556. 1066: The Battle of Hastings (Part 3)
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What led to the Battle of Hastings?
And we heard how Hardrada was cut down and killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. by the English King Harold Godwinson, formerly Earl of Wessex, in one of the greatest victories ever won by Anglo-Saxon, or indeed English, arms. So Tom, Stamford Bridge was the 25th of September, and we heard how at the turn of October, Harold heard the terrible news of the landing of William of Normandy. And so now, less than three weeks later, he is at or just outside Hastings, and he is facing another mighty, epoch-defining showdown. So it's the 14th of October. He's, of course, facing William of Normandy. And what follows is the most famous and arguably the single most decisive battle in all English history.
Absolutely. And the one I would say that is most familiar probably to anyone who has even the faintest interest in history in England, certainly. Scenes from the battle will be familiar to most people who live in this country. The idea of the English battle lying on Senlac Hill, this great hill outside Hastings. The Normans serried in their armour on their horses at the foot of the hill. The Norman knights charging the English shield wall. King Harold, as the shadows lengthen over the battlefield as the sun sets in the west, struck by an arrow in the eye. And the accounts of the battle that we have, you mentioned one, possibly written only a few months after Harold's death. are detailed and vivid in a way that the sources for Stamford Bridge simply aren't.
So we talked in the previous episode how King Harold's Saga, the great account by Snorri Sturluson, dates to almost two centuries after 1066. But we have accounts of Hastings that are incredibly close to the battle. So most famously, we have the Bayeux Tapestry, which is not a tapestry, but a great embroidered cloth over 200 feet long. And it illuminates not just the battle, but the events leading up to it. We've already had reference to it and indeed to its aftermath. And another source we've also already mentioned in this series, William of Poitiers, who had served William as a soldier before becoming his chaplain. And he gives, again, a detailed account.
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