No More Learning

King EDWARD, son of Aethelred and grandson of Edgar, died on
5 January 1066, being the eve of the Epiphany. On 6 January he was
hurriedly buried before the high altar of his new minster-church at
Westminster, which had been consecrated just nine days earlier. On the
very same day Harold, son of Godwin, Earl of the West Saxons, alleging
that the old king on his death-bed had committed to his keeping not
only his widow but his kingdom, had himself formally elected to the
kingship by a small and probably partisan assembly of magnates. And
thereupon he was straightway hallowed King of the English people by
Ealdred, the Archbishop of York, within the very precincts and almost
at the very spot where some six hours before Edward's body had been
laid to rest.
The unprecedented haste and indecent callousness of these proceedings
speak for themselves. Whether Edward with his last breath had really
attempted, as his biographer and the Peterborough chronicle report, to
designate Harold as his successor can never be certainly known; but at
any rate, if precedent and the customs of Wessex counted for anything,
the crown of England was not his to bequeath; nor had Edward ever
brought himself to make any such recommendation when fully possessed
of his faculties. What alone is clear is that Harold had no intention of
allowing any real debate on the succession to take place among the
magnates as a whole. For it is impossible to believe that the great men
of the Midlands and of the North, or even of East Anglia or Devon, were
then gathered in London. Evidently, as soon as ever it had become apparent
that Edward's recovery was unlikely, Harold had made up his mind to
set aside Edgar the Aetheling, the sole surviving representative of the
old royal stock, who was, it seems, about sixteen years old, on the plea
of his youthfulness, and had determined to snatch the crown for himself
on the double ground that, being over forty and a statesman of many
years' experience, he was far better fitted than the Aetheling to be king,
and that he was the only man in England who could be relied on to keep
order and defend the realm from its foes. When therefore the moment
came for action, all his plans were fully matured; and so it came about
that in the course of a single morning, without any public murmurs of
protest, the right kin of Egbert and Alfred, which could trace its ancestry
back to Cerdic and which for the last two hundred years had played the
C. MED, A, VOL. V. CH, XV.
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482
Coronation of Earl Harold
leading part in England on the whole with credit and success, was displaced
in favour of the semi-Danish house of Godwin, which had only emerged
from obscurity some half a century before, and then only as the favoured
instrument of the alien conqueror Knut. That the coup d'état of 6 January
was a gamble on Harold's part cannot be doubted; for most men, he was
aware, would regard him as a usurper, while it was plain that he could not
really count on the support of either the house of Leofric or of the thegns
north of the Humber, even if the young Earls Edwin and Morkere were
for the moment acquiescent. Looking at the question, however, from the
other side, it must be owned that England at the moment wanted a full-
grown king and a man of experience, who would be feared and respected;
and Harold was undoubtedly the foremost personage in the kingdom,
and so wealthy that his mere accession almost doubled the revenues of
the Crown and at the same time eliminated its most formidable competitor
in all the southern shires. Harold too cannot but have had before his
mind the similar change of dynasty which had been brought about in
France only eighty years before when the Carolingian line was finally set
aside by Hugh Capet. If the Duke of the Franks had been justified in
987, the Earl of the West Saxons in 1066 may well have persuaded
himself that he had an equally good case; for his material resources were
greater than those of the Capetian, and the need of England for an active
leader was patent to all. Lastly, in justification of his decision it can
always be urged that it was plain to Harold, from his personal knowledge
of Normandy and his misadventures there, that Duke William really was
set on claiming the English crown on the ground of his kinship to Edward,
by consent if possible, but by force if need be, and would leave no stone
unturned in the attempt to achieve his purpose. Year by year men had
seen the Norman Duke grow more powerful, and both Harold and his
partisans may quite honestly have argued that the sooner an experienced
and capable man was placed in Edward's seat, the more likely it would be
that William's plans would be brought to naught; whereas his chances of
succeeding in his designs would be deplorably increased, if the kingly
office were not quickly filled and Englishmen instead drifted into disputing
how best to fill it.
If this interpretation of Harold's behaviour may be adopted as the
most plausible one and the best suited to account for his inordinate
haste, it follows that we must also hold that Harold and his advisers not
only considered a struggle with the Norman Duke to be inevitable, but
also considered that the danger which threatened England from that
quarter was of the greatest urgency. Harold of course knew that he might
also have other foes to reckon with, such as his exiled brother Tostig and
his cousin Svein Estrithson, King of Denmark (1047–1075), who as
nephew of Knut had dormant claims on England which would revive
when he learnt of Harold's accession. But Tostig was not really formidable,
and might probably be placated, if compensated for his lost possessions;


