The Battle of Hastings (26 page)

This view has been enhanced by the keen eye of a modern historian, David Bernstein. In a paper given to the Anglo-Norman Studies conference, he pointed out that if one looks carefully at the Tapestry, there are visible stitch marks by the head of the second figure; and the obvious interpretation is that they originally represented the shaft of an arrow in the eye of the second, falling figure too.
66

This seems to settle the issue. In the view of the Tapestry at least, Harold Godwinson was hit by an arrow in the head, whether either or both of the figures were meant to be the king. The likely view is that both are Harold. Some later chroniclers give such an account: they may have followed the Tapestry, but even if their facts were not independent, at least they believed the Tapestry meant both figures to be Harold and that he was hit by an arrow.
67

The archery had achieved the first major blow of the battle, and one that was fatal to English hopes as well as to their king. The loss of a commander in a medieval battle was very rarely followed by anything but defeat for the side which suffered the loss, and Hastings was no exception. If the English fought on it was from training and discipline, and because the best hope of survival was to slog out the final minutes of daylight and hope to retreat under cover of dark. They did not manage it.

Wace, for all our doubts, is a useful source for quotes, partly because his military knowledge was good even if his particular knowledge of Hastings was less so. He speaks of the lengthy battle, suggesting that the crisis came at about 3 p.m., after a long day when ‘the battle was up and down, this way and that’.
68
William of Poitiers says that the remaining English were exhausted and at the end of their tether, which is not difficult to believe.

The Normans began to sense victory: ‘the longer they fought the stronger they seemed to be; and their onslaught was even fiercer now than it had been at the beginning’. The duke fought in their midst, sparing none who crossed his path. In other words, after the infantry attack the cavalry made a final charge, and this time it worked. The shield-wall, which had withstood such a battering all day, finally broke and once that had happened there was no hope.

The English forces broke and fled. The Tapestry’s final scene shows a miscellaneous band of Normans in pursuit, three wielding swords, one a spear and one carrying a bow ready to shoot.
69
A small and rather forlorn group of Englishmen are the last figures to survive on the Tapestry, some on horses, some on foot. One may have an arrow in his head, since the context does not seem to fit with him raising a spear. In the lower margin by this point the bodies have been stripped of their armour and lie naked, some without heads, one with a severed arm. The only hope of survival for those who remained was to reach the cover of the woods to the rear. Some ran on foot, some were able to ride. According to Poitiers this was on ‘horses which they had seized’ rather than their own, though there is no reason why others were not able to reclaim the mounts they had left behind earlier in the day. Poitiers says they went by roads and by places where there were none. Many, of course, were wounded and escape was difficult or impossible. ‘Many died where they fell in the deep cover of the woods’, others dropped exhausted along the way. There was a Norman pursuit. Some were cut down from behind, some were trampled under the horses’ hoofs.

We shall again rely primarily on William of Poitiers for an account of the Malfosse incident. He does not give it a name or a clear location, though he describes the natural feature. In Poitiers, it clearly happens
after
the English had broken in flight.
70
He has no tale of a hillock in the middle of the battlefield. According to him, there was a last ditch defence made by a considerable force of English. They had taken up a good defensive position which the Normans approached during the pursuit.
71

The reason this is called the Malfosse incident is that our old friend the Battle Abbey chronicler identified it as such. His modern editor queries what is meant, and suggests that it is possible that the name came later. Malfosse means ‘evil ditch’. It could have been named for a variety of reasons: a description of its nature, a burial ditch. Everyone has assumed it was the site of this last resistance, and that is possible – but not certain.

Orderic Vitalis has two versions of the incident. The first is an interpolation in William of Jumièges. He also places the incident during the pursuit.
72
In this account, the event could have occurred anywhere as he speaks of a pursuit that continued into Sunday, and an incident that was on ‘the following night’ – though he probably means Saturday night. He wrote: ‘for high grass concealed an ancient rampart’ into which ‘abyss of destruction’ the Normans rode ‘crushing each other to death’. He says 15,000 died here, a figure we need not take seriously. Orderic’s second account, in
Ecclesiastical History
, is similar, though the feature becomes a ‘broken rampart and labyrinth of ditches’, and the victim Engenulf de Laigle is named. This revised account also makes it clear that he is speaking of Saturday night for the incident.
73

The Battle Abbey chronicler gives more space to the Malfosse incident than to the rest of the battle, which is very odd and seems to require some explanation. It does not add to our confidence in him. He seems to have picked up some vivid tale, perhaps from local gossip, and tied it in with an account of the battle which is brief and largely uninformative. He says:

… a final disaster was revealed to all. Lamentable, just where the fighting was going on, and stretching for a considerable distance, an immense ditch yawned. It may have been a natural cleft in the earth or perhaps it had been hollowed out by storms. But in this waste ground it was overgrown with brambles and thistles, and could hardly be seen in time; and it swallowed great numbers, especially of Normans in pursuit of the English.

