The Battle of Hastings

As the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum is the hottest ticket in town at the moment it seems appropriate to write about the central event it depicts, the Battle of Hastings, fought in this day 960 years ago in 1066.

The death of King Harold II

The King is the figure being cut down in the right. The standing figure apparently with an arrow in his eye is the result of nineteenth century restoration - originally what is now an arrow was a spear the figure was throwing

Image: Wikipedia 

Duke William, if he did not know it already, took over the most sophisticated royal government in Europe, and being the intelligent and practical man that he was as King William he kept it in place and learned how to use it. Domesday Book may be a great monument to the Normans, but they could not have created it without the institutions created and nurtured by the Anglo-Saxons.

 

The Norman cavalry face the English foot soldiers 

 

Image: historic-uk.com

The battle saw the destruction of much of the military elite of the English realm. Those who survived or were not present were to often go into exile in the years following, but some, with varying success, made their peace with the new dispensation. At least one great English Whig aristocratic family which claims its ancestor fought alongside Duke William at Hastings has been shown by twentieth century scholarship to be of northern English origin who acquired a more glamorous pedigree over the centuries.

The heat and fury, and also the casualties, of the battle

Image: britannica.com

   

There can be no doubt that what happened on the battlefield at Hastings was one of the most momentous events in the history of England, and, by extension, of the British Isles. Virtually everything which has happened since that day is either directly a consequence of the Norman victory, or indirectly conditioned by it. The survival of English as a language, of some national institutions such as the Monarchy and parts of the Common Law and, surprisingly, many Anglo-Saxon churches is a tribute to the vigour and resilience of the kingdom the Duke of Normandy had conquered.

 

The link with Normandy and, consequently, with the Angevin territories shaped the English medieval centuries and the continuing relationship with Europe. Without Hastings there would be little likelihood of such images of national identity as Crécy, Poitiers and, above all, Agincourt. The French territories may have been lost, but the memory shaped the sense of nationhood.

By linking England to the mainstream of European thought and culture England itself, and then the rest of the British Isles, were integrated into the ecclesiastical, cultural and intellectual world of western Europe, and played a major part in transmitting those ideas to Scandinavia.

Within the British Isles the Normans were to have both direct and indirect impact on Wales, in Scotland, and Ireland. These were the new frontiers for territorial and cultural expansion, but yet again, building on Anglo-Saxon precedents.

The sharp distinction between Norman and Saxon so beloved of seventeenth century radicals, nineteenth century novelists and twentieth century filmmakers does seem to have faded quite rapidly. The wealth of England which attracted invaders had already seen successful Danish invasions in the earlier part of the eleventh century and King Harold II’s family were Anglo-Saxon protégés of King Cnut. Within a relatively short time after Hastings men and women of Anglo-Saxon descent were entering into the life of a new Anglo-Norman elite. The very fact that the Bayeux Tapestry is thought to be the work of English embroiderers at Canterbury suggests how early that linkage was taking place.

I have no doubt that the battle of Hastings was terrible and bloody for those who took part, whether they survived or not. It is noteworthy that survivors were required to do penance for what had taken place. It is also an event that has shaped, and continues to shape, not only England, but the English-speaking world.