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Normandy and England compared
483
while Svein was of a cautious disposition, and unlikely to move at all quickly.
Harold need not, therefore, have acted with any precipitancy merely to
meet such contingencies, nor even to forestall internal opposition within
England. It can only have been William that he deemed an immediate
menace. But why should he think William so formidable? Normandy as
compared with England was only a small state. From Eu, its frontier
town in the north-east, to Rouen and thence by Lisieux and Falaise to
the river Couesnon in the south-west, where the duchy marched with
Brittany, was a journey of less than 190 miles, about the same distance
as would be covered by a horseman riding from Yarmouth through
Ipswich and London to Salisbury, while the breadth of the duchy from
north to south was nowhere more than 70 miles. A considerable portion
of the province too was covered by forest; nor was the fertility of its
fields and meadows, so far as we know, any greater than the fertility of
the fields and meadows of Wessex. Even if Normandy possessed a more
enterprising and more vigorous upper class than England, the whole
Norman territory was only equal in area to five-sixths of Wessex, and all
round its borders were other feudal lordships which had constantly harassed
its rulers in the past, and which bore no goodwill to its present duke.
Bearing all these points in mind, it would seem at first sight as if William
must be attempting an impossible task if he set out to conquer England,
and as if Harold might safely have ignored his threats. But nevertheless,
as the course of events was to shew, Harold's instinct of fear was right.
Though William's dominions were small in extent, William himself, ever
since 1047, when he had taken the conduct of affairs into his own hands,
had been giving the world proof after proof that he possessed not merely
energy and ambition but a gift for leadership and a power of compelling
others to do his will which almost amounted to genius. During the last
nineteen years he had succeeded in all his undertakings, whether as a
leader in war or as a ruler and diplomatist, so that in all northern France
there was no feudal prince who had a greater prestige, or one who had
achieved a more unquestioned mastery of his own subjects. Normandy
too was far better organised internally than were other parts of France,
and was governed under a system which really did impose restraints, both
on feudal turbulence and on ecclesiastical pretensions. If then we wish
fully to understand the risks run by Harold in challenging William, it
will be well to make a short digression before describing the struggle
between them and to study the steps by which the Norman duchy had
acquired its peculiar characteristics and its ruler his remarkable prestige.
To understand the Normandy of 1066 it is not necessary to go back
to the foundation of the duchy in 911 by the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-
Epte, or to attempt to dispel the fog that surrounds the careers of the first
three dukes. These princes, Rollo (911-931), his son William Longsword
(931-942), and his grandson Richard I surnamed the Fearless (942-996),
were all undoubtedly men of mark; but nevertheless for this period there
CH. XV.
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484
Normandy in the tenth century
are really very few reliable details available. Dudo, dean of Saint-Quentin,
who wrote about 1020, indeed professes to tell their story, but his work
is fundamentally untrustworthy and for the most part based on legend and
hearsay. Some important points, however, can be established about the
development of the duchy during the tenth century. The first is that by
the end of the reign of Richard I the descendants of the original Norse
settlers had become not only Christians but in all essentials Frenchmen.
They had adopted the French language, French legal ideas, and French
social customs, and had practically become merged with the Frankish or
Gallic population among whom they lived. The second is that, as in
other French districts so in Normandy, most of the important land-
owners by this date held their estates on a feudal tenure, rendering the
duke military service and doing him homage. Allodial ownership, however,
was not altogether obsolete. The third is that the land-owning class had
abandoned the old Scandinavian method of fighting on foot, and had
adopted fighting on horseback. They no longer relied, like the English
and the Danes, on the battle-axe and the shield-wall, but were renowned
for their skill and efficiency as knights or heavy cavalry.
With the accession of Richard II, in 996, we reach a somewhat less
obscure period. As the title “the Good” indicates, Richard II was much
influenced by the ideals of ecclesiastical reform which had spread from
Cluny in the tenth century, and was a much more active patron of monks
than his ancestors had been. Mainard, a monk of Ghent, had indeed
obtained permission in the tenth century from Richard the Fearless to
revive the ruined abbey of Saint-Wandrille on the Seine. Thence about
966 he had moved on into the Avranchin and re-established monks in
the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel. The third duke, however, had shewn
his zeal for religion rather by re-organising the seven bishoprics of his
duchy than by founding monasteries; and when he founded Fécamp about
990, he organised it merely as a house for canons. Richard the Good, on
the other hand, like his contemporary King Robert of France (996–1031)
with whom he was ever on the best of terms, undoubtedly believed that
monks were superior to canons. He therefore about 1001, acting under
the advice of the well-known Lombard, William of Volpiano, the Cluniac
monk who had risen in 990 to be Abbot of Saint-Bénigne at Dijon,
re-organised Fécamp and substituted monks for the canons. His wife
Judith also founded a monastery at Bernai. Richard's zeal on behalf of
monasteries further induced him to issue a number of charters in their
favour, granting them liberal endowments and privileges of many kinds.
Several interesting examples of these charters have come down to us,
especially those in favour of Fécamp, and it is chiefly from their contents
that it is possible to piece together a few facts as to the nature of the ducal
system of government in the first quarter of the eleventh century.
To begin with, if we analyse the witnesses to Richard's charters, we
find that the Norman Duke was served by certain household officers. The


## p. 485 (#531) ############################################

Duke Richard II. The duke's officers
485
complete household of a feudal prince does not, it is true, come before us,
but we find mention of a constable, a chamberlain, a chancellor, and a
hostiarius. More prominent, however, among the witnesses than the
household officers are the duke's local officials, styled vicecomites. As
many as thirteen vicomtes—it seems rather confusing to English ears to
call them viscounts—attested the charter for Bernai, issued in 1025. It
is permissible, however, to assume that all the vicomtes were not present at
the duke's court when that charter was granted, and from later evidence
it can be shewn that there were more than twenty vicomtés in Normandy,
each under its vicomte. It is impossible to say when the vicomtés were
originally established or how far they were based on older Frankish sub-
divisions, such as the pagi and centenae. In the tenth and eleventh
centuries vicomtés were the common units for administrative purposes in
all parts of France, and in some provinces not a few of these jurisdictions
had developed into important feudal principalities. In Normandy, on the
contrary, it is clear from their number that the vicomtés were of no great
size, nor should they be regarded as the equivalent of the shires in England.
The majority of them were probably larger than Middlesex, but few can
have been as large as Huntingdonshire. They compare best in fact with
the rapes of Sussex in area. As to the position of the vicomtes politically,
it is clear that they had not succeeded in making their offices hereditary
except in one or two instances. They were still at Richard's death public
officers, appointed by the duke and removable at his will, who acted as
his agents for all purposes of civil government. The duties laid upon them
were not only fiscal, but judicial and military, the chief being to manage
the duke's estates situated within the vicomté, to collect the duke's rents
arising from them, whether in money or in kind, to lead the local levies
in time of war, to maintain order in time of peace, and to administer
justice in the name of the duke and collect the fines imposed on delinquents.
Besides the vicomtés there also existed in Normandy under Richard II
four or five districts distinguished as comtés (comitatus). These were the
comtés of Mortain, of the Hiesmois, of Évreux, of Brionne, and of Eu.
They were clearly appanages in the hands of the duke's kinsmen; for under
Richard II the first was held by his second son, and the rest by his
brothers or nephews. In area these comtés were not more extensive than
the vicomtés, nor were their revenues greater. The difference between the
two jurisdictions lay in the fact that in the comtés the duke retained no
important estates in his own possession and left the local administration
to the counts, whereas in the vicomtés he always owned several estates of
importance, and as often as not one or more castles as well for their
protection. A vicomté indeed might easily be changed into a comté, as
was the vicomté of Arques shortly after Richard's death simply as the
result of a grant transferring the ducal interests there to William of
Arques, who was the duke's illegitimate son; and then become a vicomté
again upon the death or forfeiture of the grantee. In no instance, however,
CH, XV.


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486
The ducal revenue. The secular clergy
be it noted had a comté ever been set up in Normandy in favour of a baron
who was unrelated to the ducal house.
Besides telling us something about the officials of Richard's day, his
monastic charters also throw a faint light on the machinery of government.
For example, they shew fairly clearly that there was already in existence
an organised ducal treasury. They not only refer to the fiscus dominicus,
but make a distinction between the regular revenues of the fiscus and the
occasional or extraordinary revenues of the camera. For example, in 1025
the monks of Fécamp were granted the tithe of the duke's camera, and a
hundred pounds from the same source was at another time given to the
monks of Saint-Bénigne at Dijon. Special dues levied from market towns
and on the profits of the duke's mint are also mentioned. For example,
we hear of the tolls from the burgus of Caen, and also of the tolls of
Falaise, Argentan, Exmes, Arques, and Dieppe. Rights of jurisdiction, on
the other hand, and immunities are not so clearly referred to. In the
charters granted to the monks of Saint-Ouen, Jumièges, Fécamp, and
Bernai, there are clauses it is true which somewhat obscurely guarantee
to each abbey the possession of its endowments “free from disturbance
by any secular or judicial powers,” but what this implied is doubtful.
These slight hints of course do not enable us to form any clear picture
of the administrative system under Richard II, but they go some way to
form a basis from which discussion may start. The fact too that these
charters of Richard II do not deal in vague generalities, but are charac-
terised by preciseness and a good deal of detail, adds considerably to their
value. On the other hand, being solely concerned with monastic privileges
they leave us entirely in the dark as to the relations of the duke with the
bishops and secular clergy of the province, and with the mass of the
feudal vassals, both matters which are of capital importance for the
understanding of Norman conditions. To obtain any light on such
questions, we must go outside the monastic charters; but, as there are no
written laws whether secular or ecclesiastical to turn to as in England,
we have only the very scrappy and obscure information to rely on which
can be gleaned from the narratives of the few chroniclers who collected
the traditions as to Richard's reign some two or three generations later.
As regards the bishops, one point, at any rate, emerges clearly, namely,
their practical subordination to the duke. Unlike many bishops in other
parts of France or in Germany, not one of the seven bishops of Normandy
was uncontrolled master and lord of his episcopal city, still less of any
county or jurisdiction attached to it. Each bishop had a vicomte by his
side as a rival power reminding him of the duke's authority. In Rouen
itself there was a vicomte of the city, and the archbishop apparently had
no special burgus of his own exempt from the vicomte's interference.
Again, in the matter of appointing bishops the duke paid the scantiest
attention to the wishes of the cathedral clergy; for the most part he
regarded bishoprics as scarcely differing from lay fiefs, and when vacancies


