Debunking the Battle Abbey battlefield

Are you convinced that the Battle of Hastings took place at Battle Abbey? If so, it sounds like you need to read our critique of the traditional battlefield, here. If not, we hope you can contribute to what would be the greatest discovery of the 21st Century. Yes, you! Thrilling new evidence has come to light, proof of which is as likely to come from a schoolgirl or a pizza chef as it is from a Nobel Laureate.

First things first: What is this new evidence? It comes from Dr David Robinson, a world renowned expert on medieval landscapes working out of the University of Sussex. We asked him about the topography around Battle in the 11th century. He explained that: "Away from the immediate coast, rates of erosion are very slow and the physical form and depth of the valleys are unlikely to have changed since the 11th century." He didn't think that he was telling us anything important. We think it is a crucial first step in unravelling the orthodox narrative; the first unbiased scientific evidence, albeit indirect, that the battle was not fought at Battle.

The heat relief map above shows the topography around Battle, the original Abbey location is labelled 'x'. High ground is shown in red, low ground in green. The Hastings Ridge is southeast to northwest, entering in the southeast corner. The elevated area below the stream in the northwest corner is the Isthmus Ridge. Note that there is a dip in the Hastings Ridge to the southeast of Battle. There seems to be a WSW to ENE ridge through Battle that crosses the Hastings Ridge at roughly 60º. In reality, it is part of the main Hastings Ridge that has been eroded to the south, northeast and northwest. It is known as Battle Ridge. Every shield wall that has ever been proposed at the traditional battlefield defends some or all of Battle Ridge. They are listed here.

Defending Battle Ridge means that every shield wall that has ever been proposed at the traditional battlefield is open ended. We will go on to explain that one reason we are convinced that the the battle was not fought at Battle Abbey is that the Normans would have ridden around the open ends of the line to lop off Harold's head in the first 15 minutes. Another reason is that no less than 11 contemporary accouts imply that the English shield wall was enclosed. Historians remain convinced that the shield wall was open ended because an enclosed shield wall would not have worked at Battle. We will try to explain why.

The contemporary accounts say that the Normans attacked on a narrow front in three divisions. Carmen: “The French cavalry attacked to the left, the Bretons to the right, the duke with the Norman cavalry fights the middle”. Wace: “the Normans divided into three companies, in order to attack at three places”, then that William chooses to: “fight in the middle throng, where the battle shall be hottest". Poitiers talks about events on the Norman left and right flanks, saying that William chooses to stay in the middle division because: “From this position he could command his army with voice and hand gestures”. The leaders of the flanks cannot have been more than 200m away from William, so the Norman deployment was probably no more than 600m wide.

If Harold deployed an enclosed shield wall on the steeper parts of the hill at Battle, his shield wall would have been some 1600m long, so three fifths of his army would have been redundant. If he deployed his army higher up the hill where an enclosed shield wall would have been a more plausible 750m long, only the northern section would have been on rising ground. If Harold deployed an enclosed shield wall at Battle, long or short, William would have attacked on the level risgeways to the northwest and east, which would be inconsistent with the battle descriptions in the contemporary accounts. Therefore,historians assume that the shield wall was straight or straight'ish, as depcited below.

Some of the best known shield wall proposals made by Britain's greatest military historians have been superimposed on the heat relief map above. Early analysts - notably Freeman and George - assumed that a huge English army of 25000 or more men defended the entire Battle Ridge. Several accounts say that the sides were roughly evenly matched, so the Norman army would have had a similar number of men. Someone then realised that it would have been impossible for the Normans to raise this number of men and horses, or to have got them across the Channel, so the size of the armies was revised down to between 6000 and 10000. Laster proposed shield walls are therefore much shorter. Some have refused flanks, that bend back on themselves.

Stephen Morillo created a synthesis of the other proposed shield walls for his 1996 book 'The Battle of Hastings'. The map below superimposes his troop deployments on the Ordnance Survey map of Battle. The green line shows the English shield wall, the cyan arrows show the traditional Norman points of attack. The original Abbey, said by some to have been built on the spot where Harold died, is below the '8' on the ridge crest.

William had a huge cavalry. Harold had none. Harold was commanding his forces from behind the shield wall, protected only by his footbound personal guard. We know that this guard could not put up an effective defence against Norman knights because the contemporary accounts tell us that they got to Harold soon after breaking through the English line. Harold knew it too. Before the battle, he ordered his troops to keep their positions whatever was going on around them, explaining that the English would lose the battle if Norman knights managed to get through any gaps in the line.

So, why then was Harold not worried about the Normans riding through the enormous gap to his rear? And why did William choose not to outflank or loop behind the English shield wall but instead to attack Harold's best troops on the most adverse terrain? With any of the narrow shield walls, William could have sent his cavalry around either of the open ends of the shield wall to attack Harold direct (as depicted by black lines above). The battle would have been over in 15 minutes. If, for some unknown reason, this was not possible, or if the English shield wall defended the entire Battle Ridge, as proposed by Freemand and George, William could still have sent his troops around a longer loop attack (black line below). It was less than 2 miles, which might have extended the battle an extra 15 minutes. 

The battle lasted for at least six hours. There are only four possible explanations:

1. The battle was fought at Battle but the English line was not open
2. The battle was fought at Battle and the Normans chose not to flank or loop an open English line
3. The battle was fought at Battle and its boundary streams or something else prevented the Normans flanking or looping an open English line
4. The battle was not fought at Battle.

