1066 - campaign finale .. William vs Harald in MeG

[Erpingham]

I note Patrick that you are in the "large" housecarl units camp.  This may influence how you approach their deployment.

On select and general fyrd, it has some sense to it but the terms seem to provoke gamers to assume the "normal" fyrd was the general one and the "select" one was an elite.  In fact, the select one was the normal selective process by which communities supplied quotas.  The general fyrd was the duty on all freemen but those not selected for normal fyrd duty would only have turned out for local defence (and do stuff like defending burhs, repairing bridges etc.).  So the majority of the army at Hastings would have been well-equipped and experienced select fyrdmen.

[aligern]

Yes Byrrhtnoth arranged his men. How do you think he did this? Did he go to each thegn and ceorl and tell them where to stand? No, he will have addressed the leaders of contingents, men  who paralleled Worcester's Eadric and told them where to pkace their men and then rode the front, giving a passable imitation of Theoden with a bit of practical reminders and an emotional appeal.

Erpingham is right about select and general fyrd. No such distinction was drawn at the time, because the main army comprised the warriors produced on a basis of one mounted, armoured man probably with a servant, per five hides or more or less equivalent economic unit. In fact it might be more accurate to say that the requirement was based upon each landowner's agreement with the king, administered by the sheriff.  The local levy might have turned out for battles and this is a question of summons by county, or maybe just a matter of local lords bringing everyone they can muster. Certainly the whole 'select' and 'general' fyrd concept has moved from an originally illuminating idea to a dangerous oversystemization .
Once again Patrick sets up the straw men for him to knock down. I did not say that the men of Essex at Maldon separated into the upper crust and others and that the elite fought together. The earldorman fought with his familia alongside him, other members of the 'upper crust' fought with theirs. The men you wanted next to you were those driven by oath and law to fight for YOU. They would not be spread along a line of warriors loyal to someone else.
So now Harold has 2000 huscarls.....most unlikely it would need some evidence for that. If Patrick has any evidence other than conjecture?  If his brithers have 500 each , not an impossible number, then between them almost half the army is Huscarls.
' It is the tactical organisation that fights on the field' .  of course it is, and the tactical organisation is the social organisation. Men fight in units and teams and each has its oeader and they are men who know their team as individuals. they operate in a chain of command. The commander gives irders that flow diwn that chain. You cannot make it up on the day or you really are saying that the Anglo Saxons are just a mob and that deployment is to tell the best armoured of the mob to stand in the front rank and for the whole to stand still and hold because it will be incapable of any other manoeuvre!!
Why are the troops with mixed weaponry not huscarls?? Why is this logical? I explained that men around the king are shown with mixed weapons. If we agree on one thing it is that the men around Harold are his household.
Again with Wace, we have sources that are close to the event. If Wace is drawing upon them then he is embroidering what is not in them...Poitiers, Jumieges, the Tapestry, the Carmen. If there are other near contemporary sources then tell us about them. Wace invents detail.....it is that simple.
Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

The basic point I am trying to make is that when an earl goes to war, he goes with his huscarls and his 'select' fyrd (and, if the enemy is present in his home locality, his general fyrd as well).  This, unless I misjudge the matter, is his command on the field, as opposed to his command being just his house-troops and the rest of his contingent deploying separately and shifting for themselves, which is the impression I am rightly or wrongly getting from Roy's assertions.

To get the best from his command, and add stability to the line, it would make sense for some of the better-armed and experienced huscarls to be spread along the front of a nobleman's contingent.  They need not spread far: if his entire contingent is 1,000 men deployed, say, ten deep, he could put his huscarles as the front rank and they would all be within Roy's stipulated 50 yards of their leader.  In practice, I suggest he would group them mainly in the centre of his contingent (say 20-40 yards of his 100-yard frontage) while lesser thegns equipped similarly to huscarles made up the balance of the front rank with their own picked followers.  In such an arrangement, the first rank or two would consist of men with great axes or if the latter were in short supply would alternate spearmen and men with great axes; there would be no 'soft spots' for an attacker to exploit.

I do not see Roy's distinction between men loyal to 'you' and those loyal to 'someone else' in a earl's command: the men, fyrd and all, would all be loyal to him; his house-troops would just be more loyal than others.  It is anyway quite likely that everyone in his command, huscarles, thegns and fyrd, would know each other, having previously lived and exercised together on campaign.  In the circumstances, an earl would arrange his troops to ensure that for the honour (and battlefield performance) of his locality his contingent was as strong frontally as possible.