## p. 487 (#533) ############################################

The lay baronies
487
occurred bestowed them, wherever it was possible, on his kinsmen. Richard
the Fearless, for example, shortly before his death appointed his younger
son Robert to the archbishopric of Rouen. Robert was already Count of
Évreux, and he held both offices for nearly fifty years. At his death in
1037 his comté descended to his son Richard, while the archbishopric was
bestowed on Malger, a bastard son of Richard the Good. Once appointed,
the bishops in theory had considerable powers over the chapters of their
cathedral churches and over the parochial clergy, and, as regards some
moral offences, over the laity as well; for we meet with references to the
Episcopales Consuetudines and to the jurisdiction exercised by arch-
deacons, and see the monks constantly endeavouring to withdraw their
lands and tenants from the bishop's jurisdiction. In the duke's view,
however, the bishops enjoyed their authority rather by his leave and
license than as an indefeasible right arising under the universal law of
the Church; and if there was any doubt or dispute as to the extent of
a bishop's powers, it was brought before the duke and settled by his
authority.
The position of the laity, whether the military classes or the peasantry,
cannot be very summarily dealt with. As to the former, three obscure
problems confront the inquirer. They may be stated as follows: firstly,
on what conditions of tenure did the substantial landowners hold their
estates? secondly, how large were the ordinary baronies, that is to say,
the baronies held by men who could claim no kinship with the duke? and
thirdly, had any precise amount of military service been already fixed for
each barony? As to tenure, we find that an estate in some cases would be
referred to as an alodus, in some cases as a beneficium, in others as a feulum.
The contrast, however, between these tenures is evidently vanishing, and
the one is no more precarious in its nature than the other. The “alod” in
particular no longer, as in earlier days, implied absolute ownership. It
was held of a lord, and the allodial owner, if he wished to dispose of it,
had to obtain the lord's consent. The lord, on the other hand, was free
to dispose of his rights over the allodial owner to a third person. We find
Richard II, for instance, giving the monks of Saint-Wandrille an "alod”
which he describes as held of himself by tenants named Osbern and
Ansfred. Again, though Richard II alludes in one of his charters for
Fécamp first to certain hereditates quas paterno iure ( fideles mei) posside-
bant, and afterwards to certain beneficia quae nostri iuris erant, there-
by seeming to imply that there was some contrast between them, it is
evident that in general the fiefs whether of the barons or their knights
were held on hereditary tenure, and were neither estates for life nor
estates at will. It seems clear too that there was no attempt as yet, on
the part of the duke, to insist that fiefs were indivisible. In the absence
of any special agreement, when a succession occurred, all the sons had
rights in the inheritance and, in default of sons, daughters might inherit
even the largest fiefs. It is not so clear what happened if the heirs were
CH. XV.


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488
A typical Norman fief
under
age. In one case Richard II seems to dispose of the hand of a
vassal's daughter; but our sources are too scanty to inform us whether
the so-called feudal incidents of later times, the right of the lord to
reliefs, wardships, and marriage, had as yet been systematically introduced.
Evidence as to the size of the baronies is also scarce; but by good
fortune we have a fairly detailed description of the barony of a certain
Géré, which seems typical of the medium-sized Norman fief. This is pre-
served in the remarkable account given of the origins of the monastery
of Saint-Évroul by Ordericus Vitalis, a monk of that house, who wrote
only a century after Richard II's death, and who piously put on record
all the traditions which he could collect about the ancestors of the men
who had founded the monastery in 1050. Géré, who was of Breton
descent, began his career as a vassal of the lords of Bellême, holding lands
on the southern frontier of Normandy and in Maine, with a castle at
Saint-Céneri on the river Sarthe near Alençon. While still a young man,
he came under the notice of Richard II, who granted him in addition the
barony of a Norman named Heugo, situated in the southern part of the
diocese of Lisieux in the district of Ouche. The demesne lands of this
barony, as described by Ordericus, consisted of about half-a-dozen detached
manors spread out over thirty miles of wooded and hilly country, the
chief being Montreuil and Échauffour, the one lying north and the other
south of the site of Saint-Évroul. Even in his own district Géré had many
formidable neighbours, of whom the chief were the Count of Brionne and
the lord of Montgomeri; but none the less he is put before us as a man
of some importance, whose daughters all married well, whose sons after
his death were able to stand up against the Count of Brionne, and who
himself was rich enough to build and endow six parish churches for the
use of his tenantry. Compared with the estates of many a king's thegn in
England, Géré's barony was clearly insignificant; but this only emphasises
the fact that Normandy was quite a small principality, in which there
was no room for really large fiefs, and in which the great majority of the
duke's vassals were men of quite moderate estate, more or less on an
equality with each other. To shew that Géré's barony really may be
regarded as a fair specimen of the medium Norman fief, we have to rely
on much later evidence, namely, the returns to the inquest ordered in
1172 to ascertain what services were then due to the Duke of Normandy
from his various barons. In these returns! we are informed that the
barony of Montreuil and Échauffour still belonged to the house of Saint-
Céneri, that the number of knights holding of it was twenty, and that its
lord owed the duke the service of five knights. If, however, we analyse
the whole of the returns collected in 1172, we find that the total number
of knights enfeoffed on the Norman baronies, after allowing for some
missing returns, was about 1800 knights; that the total service due to
the duke from all the baronies put together was about 800 knights, and
1 Red Book of the Exchequer, p. 645.


