Bayeux Tapestry guides new account of the Battle of Hastings

Trying to work out where the Battle of Hastings was really fought is evidently a fascinating pastime. Among those fascinated enough to undertake their own research is retired civil servant Kevin Casey, who claims the distinction of detecting that the battle was fought in two stages, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, at two different locations. He explained his version of events to Nick Terdre.

Kevin Casey caught the Battle of Hastings bug when he lived in St Leonards, though he is now esconced on the other side of the North Sea on the west coast of Norway.

He was motivated to conduct his own investigation by the shortcomings he found, not only in the traditional account, but also some of the alternative theories as to where the battle was fought. These include Nick Austin’s claim for Crowhurst – among the drawbacks for this theory, he says, is that it requires Hastings to be relocated to Bulverhythe, where ships with no oars – the Normans removed the rowing benches from many of their longboats to make space for their horses – would somehow have had to navigate the small inlet between Harley Shute and Glyne Gap.

John Grehan’s claim for Caldbec Hill suffers from the lack of evidence found by the Time Team, and the mislocation of the Mountjoy area of Battle, where Casey reckons the first encounter between the English and the Normans took place, to the top of that hill.

He is also unconvinced by the traditional account, which he says seems to have been written by EA Freeman in the 19^th century, cherry-picking his way through the available evidence and blithely ignoring what did not fit in with his story.

Instead Casey takes as his starting point the story told by the Bayeux Tapestry, the 70-metre long embroidered cloth with visual depictions of events leading up to the Norman invasion and conquest, accompanied by brief captions in medieval Latin of what each scene shows (which he says has now left its home in Bayeux as it is prepared for its trip to the British Museum next year).

Worth 1,000 words

Subscribing to the old adage that “a picture is worth 1,000 words,” Casey believes that the tapestry is rich in information if you know how to read it, as it were, though he admits that it presents the victors’ version of history, so will be unreliable or partial in places.

The most relevant parts for his account are scenes 48 to 58, which describe events on the day of the battle. He pays particular attention to the terrain, whether flat ground or hilly, as a valuable help in identifying locations.

He also uses cross-referencing with Google Earth for the same purpose, and draws on relatively contemporary accounts written within a few years of the battle, such as Gesta Guillelmi, circa 1071, to others from 100 years or so later, such as Wace’s Roman de Rou (The History of the Norman People), circa 1180.

The details recorded in the tapestry were provided by monks who would indicate the time of day using the canonical divisions used by the church, such as tierce for 9am and sext for noon, which enabled him to allocate an approximate time of day to the actions depicted in the various scenes.

The Normans arrive

William’s army departed St Valery sur Somme on 27 September 1066 in a fleet of several hundred ships based on the Viking longboat design, but some, as mentioned, with the rowing benches removed to allow them to carry horses. On spotting the cliffs of Beachy Head, the fleet would have steered towards Pevensey (then the island of Pevens, ‘ey’ being a suffix related to the Norwegian word for island, ‘øy’) after spotting the old Roman fort.

While some men landed and attempted to bolster the Roman fort, the bulk of the fleet continued sailing to the east. The coast then was farther inland than now, and their trajectory would have taken them  through Waller’s Haven in what is now the Hailsham area to Little Standard Hill near Ninfield.

Here Casey believes the horses would have been disembarked – the stench after several days’ sailing would have been unbearable – and continued their journey overland, after first destroying the ships. A haul of nails was recently found in an area adjacent to Waller’s Haven by metal detectorists. “If these nails were analysed, I’m sure they would be ship’s nails,” Casey says.

Meanwhile the other ships would have carried on sailing east until they reached the Port of Hastings – located in the then existing inlet where the Priory Meadow shopping centre now stands. This, he believes, is where William would have stepped ashore, the place later marked by the building of a priory.

Eve of the battle

According to Casey, the Norman knights spent the eve of the battle in Hastings, as the commentary in scene 48 of the tapestry notes (in translation) “Here the knights have left Hastings and come to the battle against King Harold.” Meanwhile William appears to have been accommodated at the manor belonging to Fecamp Abbey at Guestling, to the east of Hastings, again in accordance with scene 48.

After examining the evidence, Casey concludes that the English forces spent the night before the battle in two separate places; the Huscarls, the well armed and armoured professional body of soldiers, in Beechdown Wood, to the north-west of Battle, and Harold and the Fyrd, the ordinary folk called up to fight for the King, many with makeshift weapons such as pitchforks, up at Netherfield, to the north of the Huscarls.

