The Role of Castles
in William the Conqueror's Victory

Opposing Forces:
Anglo-Saxon and Norman

by D. Clark Ulam, Jr., Colorado Springs, Colorado

Opposing Forces

Historians speculate that the forces that met on the battlefield at Hastings on 14 October 1066 could be viewed as being the meeting of traditional (Anglo-Saxon) and innovative (Norman) styles of military thinking during the period. There were the Anglo-Saxon forces of the English King Harold, who brought with them the traditions of more than five centuries of warfare since their initial migration to and eventual conquest of England. Opposing the Anglo-Saxons were the forces of Duke William of Normandy, and his allied forces. These were the same forces that helped him claim the English Crown that had allegedly been promised to him by King Edward the Confessor years earlier.

The Norman forces who battled the Anglo-Saxons were just one of the numerous spearheads of Norman Conquest that was occurring throughout Europe in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries. The Normans had adopted a new style of warfare in their quest for furthering their territorial gains, which combined the mounted knights for their shock power and the castle to hold the newly won territory. Castles allowed them to hold territory with the minimum number of men, which maximized the forces remaining at the cutting edge of conquest.

A. Anglo-Saxon Forces

The Anglo-Saxon forces of King Harold were formed into what was called the fyrd, or the levy, which consisted of three main groups of warriors or soldiers. These groups of soldiers were the Huscarles, Thegns, and the Ceorls, and they made up the compositional elements of the “Select” and “General” fyrd. The “Select fyrd” was made up of the first two groups of soldiers, the Huscarles and Thegns; this was a grouping of professional warriors who had been trained in the arts of war since birth. As well as trained warriors, they were also the best equipped of King Harold’s force. The only major differences between the two classes of elite warriors were that the Huscarles were Nordic and the Thegns were Anglo-Saxon. When the two groups went into battle, they carried an assortment of deadly weapons.

The basic equipment included a helmet made of metal, mail shirt, a good iron sword, a wooden shield with a metal boss in the middle, a wide assortment of throwing spears and a fighting ax. The fighting ax was a uniquely Nordic/Viking invention. A skilled warrior was capable of taking a man’s head off with a single swing or quickly disabling a horse in a few swings. These two groups of soldiers were to receive the main force of any attackers’ assault and suffer the majority of the casualties taken in any engagement.

Also, these warriors were honor-bound to stand and fight with their lord. If he should fall in battle, the only honorable end for them was to fight to the death or totally defeat their enemy. The general fyrd composition was not only the aforementioned two groups of warriors, but also consisted of the local levy of the ceorls, or free farmers/peasants, with the huscarles and thegns being used to strengthen the resolve of the peasant soldiers. The peasant warrior had neither a great amount of training nor equipment. The ceorls were a way to increase the number of soldiers a lord could take to battle and might even be looked upon as little more than early day cannon fodder. The ceorls went into battle with whatever weapons that they possessed which might consist of possibly a bow and arrows, slings, crude shields, and spears. In some cases, a rock and stick connected by a piece of twine, --acting much like a South American bolo-- might be their only weapon.

Most Ceorls did not have mail shirts or helmets but, if they were lucky, possessed a shirt of heavy leather that might have had flat pieces of bones sewn on to act as body armor. They could also be equipped from the military stores which the King or lord took to battle to replace broken pieces of equipment. Lastly, the Anglo-Saxon forces of King Harold did possess horses, but they were not used in the mounted cavalry role. Rather, horses were utilized as transportation to the battlefield. Once the warrior arrived, he would dismount and fight on foot, which was the traditional form of Anglo-Saxon warfare. The reason that mounted warriors had not been embraced as a style of warfare in England might be traced to the Battle of Hereford in 1055. The Welsh defeated an Anglo-Saxon force when it attempted to fight on horseback; the blame for their loss was stated as the unnatural style of being horse mounted in battle.

B. The Norman-Franco Forces

The Norman forces of Duke William consisted not only of warriors from his duchy but also of allied forces from throughout France, with the largest contingencies from the Franco-Flemish and the Bretons. These forces marshaled by Duke William came for a myriad of reasons which ranged from religious devotion to the Pope who was backing William’s bid for the throne to pure mercenaries fighting for land and riches. Thus, whatever their motivation, these were all professional warriors who set sail with Duke William in his quest to seize the English throne. His main force was composed of Norman Knights, Miles, who were well-trained and equipped for the coming battle. The Norman Knights were all well-seasoned warriors from their years of fighting at William’s side as he consolidated his continental holdings.

The Norman forces were made up of mounted knights, heavy infantry, and archers. The mounted knights were well-equipped with mail body armor, a conical metal helmet, a long steel sword, maces, a shield which was either round or kite shaped, numerous throwing or thrusting spears, and they were mounted on specially-bred war horses which balanced power and speed in their performance. The Norman heavy infantry was equipped in much the same fashion as the mounted knights. They wore mail body armor, a conical metal helmet, a steel long sword, and carried a wooden shield for defense.

The archers would have been for the most part unarmored; however, there is one illustration in the Bayeux Tapestry of a Norman archer wearing a mail shirt. This could have been a lord in charge of a detachment of archers. Norman archers were equipped with a selfbow, which is roughly five and a half feet long, in comparison with the six to six a half foot English longbow, used later in English history. The selfbow had an easier pull and a shorter effective distance of about 100 meters whereas the longbow had a longer range and superior penetrating power.

If the archers did wear armor, it was of heavy leather with flat pieces of bone sewn into it and was called a hauberk. They would have worn a leather conical hat that offered a minimum of protection. When employed in unison and by an innovative commander such as Duke William, the Norman warriors were a formidable force on the battlefield.

The Norman tactics of the day involved starting off with the archers bombarding enemy forces, in the hope of thinning out the enemy through arrow wounds. Then the heavy infantry would advance and throw or thrust their spears while closing to the enemy’s shield wall where they attempted to hack their way through. If and when the shield wall started to give, the mounted knights would bear down in a closely packed charge on the weakened shield wall and attempt to break the wall completely.

More Role of Castles in William the Conqueror's Victory

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© Copyright 2001 by David W. Tschanz.
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