## p. 489 (#535) ############################################

The system of knight's fees
489
that, though there were some two dozen larger baronies which owed the
duke the service of ten to twenty knights each, the great mass of the
baronies were no larger than Géré's and owed the duke either a service of
five knights, like the barony of Montreuil and Échauffour, or even a
smaller service. In the period of 150 years between 1025 and 1172, we
must, of course, allow for the break-up and reconstitution of some of the
Norman baronies; but, as there is no good reason to suppose that the
majority of them were materially altered in either extent or character
during that time, this later evidence, besides testifying to the size of the
baronies, gives us a much-needed means of estimating roughly what
number of fully-armed mounted knights could take the field when
summoned for service by Richard II. And this is a matter of some
importance, if we are to have any just idea of Norman conditions; for
historians have often spoken, when describing Normandy, as if the Norman
dukes could rely on several thousands of knights, whereas in all prob-
ability in the middle of the eleventh century the number of fully-equipped
knights existing in the duchy can hardly have exceeded twelve hundred.
It is a further question how many of this total were really bound to render
the duke service on expeditions outside the limits of the duchy. As
already stated, in 1172 the duke only claimed to be entitled to the
service of some 800 knights, though by that date his barons had sub-
enfeoffed more than double that number of knights on their lands. It
seems hardly probable that any of the earlier dukes could claim the
service of a larger body; for if so, then, as the duchy grew more populous
and more organised, the liability to find knights for offensive purposes
must have been reduced. But this we can hardly believe; and it is
altogether more reasonable to assume that the obligation to provide
800 knights or thereabouts for the duke's service was an arrangement
made in quite early days and applied in the middle of the eleventh
century as well as in the middle of the twelfth. On the other hand, we
can hardly assume that the precise number of knights, twenty, fifteen, ten,
five, and so on, due in 1172 from individual baronies, had been fixed for
each by the end of Richard's reign. Such fixed quotas might indeed have
been agreed upon at any date; but in the case of the lay baronies their
continuance unaltered over a long period of years seems hardly feasible,
so long as inheritances were regarded as divisible among sons. The
maintenance of fixed quotas of service seems in fact bound up with the
adoption of primogeniture as the rule of succession to land, and with the
development of the doctrines that fiefs were indivisible and that younger
sons, to share in the succession at all, must become under-tenants of the
eldest son. Exactly when these customs were introduced, it is impossible
to say. There are indications, however, that fixed quotas of service had
been imposed on some of the ecclesiastical baronies by the middle of the
eleventh century.
Lastly, a few words may be hazarded about the peasantry and other
CH. XV,


## p. 490 (#536) ############################################

490
The peasantry. Death of Richard II
classes below the grade of knights. As in the rest of the feudal world,
the general body of the peasantry in Normandy were tied to the soil and
in return for their holdings were bound to labour on the demesnes of
their lords and render them in addition many special dues and services.
There were, however, it would seem, on Norman estates very few actual
slaves who could be treated merely as chattels; and this has been held to
differentiate Normandy from other French districts, as it certainly dis-
tinguishes it from southern England. In Norman legal documents the
ordinary term for a peasant tied to the soil is either villanus, conditionarius,
or colonus, but a considerable class, described as hospites, is also frequently
referred to. It may be presumed from their name that this latter class,
in theory at any rate, had originally not been tied to the soil in the same
way as the villani, but the evidence about them is too scanty to say to
what extent it was still possible for them to move from one lordship to
another. The real difference in Richard's day may have been that, unlike
the villani, they were not bound to regular week-work, but only rendered
the lord occasional services, like the sokemen or radmanni in England.
Finally, above the hospites came the vavassores or smaller freeholders.
These men seem to have been bound to military service, like the knights;
but most of them served in war-time on foot, not being individually
wealthy enough to provide themselves with a knight's full equipment.
Groups of vavassors, however, might in some instances be jointly liable
to provide a fully-armed knight to serve in the field for them. Lastly,
there was a small class engaged in industry and commerce, for the Normans
had inherited the trading spirit from their Norse ancestors. These men
dwelt chiefly in the seven episcopal cities and in the duke's burgus of
Caen. Outside these eight towns there were as yet, so far as we can tell,
no urban centres of any importance; such places as Lillebonne, Fécamp,
Arques, Eu, Argentan, Falaise, Mortain, and other sites of castles, indeed
had their markets, but these places still remained essentially rural in
character and their inhabitants are not referred to as “burgenses. "
Duke Richard II died in 1026, leaving two legitimate sons by his
Breton wife Judith. The elder son, Richard III, only survived his father
a year, dying, it is hinted, by poison. The younger son, Robert I, who
must have been born about 1010 and who had been made titular Count
of the Hiesmois, the district with Falaise for its centre, then succeeded
and ruled as duke from 1027 to 1035. At first he was influenced by evil
counsellors, and indulged in planning foolish schemes, such as a raid on
England in the interest of his cousin, the exiled Aetheling Edward; but
this was frustrated by a storm. Tradition also has it that he might have
married the widowed Estrith, Knut's semi-Swedish, semi-Danish half-
sister, who must have been some ten years his senior, but he neglected
Knut's overtures. He began, however, as he grew older, to shew his
family's normal ability, and he quite came to the front in French politics
in 1031, when he helped Henry I, the new King of France, to secure his


## p. 491 (#537) ############################################

Normandy under Robert I
491
throne in despite of the Queen-mother and the Count of Blois, who
wished to set him aside. In return for this service, King Henry is said
to have ceded to Robert the mesne feudal suzerainty over the barons of
the French Vexin, the district between the Epte and the Oise, which
ecclesiastically was part of the diocese of Rouen; but in the end this grant
remained inoperative, being always ignored by the Counts of Mantes, who
were determined to remain direct vassals of the French crown. Duke
Robert, like his father, was as a rule well disposed to the reforming party
in the Church, and is represented as placing much reliance on the counsels
of Richard, the famous Abbot of St Vannes near Verdun, while Odilo, the
fourth Abbot of Cluny, is found witnessing one of his charters. Robert
too, in spite of his short career, was a builder of monasteries, being the
founder of the abbey of St Vigor at Cerisy and also of the first Norman
nunnery, which he placed at Montevilliers near the mouth of the Seine.
Cerisy and Mont-Saint-Michel, it should be noted, were as yet the only
monasteries founded in the western half of Normandy; but whereas the
famous Mount, lying on the very confines of Brittany, hardly extended
its influence beyond the Avranchin, Cerisy, lying twelve miles west of
Bayeux, was well placed for influencing both the Bessin and the Cotentin.
Charters still in existence further shew that Robert's liberality was not
confined to his own foundations. Though they unfortunately add little
to our knowledge of Norman institutions, they attest Robert's interest in
Fécamp, Mont-Saint-Michel, Saint-Ouen, Jumièges, and Saint-Wandrille,
as well as in the cathedrals of Rouen and Avranches. More important
still, they reveal the fact that a desire to found monasteries was now
beginning to arise among the greater Norman barons, and that the move-
ment was encouraged by ducal approval. This is a most noticeable
development and led to three non-ducal monasteries being founded, La
Trinité-du-Mont at Rouen in 1030 by the vicomte of Arques, Préaux
near Pontaudemer by Humphrey de Vetulis of Beaumont in 1034, and a
third on the fief of Gilbert, Count of Brionne, by his knight Herluin.
This last was shortly afterwards moved to Bec near Brionne, and in a
very few years became one of the leading centres of piety and learning in
northern France. An equally important event, but of a different kind,
which also befell in Robert's reign, was the founding of the first Norman
principality in South Italy. Ever since 1016, bands of Normans had
been taking a part in the conflicts between the Lombards and the Greeks
and Saracens. The Greek armies, we are told, disappeared before them
“as meat before devouring lions. ” Consequently they were much prized
as allies by the Princes of Salerno and other Italian barons. About 1030,
however, they set up a petty state of their own at Aversa just north of
Naples, a small beginning, but one destined to have important conse-
quences, like the founding of Bec. In these adventures Duke Robert
took no part personally, but in 1034 he determined to follow the example
of Fulk Nerra of Anjou and see the world by making a pilgrimage to
CH. XV


