On October 14, 1066, an important page was turned in the history of Europe. The Normans, who had crossed the sea from Normandy, France, invaded England, defeated the English army at the Battle of Hastings, and gained the throne of England. The fates of Britain and the European continent, especially France, are closely linked. The English resistance after the Battle of Hastings continued until 4 years later. The Battle of Hastings was not a one-sided battle, and both sides were once close to victory on the battlefield. But the Normans had better luck, found opportunities on the verge of defeat, and eventually won the battle. Let's take a closer look at the armies and tactics of both sides involved in the Battle of Hastings to better understand this important event in European history.
Two opposing sides in the Battle of Hastings
The emergence of the Norman knightly class
The European Middle Ages did not have a class of knights from the beginning. The Normans, originally a group of pirates from Northern Europe, chose to settle in Normandy. They are excellent "amphibious" warriors, able to row boats out to sea or engage in hand-to-hand combat with axes. After settling in Normandy, the Normans gradually accepted the feudal system of Western Europe, especially France, and formed a knightly class. In 1066, the knighthood system was still in the early stages of development, and the identity of the knight was not only related to the battlefield, but more to various daily lives. Knights were more of a lower class of nobles than later professional warriors. Knights were required to play the role of political advisers in the court, judges of the magistrates' courts, and so on.
In essence, in Normandy in 1066, knighthood had no special code of conduct and requirements other than aristocratic origin. This has nothing to do with the later chivalrous spirit. Normandy retained a thoroughly feudal system, each place had its own center of power, and the political center of the whole of Normandy was William, Duke of Normandy.
Norman knight in chain armor
The Norman troops were formed
In order to make history easily memorable, many contemporary articles portray the Battle of Hastings as a major confrontation between the Anglo-Saxons native to Britain and the Normans from the European continent. In fact, the battle involved many other European peoples. The Norman army, with the exception of the Norman army led by Duke William, formed the left flank by the Brittanian army from the Brittany region of France. Brittany was an independent region at the time, and the people there were the same bloodlines as the Cornish region of England, combining the blood of the Gauls and vikings. On the right flank of the Norman army were troops from the Flemish region. Due to the composition of the multinational force, the composition of the Norman army was also quite diverse, including spearmen, archers, crossbowmen, catapults and Norman knights. Among them is the crossbowman and the catapult. The crossbow was a very rare weapon, and its use was forbidden in the middle of the Middle Ages, as the use of this simple and easy weapon to kill and injure noble knights who were also believers in God was considered a sin. Catapulting is one of the oldest weapons, and within an effective range of about 30 meters, stones can effectively inflict damage on heavily armored targets.
Flanders crossbowmen hired by the Normans
The "Viking" heritage of the Normans
The Normans were a branch of the Vikings. The norman leaders go back to the famous Rollo. Rollo led his tribe on a long-term plunder on the French coast. With military plunder of the Normans impossibility, King Charles III of West Francia invited Rollo and his tribe to settle permanently in normandy in 911 in exchange for Rollo's nominal allegiance and to stop harassing other areas. Therefore, this large area of land was permanently named Normandy, that is, the land of the Normans.
150 years passed, and in 1066, the Normans learned French customs, religions, and feudalism, but still retained many of the Viking characteristics. They liked to ride viking-style longboats, flags with Nordic crow symbols, and roaring slogans in battle for Thor, not for God.
Number of Norman troops
The entire course of the Battle of Hastings has been recorded by many different historical sources, but none of them can accurately indicate the actual number of people involved in the battle. According to the Norman epics, they traveled from Normandy on 696 longships to England. But today, archaeologists can confirm the battlefield that actually took place in Hastings, and based on the size of the battlefield and the formation records, we can come up with relatively accurate figures.
In fact, the Norman invasion force numbered less than 10,000 men, and about a quarter were non-combatants. The Norman army that took part in the Battle of Hastings was about 7,000 men, including 2,000 cavalry, 4,000 heavy infantry, and 1,500 long-range support units.
The mystery of the Anglo-Saxon cavalry
At the Battle of Hastings, the Anglo-Saxons did not send cavalry troops. Why not send cavalry? Historians have always had different interpretations. The first explanation is that the Anglo-Saxons had taken up the high ground, posing a defensive arrangement, and perhaps for King Harold Goldwinson, the cavalry was not so important. The second explanation is that the Anglo-Saxon battlefield model was inherited from the ancient Germans, who used to live in the great forests of the north, which were not suitable for cavalry combat. Thus the Anglo-Saxons did not have the habit of using cavalry. In particular, shortly before 1066, the Danes were still ruling the northern part of England, and the Danes, as the typical Scandinavian Vikings, had no cavalry presence in their troops.
The Normans, on the other side of the battle, although descendants of the Vikings, absorbed the Frankish way of fighting, the Franks had a tradition of fighting with cavalry, and the ancestral Gallic cavalry once served as a guard for Caesar. Before the Roman conquest of North Africa, most of the Roman cavalry was hired Gallic cavalry.
Anglo-Saxon army and numbers
The Anglo-Saxon army was very fond of using axes instead of long swords. The elite of the Anglo-Saxon army was called the heath-guard or huscarl. These warriors generally used two-handed axes, while conscripted peasant soldiers used lighter one-handed axes and shields.
The Anglo-Saxon elite usually dressed up like this
Eager to confront the invading Normans, fend off their plunder. King Harold of England gathered an army of about 8,000 men. Of these, 1,000 were harolds and his two brothers' personal guards, and were also the elite of the Anglo-Saxon army. The rest consisted of around 6,500 conscripted farmers and militias in Sussex and Kent.
