"Harold's march to and from Stamford Bridge, 1066" Topic

The second espisode of Saul David's recent TV series (Bullets, Boots and Bandages) makes the common claim that Harold moved an entire army north to Stamford Bridge – a distance of 180 miles – in only 4 days, and that this force included heavily armed/armoured infantry with 70 lbs of kit.

Surely this is total nonsense. How could footsoldiers possibly have moved at an average speed of over 40 miles a day, never mind heavily armed and armoured ones?

If Harold did make the march in 4 days, surely he can only have taken mounted men with him?

Any thoughts?
R

My understanding is that the heavily armoured men were mounted for the march (although fought on foot) and the lighter fyrd served locally so did not accompany the heavier troops but were mustered locally.

x42

Surely this is total nonsense. How could foot soldiers possibly have moved at an average speed of over 40 miles a day, never mind heavily armed and armoured ones?

Marching for 12 hours a day at an average speed of 3 miles an hour would cover 36 miles a day. Not unreasonable to me, bearing in mind it was a forced march. Contrary to popular belief, horses on the march do not move appreciably faster overall than foot troops. Also it is likely that their arms and armour were conveyed in carts or pack animals rather than worn.

Well-equipped modern soldiers would surely baulk at the suggestion that they march 36 miles per day for four days straight, and then fight a battle at the end of it?

And Harold's footmen would surely not have been well shod by today's stadards, and would have been marching along a road that by our standards would have been very rough.

I can however envisage him taking his housecarls and perhaps his thegns, mounted, and picking up local footsoldiers as part of the local fyrd contingents nearer York, as x42brown suggests.

Well-equipped modern soldiers would surely baulk at the suggestion that they march 36 miles per day for four days straight, and then fight a battle at the end of it?

I think any comparison between Harold's troops and modern soldiers is fraught with uncertainties. We cannot know what an 11th century soldier could achieve or was used to achieving.

Edward IV's army marched 31 miles in a single day and then fought a battle – and that was in the heat of summer not in the autumn.

x42brown makes a valid comment that in all probability most of the march was on horseback anyway.

taking his housecarls and perhaps his thegns

I think significantly more than that. My memory (but it's a long time since I studied it) is that those expected to serve outside there local area were expected to be equipped for the march and were expected to have at least a pack animal supplied by those not going.

x42

The idea that Harold took an entire army north with him is nineteenth-century nonsense and has long since been debunked. I think it was Richard Abels who addressed this issue most recently but I do not have my books to hand, so cannot check.

Harold's troops were mounted and did not include the local levies, who would only have fought in their own locality. The idea that there was a grand levy of the entire nation in arms is just a case of popular perception/misconception lagging 100 years behind the scholarship.

Another consideration in how far an army can march is the length of time it requires to get them started, stop them for lunch (assuming they stop), and then find quarters or a camping ground for the night. These take a fair while to organise with large bodies of troops.

I'm with Wukong on this one I don't think the entire army went north. What he did take would have been mounted in my opinion.

Another consideration is that Harold is likely to have recieved logistical support as he made his way there. He had after all taken an army to Wales, knew how to do it and was King and so was entitled to things.

The army was made up of huscarls, theigns, and the ship units raised by the '5 hide' system. Each man had armour, helmet, sword, 2 spears, 2 shields, riding horse and pack horse).

The records show that, unusually for the period, numbers of ceorls joined the army on the subsequent march to Hastings (as volunteers).

The marches are well documented in the period sources.

Men were a lot tougher back then….

Tadamson 'The records show… The marches are well documented in the sources'.

Really? The majority of our narrative sources are chronciles written some time later (as much as a hunred years in one or two cases0 by men on the continent who had little direct contact with the protagonists (especially fo the march north). The main narrative source for Stamford Bridge is the Heiomskringla – again a much later source, written as a ripping yarn rather than a historical narrative. You are right in so far as your description matches the supposed ideal of the 'system'. However, it is far from clear that this was always achieved, and often (as was to happen later with 'arrayed' troops) the system was used as the basis for raising revenue to pay for the campaign.

If he didn't make the march in four days then the time line of events will have to be adjusted. Either Fulford happened earlier or Stamford Bridge happened later. It is possible we have the dates wrong.

Or Harold knew the army at Fulford would be defeated and started up before the Vikings arrived. However, if he was fearing a Norman invasion he would not have redeployed North unless he had to.

Harold certainly surprised the Norwegians so he must have moved more quickly than hardrada's calculation of the time it took news to get to London and the time for Harold to march. I am with those who see the English army as small amd professional and thuis well mounted and equipped. At Hastings the rustics are an unusual element, possibly there because William had harried the area. warfare in England in 1066 was for smallish forces that were at the top of the social hierarchy.
I sam the programme and its claims about men carrying 70lbs of gear are nonsense. The thegns and huscarls would have been mounted and had pack horses. Many would probably have had a spare horse. Forced marching for 12 hours at 4mph will do the distance and still allow for rests.
OB is right thatb Harold could call in contributions fro counties as he wewnt so food and maybe even shelter would not have been a huge problem.
Roy

Men were a lot tougher back then….

