October 14, 1066
Normans vs Anglo-Saxons
The Normans
The Normans of the era of the English Conquest were descended from Scandinavian Vikings. They spoke a latin dialect known as Norman which would later be infused into the French Language. They are from an area of Northern France known as Normandy, the same place the Allied Forces invaded the European mainland during D-Day in World War II.
In addition to Normandy, they had also lived up to their Viking ancestor’s reputation and conquered parts of Italy and Byzantium, primarily in the Holy Land.
The Normans, like the Vikings, lived off what they could find in the lands they conquered. This allowed themselves to adopt architectural styles and lifestyles of those that they had conquered. An example of this would be the architectural style they adopted in Italy; it combines the Islamic and Lombardy styles of the time with their own.
The Anglo-Saxons
The Anglo-Saxons were relative newcomers to the island being there for only four to six hundred years prior. They invaded England between 400 and 600 A.D. after the Romans had left and their empire subsequently crumbled. The Anglo-Saxon rule of the greater part of England was greatly decentralized into a collection of seven kingdoms called the Heptarchy. The main kingdoms of the Heptarchy were West Saxon (Wessex), East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria, Kent, South Saxon (Sussex) and East Saxon (Essex). This Heptarchy was later combined into the Kingdom of England in 927 A.D.
The primary language of the Anglo-Saxons was Old English which was a variation of German. The combination of Old English and Norman would eventually evolve into Middle English and finally, Modern English, the language spoken in England now.
The Anglo-Saxons believed in the divine right of kings. They believe that the gods, during pagan times, and later, God, appointed the king to rule the kingdom. This belief was strengthened after the Norman Conquest.
The legal system of the Anglo-Saxons was harsh, even harsher than the Old Testament punishment of ‘an eye for an eye’. For example, if a person was caught stealing, they would loose a hand or a nose.
The role of women in Anglo-Saxon society was that of almost equals. They enjoyed many more freedoms under the Anglo-Saxons than they did under the militaristic society of the Normans who relegated them to be unimportant. They had the right to own property, make wills and even held jobs as bakers, comedians, and singers.
The Anglo-Saxons were simple minimalists. They built forts and castles of wood instead of stone. They used what worked and saw no reason to change.
Reasons for the Battle
There were many reasons for the Battle of Hastings and the subsequent conquest of England by William and the Normans, but the most important was that William saw the crowning of Harold as an offense against him and as a declaration of war. William claimed that Edward the Confessor, a cousin of his, had promised him the throne years ago.
After Edward’s death, Harold Godwinson gained the support of a council of elders known as the Witenagemot (literally ‘meeting of wise men’) to support his claim to the throne. On January 5 of 1066, he was crowned as king. The crowning of Harold sent shock waves throughout Western Europe.
In addition to William having a claim to the English throne, Harald Hardrada, King of Norway also allegedly had a claim to the English crown made more than twenty years earlier when the Danish King Harthacnut had ruled much of England. The claim had not been pressed since Harthacnut had died, but with encouragement of Harold Godwinson’s brother, Tostig, Harald pressed his claim. The result was the Battle of Stamford Bridge on September 25, 1066.
Harold Godwinson won the Battle of Stamford Bridge decisively, but with his forces near York, this allowed William to land his forces at Bulverhythe in western Hastings unopposed. Harold rushed his forces south to meet William arriving at what would be the battlefield on October 13, the night before the battle. This rush to Hastings after fighting a tough battle at Stamford Bridge probably weakened Harold’s forces both mentally and physically and may have played a role in the outcome of the battle.
The Battle
The Anglo-Saxons were a force composed mostly of infantry and lacked any sort of cavalry. The advantage they had was that they employed a defensive technique similar to the ancient Greek Phalanxes known as a shield wall. The infantry line would ‘lock’ their shields together to form a wall that was very effective against barrages by archers.
In addition to the infantry, the Anglo-Saxons used spearmen and housecarls who were the king’s personal body guards. The housecarls used two-handed Danish Battleaxes similar to what the vikings had used.
William, on the other hand, used combined arms. He combined archers with infantry and, for the final push, employed cavalry. His normal battle tactics involved first firing volleys of arrows at the enemies infantry to weaken and demoralize them. He did this with Harold’s forces as well.
What William did not count on was the effectiveness of the shield wall. This wall protected most of the infantry from the volley and caused William to prematurely send his infantry to meet the English infantry. When William’s infantry confronted the English, they were quickly overwhelmed by the number of English infantry that remained alive after the barrage. To counter this, William sent in his cavalry earlier than he had wanted. The powerful warhorses shied away and broke when they approached the aggressive English line.
The English had tasted blood and wanted more. Rallied by their successful defense, the English line began to bleed off to pursue the retreating attackers. They had aggressively pressed the Normans into a rout and managed to kill William’s horse from beneath him. This further fueled the Norman rout since they believed that their Duke was dead. William rose from the horse, took his helmet off to prove he was alive and turned the rout into a rally.
With William, the once retreating forces of the Normans pressed a counter attack on the English before they realized the tables had turned. Once the English returned to their positions and lined up, William ordered his archers to fire toward the rear of the English army, where Harold was at. What happened next for certain is lost to history but, according to the Bayeux Tapestry, Harold was shot in the eye by an arrow, killing him instantly. This sucked the wind out of the English forces and they were quickly destroyed. Later that night, William celebrated his victory with a feast on the battlefield.
The Aftermath
After resting for more than two weeks in the Hastings area, William began to grow tired of waiting for the Anglo-Saxons to come to him to submit. He began his march toward London. On the way there, almost his entire army, including himself, fell ill with dysentery. After a short skirmish at the London Bridge and being reinforced with fresh forces from across the English Channel, the Northern Lords, including Edgar, who had just been elected king, declared their support for William effectively ending the conquest of England.
Future Impact
The Battle of Hastings and the subsequent conquest of England changed many things in Western Civilization forever. The first of which is the English Language. Before the invasion, the English Language was closer to German than what we consider English now. After the invasion, French was mixed in with the Old English Language to produce a new language, Middle English. (Think ‘Thee’, ‘Thus’, ‘Thine’, the language of Shakespeare) which would later evolve into Modern English.
The administration system also changed in England after the conquest. The king was made absolute landowner of the entire kingdom and granted lands to nobles as he saw fit. In effect, it strengthened the kings powers. This also completely eliminated the existing aristocracy of the Anglo-Saxons.
The architectural style of England changed as well. Instead of wood forts, castles and structures, stone was used to a greater extent. William had castles built all across the island to deal with any threat that would arise.
The Norman Conquest, occuring close to one thousand years ago, was the last successful invasion of England by an outside power. There have been attempts since that time to invade the island nation, most notibly by the French, Spanish, Germans and even Americans, but none have ever come close to accomplishing what this Duke, William of Normandy did, in 1066.
Sources
Battle of Hastings – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Battle of Hastings 1066 Introduction
Invasion of England, 1066
The Battle of Hastings – 1066
Like many creative people, I find my self all too often surrounded in messes of my own making. This drives my wife nuts since she is, by nature, a clean and orderly person. Over most of my adult life, I have made efforts to try to be clean and orderly, most of the time failing. This does not mean that I have not experienced the creative rush achieved by a newly cleaned work area.
