entirely accurate depiction of the events surrounding his death on the field of battle at Hastings? Two early reports of the battle, by William of Poitiers (chaplain to William the Conqueror) and William of Jumiéges (a monk and one of the earliest writers of the events surrounding the Norman Conquest) both stated that Harold had died in battle (the latter describing how Harold fell “covered in deadly wounds”), but none mentioned the arrow in the eye. It is widely believed that this was an embellishment to the tapestry that came about much later (in the 1700s) and…

When William the Conqueror successfully invaded England and became king in 1066 he completely changed the way the country was run. Before William was crowned the land was divided between earls who were free to govern in whatever way they saw fit, which could result in tyrannical rules and general anarchy. Instead, William allocated each section of land to tenants-in-chief known as barons. The barons were still subservient to the king and had to provide him with money and knights when needed. If he was unable to provide these, he would be removed from his position. The system handed more control to the monarch, but keeping so many ambitious and wealthy men in check was a difficult and time-consuming task that could mean the difference between a mighty united nation…

What was it? The Domesday Book comprises 913 pages and over two million words of Latin. It was the first comprehensive record of the landholdings in England and Wales, and the most ambitious survey in the whole of Europe at the time. It is organised according to the hierarchy of each landowner, starting first with the king himself, and then listing the lords of each ‘hundred’, and then individual manors. For each landowner, the Domesday Book states the amount and type of land he holds, and the number of free men and slaves available to work it. The Domesday Book is really two books: Little Domesday covers Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, even down to the numbers of livestock. Great Domesday was compiled afterwards to cover the rest of the country,…

To tell people apart and control inheritances, men in post-Conquest England were made to adopt surnames By treating all lands as forfeit, William was able to enact a root-and-branch reform of the Anglo- Saxon system of nobles and thegns (‘king’s follower’). Between May 1068, when the coronation of his wife Queen Matilda was witnessed by a mixture of English and Normans, and 1086 when William held a massive meeting at Old Sarum in Salisbury, every witnessing noble became Norman. Of Domesday’s tenants-in-chief, only 13 were English, a mere four with lands worth more than £100. Gone were the 90 or so king’s thegns owning 40 or more hides of land (a hide equaled about 30 acres). Only around ten percent of the 8,000 subtenants were English, indicating the 4,000.5,000 middling…

The first time a King of England visited Ireland was when Henry II landed at Waterford on 17 october 1171 In August 1070, William managed to appoint a new archbishop of Canterbury, his long-time friend, spiritual advisor, and the most celebrated scholar in Europe, Lanfranc. Both men saw the English Church as in need of reform and introduced separate church courts, archdeacons and church councils. Practices such as simony (selling church roles) and clerical marriage were banned, although Lanfranc allowed priests to keep existing partners, perhaps mindful to avoid the riot that almost killed the archbishop of Rouen in 1072 when he forbade the wives of married clerics from conducting themselves in public. In terms of architecture, archbishop Lanfranc instigated a revolution that endures to this day. In December 1067,…

Having already triumphed at Stamford Bridge, Harold and his army – the smell of blood still fresh in their nostrils – made haste from Yorkshire to the Sussex coast to challenge the army of Duke William ‘the bastard’ of Normandy at Hastings. The ensuing battle was evenly matched with both sides su  ering heavy casualties. Harold, the experienced general with his army of battlehardened soldiers, stood against the more battlesavvy cavalry tactics of the Normans. Victory could have swung either way. As it transpired, William the Conqueror triumphed that day, but what would have happened if the English had won the battle? We may all very well be talking about ‘great’ King Harold and a dynasty of prominent Godwinsons, but our knowledge of 11th century England in general may be…