It is also worth noting that the Anglo-Saxon army had just defeated the Norwegian army commanded by King Harald III of Norway at York in northern England, and had to march another 380 kilometers to Hastings to intercept William, and the army was not in the best condition.
Tactics in the Battle of Hastings
The Normans failed in a ranged attack
The Battle of Hastings erupted at around 9 a.m. on October 14, 1066, accompanied by a trumpet. The English army occupied the top of a hill about 750 meters wide, flanked by dense forest protection. Since the terrain was favorable to England, the leader of the Anglo-Saxons, King Harold Goldwinson, was determined to take a shield-like defensive position and wait for the army of William, Duke of Normandy, to climb the hill. William faced this situation, hoping that the superior long-range fire projection would harass the English army.
Hastings is a map of the Anglo-Saxon army in red and the Norman army in blue
Unfortunately, however, due to the slope, the arrows fired had become somewhat weak by reaching the top of the mountain. Coupled with the multi-layered shield walls in the English formation, most of the arrows could not effectively kill the British.
The Misfortune of the English was that they did not have many archers in their troops, and most of their long-range firepower depended on catapults. The catapult could only play a role when the enemy charged within 30 meters, so England could not respond to the Norman army from a distance.
The Normans saw that they could not change the geographical superiority of the British army and had to make bold changes in an attempt to change the tide of the war.
Ridge Defense Battle
The climax of the Battle of Hastings took place at this time, when Duke William ordered all of the Norman heavy infantry to advance and climb the slope to engage the English. The English army took advantage of its condescending position to throw javelins, slingshots and throwing axes at the Normans who were getting closer and closer.
The Normans were excellent warriors, and they rushed up the slopes against the unfavorable terrain and the throwing fire of the enemy and fought fiercely with the English. But that wasn't enough to break through England's defensive line. William, Duke of Normandy, then ordered the elite Norman knightly troops to charge in support of the Norman infantry.
However, nor did the Norman cavalry take advantage of the English. The slope slowed the impact of the cavalry, and they were also harassed by catapults at the rear of the British Front, unable to exert their full strength.
After nearly two hours of fierce fighting, under the influence of casualties and fatigue, the Breton army on the Left Flank of the Normans was shaken, and under its influence, the entire Norman Front had to retreat slowly in order to avoid being surrounded by the English.
To make matters worse, a rumor began to spread among the Norman positions, and it was said that William, Duke of Normandy, was tragically killed in a fierce battle. So the Anglo-Saxons were encouraged and began to advance in all directions.
William's "Resurrection"
However, the opportunity to decide the victory of the battle often occurs at unpredictable times. According to historical records, Duke William bravely took off his helmet to reveal his face, and he personally rode repeatedly in the Norman army on horseback to show that he was still alive. The Eustace aux Gernons of Boulogne followed william with the banner given to him by the Pope, and they succeeded in stabilizing the army.
Duke William took off his helmet to show his face to stabilize the army
William roared at the Normans, and behind them was the sea, and the Normans had nowhere to retreat. Thus the morale of the Normans was restored. The Duke himself led a number of brave knights to a surprise attack on the Anglo-Saxon army that was pursuing the Norman army and causing the formation to be scattered. They were soon cut down by the Duke and his men.
Historians cannot confirm whether the British pursuit was due to the blind pursuit caused by the enemy's retreat or a conscious and organized counterattack, but this attack led to a flaw in the British formation and gave william's cavalry the opportunity to play. In this pursuit, the two younger brothers of King Harold Goldwinson, Gyrth and Leofwine, were killed in battle.
Exhausted by the two armies, the Normans took a short break, and the Normans climbed up the hill again to attack. This time William, Duke of Normandy, adopted a new tactic, dividing the cavalry into small groups and pretending to retreat in front of the enemy line. Essentially, this tactic was designed to lure enemy soldiers out of the line and disrupt their dense formations.
This tactic eliminated many blind Englishmen, but William was still unable to gain a decisive advantage. The ridge was now littered with scattered corpses of both sides and the corpses of horses. Makes it harder to climb the hill. Many of the cavalry lost their horses and became samurai who dismounted in hand-to-hand combat.
If you don't succeed, you become a benevolent person
William, Duke of Normandy, knew that the English were able to hold their ground meant a complete defeat for the Normans. As invaders, the Normans had no possibility of crossing the sea and escaping back to Normandy. The English, on the other hand, received daily supplies of local grain and soldiers. So William pressed the final bet. He threw all his forces into the attack on the ridge. This part of the battle is also depicted on the Bayeux tapestry, where Norman archers again throw themselves into battle against the ridge without stopping their arrows.
Harold's death
Modern historians cannot determine the cause of Harold's death. But the traditional saying is that a lucky arrow hit the eye socket of Harold Goldwinson, the king of England. There are many chronicles of the time that support this claim.
This is how Harold's death is recorded on bayeux tapestries
Harold's death marked a sharp dissipation of the English resistance. A large number of Anglo-Saxon soldiers abandoned the front and ran into the forest on both sides of the formation in an attempt to find life. The Normans finally got their coveted foothold on the ridge.
Other sources mention a large group of Englishmen who gathered on an ancient city wall near the battlefield to resist to the end. But this defensive front was also eventually wiped out. The Normans won the Battle of Hastings.
An interlude
Although not related to the Battle of Hastings itself, 12th-century chroniclers have mentioned that William, Duke of Normandy, was in Pevenssy (
Pevensey
When he first landed on the coast of England, he unfortunately fell on his feet unsteadily. One Norman knight wittily interpreted the incident as William taking the land of England into his hands, avoiding adverse omens and an embarrassment.
After building a stone fortress on the coast, William left the area and marched along the coastline toward Hastings to meet his fate.