Why are the troops with mixed weaponry not huscarls?? Why is this logical?

"... an English knight came rushing up, having in his company a hundred men, furnished with various arms ..."

So would these hundred men all be huscarls?  Who, then, are the "two Englishmen who were also carrying themselves boldly. They were both men of great worth, and had become companions in arms and fought together, the one protecting the other. They bore two long and broad bills, and did great mischief to the Normans, killing both horses and men."?  In the first case, a contingent is being led as opposed to accompanying a primus inter pares.  This implies a leader and subordinates, of whom only the leader is considered a 'knight'.  In the second, two men of equal status are operating together.

I explained that men around the king are shown with mixed weapons. If we agree on one thing it is that the men around Harold are his household.

Are they all his household, or are they all that remain of the men of Sussex at this point in the battle?

[aligern]

The point that I am pursuing Oatrick, is that the king , or the earl , does not form his huscarls, or his wider household into a one or two rank front behind which the rest of his men form up. There is evidence ( which I have cited) and reasonable logic based upon the Anglo Saxon legal requirement to defend one's lord to support the conclusion that the household fights together around the earl. There is apparently no evidence for soreading the housecarls along a frontage, well none produced as yet, only a claim that it would have been advantageous to have a knot of armoured men around the flag and the rest spread out.
I made the point that there is a chain of command. That is not people shifting for thenselves it is, in effect, units being deployed in sequence along the line. Its not terribly different from Marlburian battalions deploying in line, except that the Saxon contingents are most likely of unequal size. That is because they come under the command of a senior cleric or landholder and the number arriving is dependent upon the leader's agreement with the king to supply men.
Patrick should re read the Maldon poem. It is full of reference to the personal loyalty of the men of his household to Byrrhtnoth. This was secured by reciprocal oath. Others in the army would make their oaths to their leaders and their leaders onward to the earl.  The structure of the army is that the earl has his sworn men around him, under his command is, let us say the earldorman of one of the counties within the earl's territories. The eardorman has his own sworn men around him. Near him he has the other contingents of his county. However, if some of the men from his county were the swirn men of a landowner who was in another county under another earl's jurisdiction then those men would most likely be in the contingent of the leader to whom they were sworn.
We have to get away from the idea that the Saxon army is organised by territorial levy, it is organised by lotalty groups.
I take issue with the idea that an earl would arrange his troops to be as strong frontally as possible. An earl would deploy his contingents, it would then be down to the contingent leaders to arrange their men and yes it would make sense to put the best equipped men in the front rank.  Actually it might not even take that degree of arrangement because the best armed men are likely to be the top of the social scale and so honour and practicality would put them in the front. I say practicality here because a friend who reenacted XVth century warfare for many years explained that knights fought in front, but with supporters around them who kept their back and would physically pull them out of the fray if they got into trouble.
Patrick's interpretation of Wace is several steps too far. We could start with Wace being 100 years after the event and sensationalising to create a mire vivid story, but leave this aside for a monent. Wace's use of the term knight for a leader of a contingent is from the 1160s, not from the field of 1066. Even if it were an accurate reference rater than an anachronism, we would only have to see the 'knight as a leader of 100 huscarls. If Harold has 1000 huscarls then they have to have some structure, some subordinate comnanders. However, my point which is being ignored, is that having mixed weaponry does not make the 100 huscarls or fyrd. Most likely both types of troops had mixed weapons, the logic that mixed weapons indicate fyrd is a house built upon sand!  Interestingly there is an English illustration of impeccable date in one of the Cotton manuscripts that shows English troops around a Biblical king armed only with spears and swords. Of course it tells us more about art than actual equipment.
Are the peopke around Harold 'the remains of the men of Sussex' . That's another question of how far one can stretch the evidence of the Tapestry and indeed any other source of the period. The Tapestry does not distinguish between those troops provided as huscarls or royal household .  We have illustrations of armoured men and unarmoured men. We do not know how they were raised.  It might be that the unarmoured men represent local freemen who have been summoned as a sort of arriere  ban, or they might represent those men raised as a 'select fyrd' .  What we can say is that we very likely have representations, at different points, of Harold and his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine and those who surround them and depictions of the front rank of the English army. Now we can accept that the men around the earls  are household troops-huscarls. Patrick thinks that the troops in the front ranks are huscarls too. (and of course its pushing the source too far to say what they are)   What that would is that both huscarls and the fyrd are using a mix of weapons.  That is very likely because the warriors fight in teams, the men within teams are armed with different weapons which they use in combination to maximise their ability to stop charges, to protect from missiles, to deliver short range missile fire and to deliver crushing blows. That is very likely true for huscarls and for the fyrd.
So , in conclusion:
No arranging of the huscarls thinly along the front. If there are armoured men in the front ranks then they are part of the contingents that back them up and the huscarls are formed around their king or earl or other leader.
All contingents have mixed arms.
The A/S military system is about loyalty between the soldier and his lord and contingents are organised on this basis and hold their section of front.
Oh and there is no evidence for alternating spear and axe. The tapestry shows a frontage of shields that are overlapoed. The axemen are most likely behind the shields. Of course we may be pushing a source too far here, maybe shielded men carry hidden axes? Either way they are not shown alternating. You might make a case that axes are used when the Saxons' spears have been broken, or that axes are used in broken melee, which I think better fits my idea that when the charge has been stopped the axemen move ot rather like Swiss halberdiers to deal with stalled cavalrymen.
Roy

