Battle of Hastings, The (15 page)

Helmets were conical and made of iron, with a nose-piece at the front (clearly shown in the Tapestry) and, in some cases, a metal flap or curtain of mail at the back or
sides to protect the neck and cheeks; they seem to have been identical for all ranks. Surviving examples are either cast in one piece, with the addition of the nose-piece and neck-protector, or are
constructed from four joined plates coming together in a point at the top and bound by metal or possibly, in some cases, leather, around the head at the foot. Some of those found have traces inside
that suggest that they were sometimes lined or padded. Such a helmet is a far cry from the magnificence of the reconstructed Sutton Hoo helmet; but this was more likely to have been a piece of
royal regalia (primitive kings are thought to have been crowned with a helmet rather than the later crown, a symbol of their role as protector of their people) than a working helmet. It probably
never saw service on the battlefield.

The shield would have been made of wood (lime was generally favoured), covered in many cases with leather and edged with either leather or metal. A round hole in the centre was fitted with a
metal boss (round or conical) that covered the grip for the hand and could be used for thrusting. Towards the end of
Beowulf,
the aged hero orders a shield of iron to be made for his last
fight with the dragon, knowing that a wooden shield would provide little protection from the beast’s fiery breath. That the English army at Hastings still had wooden shields is indicated by
the Tapestry’s portrayal of the Norman arrows piercing them like pincushions; arrows would have been more likely to have rebounded from metal shields. William of Poitiers’ remark that
the English battle-axes had no difficulty in shearing through them suggests that the Normans also used wooden ones.

As for weapons, it is clear from the Tapestry that the Norman knights charged with spears or javelins rather than the lances that
became the chief cavalry weapon very
shortly afterwards. The ones we see are sometimes wielded overarm, for throwing or piercing, sometimes underarm, as the lance would later be held. But the weight of the couched lance and the
discipline of the concerted charge that could pierce the walls of Babylon, as Anna Comnena, the historian daughter of Byzantine Emperor Alexius I, was later to write, were not available at
Hastings. There was probably little difference between the spears carried by the two sides. Some surviving spears have wings a short way below the head, presumably to prevent the weapon penetrating
so deeply that it could not be drawn out and reused. It was obviously a weapon common to all ranks; it was part of the basic equipment of the English thegn Ketel, and Duke William was found with a
broken spear in his hand at the end of the battle. Snorre Sturlason gives an account of Harald Hardrada’s instructions to his men at Stamford Bridge: ‘those in the front rank are to set
their spear- shafts into the ground and turn the points towards the riders’ breasts when they charge us; and those immediately behind are to set their spears against the horses’
chests.’
^lxv
Since it is almost certain that the English did not fight on horseback at Stamford Bridge, this has been read as a confused memory of
what actually happened at Hastings; at any rate, it is a very plausible account of how spears were used by the English there.

The most feared English weapon was the two-handed bearded axe (so called because of the shape of the blade), the weapon of choice of the housecarls but of other warriors as well, since the king
is shown with one in his hand as he is cut down. Indeed, he is shown carrying one earlier, when he is offered the crown, which suggests that some royal or sacramental association may have attached
to the axe. In battle, it was normally wielded to strike from the left, to attack the side of the opponent that was not
protected by his shield, but in fact it must easily
have cut through wood and even through chain-mail, as reported by William of Poitiers. The biggest disadvantage of the axe was that, since it had to be swung with both hands, the axeman could not
use his shield to protect himself (unless it was simply hung around his neck), and was therefore very vulnerable at the top of his swing. It is possible that the line included spearmen interspersed
among the axemen, who, fighting in the way Snorre described, could provide some cover for them. In addition to this fearsome weapon, there would have been smaller lighter axes for hand-to-hand
fighting and for throwing. One weapon that seems to have been peculiar to the Normans at the battle was the mace. The Tapestry shows both William and his half-brother, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux,
carrying what appear to be club-like maces, but these may have been symbols of authority (perhaps ancestors of the field-marshal’s baton) rather than weapons.