Why Beechdown Wood and not Caldbec Hill? Casey says, “Orderic Vitalis [a monk who wrote chronicles of the events of these times] in his account states that ALL rode up to the first battle…If the Huscarls were coming from Caldbec Hill as per the official narrative why would they mount their horses to go 400 yards or so in a hurry? The next location within sight of Telham Hill [where the Normans were spotted] is Beechdown Wood…”

First engagement

Scene 48 from the tapestry shows the knights riding off on the morning of 14 October, the day of the battle, while Scene 49 depicts a knight bringing the news that the English have been spotted to another mounted figure who is presumably William. The knights riding towards the English have ascended a hill.

Casey’s interpretation of the topography shown in the tapestry is that the knights rode over flat ground initially from Guestling, perhaps via Kent Street, and along an existing footpath which ascends to reach the A2100, The Ridge route into Battle, at about the location of the Black Horse pub, a little short of the left turn into Telham Lane. They would have mustered in the area of Telham Hill.

Scene 50 depicts the English, with a foot soldier informing the mounted Harold that the Normans had been seen.

The tapestry provides no clues as to where this first engagement took place, Casey says. It may be that the Huscarls formed up in the area of the roundabout where The Ridge road reaches Battle.

Scenes 51a, 51b and 52a show the first engagement which Casey puts at tierce, around 9am. 51a shows the Normans riding towards the English and 51b charging the enemy, accompanied by archers on foot.

52a shows the Huscarls, who had horses but chose to fight on foot, presenting their shield wall to the Normans but coming under attack also from the rear.

This is consistent with the account in the Chronicle of Battle Abbey according to which Eustace, Count of Boulogne, led an attack from the rear, Casey says. He notes that the tapestry depicts the terrain as flat, which would have put the English, on foot, at a disadvantage to the mounted Normans. In the event, they were wiped out, fighting to the last man as they had been trained to do.

Among those who died were Harold’s brothers Gyrth and Leofwine, natural successors to the throne in the event of Harold’s untimely demise.

Why are hardly any Norman infantrymen shown in the main scene depicting this engagement? They were there but apparently acquitted themselves poorly, and may therefore have been omitted (though they appear in the lower frieze of scene 52b).

Harold and the Fyrd are also missing from these scenes as they were actually not there. Casey suggests that the Huscarls were in effect sacrificed to give Harold time to prepare defences for the main force.

The main battle

The action now passes to the canonical division of none,’ about 3pm, with scenes 53 to 55 depicting the main engagement. The French knights mount an assault on the English Fyrd line, are repelled and routed, and, in scene 55, William lifts his visor to show he is still alive and fighting in order to rally his troops.

Scene 54 depicts the English soldiers standing on higher ground – in fact, as their lower legs cannot be seen, they appear to be on the far side of the crest of a ridge. This is mirrored, Casey says, by the ridge just inside the southern edge of Ashes Wood, where Netherfield Hill Road currently runs.

Scenes 56b, 57 and 58 show the English line being overrun, Harold killed and the slaughter that followed. Casey times this at vespers, around 6pm. The narrative depicted in the tapestry has a gap from William rallying his knights and their renewed assault on the English which eventually led to their defence lines being broken. It is one of several gaps in the tapestry’s account of the invasion and battle, Casey says.

There is hardly any reference to the Malfosse in the tapestry, Casey says, apart from at the very end of scene 58, and it is unclear what this is trying to show. In his sketch of the battlefield he has placed the Malfosse behind the English army, where French knights pursuing the fleeing English might have met an uncomfortable end.

Engaging with the Forestry Commission

In 2018 Casey took his case for Ashes Wood as the site of the main battle to the Forestry Commission, which owns the land, and when another researcher also suggested this area might be significant, their archeologist, along with the East Sussex county archeologist, agreed that it warranted investigation. The other researcher then withdrew their claim, the Forestry Commission’s archeologist moved to a different post, and their interest in the matter died down.

When Casey tried to get the archeologist’s replacement to follow up on previous undertakings, she said she could find no email record. Even when he supplied copies of the emails, she declined to take up the matter.

Casey believes he has put forward a credible version of events, taking guidance from the Bayeux Tapestry to trace a coherent narrative from among the mass of disparate accounts and claims. “I’m not saying my version of events is the correct one,” he says. “Only that I’ve done what most modern policemen are meant to do in an incident that involves multiple witnesses – take in all the accounts and come up with a plausible timeline to put before a judge and a jury of one’s peers.”

 

More on Kevin’s researches can be found in his blog.

The images from the Bayeux Tapestry are taken from the Wikipedia entry on the Latin captions and are in the public domain.

 

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