He says that they galloped unawares into the chasm and were killed: ‘This deep pit has been named for the accident, and today it is called
Malfosse
.’
74
What we seem to have here is an original incident after the battle recorded by Poitiers, turned into something different in a rather confused manner by Orderic, and then a century after the event latched on to by the Battle Abbey chronicler for a local site, though he does not tell us where it is.

It seems ironic that the source which claims Battle Hill for the site of the battle is the one which also says the Malfosse was ‘just where the battle was going on’. The Malfosse has been identified on the ground with reasonable certainty, and is just to the rear of Caldbec Hill, exactly where one might expect a last ditch resistance after the army had been forced to leave its first line of defence on the hill.
75
It is quite a way back from Battle Hill – though it could be a last ditch defence after flight from there.

The identification of the site depends primarily on a series of medieval records, including several thirteenth-century charters which refer clearly to the same name as ‘Maufosse’. It is to be placed to the north of Caldbec Hill, behind Virgin’s Lane and very close to the pool (which might be Senlac). Here, 600 yards north of Caldbec Hill, is to be found the natural feature known as Oakwood Gill, which is the natural feature most close to the chronicle descriptions: with a gully which Chevallier calls ‘a deep ravine’, with steep banks, brambles and undergrowth, a stream, just on the edge of Duniford Wood.
76

The Conqueror was surprised to find this defended position, and wondered if these were reinforcements, which is possible. It may also have been a deliberate English plan to give some cover in the case of a retreat. At any rate, Poitiers says there were ‘battalions’ of men, making use of ‘a deep gully and a series of ditches’. Eustace of Boulogne with fifty knights was intending to return, in Orderic it is in flight, preferring not to attack this tough position.
77
The Conqueror ordered him forward, but at that moment Eustace was hit between the shoulders, the blood spurted from nose and mouth. The Conqueror himself led an attack and the last resistance was crushed. William then returned to the battlefield. The day was his. One of the greatest battles in the history of England had come to its conclusion.

Notes

  
1
.  William of Malmesbury, ed. Stubbs, ii, p. 300; translation from William of Malmesbury, ed. Giles, p. 274; Wace, ed. Holden, ii, p. 128, ll. 6573–90; Brown,
The Normans and the Norman Conquest
, p. 133 and n. 61.

  
2
.  Bennett, ‘Wace and warfare’, pp. 238–9; Wace, ed. Holden, ii, ll. 6483–8: ‘
saillir fors e nes deschargier,/ ancres jeter, cordes sachier,/ escuz e seles fors porter,/ destriers e palefreiz tirer./ Li archier sunt primes issu,/ al terrain sunt primes venu
’.

  
3
.  A. Williams, ‘Land and power in the eleventh century: the estates of Harold Godwineson’,
ANS
, iii, 1981.

  
4
.  
Bayeux Tapestry
, pl. 49–50.

  
5
.  
Bayeux Tapestry
, pl. 43–8.

  
6
.  J. Gillingham, ‘William the Bastard at war’ in
RAB
, pp. 141–58, reprinted in Strickland (ed.),
Anglo-Norman Warfare
, pp. 143–60, especially pp. 146–7, points out that there were long periods when William avoided battles; pp. 157–58 on the Breton campaign.

  
7
.  
Bayeux Tapestry
, pl. 50; Thorpe (ed.),
The Bayeux Tapestry
, p. 47; William of Poitiers, ed. Foreville, p. 180.

  
8
.  
Bayeux Tapestry
, pl. 50.

  
&9
.  John of Worcester, eds Darlington and McGurk, p. 604; Wace, ed. Taylor, p. 173; Wace, ed. Holden, ii, p. 173, ll. 7743–4: ‘
Daneis les orent damagiez/ e Tosti les out empeiriez
’.

10
.  William of Poitiers, ed. Foreville, p. 186.