As for swords, all free men who could afford them would have carried them, Norman and English, and there were enormous variations in quality and strength. It was very much a question of what you
had inherited or what you could pay. Those of the English who did not aspire to a double-edged sword, and no doubt also many of those who did, probably carried the
seax
, a sort of
single-edged cutlass or long dagger.

One last point needs to be noted. Snorre Sturlason, in his account of the battle of Stamford Bridge, speaks of the English horses of the housecarls wearing chain-mail. There is no hint in the
Bayeux Tapestry of any kind of protection, chain-mail or otherwise, for the Norman horses. If armour for horses was generally in use in 1066, and the English mounts had it, it is incomprehensible
that the cavalry-obsessed Normans should not have had it too. By the time Snorre wrote two centuries later, its
availability would have been taken for granted. His assumption
that it was available in 1066 is a further reminder that we should not be seduced by his readability.

THE PROLOGUE

T
he length of time Harold spent in Normandy is as unknown as its precise date or, indeed, its purpose. All that is known is that he was back in
England in 1065. ‘Before Lammas’ (1 August), according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, he ordered the building of a hunting lodge at Portskewet in Wales, so that the king (who was
presumably at that time in good health) could hunt there; but on 24 August the site was overrun by Caradoc ap Gruffydd and the workmen killed. In September, more serious trouble broke out. In
Northumbria, where Harold’s brother, Tostig, had been earl since 1055, there had been unrest on account of his harsh rule. Whether Tostig was really harsh or simply enforcing laws that had
fallen into disuse under his predecessor, Earl Siward, cannot now be known; he is described by the author of the
Vita Ædwardi
as ‘a little over-zealous in attacking evil’,
which perhaps implies a combination of the two. The Northumbrians seem to have had a good case: according to Florence of Worcester, the immediate cause of the rising was Tostig’s slaying of
two Northumbrian nobles who were in his house under safe conduct, and the murder at court of Gospatric, a member of the old Northumbrian ruling house, in which he rather discreditably implicated
his sister, Queen Edith, who organized it for him. Certainly, he seems to have doubled the
taxes, which alone would be enough to cause unrest. On 3 October, while he was at
court with the king, the Northumbrians rose up and killed as many of his housecarls and servants as they could find, broke open his treasury and carried off all his effects. They repudiated Tostig
and sent a summons to Morcar, brother of Edwin, Earl of Mercia since the exile and death of their father Ælfgar, to be their earl; led by him, the Northumbrians advanced into England where
they were joined by Edwin with his Mercian troops and some Welsh reinforcements. At Northampton they were met by Harold, sent by the king to try to effect some kind of reconciliation, but on this
occasion his diplomatic powers failed. The Northumbrians refused point blank to take Tostig back. Edward tried to call out the army, as he had done in 1051, to restore Tostig by force of arms but
found that on this occasion they would not fight. Confronted by the armed forces of all Northumbria and Mercia, and with a general feeling elsewhere in the country that Tostig had come by his
deserts, the king had little alternative but to give in. The meeting was adjourned to Oxford where, after the feast of All Saints (1 November), Edward was obliged to agree to the exiling of Tostig
and his replacement as earl by Morcar, and swore to uphold the laws of Cnut.