[Imperial Dave]

On balance, I am with Roy on this point. I have always followed the WRG army lists blindly for a number of years and only just started to question aspects of them (I know....a bit late for that). Following Roy's reasoning, it makes sense for A-S soldiery to follow their social groupings and leaders onto the battlefield. Familiarity is the cornerstone of cohesion especially on the battlefield and so would be the order of the day in 1066. As I understand it, 11th Century England (or Normandy for that matter) was not feudal and warriors still owed allegiances to local Thegns who looked to Eorls who looked to the King for ultimate leadership?

On the matter of weapons, I am also in agreement with Roy in that if we accept the premise of social/family/community/allegiance based groupings of warriors there would have been a mix of equipment. Coupled with this is the fact that A-S armies didnt just fight in one formation or order. Harold had proved that A-S armies under his leadership could be flexible (eg for his Welsh wars, the A-S warriors had lighter equipment etc to match the adversary and environment faced). No reason to suspect that spearmen were the mainstay of the army but that axemen were used in certain circumstances and when this happened would need a rallying point (shielded spearmen) and also a more open order to operate effectively

Not the whole story but my observation. To immerse myself I am rereading Frank McLynn's book on the subject currently

[Jim Webster]

Just to agree with Roy.

Indeed one comment he made "We have to get away from the idea that the Saxon army is organised by territorial levy, it is organised by loyalty groups"

I'd go so far as to suggest that the territorial levy existed as an expression of Loyalty groups. The men of a shire would be mustered by the men they owed allegiance to anyway, they'd march with kinsmen, neighbours and friends. All the thanes of a shire would know each other, and would be related to each other and to families in neighbouring shires by marriage etc

[Patrick Waterson]

Anglo-Saxon armies could certainly be flexible, as Harold's campaign in Wales demonstrated.  However, while accepting that there was a hierarchy of loyalty, it is possible to read too much into this and assume the huscarls were glued to their leader under any and all circumstances.

This particular discussion aspect arose because of Roy's (and presumably Matt Bennet's) aversion to the idea that huscarls could be spread along the front of an army.  It might be worth considering contingent size, frontage and depth before proceeding further.

The Anglo-Saxon frontage at Hastings would seem to cover at most some 700 yards, and depending on the configuration of the woods on either side might even have been less, but we can take 700 yards as a rule of thumb figure.  Generally accepted figures by modern historians suggest each side had in the region of 7-8,000 men, which we can take as a necessary minumum (chroniclers' figures range up to 150,000 Normans and 400,000 English, but these are irreconcilable with the battlefield dimensions).  This suggests a minimum depth of ten men along the front.

Next point to consider is the number of huscarls available.  Apparently Canute raised between 3,000 and 4,000 when he was king, and this number probably remained similar over succeeding reigns.  It may have increased: we can be reasonably sure it did not appreciably diminish, being the only force which would in all circumstances be 100% loyal.  Say, then, that Harold begins the year with 4,000 huscarls, at least half of which we can conjecture are 'sub-let' to important nobles (including his brothers) to provide a bit of backbone to the fyrd at need.  Let us be pessimistic and say he could muster only 2,000 of these at Hastings, along with several thousand 'select fyrd'.  If he deploys these as 'pure' contingents, they deploy ten deep and cover 200 yards of frontage - not necessarily all together - and stand out as different from their bearing, perhaps their equipment and the fact they are centred on all the important banners.

This is not the description we get from Norman sources.

