Present Day Contradictions about the Battle of Hastings
Even taking present day thinking about the Battle of Hastings there are contradictions in the knowledge that is given out.
1. Caldbec Hill
The first and foremost is the contradiction of what happened at Caldbec Hill. Many talk of the English scout peering out from between the trees as being on Caldbec Hill. And there are written reports that the English were seen camping on Caldbec Hill. How can we make sense of this?
Since the scout is shielding his eyes perhaps we can assume that it is morning and the sun is shining and that the scout is looking south-ish. Nowhere on the Tapestry does it state that the place is Caldbec Hill. Let us look at the terrain then.
From Caldbec Hill, the land falls away ( descends) from 103 metres above sea level (m asl) to about 53 metres before rising again to about 62. The land falls away again to 55 metres before rising to 108 metres, dropping to 100 metres before rising again to 141 metres where the Norman lookout post is situated. So Caldbec Hill is next highest point north of the Norman lookout position.
The scouts only have visibility of the Norman look out post above say 75 metres on the first falling slope. This is only 200 metres from what is supposed to be the main English camp of 7000 soldiers!
To cap it all however, the Tapestry shows the scout reporting back to Harold, who is sitting astride his horse. This tells me that Harold had to ride to the meeting place with the scout and was therefore newly come to the area. Would Harold go and sit on his horse to listen to a scout that had been 200 metres away from the camp to look at the Normans? Sounds implausible to me.
So something has to give.
Could the scout be closer to the Normans than what is thought? I've noticed that on the Tapestry some scenes are framed with trees. Could this be the case here? But as stated previously there is nowhere closer than the top of Caldbec Hill that is better to spy on the Normans. So I think that Caldbec Hill has to stay as the scouts location.
If the Norman lookouts were wrong, and I believe they were wrong, then Harold must've been in a camp that lay on the same bearing or almost the same bearing as Caldbec Hill. My choice of field for the second engagement lies on that bearing However, if that was the site of the English overnight camp, why Harold is portrayed as being on a horse? It does not make sense.
2. There was only one shield wall
This is regarded as Holy Writ by some especially by the modern day "Housecarls" but this causes untold squirming by modern day scholars. We are forever told that battles of the 1000's lasted no more than 3 hours and that the Battle of Hastings was an exception in that it lasted nine hours. That's 300% longer than normal!
So what's the story?
Historians and others rely on this single shield wall as a tenet of faith and look no further. So the story they tell is of a scout on Caldbec Hill seeing the Normans and then going to see Harold, who then sets up his troops on Senlac Ridge to meet William coming off Hastings peninsula. Then William wages a war of attrition until such time as he overcomes the defenders. That's it in a nutshell. Okay, it takes 9 hours but what's that?
However , the Bayeux Tapestry tells another story. We still have the narrative of the scout seeing the Normans and reporting back to Harold. Then it says the Norman knights advanced and met the Housecarls and a few archers and gave battle. This could have been where English Heritage now places the battle - under the town itself. Notice that there's no Fyrd or King in the bunch and that the defenders were surrounded. The next scene shows the stragglers being "finished off" and the sons or brothers of Harold being killed. The following scene shows the second engagement which entails unarmoured men ( the Fyrd) killing lots of knights before the Normans overcome this lot of defenders. The King is duly dispatched and the Fyrd heads for the hills. Now 9 hours doesn't seem that long for William to accomplish these feats.
If anyone thinks that are more contradictions to look into then leave me a message and I'll look into it.
Regards
Kevin
