The Traditional Battlefield

We believe the Battle of Hastings was fought at Hurst Lane in Sedlescombe, rather than at the traditional site around Battle Abbey. In this section, we explain why the traditional battlefield location is unlikely, examine the supporting evidence, explore how the accepted narrative might be mistaken, and consider why Battle Abbey was built where it is.

For those unfamiliar with the traditional battle narrative, here is a brief recap. Harold, furious about the Norman invasion, rushed to Sussex, hoping to launch a surprise attack on the Norman camp. In his haste, he left behind half of his army. He camped on Caldbec Hill. The Normans were camped at modern-day Hastings. At dawn on the day of the battle, Harold, too impatient to wait for reinforcements, ordered his understrength, rag-tag army to march southeast along the Hastings Ridge to attack the Norman camp. Simultaneously, William ordered his men to march northwest up the same ridge toward the English camp. Scouts from both sides warned their commanders about the approaching enemy.

The Normans halted at Hechelande, near modern Telham, and formed a battle camp. Realizing that the Normans were too powerful to fight on level ground, Harold ordered his men to occupy the nearest hill, which happened to be the ridge at modern Battle (white dots on Figure 49). It is known as ‘Senlac Hill’ or ‘Battle Ridge’ – we will use the latter. The English formed a tightly packed, straight or straightish open shield wall on some or all of Battle Ridge, 50m or so below the ridge crest. Harold commanded from behind the centre of the line (X). The Normans, having advanced out along Telham Hill, divided into three groups and attacked up the slope south of where the Abbey now stands (cyan lines on Figure 49). After fighting all day, the Normans had made no impression on the English line. William ordered one of his flanks to feign a retreat, luring some of Harold’s troops to break formation. This created a gap, through which Norman horsemen breached the shield wall, allowing them to attack and kill Harold. The English forces held out until dusk before fleeing.

There are major inconsistencies between this traditional narrative and the contemporary accounts. Brevis Relatio and Wace, for instance, state that Harold went straight to modern Battle and waited to be attacked, contradicting the idea that he attempted a surprise attack on the Norman camp. If this is true, it resolves the question of why Harold would make a reckless understrength attack on a fortified Norman camp. However, it would raise a new problem that is just as thorny: why would Harold establish a static shield wall at Battle, or anywhere for that matter, effectively setting the terms of a battle he could not possibly win? Moreover, this scenario contradicts the Carmen, which says that the Normans saw the English occupy the battlefield on the morning of the battle.

There is also no consensus on the size or shape of the English shield wall either. Reputable historians agree that the battle took place on Battle Ridge, but it was 2km-long. Early historians assumed each side had 25000 or more men, enough for the English to defend the entire ridge. In 1897, Wilhelm Spatz calculated that neither side could have had more than 8000 men, probably fewer. Thus, most modern analyses estimate that each side had between 5000 and 8000 men, far too few to defend the entire ridge. They propose that Harold defended only the central part of the ridge, but estimates vary between 400m and 800m for the shield wall’s length. Its shape is also debated - some believe it was straight, others curved, doglegged, or straight with ‘refused’ (bent) flanks.

Another inconsistency involves the direction of the Norman advance. The cyan line on Figure 49 represents the traditional route, which partially matches Wace’s description. However, it crosses a boggy stream in Malthouse Wood, leading some historians to believe the Normans took a dry route by staying on the Hastings Ridge until they reached modern Starr's Green (cyan dots on Figure 49). This seems sensible but contradicts Wace. Neither route makes military sense, as both would require the Normans unnecessarily to attack uphill. A more plausible option, initially proposed by Time Team and now endorsed by some in English Heritage, would have been for the Normans to remain on the Hastings Ridge and attack from the east along the ridge crest (teal dots on Figure 49). This would explain why no significant archaeological evidence has been found at the traditional battlefield. However, it contradicts multiple battlefield clues from contemporary accounts, including Wace’s description of the Norman advance and the steepness of the battlefield. It would also mean the English shield wall was facing the wrong direction.