I always disbelieve this one. They were in better shape per capita, because most people worked physically to make a living. But there is a reason why people got bigger and it has to do with diet. Exercise is overrated. It is the warrior class that exercises more than most of the rest of the population. And I do not see a modern army as inferior in the area of "toughness" to an ancmed army. Men accustomed to riding everywhere -- thegns, housecarles, knights, i.e. the privileged upper classes -- would not have been any toughter on their feet than men today are. It is a fact that this same class in 11th century England had plenty of horses to ride: the usual equipment of a thegn included no less than two and as many as four horses per man. Housecarles were even better equipped.

I consider the argument already over, but popular writers will of course make basic mistakes, because faulty, old information endures for generations….

On the sub topic of army size: there is no reason to assume that Harold's army was small. The manpower of England was enormous by comparison to Norway or Normandy. Harold had enough time to gather the core army of the fyrd. If you look at the potential troops, his army outnumbered the Norse at Stamford bridge by no less than two to one. Few of the English would have been locals, as they had very recently sustained a massive defeat….

Yup….. total tosh. Only the immediate bodyguard and Huscarls went North…. on ponies probably. The local militia was called out en route.

Well the top chaps certainly had decent horses. As to the military potential of Englasnd I don't think its as huge as just visiting suggests. There is dispute about how much the 'five hide' methodology was a system and just where it applied. However, there has never been a satisfactory melding of that method of recruitment and the social level of thegns. Were thegns counted as part of a county levy?.

On Wikipedia it states that Northamptonsghire was assessed at 3,200 hides and Staffordhire at 500. If that is so then this is certainly not a systematic levy!
Let's assume that northamptonshire has 3,200 hides. That assesses it at 630 armed men. Now we know Northampton is a rich county because Tostig was made earl of Northamptonshire at the same time as he was earl of Northumbria because Northunbria was in a poor and rebellious state an Tostig needed some resources to defend him. If Northampton as a rich county provided 600 men then let's say that there are 30 counties in England capable of supporting 500 men on average (Staffs would only be 100) that gives a military levy of properly armed men of 15000 men. Add to that say 2000 for vthe personal retinues of Earls and king and we are talking around 18,000 men.
We have to square that with the idea of a mass levy of the familial heads of the other five hides. That IMHO only really applied to the guarding of burhs and the soldiers it produced would be little use in the field. Having a shield and a spear does not make you a wrrior if you do not attend musters, but you could stand behind a wall and throw stones at Vikings.
As a test of those sorts of numbers let us look at the invasions in the early 11th century by Sweyn Forkbeard and Cnut. The English cannot drown the Danes with nummbers, nor can they provide multiple armies to chase down the Danes. When the English are mustered in one place the danes are in another. So the danes, who I doubt had more than 10,000 men are not outnumbered.
In 1066 English military potential is weakend by Tostig's treachery and by thec disaffection of some Anglo Danes. Edwin and Morcar lose an army, then Harold fights a hard battle. After that he has to march South which must have involved some erosion of the force. Hence, I don't see Harold as having many more men than William at Hastings. You can pack out back ranks with yokels, but they are not armed effective warriors, whereas in William's army all the men will have been warriors first and farmers saecond…. vit like the Spartans.
So I don't buy England's allegedly huge military potential in1066

Roy

Tadamson 'The records show… The marches are well documented in the sources'.

Unfortunately, all of my books are in storage, but I believe Tadamson is correct. The Anglo-Saxon administrative records are well documented, with various writs and summons recorded & available.

From memory the 2nd military summons was for troops to initially assemble at London; Harold marched north collecting more en-route. I would expect these were all mounted troops, only picking up footsloggers closer to STamford. However, the march back south was obviously not so organised, and folks dropped out, the wounded, the knackered, those returning home, etc.

Harold remained in London gathering what troops he could; troops were still coming into London from the shires as he left for his final rendezvous at the "hoary-old apple tree", which was probably a summons to the locals.

A significant proportion of his troops, the butsecarles & their ships had been scattered by an earlier storm. I don't remember these troops fighting being mentioned at either Stamford or Senlac/Hastings.

As to the military potential of Englasnd I don't think its as huge as just visiting suggests.

In the early 11th century, England was suffering from an extended and particularly bad divisive time: so the size of the army of defense was much less than it could have been. I don't think that using that as a comparison to the 1066 campaigns works as a measure of how big the English army could be.

I'm not concerned about the hide system. Whatever the means or recruitment, England's population was many times that of either Norway or Normandy. All three countries had recruitment systems. The killer was the time factor: none of them could keep large armies afield for very long. England, here as well, had the "home court" edge.

So I don't buy England's allegedly huge military potential in1066

An army of 15K to 18K is still bigger than anything the Norse or Normans/French could come up with. Then add in the locals, not all of whom are going to be "yokels", but properly armed fighters too: the fyrd system was a rotation system as well as a muster system; not every warrior was going to muster for every campaign, but a rota of warriors; the locals will, of course, muster each time that their particular district is on call to defend against direct incursion.