1) We discuss an enclosed shield wall at Battle in our Traditional Battlefield blog. As we explain there, twelve contemporary accounts suggest that the English shield wall was enclosed. It is militarily more plausible and it is defensively more secure. An enclosed shield wall might have lasted out the day. But an enclosed shield wall at Battle would have led to a very different battle than the one described in the contemporary accounts. William would clearly have attacked on the shallow ridge crests to the east, west and northwest rather than from the south. It contradicts the few references from the contemporary accounts that match the traditional battle narrative. For instance, the Normans would not climb a steep hill, the Norman divisions would not be fighting together, the Norman flanks would not be within William's sight and hearing, the fighting would not be more intense in the middle, the battlefield would not be narrow, and so on. It cannot be what happened.

2) Many historians reckon that William chose not to outflank, envelope or oblique order attack an open English shield wall, saying it was uncommon in 1066. James, for example, says: “Flank attacks were but little practised in 1066, and Harold did not think of one as possible”, Burne that: “Enveloping or flanking moves were seldom attempted”. This is true of pure infantry battles because both sides are similarly mobile, but it is patently not true when infantry comes up against cavalry. Forming hollow squares or hollow circles to prevent getting flanked by cavalry had been standard military practice since Roman times. The tactic was used by the Byzantines, and was still standard practice in the Napoleonic wars. Harald Hardrada looped his shield wall just two weeks previously, to prevent getting flanked by the English cavalry. In our opinion, medieval military commanders were obsessed by protecting their flanks and by attacking the enemy's flanks. William and Harold would have been no exception.

3) All the other historians that consider the English flanks reckon that they were protected by natural features: streams, ravines, bogs, impenetrable thicket and/or impenetrable woodland.

The last of these can be quickly discounted. Helen Read, a world-renowned expert on medieval woodland, confirmed to us that there is no such thing as impenetrable mature deciduous woodland in temperate latitudes. Ravines are out too. The is not enough water to create a ravine close to the ridge crest. Bogs or impenentrable thicket are no more likely. The sides of the Hastings Ridge are too steep near the top for water to accumulate, unless it is dammed, which Battle was not. There is only light thicket on the stream banks today and there is no reason to think it was any different in the 11th century. That leaves the flanking streams. Most historians think that the English line was brilliantly positioned by Harold between two streamheads, whereby the streams protected the English flanks.

In other words, most historians think that the flanking streams at the traditional battleifled were impossible to cross on foot or on horseback. Bayeux Tapestry Panel 17 depicts the Norman cavalry crossing the Couesnon Estuary (above). They had a tough time. Some of them got stuck in the mud and drowned. Others, according to the caption, were hauled out by Harold Godwinson. Enough got across the estuary to defeat Conan in battle. If the Norman cavalry was not daunted by the prospect of crossing a 170m wide estuary, how severe would the flanking streams at the traditional battlefield need to have been to dissuade them from crossing?

Here we are standing astride the two streams that flank the traditional English shield wall -  western to the left, north-eastern to the right. Below, we are standing astride the far west flanking stream. 'Stream' is being overly generous. They are barely brooks. None of them is more than shoulder width across. None of them has more than a trickle of water. It is only to be expected. Their catchment areas are only a few hectares. There is not enough water to create a bog or a ravine. Indeed, the catchments are about right to create the 5m deep valleys with 20° banks that are there present.  The ground is soft but we saw horses unhesitatingly trot across the eastern stream. There were hoof prints all around the banks. If the streams and banks surrounding Battle were as they are today, the Norman knights would not even have noticed them as they charged across.

The obvious retort is that the streams must have been deeper, wider and/or faster in the 11th century, and/or that the valley sides were steeper or more boggy or lined by thicket. Could it be, for instance, that the runoff from the Hastings Ridge has been absorbed by modern drainage and irrigation? Or has global warming made the climate much drier?

Dr Robinson thinks not. He reckons that the expanse of impermeable surfaces in the town centre more than compensates for modern drainage; that a greater amount of water is channelled into the streams that radiate out from Battle. The shallow valley sides suggest that the streams have been feeble since long before modern drainage was installed. The topography is the same now as it was when Ordnance Survey contour maps were introduced 150 years ago and much the same as when Yeakell & Gardner's hachure map was compiled in the 18th century. Still, there is a big gap from the 18th century back to the 11th century, and global warming has made the climate warmer and drier on average. But medieval Britain enjoyed a local micro-climate in what Hubert Lamb referred to as the 'Medieval Warm Period'. Our 11th century climate was warmer and drier than now. According to Domesday, there were vineyards as far north as York, and York was so warm at the beginning of October 1066 that the invading Norse army had to leave their armour in their ships on the day of the Battle of Stamford Bridge.

Dr Robinson has confirmed scientifically what we always suspected empirically, that the streams radiating out from Battle are unlikely to have been any more difficult to cross in 1066 than they are now, and they would not daunt a two-year-old toddler now. But 'unlikely' is not proof. Dr Robinson explained that the only way to reconstruct an 11th century landscape would be to analyse downstream deposition, but the streams radiating from Battle are too small to create any significant downstream deposition.

4) In our opinion, none of the first three possibilities is plausible. Therefore, the battle was not fought at Battle. But this does rely on Dr Robinson's assessment that the flanking streams at Battle were no more difficult to cross in the 11th century than they are today. This is where you come in.

1. Can you think of any way to prove that Battle's streams were, or were not, traversable in the 11th century? We are thinking along the lines of landscape regression modelling software, or a medieval path or ford, perhaps.

2. Can you think of any way to prove that Battle's streams were not lined by impenetrable shrubs and brambles? We are thinking along the lines of soil analysis, seed analysis or a medieval path, perhaps.

If you can help with either of these questions or have any other thoughts about this, please email us: momentousbritain@outlook.com.