Here then is one reason to be sceptical about the traditional battlefield location. Every reputable historian who has written about the battle proposes a different scenario. They disagree on the size and composition of the armies, where the English camped, how and why they arrived at the battlefield, the direction of the Norman attack, the size and shape of the shield wall, and how William failed to outflank the English line. Some variables have many plausible values – there are 30 different versions of the shield wall alone - as we show here. This creates thousands of potential battle scenarios, many of which have been proposed over the years. It means that there is no single orthodox consensus but rather many competing hypotheses. A H Burne, who analysed battle theories published before 1950, lamented: “There is a disparity of views. How are we to judge between such eminent authorities? When the doctors disagree, who shall decide?” He concluded that they were all wrong and proposed yet another theory. It was not widely accepted either. Later historians have similarly dismissed previous theories, leading to a continuous stream of new proposed battle scenarios.

Historians rarely openly criticize each other's theories, but in essence, each new engagement theory implicitly challenges the validity of earlier proposals. Likewise, new theories are often met with similar scepticism. In short, reputable historians struggle to agree on any major aspect of the traditional battle narrative - except for the claim that Battle Abbey was built on the battlefield. And that, as we will explore next, is fishy too.

A monastery on a battlefield?

The entire orthodox Battle of Hastings narrative relies on the notion that Battle Abbey was built on the battlefield. It is highly unlikely.

Battle Abbey is unique as the only medieval Christian monastery anywhere in the world that purports to have been built on a battlefield combat zone. The absence of other examples stems partly from the medieval fear of revenants and thus of being haunted by the souls of those killed in violent conflict, and partly to avoid being accused of glorifying violence. William the Conqueror, known for his piety, would have been particularly sensitive to this latter reason because his motivation for building the Abbey was to earn the Pope’s absolution for blood spilled during the Conquest, notably during the ‘Harrying of the North’. Constructing a penance abbey on the site of his greatest military victory would have worsened his sins in the eyes of the Pope. Contrary to popular belief, the Abbey’s location suggests the battle was not fought at the traditional site, rather than that it was.

Some contemporary accounts go further, claiming the Abbey was built on the exact spot where Harold was killed. This is even less likely. It was William’s Osama bin Laden moment. It would have been implausibly naïve of him to permanently mark the location of Harold’s death, for fear it became an Anglo-Saxon shrine where Harold could be venerated as a martyr, and a focus for rebel insurgents. In our view, the location of Harold’s death would have been the last place William would choose for his abbey.

The Abbey’s name also demands scrutiny. Many people believe the name ‘Battle Abbey’ proves it was built on the battlefield, but this is a misconception. The Abbey’s original name was Sancti Martini de Bello. The Latin word bello means ‘war’ or ‘to wage war’ in a broad sense, making the Abbey a memorial to the campaign rather than to the battle specifically. This is consistent with the Abbey’s location in modern Battle, which would have been part of the ‘theatre of war’. The Latin terms for ‘battle’ are ‘pugna’ and ‘proelium’. A battlefield was usually referred to as ‘locus pugnæ’ or sometimes ‘acies’. If William had intended to highlight that the Abbey was built on the actual battlefield, he would have named it ‘Sancti Martini de Pugna’. Contrary to popular belief, the names ‘Battle Abbey’ and ‘Battle’ are more evidence that the Abbey was not built on the battlefield, rather than that it was.

Evidence that Battle Abbey is on the battlefield

English Heritage’s Roy Porter published a paper entitled ‘On the Very Spot: In Defence of Battle’ to collate all the evidence that the Battle of Hastings was fought at Battle. It was endorsed by the Battlefields Trust, Royal Armouries, the Sussex County Archaeologist, TV celebrity historians and others, so they presumably did not have any extra evidence to add.

Porter summarises: “The Chronicle [of Battle Abbey] stands as the summation of a tradition placing the abbey on the battlefield, a tradition which is attested by several documentary sources which allow us to trace it back to within living memory of 1066. This historical evidence, buttressed by the physical peculiarities of the abbey, is enough to make a compelling case for the traditional site.” This statement needs to be checked.

Documentary evidence that the Abbey is on the battlefield

Porter’s only significant evidence that the battle was fought at Battle Abbey is nine statements in contemporary accounts that say or imply that the Abbey was built on the battlefield. Here they are, using Porter’s choice of translators. We have reproduced them in full, for completeness. Following our normal practice, translations to ‘Hastings’ have been reverted to the place named in the original manuscript.