Iirc, the sources state that Harold first mustered, then went north. Nothing says that he gathered troops along the way to York as a deliberate mustering ploy. The same thing happened in reverse before Hastings: he paused at London and strengthened his army before heading south.

Tostig's treachery did not get him very many men. So the English army was not materially reduced by that puny defection.

Before Gate Fulford, Hardrada left one in three men with the ships; before Stamford bridge, he again left one in three men with the ships. That means that the Norse army was two-thirds its total size in either battle: and in the second battle it was further reduced by the casualties suffered at Gate Fulford; it therefore could not have mustered more than 8K men at the outside: whereas we already agree that the "core" army alone of Englishmen was in excess of 12K (assuming that not all available had made it in time), plus any other troops picked up locally. I think it is a safe assumption that the English outclassed the Norse by no less than two to one at Stamford bridge.

The English did not suffer huge losses at Stamford bridge; otherwise Harold would not have been in shape to attack the Normans immediately. The English got to take on the Norse piecemeal; first on the west side of the river, then the main body on the east side, which was rather efficiently destroyed, along with Hardrada and Tostig; then finally the late arrivers, exhausted nigh to death by their forced march in mail. The textual appeal to a near-fought, all-day battle, is just Icelandic hype to make Hardrada's final battle into an epic.

On the day of battle at Hastings, the armies, I agree, were c. equal strength. That was because Harold's army suffered from further losses from desertion and a failure to keep up the pace. He was in a hurry to catch the Normans by surprise as he had done at Stamford bridge, and numbers were less important than that chance at surprise. There were few locals on hand, I believe. More of the core army was arriving throughout the day as they came in late during the battle….

I doubt that you defeat the Norse hand to hand in an exterminating battle without heavy casualties. There is no suggestion that Hardrada's men ran so there will not have neen easy killing in a pursuit. So I go for substantial weakening of Harold's army at Stamford Bridge.
As to military potential I do not see that England can be compared with the Norse countries. They are insecure and violent places and thus a lot more men are armed and dangerous. England is a peacefull and well organised place which runs a smaler military in proportion.
As I said. in the war against Canute and in the Norman Conquest there is no sign of England having the numbers of trained warriors that its population could theoretically support. If it did then it would have been much easier to beat off an invasion.
Roy

Stamford bridge: there is the armor thing: the Norse left theirs at the ships. The English were fully armed. Man for man the housecarles were the best fighters around; even the Norse said so. Piecemeal engagement with unarmored troops is not a way to inflict anything like equal casualties on your enemies.

"Insecure and violent places" would describe Northumbria, which was routinely molested by the Scots and threatened by the Danes. I think that you are emphasizing the "peaceful" quality of Ye Olde Merry England. Surely there is no evidence that England mustered armies that were a smaller proportion of the population. Where do you get this idea from?…

I think the smaller and lighter you are the more likely you are to be in shape and have endurance. (And be tougher). I look at pictures of current day soldiers (American anyway) and they look chubby and out of shape. You rarely see a skinny one. Look at pictures of US Marines in WW2. They averaged 5' 9" and 165 lbs. You rarely see a picture of one that is overweight.

I've done a lot of farmwork in my life and it was easier when I weighed 160 lbs than it was a when I weighed 190 lbs. I was a lot stronger at 190 but I could work all day at 160 without throwing up a lung. Carrying extra pounds will wear you out rapidly.

It is the more plausible account.

Don't forget the narrative is that the army marched North, defeated Hardrada, performed this remarkable feat – then lost the battle and the kingdom.

I was surely a remarkable achievement – but it may have been self defeating. You aren't being asked to believe that it was a good idea or that it worked.

"I'm not concerned about the hide system. Whatever the means or recruitment, England's population was many times that of either Norway or Normandy. All three countries had recruitment systems. The killer was the time factor: none of them could keep large armies afield for very long. England, here as well, had the "home court" edge."

Consider this, post Hastings William shares out the land and manages to ensure everyone gets a share. Once he has done this and remember not many English keep a hold of their land or indeed much else, there is not a lot left. That land is where England's military potential came from so for well equipped, trained and motivated fighting men you now have a base line.

Roy's point about what was available to resist Cnut is well made. The Viking Great Army in its various incarnations is estimated at its maximum strength by Peter Heather at circa 10,000 fighters. That was enough to take England.

One thing you are not looking it is retainers. In Anglo-Norman times these are the "sergeants" and household knights of the landholders. In Anglo-Saxon times, these are the "geneats" of the thegns. Richard Abels pointed out: "If we examine the duties enumerated in chapter 2 (of the Rectitudines, an early 11th century work), we find that the relationship between the king and his thegn paralleled in some respects that which existed between the thegn and his geneat. It would seem that the author of the Rectitudines viewed bookland (land tenure by royal decree) as a privileged but still dependent form of tenure. The thegn was the lord of the estate, but he held his land de rege, rendering service to the king for it, just as his own man, the geneat, held of and rendered service to him."