## p. 492 (#538) ############################################

492
The minority of William the Bastard
Jerusalem. Pilgrimages to the Holy Land had at this date become quite
common undertakings for Frenchien; but in Robert's case it entailed a
difficulty, for being still unmarried he had no direct heir who would
automatically take his place if he did not return. He had, however, when
only Count of the Hiesmois, formed an irregular union with a low-born
maiden named Arlette, the daughter of Fulbert a tanner of Falaise, and
had by her a son named William. For this bastard son, who was now
about seven years of age, and for Arlette, Robert had a great affection,
and he was determined that the boy should be his successor, especially as
his legitimate heir, his sister's son, was a Burgundian and even younger
than William, while his own half-brothers, Malger and William, were
both illegitimate. He therefore summoned a council and proposed to his
barons that they should undertake to accept his bastard son, should
misfortune befall him on his travels. This, it appears, they consented to
do, though doubtless the proposal was distasteful to some of them. Where-
upon four guardians of the duchy were chosen to conduct the government
for the little William, should his father fail to return. The guardians
selected were Gilbert, Count of Brionne, Osbern the duke's seneschal,
Thorold of Neufmarché, probably the duke's constable, and Alan, Count
of Rennes, the duke's cousin. Approval for these arrangements was also
obtained from the King of France as overlord of Normandy.
As Duke
Robert was only about 25 years old and in perfect health, it perhaps did
not seem probable that the question of the succession would become of
immediate importance. Robert's journey, however, turned out to be an
ill-fated one. He reached Jerusalem safely, but fell ill at Nicaea in Asia
Minor, on his way home, and died there on 2 July 1035.
As soon as Robert's death was reported in Normandy,feudal turbulence
broke out in most parts of the duchy. The young William was, it is true,
proclaimed duke without demur, for the barons never anticipated that in
a few years the bastard would become their unchallenged master, still
less that their children would one day acclaim Arlette's child as the
Conqueror of England. What they looked forward to was the possibility
of exploiting a long minority in their own interests. William's guardians,
it would appear, tried to do their duty to their ward; but how critical
the times were can be seen from the fact that at least three of them came to
violent ends, Osbern the seneschal being actually assassinated in William's
bed-chamber by a member of the house of Montgomery. It is by no
means clear who took charge of William's education after the deaths of
his guardians. Some writers think that he became a ward of the King of
France; but it is equally probable that he was protected by the Archbishop
of Rouen, who naturally desired to have control of the boy duke's
ecclesiastical powers and who was at the same time his most prominent
kinsman. At the date of William's accession to the dukedom the
archbishopric was still held by his great-uncle Robert, who was also
Count of Évreux. But Robert died in 1037 and was succeeded in the


## p. 493 (#539) ############################################

Feudal plots. Battle of Val-des-Dunes
493
archbishopric by William's uncle Malger. Now it was under Malger's
auspices in 1042 that the “Truce of God” for limiting private war to
three days in the week under pain of severe ecclesiastical penalties was
first proclaimed in Normandy, a circumstance which at any rate shews
that he busied himself with the suppression of feudal turbulence. And if
he was active in that direction, the further inference that he took upon
himself the protection and education of his nephew seems fairly justifiable.
The promotion of Malger's younger brother William to be Count of
Arques at this time also points the same way; and so does the appointment
of Ralf de Wacy to lead the duke's men against Thurstan Goz, the
vicomte of the Hiesmois, who had treacherously seized Falaise; for Ralf
was a younger son of Archbishop Robert and Malger's first cousin. Ralf
de Wacy himself had rather an evil reputation; but a certain amount
of calm nevertheless seems to have followed on his appointment, and it is
interesting to note that three more baronial monasteries arose about this
time, the first being founded at Conches by Roger de Toeni, standard-
bearer of Normandy, the second at Lire by William the son of the murdered
seneschal Osbern, and the third at Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives by Lescelina,
Countess of Eu. It was also during this period that Robert, Abbot of
Jumièges, was summoned to England by King Edward to become Bishop
of London, and that Robert Guiscard left his village home at Hauteville
near Coutances to seek his fortune in Apulia and become the founder of
the principality which in due time grew into the kingdom of Sicily. It
is not, however, till 1047, when Duke William had reached the age of
twenty, that we really get any precise news about him personally. By
that time it is clear that the more turbulent barons, especially those whose
fiefs lay in the Bessin and the Cotentin, were beginning to be afraid of
him, with the result that an organised movement was set on foot for
getting rid of him on the ground of his bastard birth, and substituting
in his place his Burgundian cousin Guy, who already had a footing in the
duchy as lord of Brionne and Vernon. The leaders of this movement
were Ralf of Briquessart and Nigel of Saint-Sauveur, who were respectively
vicomtes of the Bessin and the Cotentin. They began operations by
trying to capture William by treachery at Valognes. William, however,
was warned in the nick of time; and making his escape rode right across
Normandy to Poissy near Paris to ask for help from the King of France.
King Henry was not unwilling to repay the service which he had himself
received in like circumstances from William's father sixteen years before,
and so William was enabled before long to take the field against the rebels
at the head of a mixed force of Normans and Frenchmen with King
Henry at his side. The rival forces met at Val-des-Dunes, a few miles east
of Caen, and the day ended in a complete victory for the Bastard, who
soon followed it up by taking Brionne and driving Guy of Burgundy out
of Normandy.
The victory of Val-des-Dunes marks William's accession to power, and
CH. XV.


## p. 494 (#540) ############################################

494
William and his kinsmen. His marriage
a year later he still further enhanced his fame by leading a large band of
Norman knights into Anjou to assist King Henry in an attack on Geoffrey
Martel. On this expedition he shewed such daring in the field and such
skill as a military leader that Geoffrey Martel himself declared that there
could nowhere be found so good a knight as the Duke of Normandy.
Having made such a successful début, William was not the man to
let the grass grow under his feet, but quickly set to work to make it
clear to all who were in any way inclined to thwart him that he “recked
nought of them and that if they would live or would keep their lands or
would be maintained in their rights they must will all that he willed. ” If
not, whether kinsman or vassal, bishop or monk, rich or poor, he would
sweep them from his path, sparing no man. The first to feel the
weight of his wrath were his kinsmen, William Count of Mortain, Wil-
liam Busac of Eu, and William Count of Arques. In turn they all chal-
lenged the duke's authority, and for their temerity were deprived of
their estates and driven into exile, the first to Apulia, the second to
Boulogne, and the third to the court of the French King. Shortly
afterwards William also fell foul of Archbishop Malger. The quarrel
arose primarily because William resented the attitude which the leaders
of the Church had taken up in the matter of his marriage. As early as
1048, William made overtures to the Count of Flanders, Baldwin V, for
the hand of his daughter Matilda. The Count approved of the match,
but on some obscure grounds the clergy objected to it, and bringing the
matter before Pope Leo IX at the Council of Rheims in 1049, obtained
a decree forbidding William and Matilda to marry. As soon, however,
as William heard in 1053 that Pope Leo had been beaten and taken
prisoner at Civitate, he set the Church's ban at defiance, and boldly
married Matilda in the minster at Eu. Malger, who was smarting over
the outlawry of his brother the Count of Arques, thereupon excommu-
nicated William, with the result that two years later he was himself
deposed by a council summoned by William, on the charge that he
was too worldly a prelate, while his see was bestowed on Maurilius, a
monk of Fécamp. It was in the middle of this period of family strife
in 1051 that William visited England and came back believing, as he
afterwards declared, that he had received some sort of promise from his
kinsman King Edward that he would be nominated by him as his suc-
cessor. At the moment, of course, this promise could make no practical
difference to William's position. It was otherwise, however, with his
marriage to Matilda; for the alliance with Flanders upset the balance of
power in northern France and led Henry I to abandon the traditional
friendship of the Capetian house towards the lords of Rouen and to take
up the cause of William's dispossessed kinsmen. This new policy led to
two invasions of Normandy by French forces, but on both occasions
Henry's arms met with crushing defeats, in 1054 at Mortemer, not far
from Aumâle, and in 1058 at Varaville, near the mouth of the Dives.


## p. 495 (#541) ############################################

The acquisition of the county of Maine
495
These victories greatly increased William's confidence in himself, and
turned his thoughts towards enlarging his dominions at the expense of
his southern neighbours. Already in 1049 he had made a beginning by
seizing the hill-town of Domfront and the surrounding district of the Pas-
sais in the north-west corner of the county of Maine and annexing them
to Normandy; but in 1051 Geoffrey Martel had made further expansion in
this direction difficult by driving Herbert, the young Count of Maine, out
of his patrimony, and annexing his territories to Anjou. After the victory
of Mortemer William advanced beyond Domfront another twelve miles
into Maine and built a castle at Ambrières in defiance of Geoffrey.
This was a serious menace to Geoffrey of Mayenne, the leading baron of
western Maine, who appealed to Geoffrey Martel for assistance; but
their united efforts to demolish the fortress only led to the capture of
Geoffrey of Mayenne, who, a little later, was forced to do homage to
William for his lands in order to regain his freedom. In eastern Maine,
however, where lay the see and castle of Le Mans and the chief
demesnes of the count, Geoffrey Martel's position remained unaffected,
and the most William could do was to prepare for the future by be-
trothing his infant son Robert to Count Herbert's infant sister Margaret,
with the understanding that Herbert's right to Maine, if he died child-
less, should pass to the heir of Normandy as Margaret's destined husband.
In 1060 both Henry of France and Geoffrey of Anjou died, and the way
became open for Count Herbert to recover his patrimony. But in 1062
Herbert also died, whereupon William at once advanced down the valley
of the Sarthe and occupied Le Mans in Margaret's name, in opposition
to the wishes of the inhabitants, who rose in favour of Herbert's aunt
Biota, the wife of Walter, Count of Mantes. A year later the little
Margaret died before any marriage had taken place between her and
Robert. The only excuse for holding Le Mans therefore vanished; but
William none the less determined to retain his prize and shortly after-
wards himself assumed the title of Count of Maine. In normal times
this step would have provoked strong opposition both from the King of
France and the Count of Anjou; but Philip I, the new King of France,
was at the time a minor, and in the guardianship of William's father-in-
law, the Count of Flanders, while the Angevin inheritance was in dispute
between Geoffrey Martel's two nephews. William accordingly in 1064
had a free hand. His overlordship nevertheless was not really acceptable
to either the clergy or the barons of Maine, who, if they must submit
to a stranger, much preferred an Angevin master. In the long run,
therefore, the acquisition of the overlordship over Maine, partly by force
and partly by chicanery, brought William little real strength, though it
undoubtedly increased his reputation for luck and cunning. Meantime
on his eastern border William had also profited by the victory of
Mortemer to compel the Count of Ponthieu to do him homage; and
thus it came about that Harold was handed over to William and
CH. XV.


## p. 496 (#542) ############################################

496
The Norman Church under William
became his unwilling guest when he was wrecked in the count's
territory.
By 1065, then, William was a far more commanding French feudatory
than he had been in 1047. Within his duchy also he had taken steps
which greatly consolidated his authority. For example, he had fixed the
quotas of military service for his barons and rigidly enforced the rule
that no castle should be built without his leave; he had made his half-
brothers, Robert and Odo, the sons of Arlette by a marriage with
Herluin of Conteville, respectively Count of Mortain and Bishop of
Bayeux, and had bestowed on each of them very extensive fiefs. He
had also, in 1059, obtained a dispensation for his marriage from Pope
Nicholas II on the condition that he and his wife should each build and
endow a monastery. This reconciliation with the Church had been
negotiated in Rome by the Italian Prior of Bec, Lanfranc of Pavia, who,
in spite of his original opposition to William's marriage, had become his
closest friend and adviser. And this was very important, for Lanfranc
was not only the finest teacher of his day and renowned for his suc-
cessful disputations with the heretic Berengar, but was also a most subtle
lawyer and a statesman of genius. Born about 1008, he was some twenty
years older than William; but, once they had made friends, the differ-
ence of age and training was no bar to the completest sympathy arising
between them, and so a relationship arose which was of the utmost value
to William, as it put at his service one of the keenest and most practical
intellects in Europe. At the same time, it must not be thought that either
William's reconciliation with the Papacy or his friendship for Lanfranc
had made him in any way abandon the claims of his ancestors to be supreme
over the Norman clergy. On the contrary, in 1065 there was hardly
any continental Church so much under the control of the secular power
as that of Normandy. Not only did the duke nominate all the Norman
bishops and invest them with their privileges, but he was regularly
present at the meetings of Church councils and no ecclesiastical decrees
were issued without his sanction. His influence over the clergy, however,
seems to have been almost wholly a good one. For just as he himself
in his private life was an earnest and religious man and an exemplary
husband, so in his public capacity, as protector of the Church, he took
the greatest pains to foster discipline and piety among the parish priests,
and saw to it that the prelates whom he selected were men of learning
and character who would do their best to promote reforms and rebuke
evil-doers. He also took an active part in broadening the range of
monastic influence. In obedience to the Pope's decree, he set himself
about building two monasteries at Caen, one for men and the other for
women, and he did his best further to improve discipline and learning
in the older ducal abbeys. His example too was an incentive to several
of his greater vassals, with the result that some six or seven baronial
minsters were founded between 1050 and 1065. The chief of these were