1. The Chronicle of Battle Abbey, written by the monks of Battle Abbey contains what historians refer to as William’s ‘battlefield oath’ (Searle): “And to strengthen the hands and hearts of you who are about to fight for me, I make a vow on this very battlefield I shall found a monastery for the salvation of all, and especially for those who fall here, to the honour of God and his saints, where servants of God may be supported: a fitting monastery, with a worthy liberty. Let it be an atonement: a haven for all, as free as the one I conquer for myself.” Six or seven years after the battle, CBA says that William invites some monks from Marmoutier to build his abbey. They tell William that the battlefield is an inappropriate site for a monastery, but CBA (Searle) reckons that William tells them to build it there anyway: “When the king heard this he refused angrily and ordered them to lay the foundations of the church speedily and on the very spot where his enemy had fallen and the victory been won.”

2. Brevis Relatio, also written at Battle Abbey (Van Houts): “And so Harold departed from London with all his troops and arrived at a place which is now called Battle”. Later it says: “This battle took place on 14 October on the site where William, count of the Normans, but afterwards king of the English, had an abbey built to the memory of this victory, and for the absolution of the sins of all who had been slain there.”

3. Wace (Burgess): “He [Harold] led his men forward, as troops who were fully armed, to a place where he raised his standard; he had his pennon fixed at the very spot where Battle Abbey was built. He would, he said, defend himself against anyone who attacked him at that place.”

4. John of Worcester (McGurk): “In the diocese of Chichester in Sussex two new monasteries have been founded. First St Martin at Battle which King William the Elder founded and erected at 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.”

5. William of Malmesbury (Mynors): “The other monastery he built at Hastingis in honour of St. Martin, and 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.”

6. Orderic’s recension of Juimiège’s Gesta Normanorum Ducum (Van Houts): “The site, where, as we mentioned above, the combat took place is therefore called Battle to the present day. There King William founded a monastery dedicated to the Holy Trinity, filled it with monks of Marmoutier founded by Saint-Martin near Tours, and endowed it with the necessary wealth to enable them to pray for the dead of both sides.”

7. Orderic’s Historia Ecclesiastica (Van Houts): “he [William] built the abbey of the Holy Trinity at Senlac, the site of the battle, and endowed it with wealth and possessions.”

8. Henry of Huntingdon (Greenway): “The battle took place in the month of September [sic], on the feast day of St Calixtus. In that place King William later built a noble abbey for the souls of the departed, and called it by the fitting name of Battle.”

9. ASC-E (Garmonsway), in its obituary for William: “On the very spot where God granted him the conquest of England he caused a great abbey to be built; and settled monks in it and richly endowed it.”

These statements, as Porter says, do seem to state or suggest that Battle Abbey was built on the battlefield, perhaps at the exact location where Harold died. They are less convincing upon closer inspection.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is key, as it is the only report from the losing side and the only one written within comfortable living memory of the battle. Porter says: “This evidence, written by an Englishman in English and emphatic in its identification of the abbey site being on the battlefield of Hastings (‘On ðam ilcan steode’), is crucial on two counts: it is the earliest surviving reference to the dual location and it was written well within living memory of 1066, almost certainly before the end of the 11th century.” It is not as emphatic as he makes out.

Firstly, ‘where God permitted him to conquer England’ is an odd and vague choice of words. If it referred to the battlefield, it is more likely to have said: ‘William built a great abbey on the battlefield’, perhaps adding ‘where God gave him victory over the English’ for piety’s sake. The Battle of Hastings was an important aspect of the Conquest but not the only one. Success was only assured when London chose not to resist. That is a more accurate interpretation of the ASC statement, but in entirely the wrong place. Medieval clerics thought that God predetermined the outcome of battles, so the statement might refer to where William prayed before the battle, but the only place that could not have been is the battlefield. We suspect that the ASC’s author chose these words because he knew that the battle was fought in the vicinity of Battle Abbey but not at the Abbey, and this was a concise and pious way of saying so.

Secondly, Garmonsway’s translation is quirky. Old English ‘steode’ means ‘place’, so Dorothy Whitelock translates William’s obituary in the ASC as: “In the same place where God permitted him to conquer England, he set up a famous monastery and appointed monks for it”. ‘steode’, like ‘place’, has no implication of precision. While it can refer to a specific spot, thereby matching Garmonsway’s translation, it could just as easily refer to an area as large as a kingdom. Its meaning depends on the remoteness of the place, its population density, and the context. For instance, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that the place where Harold moored his fleet was the Isle of Wight, and the place where William Rufus died was the New Forest. Sub-Andredsweald East Sussex was just as remote and sparsely populated, so perhaps five miles of precision is all that can be expected.

Regardless, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s obituary for William is far from emphatic. It does not say that the Abbey is on the battlefield. On the contrary, in our opinion, it is more likely to be saying that the Abbey is not on the battlefield than that it is. It is therefore worth investigating the other accounts.

Huntingdon and Brevis Relatio use similarly imprecise language. Huntingdon says ‘Quo in loco’, Brevis Relatio ‘in eo loco ubi’. Latin ‘loco’ means ‘place’. An unqualified loco, like an unqualified steode, can have a wide range of meanings, especially in remote and sparsely populated areas like medieval sub-Andredsweald East Sussex. Then there is Orderic’s ‘Senlac’. He does not explain what he meant by the term, but some of his other references to it encompass both camps and the battlefield, so it was too large to be the battlefield. We discuss what it probably meant in Clue 18 above and below. For our purposes here, it is sufficient to say that it is also an unqualified ‘place’ with the same vagueness as steode and loco.

It seems likely to us that none of these authors knew the exact location of the battle, other than that it was in the vicinity of Battle Abbey, so they are effectively saying that the Abbey was built in the vicinity of the battle, or perhaps in the theatre of war. If so, there is no reason they are more likely to apply to the orthodox battlefield than to any of the other candidates. Indeed, it is quite the opposite: they imply that the Abbey is not on the battlefield.

Before discussing the other group, it is interesting to consider, Kipling-like, how the Battle of Hastings got its name. Obviously not because it was fought at modern Hastings, or anywhere that Normans might have referred to as Hastinges. Rather, it is to do with the Latin word ‘bellum’ and its inflections. As we say in Clue 2 above, for no rational reason ‘bellum’ is invariably translated as ‘battle’ in statements about the Battle of Hastings. The term ‘Battle of Hastings’ derives from ‘bello de Hastinges’, first used in Domesday. But ‘bello’ almost never means ‘battle’. It means ‘war’ or ‘to wage war’. So ‘bello de Hastinges’ means ‘War of Hastinges’ or ‘Campaign of Hastinges’. The campaign’s ‘theatre of war’ encompassed the battlefield, camps, flight route, and surrounds. Hastinges (Hæstingaport) – see Appendix A - was the best-known place in this theatre of war, so gave its name to ‘bello de Hastinges’.

Much the same applies to Battle Abbey and the town of Battle. The former was originally named ‘Sancti Martini de Bello’, from which the town was named ‘Bello’. They took their names from the campaign rather than the battle. All three switched to ‘Battle’ during the transition to Middle English. There is no etymological justification. We suspect that the monks of Battle Abbey picked the new names to defend their independence (see below).

This brings us to the five other references. John of Worcester, Malmesbury and the Chronicle of Battle Abbey say that Battle Abbey’s nave was built on the spot where Harold’s body was found. Wace and Orderic’s GND redaction say that that Harold came to ‘the place now named Bellum’, or similar, where he defended himself, implying that the battlefield was at Battle. They look like compelling evidence supporting the orthodox battlefield at Battle Abbey, but there are reasons to be sceptical.

John of Worcester’s ‘Abbey on the battlefield’ statement is scribbled in the margin by a different hand, clearly a much later addition. William of Malmesbury qualifies his ‘Abbey on the battlefield’ statement with the words ‘fuisse memoratur’, ‘it is said that’. This is a Latin way of saying something is unreliable hearsay. Greenway translates as ‘by tradition’, Giles translates ‘as they report’, ‘they’ being the monks of Battle Abbey. This is the only occasion in his entire chronicle that he uses this phrase, even though most of it derives from third party chronicles. It implies to us that he was convinced the monks of Battle Abbey fabricated the notion that Battle Abbey was built on the battlefield. So, the only emphatic original statement that the Abbey was built where Harold died is in the Chronicle of Battle Abbey, which was written 130 years after the battle by the same monks that William of Malmesbury thinks to have invented the notion that the Abbey was built on the battlefield.

Elisabeth van Houts explains their possible motivation in her paper ‘The Memory of 1066 in Oral and Written Traditions’ where she writes about Battle Abbey’s manuscript Brevis Relatio. She dates it to between 1114 and 1120, making it the earliest unequivocal ‘Abbey on the battlefield’ reference. Ralph of Caen was abbot at the time. According to Van Houts, his failing health might have led the Abbey scriptorium to write Brevis Relatio, hoping to defend the Abbey’s independence after his death. If so, Ralph’s idea was effectively to claim that the battlefield was the location of divine intervention, where God turned the Battle of Hastings in William’s favour in exchange for William’s pledge to build a monastery on the battlefield. It’s a good idea. Future kings would be reluctant to meddle for fear they angered God who might then rescind Norman power. Future bishops would be reluctant to meddle for fear they violated God’s will.

Eleanor Searle supplies the background in the introduction to her CBA translation. She explains that William established Battle Abbey as a richly endowed ‘Royal Peculiar’, independent of diocesan control, but he failed to permanently protect its status with a charter. After William Rufus’s death, it became a plum asset that fell under immediate and regular threat of subjugation. Matters came to a head in the 1150s when Battle Abbey’s abbot, Walter de Luci, was threatened with excommunication for contumacy, partially fuelled by a feud with the Bishop of Chichester who was trying to subjugate the Abbey. Walter needed a royal charter to give him personal immunity and to substantiate Battle Abbey’s status as a Royal Peculiar. Then, suspiciously, a series of writs appeared that did exactly that.

These Battle Abbey writs are reproduced and translated in Professor Nicholas Vincent’s books about Henry II’s writs as numbers 134, 137, 138 and 139. Their preambles contain the first mention of William’s battlefield oath, in which they claim he vowed to build an abbey if God granted him victory. Some of them also say that the Abbey was built on the location where Harold died. These two notions are developed and embellished in the Chronicle of Battle Abbey. Vincent is sceptical about its entire contents: “This in turn raises doubts over the abbey’s chronicle [CBA], generally considered reliable save where indubitably proved false, better regarded, I would suggest, as unreliable in anything that cannot be independently substantiated” (‘King Henry II and the Monks of Battle: The Battle Chronicle Unmasked’ – published as a chapter in ‘Belief and culture in the Middle Ages’).

So, there is a plausible explanation as to why Porter’s contemporary account references are not compelling evidence that the Abbey was built on the battlefield. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is saying that the battle took place in the vicinity of Battle Abbey, rather than at the precise location of the Abbey. The next relevant source, Brevis Relatio, fabricated the notion that the Abbey was built on the battlefield to protect their independence. Subsequent accounts repeat one or both these sources. They would all have had access to the ASC. Wace and Malmesbury are known to have had copies of Brevis Relatio. John of Worcester is known to have visited William of Malmesbury. It is not unreasonable to suspect that the others had seen it too. While Malmesbury’s scepticism appears before the monks are known to have made a claim that the Abbey’s altar is on the spot where Harold’s body was found, they could have made this claim in a letter or by word or in a lost manuscript .

Why then did no one contradict ‘Abbey on the battlefield’ references at the time? No one would contradict the ASC statement in William’s obituary because it does not say that the Abbey was built on the battlefield, and what it does say is accurate. One battle participant, Robert de Beaumont, was still alive (just about) when Brevis Relatio was written. As William’s cousin, he was probably at the dedication for Battle Abbey, so he might have known whether the Abbey was on the battlefield, but he lived in the English Midlands. There is no obvious reason he would ever have heard of Brevis Relatio, let alone read it, and it is very unlikely that he could read anyway. The monks of Marmoutier who oversaw the Abbey’s construction would have known whether it was on the battlefield, but it is unlikely that any of them survived long enough to read Brevis Relatio.

Professor Searle was too wily to contradict the orthodox battle narrative, but we think she worked this all out thirty years ago. She said: “That the abbey was founded by the Conqueror, and on the scene of the battle, there need be no doubt”. It is hardly a ringing endorsement. A ‘scene’ is far from a ‘spot’. She could just as easily have said: “That the abbey was founded by the Conqueror and built on the battlefield there need be no doubt”. It looks like weasel words to us, only acknowledging that the Abbey was in the vicinity of the battlefield, which would be right for all the battlefield candidates.

Non-documentary evidence that the Abbey is on the battlefield

Roy Porter presents one physical argument that the Abbey was built on the battlefield: “Building the abbey on the side of a hill presented the monks with practical difficulties they could have avoided had they chosen to build elsewhere. It is difficult to see why they would have chosen to build the abbey in such an awkward spot without a compelling reason”. He reasons that that the decision to build in such an awkward spot might indicate that William demanded the abbey be constructed on the exact place where Harold died, implying that this was where Harold fell. However, this claim invites scepticism.