This substrata of obligation does not appear in the examination of hides, and extrapolating the number of available warriors from it. At the very least, I believe that that number (which, above, we have agreed was somewhere between 15 and 18K, a somewhat larger number than the number of knights fees established after the conquest) can be doubled or even tripled. Whether or not this retinue of accompanying geneats was mounted remains unknown: but it would make little or no sense to take "your man" to war, and have him walk while you, the thegn, rode; of what possible use could he be? So again, at the very least, the geneats rode the spare or extra horses of the thegns; some well-off geneats would have horses of their own; and some would be better armed than some thegns. The point being that, the potential array of England was well in excess of 30K men, the bulk of which were at Stamford bridge. They trounced the Norse, killed their king and the king of England's rebellious brother, and had plenty of strength to turn on the Normans/French right afterward.

I have already offered the reasons why the English army was no stronger than the Normans/French at Hastings: desertion, which the chroniclers agree occurred, and casualties due to wounds, exhaustion and attrition.

And the reason why the defending armies versus the Danes of Swen and Canute were small is because they were weakened by division/disaffection. King Ethelred the ill advised was a most unpopular monarch, and it was only when his son Edmund ironsides took over the defense that armies of any sufficient size at all were raised; that process was starting into high gear, when Canute came to terms, agreed to divide England, and then Edmund suddenly died. The Danes knew that a united England was not possible to conquer, so they came to early terms; while Edmund only benefited as well by a pause, to consolidate his power and muster even larger forces with which to drive the Danes out. Had he lived, I do not doubt that England's united strength would have proved more than a match for the Danish invaders; just as under the Godwinson's later, William would have been forced to withdraw after Hastings, had even one of the Godwinson brothers survived to continue the dynasty….

You are quite wrong to see the thegnage as producing large numbers of men through personal ties. A thegn might have four or five followers, but as said earlier we are not at all sure whether obligations such as one man from five hides actually supported the provision of thegns to the army or was an extra to those mustering onm the basis of social obligation. This is not Norman England where there is castle guard to do, so there is no point in keeping unproductive men around for military service.
. England is a fairly peaceful country and in peaceful countries military obligation decays. Similarly the burhs had decayed. Would not the English have been well off if they had had lots of garrisoned fortified sites to fall back on.
Earld do have military retinues, but then there are only about seven of them. When they turn their men out in the face off between the Godwinson's and the king, is this the 'five hide' levy or is it just the retinues of the earls and king?
Your 30,000 men might make some sense as the potential of the kingdom, but I relly don't think that they could all turn up at one battlewfield, especially on a hurried march north.
Let's say 5000 of the men are well enough off to have a servant, that's 10,000 bodies and I'd suggest anothe 5000 and then some picked up in the immediate locality, (though its a Danish locality (York0 and thus might not produce support.
If Hardrada had 7000 men of whom 3000 were at the ships and harold had 10,000 then Hardrada is well outnumbered to start with and, when the first army is beaten then the second is outnumbered 3 to 1
Don't overestimate the benefits of armour too much, because a man with a shiled who is a hardened warrior, is still a formidable opponent when he is selling his life.

You are also wrong about Ethelred. He start out with the full military potential of the kingdom. He then failed to inspire and will have lost numbers, but if you are right he ought to have been easily able to deal with the forces of Sweyn.

An intersting point on the potential survival of Harold… and wrong again. Harolds sons did survive and wewre not capable of anything much more than piracy. The country did not rally to them. Nor were Edwin and Morcar, who if we believed your numbers should have been well capable of holding Hardrada any real threat to William. As it turned out England did not have the trained men to form a sufficiently large new army to resist the Normans, hence why the Witan caved in despite holding London.

I am drawn irresistably to the conclusion that the English army was not huge and that it was severly damaged by the two Northern battles before its tryst with William and destiny.

Roy

roffe.co.uk/thegns.htm is a very intersting site and a click on any of the counties is interesting. Often the king's thegn listed is an earl with multiple holdings or a woman and that may or may not create a multiple obligation. What I mean is that if an earl is due to turn up with his retinue that may not mean that there is a man from the manor plus a man from the retinue because the earl may have used the manor to support one or more housecarls of his retinue.
Secondly, looking fairly quickly at several counties ui would say that there are more Norman holders of manors than there are saxon. Of course there are Normans with large holdings in 1086, such as the count of Mortain, but on an unsystematic look the Normans appear to be settling more men.
It would be interesting to know what the actual productivity of warriors was, but lookig at some of the patterns of holding I would not assume that the king's thegns were providing that much over and above what I'd allowed for earls who they would be serving?
Roy

I see the systems as different but not that different. England was peaceful but not feeling that comfortable that their military decayed. The fyrd system beat the snot out of anything on the mainland, and England's infrastructure supported armies far larger and longer in the field than any feudal system.

Also, I see no reason to assume an inferior turnout of fighters for an English muster. You still offer no more evidence for believing/accepting this than I do for believing in the existence of geneat retinues; yet we do have the existence of the geneat as a sworn follower of a thegn: so why assume that he is just some lacky or servant with no military capability? I don't buy it….