These events raise some interesting points, in addition to the fact that the outlawing of Tostig was almost certainly indirectly responsible for the defeat at Hastings. Firstly, although much is
made of the separateness and of the Scandinavian sympathies of the inhabitants of the Danelaw, of which Northumbria was the most important part, there seems to have been no idea of any claim for
independence in the rising. The Northumbrians did not want to leave the kingdom of England, they simply wanted a different earl – and the earl whom they chose, in preference to the
half-Danish Tostig, was a man with no Danish blood in his veins at
all. Even Cnut, a Danish king, had had difficulty with his relations with Northumbria; it was a turbulent
region. Secondly, it has been suggested that the demand for the reaffirmation of the laws of Cnut indicates a demand for specifically Danish legislation for Northumbria alone; it is more likely
that, since Edward, unlike so many of his predecessors, had never issued a law-code, and Harold Harefoot and Harthacnut had never had time to do so, the laws of Cnut were presumably the legal code
in force over all England throughout his reign. The laws of King Edward, that the Conqueror was later symbolically to invoke, were in fact the laws of an earlier conqueror. The laws of Cnut were
actually written for him by the impeccably English Archbishop Wulfstan of York and were based on the earlier laws of King Edgar. Patrick Wormald has surmised that the significance of Cnut’s
law for the Northumbrian rebels was that it represented the pattern of northern rule subverted by Tostig’s government, and that their invocation of Cnut, like the Conqueror’s of Edward,
was as much symbolic as practical; this seems likely.
^lxvi
Thirdly, the insurrection caused an insuperable breach between Harold and Tostig, who blamed
his brother for not supporting him and (if the
Vita Ædwardi
is to be believed) accused him in public of fomenting the rising to injure him. Finally, it is clear from Harold’s
activities at Portskewet that the king was at that time in good enough health to be able to contemplate a hunting break there.

This was soon to change. According to the
Vita Ædwardi,
both Edward and the queen became ill with grief over the loss of Tostig, and a more modern biographer has guessed that the
king may have suffered one or more strokes as a result of the stress.
^lxvii
From this point on, his health declined steadily. Tostig, meanwhile,
sought refuge once again in Flanders, and cast around for allies to support his restoration. He is said (there is no firm evidence) to
have tried Normandy, but if he did, he
got no direct help from William, who may none the less have been pleased enough to encourage him to add to Harold’s problems. He tried Denmark, but his cousin, Sweyn Estrithson, pleaded other
commitments. He did rather better in Norway with Harald Hardrada.

In the meantime, the king’s health continued to decline. His condition worsened on Christmas Eve, but he was able to hold his normal Christmas court, though in London, rather than the
usual Gloucester, partly because of his health, but also because his new foundation at Westminster was to be consecrated during the festival. But when it came to the day of consecration, he was too
ill to attend and the ceremony was performed in his absence. The double ceremony, Christmas and the consecration, combined with the king’s failing health, no doubt accounts for the large
assembly there was in London over the festival. Charter lists issued over the period make it clear that virtually everyone of consequence in the country was there – English, Scandinavian,
French, Norman, lay and cleric. As Frank Barlow has pointed out, it was not an assembly that could have been intimidated or overawed: ‘It was thoroughly representative of the various
interests in the land, and any decision it took can be considered the voice of the kingdom’.
^lxviii
On 5 January, according to the
Vita
Ædwardi,
after having recounted to those standing about him a dream that prophesied disaster to the kingdom on account of the sins of the people and the Church, the king spoke his last
will and testament, commending his widow and servants, with the kingdom, to Harold’s care. It has been argued by many, then and now, that his words could be construed as asking Harold to care
for them as proxy for the true heir; if that is so, it is extremely strange that he should not have named that heir since his nomination would have been required before his nominee could have been
ratified by the
Witan, the final and crucial step. But we must sympathize with the predicament in which the anonymous author of the
Vita Ædwardi
found himself at
this point. Precisely when he wrote is not known but certainly by the time he reached this stage in his narrative, Hastings had been fought and the Normans had won. It is to this hindsight that the
relevance of the king’s strange dream has been attributed. William was established on the throne and Harold was declared a usurper. Certainly a little ambiguity of wording in the recording of
the king’s last speech is understandable in the circumstances; and we must allow for the fact that the king’s last words were probably retailed to the author by the queen, the
commissioner of her husband’s biography, and the person to whom the author would most naturally look for information on this important point. Her views on her brother’s succession are
believed to be equally ambiguous. Florence of Worcester reports the fact without any uncertainty: