Time team Hastings dig

[Patrick Waterson]

The other thing that circles in my mind is the story of Edith Swan-neck being brought along to identify Harold's body (Waltham Chronicle?) because allegedly, after the battle he could not be found.  I've no idea how we take the tale these days ... evidence? embellishment? romantic tosh?   But it seems to suggest that the battlefield was a jumble and that it was far from easy to tell who was who or where to look.   If it was clear where the Anglo-Saxon position was ... where Harold fell ... the key point etc.  then presumably it would have been easy enough to locate him.

If the story, made up or not, was plausible at the time, it might mean that even for contemporaries it was not clear what the original positioning and orientation was ...

I suspect they knew very well which body was Harold's (several of them would have come to know him when he was an involuntary guest of Duke William) but having his wife officially identify the body would prevent any attempts at impersonation in future by would-be revolt leaders.  Either that or his face was so hacked up that they could not be sure.  Or maybe even both.

[Dave Gee]

To paraphrase the EH chap - they looked forward to a proper archaeological inspection of the site by TT (hence the praise in the show); the roundabout area has always been thought to have been involved in the battle as the battle was over a large area; the Anglo-Saxon chronicle indicates the spot where Harold was killed is where the monastery is built and since it was written within living memory of the battle it carries a lot of weight.

I think he was as disappointed in the efforts of TT as SOA are 

[Erpingham]

To return to what I think is the TT "big idea", the battle was centred on the roundabout area because the main march route ran across the saddle there.  From a quick glance at a contoured map, this doesn't greatly affect the English - instead of the roundabout being under their left wing, it is under their centre and the line extends along a ridge on the other side of the roundabout.  But for the Normans, they would have the difficulty of attacking across the admittedly less steep upper sides of the two valleys on either side of the ridge which forms the watershed and on which the road ran/runs.   The question Time Team failed to answer - does this make sense in terms of the evidence we have for the course of the battle ? (the bit, in my mind, that should have made up the final third of the programme - easily achievable if you'd edited out some of the padding).

[aligern]

Yes, they should have populated their lidar map with likely woods and marshes and then overlayed possible configurations of the armies upon that. Of course that is not a certain method, but it does hold some hope of  reconstructing the position. It makes most sense for Harold to hold the road if the weather is wet, but if the ground is good then such a position is easily outflanked.

How does the proposed, 'roundabout' position hold up for feigned flight and subsequent flank attack?
How well does it work for t,mhe Normans finally getting to level ground as the English formation shrinks?  i assume that roundabout and abbey positions are Malfosse  neutral.  How do the other claimants stack against that?

Roy

[Bohemond]

The suggestion that Harold centred his position on the road out of the Hastings peninsula is quite a reasonable one. As others have pointed out in this strand, this also means that the abbey is in the right place. The Caldebec Hill theory was first posited by Jim Bradbury some 20 years ago, but John Grehan's suggestions there must be 'thousands of bodies' at its foot misunderstands both the scale of medieval battles and the collection of bodies for Christian burial. According to this idea Battle ridge was chosen because it was less steep; but in fact the construction of the buildings, with the dorter projecting out into the valley and the church stepped from W to E, was quite awkward enough. As to the nature of the ground in 1066: this is unknowable. I was criticised by Ken Lawson for sketching in some trees on either flank in my map of the battle (in the Norman Conquest Osprey Campaign volume) which was a guess based on the Normans' failure to outflank the English position. The Bayeux Tapestry does suggest a river/rivulet by showing reed-like plants and it may well be that the ground in front of where the abbey stands today was marshy. It certainly gets so in winter nowadays, and there is both flowing water and ponds (the product of the monastic fish stews) on the site; but this proves little. It was telling that the only artefacts found in the cursory dig were modern re-enactors' items. It is a stark reality that the overwhelming majority battlefields prior to around 1500 are extremely unlikely to yield any material finds. Confusion arises in the minds of the general public because it is possible to do so once there is evidence of the fall of shot (both musket and artillery balls). TV programme makers love to suggest that they are presenting new, challenging interpretations which stuffy academics are too inflexible to accommodate; that's the nature of the medium; but there are good reasons for accepting the 'orthodox' view of the battlefield's location. The roundabout theory does not do serious damage to this.