The thing is Doug where are all these English warriors post Hastings?

What resistance there was seems to me to have come from the Danelaw where a different landholding system was in place. That system in my view allowed for a larger military class per holding than that of the rest of England.

I'm absolutely sure that given the realities of Norman rule the English would have resisted if they could have post Hastings. Instead we see Harold's sons (I accept they did not command popular support) go off to Ireland via their Danish connections and a flight of the aristocracy to Scotland or Byzantium.

If there was still a viable reserve of military manpower why was it not used to fight off William? Where was it?

The situation is more complex than a mere examination of available manpower.

William of Normandy really did have a claim to the throne of England. This was unpopular, not denied. The English gave him their best shot, then knuckled under the new regime; the chroniclers are almost unanimous in this mindset: God had abandoned England and favored the Normans/French. Everything pointed to this reality, and the vast majority of Englishmen believed it to be true. The "fight" was literally knocked out of them.

Then came the mounting pressure of oppression. Thegn after thegn was dispossessed of his lands and reduced to mere vassal status. Some of them did emigrate, but most simply sunk to a lower social status, no longer of the warrior aristocracy, but now a mere "freeman". The Normans did not ever institute serfdom upon "freemen" in England: all that they demanded in order to separate their serfs from freemen vassals was proof/witnesses to show the freeman status of the individual under English law. But the galling, the insufferable thing (for many) was the loss of status for a proud people. The rebellion finally occurred in the north in the early 70s and was brutally put down: the entire district was wasted in the "harrying of the north". By the time of Domesday Book there were on record, iirc, exactly two thegns; the rest had totally disappeared, most of them subsumed into the mass of "freemen" with no nobility recognized at all.

The former retainers of the thegns remained as they had been before; they simply transferred masters. These became the "sergeants" for the Anglo-Normans. The fyrd was called up several times during the next two generations. If all the thegns were gone, and formerly constituted the fyrd, where did these fighters come from then?

As for Harold's sons: yes, they were not recognized because their father's ignominious death "proved" his disfavor with God. But had either of Harold's brothers survived Hastings, I think it possible that he would have assumed Harold's place. But maybe not: the malaise of lost morale that afflicted virtually everyone after the catastrophe of Hastings might have set in anyway, making either Gyrth or Leofwine's leadership no more acceptable than one of Harold's son's….

Which chroniclers are you thinking of when you say "God had abandoned England and favored the Normans/French. Everything pointed to this reality, and the vast majority of Englishmen believed it to be true."

The Normans certainly thought God was on their side but where are the English voices assenting?

The thing is the Godwinsons were merely a faction in English politics that had managed to get their man on the throne. Defeat for the Godwinsons need not have been seen as divine disleasure with the English.

The Normans abolished slavery but I don't think that helps this debate.

The rebellion is in the Danelaw carried out by Anglo Danes there is not an English rebellion. If the English had been able to rebel that was the time to do it. They did not which if they had large numbers of trained fighters would be suprising.

Do we know how many English were called upon to take service with the Normans because if we do we should have some idea of their previous social standing.

The Fyrd seems to have been thought of as having little military value post conquest. That would fit an unmilitarised England rather than a country full of proffessional warriors.

Do you not think the fact that Harold was very much of the Anglo Danish faction might have influenced his sons standing? That apart though Edwin and Morcar who were not shrinking violets don't fight either I assume because they cannot match William's numbers.

I'm still not seeing this reserve of military manpower post Hastings. Nor can I think of any people anywhere who were capable of effective military resistance losing one battle and saying well God's against us better surrender.

The English have a constant problem. It is that the country is by and large peaceable and has no foreign enemies. The Wars with the Scots and Welsh are small beer, England has no desitre to conquer either. There is no pressing need for a military establishment and what there is is organised by and around the earls. Theere does not seem to be a system as in Normandy, where younger sons go off adventuruing and looking for land and honour, just contrast the relatively rapid moves the Normans make towards Wales, Scotland and Ireland whilst at the same time running civil war in Normandy and going to Southern Italy, Spain and on crusade. the English just do not do this.

True the fyrd is called out by William and IIRC goes across to France at first, but it is soon commuted to a money payment. I cannot imagine that large numbers would go on a foreign expedition that would concentrate on shipping milites and archers!
I imagine the equivalent of thev fyrd is called upon at northallerton against the Scots. However, I am happy to see such frontier districts as the bishopric of Durham as having more men under arms than peaceable Midlands and Southern counties.

The five hide obligation really do look as though the English kings were trying to reducew vthe numbers at levies and increase the effectivenness of the force by having well armoured and equipped men. There is a reference in the early days of Ethelred'ss reign to get 10,000 mailcoats. Lord knows how the smithing capability of the country could have responded to that. Also that sort of shows that agianst the Danes the English lacked vital kit. Too many years of peace.
So we might split the Old English military potential in two. On the one hand you could call up every free man to serve, but this would be the ramy that garrisoned Alfred's burhs and they had fallen into disrepair by the end of the tenth century. then there was a better army based upon selective service of different types (Danelaw tenures for example being different). This would give an army to be added to the retinues of the earls. IMHO the thegnage comes as part of the selective muster apart from those who come because of personal obligation to earl or king.

I am quite prepared to believe that the selective army could raise 20,000 men, but not all in one place. I don't see that the general obligation would produce men of much value except in the marcher areas (wales Scotland).
I very much doubt if more than 15,000 men would come together for a battle.
Mosat academics now seem to see Hastings as being an English army and a Norman army, both around the 10,000. Clearly Harold does not have the numbers to swamp William. Notably as OB says that is the only English army in the field, There are no other pitched battles and that is very suggestive.

roy

May I ask you worthy gentlemen a question?

In the C12th/C13th the core of medieval English armies were the (royal) household knights, was it not?

Did late C11th English military forces look 'similar'? What proportion of Harold's army in 1066 would have been composed of 'royal' housecarls (and/or thegns whose primary loyalty was directly to Harold as their immediate lord)?

Which chroniclers are you thinking of when you say "God had abandoned England and favored the Normans/French. Everything pointed to this reality, and the vast majority of Englishmen believed it to be true."

"Of that battle the French who took part in it do to this day declare that, although fortune swayed now on this side and now on that, yet of the Normans so many were slain or put to flight that the victory which they had gained is truly and without any doubt to be attributed to nothing else than the miraculous intervention of God." (Eadmer of Canterbury)

"There King Harold was killed and Earl Leofwine his brother and Earl Gyrth his brother, and many good men, and the French remained masters of the field, even as God granted it to them because of the sins of the people." … "There [William] was met by Archbishop Aldred and Edgar Cild, and Earl Edwin and Earl Morcar, and all the chief men from London. And they submitted out of necessity after most damage had been done -- and it was a great piece of folly that they had not done it earlier, since God would not make things better, because of our sins." (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle "D" version)

The Fyrd seems to have been thought of as having little military value post conquest. That would fit an unmilitarised England rather than a country full of proffessional warriors.

I never said that the country was full of professional warriors. I only contend for an equal proportion of the male population mustering for war. Something like 41% of the total known thegnhood fought and mostly perished at Hastings; added to the deaths of more fyrdmen at Gate Fulford and Stamford bridge, the triple battles of 1066 were a catastrophic damaging of the core army of England, from which it had no time to recover. I think that the evidence of a lack of resistance to the Norman regime, coupled with the written evidence of the "God's will" mindset (that the Normans won because of it was God's will), is a good enough explanation of the lack of martial vigor following 1066: not that there were no more troops left. There were plenty of fighting men still, but no discernible leadership to unite behind. The one effort to do so was a disastrous failure, resulting in the deaths of the two sons of Alfgar, Edwin and Morcar: but incredibly, not Edgar Atheling.

The fyrd was called out in large numbers several times and formed infantry, both for sieges and field battles. By the time William's sons were ruling the country, of course, it had deteriorated greatly from its Anglo-Saxon level of efficiency. It is not a fair comparison to rate the former fyrd by the Anglo-Norman version. The important thing is: the fyrd existed and could still be called up; this would not be the case if it had only, or even mostly, been composed of thegns, because they were extinct as a class….

… the English just do not do this.

Neither do any other people of the 11th century. The Normans are unique in Western Europe for expansion and vigor. Don't down-rate the English by comparison to Normandy!

OB is right that there are no pitched battles after Hastings, but mistaken that there was only one army: the northern earls were mustering, and troops were arriving throughout the day as the battle of Hastings raged.

The chroniclers are clear that Harold fought before he had gathered all his strength; even to the point that he fought with only half of his army mustered and only a third of his troops organized for battle. If the "consensus" of c. 10K is right, then that suggests that c. 20 to 30K were available, as I said….

@redcoat: The royal housecarles could have numbered as many as 2,500. They did in former times. The earls had several hundred housecarles each. The total housecarle strength in England therefore was somewhere around 4,000. The vast majority of these fought at Stamford bridge and Hastings: as half of the earls were the Godwinson boys, and one of them was the king….

Well I suppose Churchmen always explained defeats as being a consequence of sin but we should recognise that Eadmer was an infant at the time of Hastings and enjoyed the patronage of the Norman establishment as an adult. I would expect him to go with the official version.

The thing about Edwin and Morcar is that when they face Hardrada their army is circa 5,000 strong and they knew he was coming. They lost the battle and around 15% casualties.

If we consider 10,000 as the strength of Harold's army at Hastings and give Gyrth and Leofwine the equivalent force to Edwin and Morcar and you are right about the strength of the royal Housecarls that's the bulk of the English army at Hastings accounted for.

Edwin and Morcar don't make it to the battle and even if they cannot replace losses still have circa 4000 men. If most of the thanes have yet to fight why do we not see a second English army grouping around them? I suspect its because what there is is insufficent quality to tackle William who can replace losses. The Witan knows this and so surrenders. An unlikely thing to do if they had another force of 20,000 competant warriors its not as though Edwin or Morcar would have turned down a throne.

