Battle of Hastings consensus

We believe that the Battle of Hastings was fought near Sedlescombe, as we explain here. This seems to contradict every reputable historian that has ever written about the battle engagement, which makes our theory sound implausible. In reality, we contradict these historians no more than they contradict each other. In this blog, we will explain what we mean. If you are interested in details, we outline the evolution of the traditional narrative with a list of the major Battle of Hastings military analyses here.

There is a lot of confusion about the geography, not least because the coast has changed out of all recognition. Modern Hastings was on a triangular peninsula in the 11th century, bounded by the River Brede to the north and the River Ash Bourne to the west. The Hastings Ridge (HR on map above) crossed the Hastings Peninsula from southeast to northwest, between Ore and Battle Police Station.

A dip to the south of Battle and fluvial erosion to its northwest and northeast has left a section of the Hastings Ridge that is almost entirely surrounded by lower ground. It gives the appearance of a 1.8km by 500m cross ridge with arms extending ENE and WSW from Battle Abbey (labelled with a white 'x' on the heat relief map above). It is this apparent cross ridge that we refer to as Battle Ridge. It is sometimes known as 'Senlac Hill' or 'Senlac Ridge'.

There is some common ground among the best known and most reputable Battle of Hastings engagement scenarios. They all propose that Harold defended the south slope of Battle Ridge. They all propose that the Normans attacked from the south or southeast, because most of the contemporary accounts say or imply that the Normans approached the battle theatre along the Hastings Ridge from their coastal camp. They all propose that the Normans attacked in three divisions, as described in two of the most trustworthy contemporary accounts, with William in the centre. They all propose that Harold deployed an open shield wall, typical of Anglo-Saxon infantry battles.

The last point is the most salient here. The contemporary accounts describe how the battle's outcome turned on whether the Norman cavalry could break through the English shield wall. If they could get behind the English line, there was nothing to stop them attacking and killing Harold, exactly as events unfolded after the feigned retreat. Harold just needed to survive the day because reinforcements would arrive the following day. He survived until late afternoon, so William nearly lost.

There is no chance whatsoever that William would have spent the entire day fighting Harold's elite huscarls on the least favourable terrain if he could instead have outflanked or looped behind the English shield wall from the get-go, killing Harold as early as possible. Therefore, if Harold deployed an open shield wall on Battle Ridge, something must have prevented the Norman cavalry from outflanking the shield wall to attack Harold direct. It is this 'something' that creates the big differences between the best known and most reputable engagement scenarios.

A H Burne went through much the same analysis in his 1950 reference book 'Battlefields of England'. For reference, Battle Abbey stands at the location labelled with a tiny flag, on the opposite side of the road to the church. He produced the composite shield wall diagram above, showing some of the best known and most reputable shield wall proposals at the time. He concluded that there is a "disparity of views" among historians. As he says, it is largely a case of "quot homines tot sententiae", there are as many opinions as there are men, only worse because some of them have more than one opinion.

Excluding Tames, Malam and Parker who were writing simplified pictoral books for children, our Evolution of the Traditional Battle of Hastings Narrative blog - here - lists the 20 major Battle of Hastings military analyses that have troop deployment diagrams. All different. Scores of other engagement scenarios have been proposed non-graphically. Indeed, there are over a thousand books and papers about the Battle of Hastings. Assuming most of them have something new to say - what else would be the point of writing them? - there are probably more than a hundred different engagement scenarios at the traditional battlefield.

It is the same with battlefield ditches. Several contemporary accounts describe immense non-fluvial ditches at the battlefield, most famously the 'Malfosse'. There are no immense (or small) ditches at Battle Abbey, so most historians just ignore them. Some have proposed more remote locations. Six are listed on our traditional battle evolution blog. They are all too far from the traditional battlefield and all fluvial whereas the Chronicle of Battle Abbey makes it perfectly clear that the Malfosse was not fluvial.