Conversely, if Harold decides, perhaps on the basis of earlier experience, that it would be a good idea to spread his huscarls more evenly along the line, he can fill out two ranks with 1,400 huscarls and still have 600 left over to form three 200-strong groupings around himself and his brothers.  The question here is whether loyal equates to obedient: will the huscarls perform their lord's will by holding the army together or will they mutiny if not rubbing shoulders directly with their oath-sworn lord?  I do not think they will mutiny.  I think rather they will obey, being oath-sworn and knowing what their leader wants of them.  They are, more or less, England's Varangian Guard.

This, of course, considers only the king's huscarls, not those raised by lesser magnates, who would be added in to the total.  These we can assume would stick with their leader and his banner, and in all probability would show their worth by forming the front ranks of his contingent.  All in all, I think we could comfortably line the entire front with huscarls if we wanted to, and have huscarls to spare.

On the weapons question, we have the traditional association of huscarls and Danish axes.  We have Norman descriptions of such axes (or 'bills') in use, from which we may infer, rightly or wrongly, that the users are huscarls.  Our favourite source, Wace, has a few such mentions, of small homogenously-armed groups taking down Norman knights.

Of course, as Roy points out, this need not mean that all huscarls were so armed or that all men so armed were huscarls.  The Bayeaux tapestry has this and this showing shieldwalls being attacked, these being two sides of the same group.  We may observe how a single Danish axe has made an appearance from the almost uniform ranks of javelin- or spear-wielders, differentiated only by an axe-hurler and an archer, and has done so next to the banner.  Wace's English 'knight' (obviously a cultural substitution) and his hundred followers spring to mind.

Roy makes a good point about a combination of arms being desirable, or at least the ability to deliver a convincing missile volley before melee.  However I would not extend that into treating the huscarls as having 'varied arms', rather seeing them as dual-armed, with both effective missile - and devastating melee - weapons.  A diversity of weaponry would be expected of those whose preparation for war was less thorough, i.e. the fyrd (or what we commonly understand as such to differentiate it from the huscarls).

So what do we conclude?  For myself,
1) The king's huscarls were king's men, and would do what the king told them.  This makes it possible to have huscarls all along the line.  (It does not make it necessary, but it does make it possible.)
2) Where diverse weaponry is described, the contingent is more likely to be fyrd.  Huscarls would be more likely to display only one weapon type at a time, despite having perhaps three (spear/javelin, great axe, sword).

[Erpingham]

Taking Cnuts number of housecarles and increasing it to get to Harold's is not without problems.  For a start Cnut's political situation was different to Harold (he was coming into power after a period of civil war, Harold by more orthodox means).  I also think there has been a bit of a tendency in the past to see housecarles as something uniquely Anglo-Scandinavian and representing an elite force of paid troops.  In reality, they are more a development of a common Germanic hearth-troop, which in another stream will give the household knights of their Norman opponents.  If we look at the size of such forces across Northern Europe, Cnut's household seem on the higher end of the curve.

As for mixed weapons clearly meaning that those with multiple weapon types can't be those intended, it is a bit of a logical stretch.

And, while the figures on the Bayeux Tapestry have been seen to be armoured huscarles and unarmoured fyrd, more modern knowledge would suggest that the armoured men could be either huscarles or fyrdmen and the unarmoured men might just represent locals assembled under the general local defence obligation.

[Patrick Waterson]

Taking Canute's number of huscarls and decreasing it under his successors is also not without problems: this Danish 'Germanic hearth-troop' was the mainstay of royal power and, under Canute, also the basis of manning his navy with fighting men (at 40 per ship).  We can pare down the number of huscarls assigned to ships under Edward the Confessor but, given the current view that he was desperately seeking loyalty to keep the Godwins at arms' length, can we realistically assume that he would run down the overall numbers of the one force he could count on?  Harold would presumably not have had time to increase or decrease the royal huscarl estalishment per se, but one might expect him to add the pick of his own sworn men (from Sussex, plus any he picked up while on the continent) to the total when he became king.

As for mixed weapons clearly meaning that those with multiple weapon types can't be those intended, it is a bit of a logical stretch.