BTW its not just the Normans who were up and at the world consider the composition of the first crusade for example.

JV , I fear that you are conflating the duty of all free men to serve with the selective army that the English actually raised. Of course you could get a lot of untrained and inexperienced men for seige work (though there was precious little of that) or for the defence of walls. The English may well have used such men ina pitched battle at maldon against the Vikingss… with predictable consequences. Hence the desire to select one man in five and properly equip and supply them.
Once the state goes down that path the general levy will decay. Mere numbers don't cut it because the Vikings and the Normans have latrge numbers of hardened, well equipped professionals. BUT these are small armies.

Roy

It seems we are talking past each other now. All I have objected to is the assertion that English armies were smaller because their military had "decayed" in "Peaceful Olde England", i.e. they didn't have the same need for a military as other countries. To claim that once the thegns are gone that there are no more troops is just not supportable with evidence.

In the same way that milites on the continent were the land-holding class, and supplied the troops for a feudal muster, so too the thegns brought the troops for a muster of the fyrd. These could be landless thegns or geneats, household fighters in any case: they do not show up as the hide holders. In Normandy there were considerably more milites and other fighters than appear when the feudal quotas are examined.

The point remains, that England's population was several to many times greater than Normandy's or Norway's. It wasn't the means that England lacked, it was the leadership after the disaster at Hastings. Edwin and Morcar still had formidable forces; enough so that the men of London attempted an alliance with the northern earls, behind the figurehead of Edgar the Atheling; but for whatever reason, the two brother earls withdrew their army back to the north, forcing the Londoners to submit to William. Had the army been destroyed at Hastings, there would have been no option to resist. This is not supported by the written record. The army was still there (after all, well over 50% of the thegnhood of England yet lived); just not the will to unite and continue the resistance. Nobody could agree on anything, as the ASC suggests….

Your first paragraph and your last we can talk about but the middle one does not help in talking about England.

I think Edwin and Morcar had about 4000 good troops, plainly not enough to take the Normans on. How many do you think they have?

Since they caused the Norse "heavy casualties" it was a stand-up fight. The number of ships and population allow Hardrada's army to be c. 12K men; but only c. 8K fought at Gate Fulford. So I guess I believe that the Northumbrians got together 8 to 10K men: thegns, their geneats, the local levy and the housecarles. For what it's worth, King Harald's Saga says that the northern earls were waiting for Hardrada with "a huge army".

My point about the comparison with the feudal system on the continent, is that listed troops are land-holders; they are not by any stretch the only troops in the army. This is true for England as well. Hides, carucates or sulungs are held by thegns and their Danelaw social equals; the held lands are further "sublet" to social inferiors, who contribute to the retinues. These do not show up by name, but they are there just the same way that sergeants and the like are. In both situations, there are more thegns and knights than there are "fiefs"; these do not have retinues of their own, but are part of the landless men who muster as fighters in the retinues….

Surely the big question here is how militarised these societies were, or rather how well the 'systems' involved deliver troops.
JVs position is respectable in that in theory all these methods of supplying men could produce a large number for service. However, I don't think that Early Mediaeval 'systems' are that efficient. Obligations soon decay in peacetiome, rich men get richer and are not too keen to spend on providing warrior layabouts. After all the Normans are garrisoning England, except for the frontiers the English did not have to do that. I don't buy the idea that just because a country is bigger it necessarily delivers more military effort. After all, William had allies and mercenaries a plenty. It might be better to caompare the military potential of Sourthern England with that of Northern france. france delivers a high number of soldiers because there is weak central authority and lords need men to defend their holdings.

Look at the size of Anglo Norman battles. Generally rather small afairs.
Roy

"Inefficient". Precisely. All medieval "nations" had the same problem with "layabouts". They were desirable when war loomed; and denigrated, even hated, when peace was enjoyed. Even the Byzantine empire, the most professional and efficient military in Europe, had rampant corruption of the military to deal with: before Manzikert, it was discovered that the taxes to arm and train the themas had largely been embezzled by the governors; the thematic armies (analogous to the English shire fyrds), which were to join forces with the imperial "core" army out of Constantinople, were largely paper armies only: the arms were lacking and training had lapsed. I doubt that England, the next most organized and "efficient" government (and military) west of Constantinople, had fared any better. By 1066 the fyrd had not been generally summoned for over a generation. The last time that the whole country had fought an invasion was the Danes under Swein and Canute. William's father had mustered a fleet to invade in behalf of his cousins, Alfred and Edward, but it came to naught because of prevailing winds: I don't recall if Harold I called a full muster of the fyrd then or not. But in any case, that was a long time before 1066.

In fact, the very potential for military resistance is probably the key factor in William's decision to hazard the invasion in the first place: he knew that although they were not "soft", as popular scuttlebutt asserted, the English were reluctant to go to war and would never muster armies, in one place at the same time, big enough to overwhelm the Franco-Norman invaders; especially if William put the pressure on Harold by burning out his followers' from their homes. Harold would hasten south with what he had on hand to do battle as soon as possible. Which is exactly what happened.

