Time Team: Battle of Hastings

Gosh, where to start with tonight's Time Team about the Battle of Hastings? (If you missed it, you can watch it here. I'm in it for a few minutes at the beginning and at the end).

We were repeatedly told  – and it’s true – that no archaeological evidence has been found for the Battle of Hastings. ‘From an archaeological point of view’, says presenter Tony Robinson [at about 4mins10secs], ‘it’s as if the fighting never took place at all.’

But that’s also true for almost every other medieval battle. Consider, for example, the Battle of Falkirk, fought between Edward I and William Wallace in 1298. We know, from surviving English payrolls, that Edward I mustered some 28,000 men for this decisive engagement. It was one of the biggest battles ever fought on British soil. But we don’t know precisely where it was fought – not so much as an arrowhead has been unearthed.

In the case of Hastings, we are invited to consider two principal locations: Battle Abbey, which has been the accepted site for the past nine centuries, and Caldbec Hill, proposed by John Grehan in 2012.

So what’s the evidence for Caldbec Hill?

Answer: there isn’t any. John Grehan, interviewed in the programme, simply notes that contemporary accounts of the battle mention that the ground was steep, and observes that Caldbec is a steeper hill than the one on which the abbey stands. He also contends that Caldbec is where Harold mustered his men. On what basis?

Cut to Dr Laura Ashe of Oxford, examining the D version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1066 – a good, contemporary source, written in Old English, for the events of that year. It says that Harold ‘gathered together a great host, and came to oppose him [William] at the grey apple tree’.

Notice it doesn’t say ‘came to oppose him at Caldbec Hill’. The notion that ‘the grey apple tree’ stood on top of Caldbec Hill was an idea first put forward by a local Sussex historian in the 1960s. It is, of course, an unprovable assumption. Who can say where a tree stood in 1066?

Nevertheless, the assumption hardens into fact as the programme progresses. ‘Most historians think that Harold’s weary army assembled at a place called Caldbec Hill’ says Tony Robinson [about 5.15]. I’d dispute that. I don’t think that, for starters. Nor does Ken Lawson, who wrote a great big comprehensive book about Hastings in 2002. ‘The assumption of some writers that Caldbec Hill was Harold’s rendezvous point does not have much to recommend it.’ (Lawson, Battle of Hastings, p. 202. Note his use of the word ‘assumption’).

So what of the claim for the traditional site at Battle Abbey? According to Tony Robinson at the top of the programme [about 1.10], it rests on ‘legend’. A few minutes later [4.00], ‘Legend says the Normans built the high altar exactly where Harold died.’

Back to Laura Ashe, who is looking at the Chronicle of Battle Abbey with Tony in the British Library. Tony correctly says that it was written ‘more than 100 years after Hastings’. Laura points out the line that says that the abbey’s altar was precisely where King Harold fell, but goes on to say that, alas, the chronicle is ‘not trustworthy’.

Now, it’s true that the Chronicle of Battle Abbey is in places demonstrably unreliable. It is on this basis that John Grehan, in his book, rules its testimony out of court.

Which would be fair enough – if the Chronicle of Battle Abbey were our only witness.

But it isn’t. Far from it: at least half-a-dozen earlier sources say exactly the same thing. Take, for example, John of Worcester, an English monk who wrote in the period 1124x1140. The Conqueror’s abbey, he says, was ‘founded and erected on the site of his battle in England. The church’s altar was placed where the body of Harold (slain for the love of his country) was found.’

Similarly, William of Malmesbury, half-English, half-Norman, one of the most important of all medieval historians, writing in the 1120s: ‘It is called Battle Abbey because the principal church is to be seen on the very spot where, according to tradition, among the piled heaps of corpses Harold was found.’

But we don’t have to stop there. We also have the testimony of the E version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle – a supremely well-informed source, demonstrably written before 1100. Writing his obituary of William the Conqueror for 1087, its anonymous author says he will ‘write of him as we have known him, as we ourselves have seen him, and at one time dwelt at his court’. A few lines later he says:

‘On the very spot [On ðam ilcan steode] where God granted him the conquest of England he caused a great abbey to be built.’

To emphasize: that’s a contemporary witness – an English witness – from the time of William the Conqueror himself.

So the claim that Battle Abbey was built to mark the site of the battle is not ‘legend has it’, nor is it a claim that rests only on a late and unreliable source (i.e. the Chronicle of Battle Abbey). It’s a very strong, continuous historical tradition – one which stretches right back to the time of William the Conqueror.

There is also, of course, the evidence of the Abbey itself. As English Heritage’s Roy Porter pointed out in the programme, by looking at the dormitory building, ridiculously located on the side of a hill, it is a bonkers place to build an abbey. Unless William the Conqueror insisted that’s where he wanted it, exactly as the monks of Battle Abbey would later claim he did.

None of the historical evidence for the battle’s location, of course, was unpacked or even mentioned in the Time Team programme. According to Tony Robinson, ‘only archaeology can prove where it took place.’ [c. 18.00].

But, unsurprisingly – as with most medieval battles – archaeology fails to come up with anything. So the programme settles for a topographical survey, which shows where the high ground is, and where the low ground is. Time Team regulars Stewart Ainsworth and Alex Langlands look at the results and decide (one hesitates to use the word ‘speculate’) that the epicentre of the battle must have been some 600 feet to the east of the Abbey. Hilariously, especially for headline writers, the site is now occupied by a mini-roundabout! A former British Army commander is wheeled out to say that it looks like a good position to him. And, after all, an axe head, which may well have been a weapon, and certainly dates before 1600, was found near this site - according to local legend.

By this stage, I confess, I’m thinking (a bit unfairly) of that awesome David Mitchell line: ‘Let us enjoy the full majesty of your uninformed, ad hoc reckon’.

Perhaps one day they will build some new houses in Battle, or knock down some old ones, and discover a grave-pit with several hundred bodies, datable to the mid eleventh century. This happened at Lewes in the early nineteenth century, and is good grounds for locating – roughly – the site of the famous battle that took place there in 1264.

Until that happens, I’ll stick with testimony of the man who lived at the court of William the Conqueror.

(Incidentally, there was an attempt to locate the battlefield at Falkirk in 2002 – by flying Uri Geller over it in a helicopter. But due to bad weather, the helicopter couldn’t take off. I’m not making this up. http://www.scotsman.com/news/scotland/top-stories/rain-blinds-psychic-to-falkirk-battle-site-1-626179)