I was referring to one specific instance in Wace as opposed to attempting to define general semantics.  The following:

"... an English knight came rushing up, having in his company a hundred men, furnished with various arms ..."

indicates to me that if those mentioned were indeed 'multiple weapon' troops then they were working at cross purposes.  The 'knight' leads and uses a great axe ('northern hatchet with the blade a full foot long') to great effect.  His companions/subordinates certainly assisted, but the 'knight' was obviously a leader type.  We can surmise that some of his following were axe-armed from:

"Rogier de Montgomeri came galloping up, with his lance set, and heeding not the long handled axe, which the Englishman wielded aloft, struck him down, and left him stretched upon the ground. Then Rogier cried out, "Frenchmen strike! the day is ours!" And again a fierce melee was to be seen, with many a blow of lance and sword; the English still defending themselves, killing the horses and cleaving the shields."(chapter 22)

assuming the 'fierce melee' refers to the entourage of the 'knight' rather than the English line generally.

The possible deployment of alternating spears and axes is hinted at in Wace chapter 21:

"The Normans were to be seen following up their stratagem, retreating slowly so as to draw the English further on. As they still flee, the English pursue; they push out their lances and stretch forth their hatchets (hache = axe): following the Normans, as they go rejoicing in the success of their scheme, and scattering themselves over the plain."

'Lances' (presumably spears) and 'hatchets' (axes) are being displayed and deployed simultaneously.  This suggests individuals with alternating armament unless it signifies (to someone with a wargamer's eye view of the field) a front rank of HI, 2HCW, Sh and a second rank of HI, JLS, Sh.

[Imperial Dave]

but not close order for the axemen surely?

[aligern]

The axe can be used in a vertical plane . The old awRG induced loose order for axemen is unnecessary.
i presume that Patrick and I would be in agreement that, at Hastings, there are phases of fighting. Thus the English are in very close order at the beginning of the fight. This is shown graphically on the Tapestry with a wall of overlapped shields. Patrick sees thus as everyone having a shield and presumably a spear, but many or half carrying an axe too so that Patrick's alternating spear/ axe formation can exist. I think it more likely that shield and spear/ javelins and shield/ axe are alternative armaments and that carrying shield and axe and spear and javelins is a bit much. Patrick is for alternates, I for small teams. Cynically I would suggest that Patrick needs to have alternating spear and shield axe and shield and axe and shield in one rank, because he wants to spread out the armoured men as a front rank so a deeper formation does not suit his case. The Tapestry is very clear about the English forming with overlapped shields and the contemporary written sources back this up.
The battle has other phases, though. When the English wings advance there  is then a period of mixed melee where the English have lost formation and the Normans surround them. There follows a closing up of the English with a dense formation again and then the Norman archery shoots down enough of them so that there is once again broken fighting up on the ridge.
So aces are shown being used both in close formations and in more broken up contact.
Roy

[aligern]

Patrick, what is your source for Canute having 3-4000 huscarls? That would be a huge force . Is it the number of men capable of being housed in Trelleborg and other fortresses?  Interested to know.

Between the reigns of Canute and Harold there are three other reigns. Leaving aside what happened in the two earlier reigns we can look at the period of Edward the Confessor. There the king, who was notably pacific, could not assemble a force to overawae the Godwins without getting the help of Northumbria and Mercia.That does not imply a standing army of many thousands.
A firce of say 2000 professional warriors, kept under pay, is a large group. If it was housed together  we might expect to hear about it, if it was kept in some relation to the land we might see it in Domesday or in a mention in chronicles or charters. We have a mention of land used to support housecarls at Wallingford, but it can only be a small number. Otherwise the mention is of single huscarls. We can infer that the 200 huscarls of Tosti are a high proportion of his men. The Anglo Saxon way was to support warriors on the land. If you had enough land you should become a thegn, if not you contributed to the equipment of one warrior per five hides or whatever assessment criteria was used in your area and under whichever law you lived. The number of king's thegns who have a direct relationship with the king is again quite small. In the nid eleventh century it looks very like the main body of armoured, mounted warriors is recruited through the earlsand ypthat the royal contribution is not that large. ( I understand that Edward's landholdings are less than Earl Godwin's.)
There are the enigmatic 'butscarls' tgat Edward dismissed, but I don't think that we know how many or if they were permanent or temporary.
What Harold does have is the ability to hire mercenaries. Again we do not know how many, but I have said before that it is very lijely that the Danish king would let Harold recruit in his dominion. So there might have been a block of a few hundred paid men...same with Tostig and the Flenings he raised. However, I doubt that it would make much sense to spread mercenary Danes one or two ranks deep across the front of fyrd units.
Roy
What

[Erpingham]

As the conflict is becoming general, perhaps time to wheel out a model of shieldwall fighting.  Perhaps the best single account of a shieldwall battle (albeit one that some scholars believe never happened) is the Battle of Stiklestad in Saint Olaf's Saga.  It is a detailed tale of a battle from deployment to pursuit and is worth a read.  Here are a few points on deployment

Kalf Arnason then raised his banner, and drew up his house-
servants along with Harek of Thjotta and his men.  Thorer Hund,
with his troop, was at the head of the order of battle in front
of the banner; and on both sides of Thorer was a chosen body of
bondes, all of them the most active and best armed in the forces.
This part of the array was long and thick, and in it were drawn
up the Throndhjem people and the Halogalanders.  On the right
wing was another array; and on the left of the main array were
drawn up the men from Rogaland, Hordaland, the Fjord districts,
and Scgn, and they had the third banner.....