But the troops were there. And if Harold had managed to curb his feelings long enough, he would have mustered an even larger army than the one he had already put together: which was described in the ASC as the largest land and sea force ever before seen in the land….

Given that Normans had enjoyed high positions under Edward the Confessor we might think Willian knew exactly what England's military capabilities were.

We might assume that he considered what he took with him was enough to do the job. I'm struck by the fact 10,000 was enough for Canute and it seems for William too. In both cases we are talking about skilled and well equipped experienced warriors but its a striking convergence of numbers.

Hardrada seems to have thought 7,000 enough but perhaps he thought the Danelaw would rise for him.

Hardrada certainly issued an invitation to the danelaw to join him and march South. However, He had Tostig with him, a man who aroused very negative feelings in the North from which he had been driven when earl, feelings so strong that Harold, his brother, could not support him.

I concur with OB that the likely numbers that invaders brought to England are suggestive that between 7 and 10,000 good men were likely enough to win the kingdom.

Roy
Lastly, what is the adjective used to describe Harold's army in the A/S chronicle, both on it's move North and the journey to Hastings?
What is your informed view of that description?

Both Hardrada's and William's invasions were very big gambles. Not only because the numbers were against them, but because of the unknowns: you mention the possibility of large parts of England rising for the Norse; that was evidently one of the inducements advanced by Tostig, and it seems likely, given how completely cowed the northern earls and their people were after their defeat. Had the Norse been at least cautious instead of overconfident, I think that that alone could have changed everything. Imagine a "battle of Riccall" where all the Norse are, instead, camped near their ships awaiting the hostages, instead of split into one-third and two-thirds, with a further dividing by the river, which was just simple stupidity caused by overconfidence. Harold might still have won the battle, but his army would have been severely worse off gaining the field, with the resulting campaign being entirely different, since Harold would not have had an army to face the Normans with for many days.

How many days would have passed before the fateful confrontation? If the month of October had passed, then William's reinforcements would have arrived. He didn't think that "ten thousand was enough", it was what he was stuck with, since he didn't have enough ships to carry his whole force in one crossing. He was a gambler, but never took risks he didn't have to (unlike either Harold). How large were the Norman reinforcements? We don't know. But they were surely thousands more, not hundreds. So the English army reconstitutes itself with late-arriving thegns and their retinues; the Norman army is strengthened with more men and horses and supplies. The battle is larger than Hastings would have been, and certainly somewhere further inland, and closer to London, if not actually within sight of its walls.

Would any part of England have risen in favor of William? I do not see this as a possibility. The more that William burned the land to goad Harold into battle, the more the country would be against him.

Lastly, what is the adjective used to describe Harold's army in the A/S chronicle, both on it's move North and the journey to Hastings?
What is your informed view of that description?

I paraphrased it already: but my translation of the ASC says, "King Harold. . .assembled a naval force and a land force larger than any king had assembled before in this country". For the journey south there is no ASC description (other than the "D" saying "he assembled a large army"); but both the Carmen and Wm of Poitiers say: "Where he goes he leads forests (of spears) into the open country, and he makes the rivers through which he passes run dry!" And: "If an author from antiquity had described Harold's army, he would have said that as it passed rivers dried up, the forests became open country". But then, Wm of Poitiers was using the Carmen as his inspiration as a plagiarist. Both descriptions are written by "the enemy", in order to make Duke William's victory more miraculous and impressive. Later tradition said that the English army and Normans had "man for man", i.e. equal strength, which agrees with the non rhetorical evidence….

(edit to add: I forgot the dysentery! If Harold had put off battle until November, half of William's army, including himself, would have been prostrated with it. In that event, I would put my money on the English: bigger army, rested, and the invaders are reduced by half of their original forces, plus fewer reinforcements than the numbers reduced by the disease. But in that event, would William accept a pitched battle? I doubt it: which would force the English to attack a fortified camp, thus swinging the odds back to more even, if not somewhat in favor of the invaders….)

Cancel the question at the end of my last post, it was based upon an inferior on line translation!!
Roy

Too late! :) ….

What if is a great game in 1066. I agree that William would have found little support in the country. Harold may not have been universally popular, bu there was no immediate move to recognise him by any faction even after he had won.

Whilst William has a reputation for cautious calculation, the whole invasion was a huge risk, but he had before him the examples of Sweyn and Canute and the support of the Pope.
Could Harold have done better? I am afraid that I am of the school that believes the Norman combination of Mounted knights, spear infantry and bowmen is inherently superior to an army that has to form a dense mass and duke it out hand to hand with an opponent. Harold does show tactical flexibility against the Welsh in 1063, but we get no hint of it in 1066. I don't think that you can win just by having a plan not to lose. Harold had seen the Normans in action and should have known better. Of course, knowing the inferiority of his army might have made him think that keeping William penned between the sea and the Weald would be a better stragtegy than allowing him to establish a base and then break out into open country where the Norman cavalry would have been even more effective
Roy