## p. 497 (#543) ############################################

William prepares to invade England, 1066
497
St Évroul and Cormeilles in the diocese of Lisieux, St Martin at Séez,
and Troarn near Val-des-Dunes in the Bessin, the last two, it should be
noted, both being founded by Roger of Montgomery. Normandy could
therefore boast in 1065 of twenty-one monasteries for men, eight of
which were in the patronage of the duke and thirteen in the patronage
of the leading barons. There was, however, still no monastic foundation
in the diocese of Coutances.
The foregoing sketch of the development of Normandy and of Wil-
liam's career down to 1066 has been given in order to shew clearly the
nature of the risks deliberately accepted by Harold when he seized the
English crown. However contident he might be that he could deal with
the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria—and he at once tried to conciliate
them by marrying their sister Ealdgyth—Harold knew that his most
dangerous rival was William and that it would be very difficult to come
to terms with him. Nor did William long leave any one in doubt as to
his intentions. As soon as he heard of Harold's coronation, he sent
messengers to England, reminding him of his oath and demanding his
allegiance. At the same time he proclaimed to all the world that Harold
was a usurper, and sent envoys to Pope Alexander II denouncing Harold
as a perjurer and asking for a blessing on his proposed invasion of
England. To this appeal the Pope gave a favourable ear; for the Eng-
lish Church in the eyes of the Curia was much in need of reform, and
might well be brought by such an expedition more under papal authority.
Alexander, therefore, by the advice of Archdeacon Hildebrand, sent
William a consecrated banner as a token of his approbation, and thus
gave the duke's piratical adventure almost the character of a holy
war. Pending the result of their negotiations, William summoned a
council of his barons to meet at Lillebonne, and asked them to support
his enterprise. It was only with difficulty that they were persuaded to
help him. Feudal law gave the duke no right to call for their services
out of France, and to most of them it seemed doubtful whether a suf-
ficiently strong force could be got together for so great an undertaking,
or, even if got together, whether it would be possible to build and man
sufficient transports to carry it across the Channel. The first objection
was met by asking for volunteers from outside Normandy and promising
them a share in the plunder of England. And as for the second objec-
tion, William would not listen to it for a moment, but ordered transports
to be built in all parts of the duchy and stores of arms and provisions
to be made ready by harvest time. In these deliberations the most
active advocate of the duke's project was his seneschal William Fitz
Osbern, who perhaps knew something of southern England at first hand,
as his brother Osbern Fitz Osbern already held an ecclesiastical post in
Sussex, being Dean of Bosham, together with an estate in Cornwall".
The appeal for volunteers soon brought adventurous spirits from all
Domesday 1, 17 a. Boseham; 121 b. Stratone.
1
C. MED. H. VOL. V. CH. XV.
32


## p. 498 (#544) ############################################

498
The strength of the Norman army
quarters to William's standard. The largest number are said to have
come from Brittany, led by Brian and Alan of Penthièvre; but the
number of Flemings was almost as great. There were also strong con-
tingents from Artois and Picardy, while Eustace of Boulogne, who had
a long-standing feud with the house of Godwin, offered his services in
person. On the other hand very little help came from Maine or Anjou,
and only a handful of knights from more distant parts, such as Cham-
pagne, Poitou, or Apulia. One would fain know the total number of
William's host, but as usual the figures given by the chroniclers are
merely rhetorical. Several considerations, however, strictly limit the pos-
sible numbers. In the first place, we can be sure that the Norman con-
tingents outnumbered the auxiliaries from other parts. But, as we have
already seen, it is very unlikely that Normandy at this time could put more
than 1200 knights into the field. Again, the Bayeux poet Wace, who
describes the expedition in great detail in Roman de Rou, a metrical
chronicle written about 1172, states that his father had told him that
the number of transports of all kinds was not quite seven hundred; and,
as the Bayeux tapestry testifies, the largest of these were only open barges,
with one square sail, not capable of holding more than a dozen horses,
while the majority were still smaller and less capacious? . It seems then
that the most plausible number we can assume for William's army is
somewhere round about 5000 men. Somewhere about 2000 of these were
probably fully-equipped knights with trained horses, of whom about 1200
hailed from Normandy and about 800 from other districts, while the
remaining 3000 men would be made up by contingents of footmen and
archers and the crews who manned the ships. In that age, however, even
5000 men were an almost fabulously large force to collect and keep
embodied for any length of time, nor were there any precedents for
attempting to transport a large body of cavalry across the sea. No viking
leaders had ever done that. Their fleets had only carried warriors, and
their first operation after landing had always been to seize horses from
the invaded territory. William's knights, on the contrary, must have
their own trained horses; and so William had to provide for bringing
over at least 2500 horses in addition to his men, and this too in small
open boats which were unable to beat to windward; nor could he reckon
on any docking accommodation, either for embarking or disembarking
them. The mere crossing of the Channel, then, would be a remarkable
and very novel feat; and if the weather turned stormy or the tide were
missed, a very hazardous one. Nothing indeed brings out the duke's
prestige so plainly as the fact that he was able to persuade his followers
to take so tremendous a risk. By harvest time, as arranged, his prepara-
tions were fairly complete, and the contingents from western Normandy
1 The reasonableness of Wace's figure is strikingly illustrated by William of
Malmesbury's statement that in 1142 the Earl of Gloucester used 52 ships to trans-
port some 360 knights from Cherbourg to Wareham.