When the bondes' men and array were drawn up the lendermen
addressed the men, and ordered them to take notice of the place
to which each man belonged, under which banner each should be,
who there were in front of the banner, who were his side-men, and
that they should be brisk and quick in taking up their places in
the array; for the army had still to go a long way, and the array
might be broken in the course of march.

So, here the leading men don't spread their household men along the line but cluster them round the banner.  However, the best of bonders are next to them either side and at the front (they are alongside Thorer Hund, who is leading).  The rest of the bonder array is spread out either side in a thick formation.  The leaders spend time making sure the various contingents array properly (shades of the Maldon poem).

Any sign of deployment of a weapon mix?  Yes, but not the one suggested above.

They who stood
in front hewed down with their swords; they who stood next thrust
with their spears; and they who stood hindmost shot arrows, cast
spears, or threw stones, hand-axes, or sharp stakes.

So, the idea of division by ranks, rather than alternates.  Note what the rear ranks get up to, which is quite Hastings-like.  Deployment of troop types in Norse sources is rarely described but tends to be in ranks, rather than alternating types.

[aligern]

Nicely put Anthony Might I suggest that those groups of bonders deployed are also under leaders they know and are part of a defineaboe contingent, lije Eadric's men of the bishop of Worcester's estates. As Jim so rightly said earlier,nyou go to war with thanes you know and men you know,
There is an example in Domesday Book where one man always goes fir his family estate of around five hides, but if he cannot make it, another of his brothers goes. So the same man goes each time, supported by the others. Royal legislation attempts at this time, to enforce that a man who owns five hides worth of land must become a thegn? Why, when he clearly had to perform military service anyway would the king want him to take up the status role of thegn? Its because he then becomes a leader and responsible for other men turning up and for leading them in the battle. The govt. is concerned, not only for the provision of troops, but for the maintenance of command structure.
Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

Cynically I would suggest that Patrick needs to have alternating spear and shield axe and shield and axe and shield in one rank, because he wants to spread out the armoured men as a front rank so a deeper formation does not suit his case.

Actually Patrick favours deeper formations, but only the first rank in each formation will be fighting, with perhaps a little help from the second and a few missiles from further back.

Patrick is for alternates, I for small teams.

Patrick is quite happy with small teams.  Curiously enough, when small teams get a mention in Wace, we find:

"... two Englishmen who were also carrying themselves boldly. They were both men of great worth, and had become companions in arms and fought together, the one protecting the other. They bore two long and broad bills, and did great mischief to the Normans, killing both horses and men."

This does not exclude teamwork between axemen and spearmen, although if one discounts the 'English knight' and his hundred followers it would be nice to see some mention of 'combined arms' teamwork in some source.

So aces are shown being used both in close formations and in more broken up contact.

Hence the expression: to keep an ace up one's sleeve.

Seriously, the question of who has and who does not have axes is probably unprovable in the final analysis.  Anthony's suggestion of axemen (in place of swordsmen) in the front rank, spearmen in the second and missile-dischargers behind is probably not a bad basis from which to begin, although the Olaf's Saga account of Stiklestad does not seem to have anyone in the lineup armed with Danish axes.

While the lineup given is sensible enough, there is the hanging question of what difference would be made by the introduction of the Danish axe.  While we ponder this, I think the original point at issue was whether an Anglo-Danish (or even Dano-Danish) army could have an unbroken front line of men with attitude and axes.  Amid the turgid sociology of recent discussion, are we anywhere near establishing any rationale for why this could or could not be?

Patrick, what is your source for Canute having 3-4000 huscarls?

Look up 'huscarls' on the internet and the figure of 3,000 to 4,000 appears almost everywhere.

Wikipedia

Regia Anglorum (see para 5)

and various blogs on the subject.

When dealing with the internet, it is always possible that everyone has seized on a single source (often Wikipedia) and repeated it endlessly.  Wikipedia appears to get it from Terence Wise.