Malfosse

Malfosse

After many hours of thought, I came to the conclusion that the location of the Malfosse was unknowable. What everyone is faced with is a report from the Normans that while they were in hot pursuit of rapidly departing Saxons belonging to the Fyrd, they suffered an ambush where the ground disappeared from beneath their horse's feet and the riders were set upon by Saxon fighters.

While the report might have been good enough for their commanders, it does not help us in the future to discover where the clash took place.

The current thinking of English Heritage is, I'm led to believe, is that the battle took place in an area under the monastery and the area under the town with the Malfosse still in Oakwood Gill.

John Grehan also puts the Malfosse incident in Oakwood Gill, explaining it was closer to his choice of battle site than English Heritage's. Unfortunately for him, Time Team put the battle site adjacent to English Heritage's official site because they could find no evidence of the battle ever having taken place on either the official site or John's choice of Caldbec Hill.

I'd stopped looking when I chose my first site at the end of the ridge at Netherfield Down. Nowhere seemed to fit the bill. And there I left it until......

I started to look at the Bayeux Tapestry more closely. On page 192 of David M Wilson's book " The Bayeux Tapestry" he writes " .... Brown ( op cit. in note 113,pp 18ff. Cf. also [G.H. White]'The Battle of Hastings and the death of Harold', The Complete Peerage, xii,i, London 1953, Appendix L, p.42) has convincingly argued that the scene in pls. 65-66 of the tumbling horses represents the so-called Malfosse episode, following William of Malmesbury who may well have been placing his narrative on the tapestry. In this story the Normans were attacking the English, strongly positioned on a hill, and retreating in feigned flight (according to Henry of Huntingdon) into a concealed ditch. A defensive work of sharpened stakes is clearly seen beneath the fallen horses in pl. 65...."

So ask yourself this question. If you're running away on foot from men on horseback determined to hack you to pieces, do you stop, cut down suitable stakes, hammer them into the ground and then turn around to make a stand? No, you keep on running!

Another point to ponder is this. on pl.67 of D.M. Wilson's book " The Bayeux Tapestry ( Scene 54 in standard Bayeux Tapestry form) we have a two cavalryman attacking the back of the hill. Again ask yourself " If this is supposed to represent an ambush what the blue dickens are those cavalryman doing on the wrong side of the main fight?"

The last "frame" of the Tapestry as we have it shows a group of horsemen chasing after a bunch of rapidly departing Saxons. Had the Tapestry continued it could have showed the Malfosse incident and it could have looked something like what I've attempted to draw below.

However since Odo was probably not involved in the incident, it would not have been included. ( "if I didn't see it happen, it didn't happen")

When I realised the above and found my new battle site ( see previous post) I looked at Google Earth and saw a sunken road or pathway not 250 metres away from the Fyrd position. I had my "Malfosse"! Now all that remains is find out who owns the land, find someone with a metal detector and put the two together ( Ugh, Forestry Commission)!

Here is what it looks like in real life in relation to the second and main battlefield.