## p. 499 (#545) ############################################

Harold defeats Harold Hardrada
499
and Brittany lay ready with their transports at the mouth of the Dives'.
There they remained windbound for four weeks, and it was only in the
middle of September that they were able to move eastwards to Saint-Valery
in the estuary of the Somme and join the contingents from eastern Nor-
mandy and Picardy. At Saint-Valery the invaders were about 60 miles as
the crow flies from the Sussex coast, instead of about 105 miles as they
would have been had they started from the Dives; but still there was no
sign of a fair wind for England, and whispers began to spread that
William's luck had deserted him.
Meantime, events were taking place in England which greatly
improved William's chances. All through the summer Harold had kept
both men and ships in readiness on the south coast for William's coming.
But when September came the men insisted on going to their homes to
see after the harvest. Scarcely, however, had they disbanded, when
Harold received the unwelcome tidings that his exiled brother Tostig in
alliance with Harold Hardrada, the great warrior-King of Norway, had
entered the Humber with a large fleet and was threatening York. Harold
at once got together his house-carls and such other men as he could lay
hands on, and started to cover the 200 miles between London and York
by forced marches to succour the Yorkshiremen. Before he reached
Tadcaster, news arrived that the Earls Edwin and Morkere had been de-
feated at Fulford outside York, that the city had submitted, and that
the invaders had moved off eastwards to plunder Harold's own manor
of Catton by Stamford Bridge on the Derwent? Harold accordingly
marched past York and fell on the invaders by surprise. A long and
desperate fight ensued, in which both Harold Hardrada and Tostig were
killed, while only a remnant of their men survived to regain their ships
and betake themselves home. This splendid victory was gained on
Monday, 25 September, and at any other time would have made Harold's
position secure. Almost at the same time William at Saint-Valery, in total
ignorance of what Harold was doing, was organising processions of relics
to intercede for more favourable weather. In most years equinoctial gales
might have been expected, but suddenly fate smiled upon him. The
weather became fine, the wind veered round to the right quarter, and on
Thursday, 28 September, he was able to embark all his men and horses.
By nightfall all was ready, but he still had to wait for the tide. The
actual start was not made till near midnight, William leading the way
with a lantern at his mast-head in the Mora, a fast-sailing craft which
had been specially fitted out for him by his wife. The probable intention
was to land near Winchelsea in the great manor of Brede (Rameslie),
which for over 40 years had been in the possession of the monks of
i William of Poitiers states that the whole armament was first assembled at the
Dives. It would, however, have been senseless to bring the eastern contingents so
far west, only to lengthen the crossing.
Domesday 1, 305a. Cattune.
2
CH, XV.
32--2


## p. 500 (#546) ############################################

500
Battle of Hastings, 1066
Fécamp by the gift of Knut and Emma'. The wind and tide, however,
carried the Aotilla farther to the west, and in the morning William
found himself off the small haven of Pevensey, with no obstacle to bar
his entrance. Pevensey itself at this time was a small borough of 52
burgesses ? ; but they could only look on helplessly while William's trans-
ports were one by one beached and unloaded. Once safe ashore, no time
was lost in moving eastwards to the larger borough of Hastings, where
orders were immediately given for the building of a castle.
On the news of William's landing being brought to York, Harold at
once rode south to London to collect fresh forces, leaving Edwin and
Morkere to follow. Many of his best house-carls had fallen at Stamford
Bridge, but a very powerful force of thegns could soon have been mustered
from the shires south of the Welland and Avon if only Harold would
have played a waiting game. He was, however, in no mood to remain on
the defensive. He had just won a magnificent victory, and it seemed to
him a cowardly plan merely to stand by and let the invaders overrun his
native Sussex without hindrance. He therefore, after a few days' halt,
set out again, having with him only such levies as had hastily come in
from the districts nearest London. Passing through the Weald, he led
his forces towards Crowhurst and Whatlington, two villages lying north-
west of Hastings', which had formed part of his personal estates before
he became Earl of Wessex, and on 13 October, the eve of St Calixtus,
he encamped on an open ridge of down which lay midway between his
two properties some six miles from the sea. Early next day William,
eager to attack, marshalled his army near the high ground of Telham,
two miles away, and then advanced in three divisions having the Breton
contingents, say 1000 men, on the left, the Flemings and Frenchmen,
say 1000 men, on the right, and the Normans, say 2400 men, in the
centre. A slight valley intervened between the two armies, and across it
William could see Harold's forces posted in close formation several ranks
deep along the crest of the ridge, having a front of perhaps 500 yards.
The English in accordance with their national custom were all on foot,
the house-carls and thegns being armed with two-handed axes and kite-
shaped shields. Some of Harold's men, however, were just peasants, armed
only with javelins and stone-tipped clubs. The whole body probably out-
numbered the invaders, but Harold knew that he was at a great disad-
vantage in having very few archers, and no mounted troops to match
William's 2000 horsemen. He consequently gave his men orders to stand
strictly on the defensive, and on no account to leave their position, which
was one of advantage, as the enemy would have to attack up a fairly
Domesday 1, 17 a. Rameslie. Cf. also Haskins, EHR, Vol. xxxi (1918),
p. 342.
2 Domesday 1, 20b. Pevensel.
3 Domesday 1, 18 b. Crohest, Watlingetone.


## p. 501 (#547) ############################################

Death of Harold. The Normans advance on London 501
steep slope, whether in front or on the flanks! . William's men, undeterred
by that, came on steadily, the front ranks in each division being made up
of archers and cross-bowmen, followed by lines of heavily-armed footmen
(loricati), while the knights brought up the rear. For some hours all
attempts to storm the hill were in vain, and at one moment William had
great difficulty in preventing the Bretons from retreating in a panic. At
last, however, by the stratagem of a feigned flight on the right, a number
of the English were induced to rush down the hill in pursuit, whereupon
the Norman knights wheeled their horses round, and easily cut them to
pieces. This gave the opening which William was looking for. Renewing
the attack, slowly but surely the Norman knights pressed back the
depleted English shield-wall, until at last Harold was mortally wounded
by an arrow in his eye. For a space some leading thegns still held out
round the king's dragon standard ; but one by one they too were hewn
down, so that by nightfall the English army was reduced to a mere
leaderless rabble which scattered and fled into the woods. The disaster
to Harold's cause was complete. The deaths of his brothers, Earls Gyrth
and Leofwin, together with the slaughter of so many leading men, made it
impossible for the supporters of the house of Godwin in eastern Wessex
to make another stand. Duke William, on the other hand, was too
cautious to press on quickly; and it was not till five days after his
victory that he set out from Hastings to get possession of Canterbury,
moving by Romney and Dover. Meantime, in London, the leaders of the
English Church, headed by Stigand, acting in co-operation with the chief
landowners of the Midlands and the Eastern counties under the guidance
of Aesgar the Staller, the leading magnate in Essex, declared for setting
Edgar the Aetheling on the throne. In this decision Edwin and Morkere
outwardly acquiesced; but secretly the two earls were intriguing to
prevent the crowning of the young prince—he was hardly yet seventeen,
it would seem m-and they soon retired to their estates without summoning
their men to fight for him. Once more it was clearly shewn that the
English race had as yet developed no true national feeling. Perhaps
what the earls hoped for was a partition of the kingdom between
themselves and William, the duke contenting himself with Wessex.
While still at Canterbury, the news was brought to William that Queen
Edith and the men of Winchester were prepared to recognise him. This
made it safer for him to advance on London ; but before actually attack-
ing the city, he thought it more politic to secure as strong a foothold
as possible south of the Thames. He therefore marched past Southwark
and Kingston and up the Thames valley, harrying a wide belt of country,
until he came to the borough of Wallingford, at that time the chief
place in Berkshire. Crossing the Thames at this point, he doubled back
eastwards to Berkhampstead in Hertfordshire, so as to threaten London
1 Freeman's view, that the English line was protected by a palisade, has been
strenuously contested by Mr Round, and seems quite untenable.
CH. XV.


## p. 502 (#548) ############################################

502
London submits. William crowned
from the north-west and cut it off from possible succour from the Mid-
lands.