Mythical Battle by Ashley Hern

Author:Ashley Hern
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780719824760
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc.

Traditional map of the battle’s locations with modern features (illustration by Anne Crofts).

As the Anglo-Saxon sources in particular are so circumspect, alongside the Norman tendency to anathematize Harold’s posthumous reputation, there is little solid evidence that can be evaluated to reconstruct Harold’s decision-making. As Harold lost the battle, historians often focus on explaining this by retrospectively identifying the key reason from a range of possibilities (such as hubris) rather than appreciating how finely balanced the margins of success and failure were in any military adventure. Both Harold and William were undertaking a gamble, but it is only fair in the absence of detailed sources to accept that they had fully explored their options in the light of the belief that they would receive divine aid in return for their faithful patronage of churches (Harold’s favour to Waltham Abbey in Essex was shown by his probable eventual burial there). Harold’s political position, as we have argued, was not unproblematic, despite his northern success. There is some merit in another comparison with the events of 1016. Although the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s view of Æthelred’s reign is problematic, given it was written with hostile hindsight, it is clearly stated that the king’s failure to provide active military leadership in the crisis of Cnut’s invasion undermined his vestiges of support. Edmund Ironside’s activity was not simply driven by patriotism, but was an attempt to assert his own leadership credentials in a complex succession situation where his father was actively championing the interests of his half-brothers from his second marriage to Emma of Normandy, Edward and Alfred.

The view that Harold should have waited for more men, or was showing his inexperience as a field commander, is not entirely reasonable, either. The Anglo-Saxon military system was increasingly dependent on a relatively limited, elite core of fighting men. The ‘nation-at-arms’ ideal of the mobilization of all free men existed more as an archaic ideal of the ninth century than a reflection of eleventh-century military reality. There was no bottomless pool of soldiers available, especially after the bloody northern battles. He, therefore, had to ensure a decisive engagement as soon as possible. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s Version D states that Harold summoned men to the ‘hoary apple tree’, which is usually believed to have been on Caldbec Hill, which lies just to the north of the modern town of Battle. There is no clear evidence what the significance of this was, but the usual suggestion is that it was an ancient moot point, which would have been familiar to men in that part of Sussex. Caldbec Hill is at the conjunction of three hundreds, so probably played a customary role in local assemblies. Harold presumably knew this territory well given that he held the estates in the area, and we know from the Bayeux Tapestry that he spent time at Bosham, just down the coast.

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