And this is the point. When it is said that every reputable historian agrees that the Battle of Hastings was fought on the slope south of Battle Abbey, it is natural to assume that they also agree on how the battle was fought. Nothing of the sort. There is no consensus about the engagement, initial troop deployments, battle geography, battefield ditches or military tactics. Every engagement theory, in effect, is saying that every preceding engagement theory is not credible. But the supporters of earlier theories almost never accept that new theories are any more likely.

So, every historian is saying that there are catastrophic flaws in every engagement theory at the traditional battlefield, bar their own. Just as many think there are catastrophic flaws in that one. As we say at the beginning: we contradict these historians no more than they contradict each other because we too think there are catastrophic flaws in all of the other battle theories, at the traditional battlefield and elsewhere, apart from our own.

Most obviously, if the English had less than 10000 men at the traditional battlefield, as all but one of the 20th century military analyses propose, the Normans could cross the flanking streams to attack Harold from behind and above using the routes shown in black on the diagram above. Some historians reckon this was not possible because the flanking streams were impassable ravines. They were not. The photos below show us standing astride the western stream to the left and the eastern stream to the right. They have less running water than a leaky tap. They would not stop a hedgehog.

If, for some incredible reason, the Normans could not cross either of the narrow flanking streams, they could loop around ridgeways to attack Harold directly from behind and above - as shown by the black line on the diagram below. The stream they would have to cross is a little downstream of the west stream above. It is still only shoulder width, but with less running water than a garden hose. A hedgehog might think twice about crossing but not a two-year-old toddler.

Some historians excuse William's failure to outflank the shield wall by suggesting the English flanks were protected by ravines, marshland or impenetrable woodland. All nonsense. There is no such thing as impenetrable mature deciduous woodland, there is not enough water this close to the ridge crest to create ravines or marshes.

Hereford George excuses William's failure to outflank the shield wall by saying that the terrain must have changed a lot since the 11th century. It has not. Inland terrain, unsurprisingly, changes at geological pace, which means it has hardly changed at all over the last thousand years.

James excuses William's failure to outflank the shield wall by saying: “Flank attacks were but little practised in 1066, and Harold did not think of one as possible”, Burne excuses it by saying that: “Enveloping or flanking moves were seldom attempted”. Nonsense, again. It was standard military practice for cavalry to outflank infantry, and had been since Roman times. The infantry responded by forming hollow squares or circles, a tactic invented by the Romans and still in use at Waterloo. Harald Hardrada looped his shield wall just two weeks previously, to prevent getting flanked by the English cavalry. Medieval military commanders were obsessed by their flanks, both protecting their own and attacking the enemy's. William and Harold would have been no exception.

Even if there was some now-lost natural feature at the traditional battlefield that prevented the Normans outflanking or looping behind the shield wall, William would have had one more decisive ploy up his sleeve: The Norman cavalry could backtrack to Beauport Park to pick up the Rochester Roman road, via which they could follow whatever route the English army used to get to Battle, catching undefended Harold from behind and above.

Hanging over all the traditional battle engagement theories is Margary's discovery that the main road from the Hastings Peninsula to London (via Rochester) did not pass along the Hastings Ridge, which means that Harold is unlikely to have chosen it for a camp. Then there are the eleven clues that suggest the English were fighting in an enclosed loop, Baudri's claim that the shield wall was wedge shaped, Malmesbury's claim that the English used rolled stones as deadly weapons, and so on. We list some 30 such battlefield clues in our main Sedlescombe Battlefield blog that do not match the traditional battlefield at Battle Abbey. Twenty of them are entirely new, having never previously been considered. Most historians ignore the rest, while others say that they must be mistaken, for no reason other than that they do not match the topography at Battle. Ten inconsistencies would be an awful lot of mistakes, thirty are implausible.

In reality, the only evidence the battle was fought at Battle Abbey is the seven contemporary accounts which say or imply that Battle Abbey was built on the battlefield. In our opinion, some are duplicitous, others are based on faulty information, and others still have been misinterpreted. It is a whole other story that we address in our Traditional Battlefield blog here.