11
.  Orderic Vitalis, ed. Chibnall, ii, p. 172.

12
.  
Bayeux Tapestry
, pl. 61–2.

13
.  William of Jumièges, ed. van Houts, ii, p. 168.

14
.  J. Bradbury, ‘Battles in England and Normandy, 1066–1154’,
ANS
, vi, 1983, pp. 1–12, p. 4.

15
.  Wace, ed. Taylor, p. 255, at least has the goodness to admit: ‘I was not there to see’; Wace, ed. Holden, ii, p. 215, ll. 8851–2.

16
.  R.A. Brown, ‘The Battle of Hastings’,
ANS
, iii, 1980, pp. 1–21; reprinted in M. Strickland (ed.),
Anglo-Norman Warfare
, Woodbridge, 1992, pp. 161–81, p. 163

17
.  
Chronicle of Battle Abbey
, ed. Searle, pp. 4–5, where the editor shows that early claims for the abbey depend partly on forged charters, pp. 15–16, that the Malfosse information is not solid, and, pp. 17–23, that the vow to build the abbey is dubious.

18
.  
Chronicle of Battle Abbey
, ed. Searle, pp. 42–6.

19
.  Some later ones did, notably Wace, ed. Taylor, p. 143: Harold erected his gonfanon ‘where the abbey of the battle is now built’, but also adds that he had it surrounded by a ditch with an entrance on three sides; Wace, ed. Holden, ii, p. 142, ll. 6964–6:
ou l’abeïe/ de la Bataille est establie
’.

20
.  C. Plummer (ed.),
Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel
, 2 vols, Oxford, 1892, i., p. 199; Whitelock
et al.
(eds),
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
, D, p. 143; cf. G.P. Cubbin (ed.),
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
, vi, Cambridge, 1996, p. 80: and ‘
com him togenes æt ¬ære haran apuldran
’.

21
.  I am aware that R.A. Brown thought otherwise, ‘Hastings’ in Strickland (ed.),
Anglo-Norman Warfare
, p. 169: ‘Harold cannot possibly have selected the place of battle well in advance’. One is hesitant to quote Wace, ed. Taylor, p. 174, in support of anything, but his comment is interesting: Harold placing his men where he knew the Normans ‘would come and attack him’; Wace, ed. Holden, ii, p. 173, ll. 7745–6.

22
.  
Carmen
, eds Morton and Muntz, p. 24.

23
.  Orderic Vitalis, ed. Chibnall, ii, p. 172: ‘
ad locum qui Senlac antiquitus uocabatur
’. Freeman chose to call it the battle of Senlac because it was not actually fought at Hastings, which J.H. Round rubbished,
Feudal England
, London, 1895, reset reprint 1964, pp. 259–63.

24
.  
Bayeux Tapestry
, pl. 52.

25
.  
Bayeux Tapestry
, pl. 66–7.

26
.  On the Malfosse see C.T. Chevallier, ‘Where was the Malfosse? the end of the battle of Hastings’,
SAC
, 101, 1963, pp. 1–13, which outlines earlier ideas too.

27
.  Ian Peirce tells a good tale that his father found some buried remains which turned to dust, but agrees this is somewhat uncertain evidence, though I am sure he would dispute changing the location.

28
.  Round,
Feudal England
, p. 261, points out that Domesday Book refers to the abbey as ‘de loco belli’; it is also in Domesday called the abbey of ‘Labatailge’.

29
.  
Bayeux Tapestry
, pl. 71; William of Poitiers, ed. Foreville, p. 224; William of Malmesbury, ed. Stubbs, ii, p. 302.

30
.  Wace, ed. Holden, ii, p. 175, ll. 7793–800; Wace, ed. Taylor, p. 176. Freeman,
History of the Norman Conquest
, 1873, iii, p. 443; Round,
Feudal England
, pp. 258–305, esp. pp. 264–73; 307–8. Wace has a ditch around the position of the standard at the assembly point: a great fosse with three entrances, and on the morning of battle he has Harold and Gyrth on warhorses emerging from entrenchments, Wace, ed. Taylor, p. 143; Wace, ed. Holden, ii, p. 143, ll. 6969–72. There is often a suspicion of muddle between chronicle references to ramparts and some more solid construction in the minds of historians. As recently as 1996, Wright,
Hastings
, seems still to accept the palisade, though wondering about the length of time for construction, p. 78; Bradbury,
Medieval Archer
, p. 28.