Firstly, the original Abbey was not on the crest of the Hastings Ridge crest, not on a side slope. Indeed, as A H Burne indicates by a dotted line on his troop deployment diagram (Figure 54, right), it looks like the ridgeway originally ran straight between modern Powdermill Lane roundabout and Abbey Green. In other words, Battle Abbey was built on the ridgeway, so the ‘road’ was re-routed around it. A ridge crest location would be an obvious choice for a monastery, being level and clear of vegetation, and having good access. While some claustral buildings were on a side slope, their construction would not have presented any significant practical difficulties for the Normans, who were master stone masons.

Porter’s argument conflates ‘difficulties’ with ‘impossibilities’. In reality, construction challenges are typically a matter of cost and time - both of which William had indemnified. Even if the construction was somewhat challenging, it was not impossible. When the original abbey collapsed in the 13th century, its replacement was built 50 meters down the slope of the Hastings Ridge, where the incline was pronounced, suggesting that any slope-related difficulties were not a deterrent.

Battlefield location clues and the orthodox battlefield

Some of these clues are self-evidently consistent with the orthodox battlefield: Battle Abbey was built on the battlefield (Clue 1); the battlefield is in the vicinity of Battle Abbey (Clue 2); the Normans advanced up a steepish slope (Clue 3); the battlefield is near the top of a hill (Clue 4); the battlefield is roughly a one hour march from the orthodox Norman battle camp (Clue 14); it was roughly nine Roman marching miles from the orthodox Norman camp at modern Hastings (Clue 15);  the battlefield was just a mile away from the orthodox English camp at Caldbec Hill (Clue 17); there was a plain below the shield wall – albeit 300m away - onto which the English chased a feigned retreat (Clue 24); the battlefield was steeper than the approach (Clue 29).

Some of these clues are self-evidently inconsistent with the orthodox battlefield or contradict it: It has no nearby non-fluvial ditches (Clue 5); its shield wall was not wedge-shaped (Clue 9) or enclosed (Clue 10); it has no contemporary archaeology (Clue 13); it is on an east-west pseudo-ridge, so its crest does not have a western side (Clue 20) and it is not on a north-south spur (Clue 30); it was not at or near anywhere known as ‘haran apuldran’ (Clue 21); it was not at or near anywhere known as ‘planis Hastinges’ (Clue 22); it was not beside a lateral fluvial ditch (Clue 23); it was not a small hill (Clue 26); it was not narrow (Clue 27); it would not have been difficult to encircle and it would have been irrational to do so (Clue 31); it was not close to untrodden wastes or to a road suitable for an army (Clue 32); it was on the Hastings Peninsula (Clue 33).

Note that, ‘Abbey on the battlefield’ references aside, the orthodox battlefield only matches the most general of these clues while it contradicts the more intricate clues. Some of the other clues need an explanation.

Wace’s description of the Norman advance (Clue 6)

By tradition, the Normans started their advance from their battle camp at Hechelande. The name has been lost but CBA says it was near modern Telham. Wace describes the Norman advance, seen through Harold’s eyes.

Wace (Taylor) “The Normans appeared, advancing over the ridge of a rising ground; and the first division of their troops moved onwards along the hill and across a valley … another division, still larger, came in sight, close following upon the first; and they wheeled towards another side of the field, forming together as the first body had done.”

If the Normans advanced along modern Telham Lane, then headed north from Lower Telham, they would have crossed the stream that now feeds the pumping station. They would have appeared over the rising ground upon which the B2095 now runs. They would then have crossed Sandlake Brook. New Pond was not dammed in those days, so they might have marched along the north bank of Sandlake Brook, which is a hill of sorts. The Norman flanks might then have wheeled a bit to face the English line. If the order of the events were jiggled around, the orthodox battlefield could be partially consistent with Wace’s description. As the events are described, it is not.

Credible explanation for Harold’s actions (Clue 7)

Most of the contemporary accounts say that Harold went to Sussex because he was driven by rage to try a surprise attack on the Norman camp, which could be consistent with the orthodox battlefield location if the Norman camp was at modern Hastings. But none of the contemporary accounts, were privy to the English court. They are guessing Harold’s motivation based on their perception of his actions, and they have guessed wrong.

Harold could not possibly have been trying a surprise attack on the Norman camp because he had been exchanging messages with William on his trip down. William’s messengers would have reported back his exact location and his route, so William was prepared. Harold would not have been so stupid as to try a surprise attack on an enemy that could not be taken by surprise. Moreover, as we explain in Clue 8 above, it would have been totally out of character for Harold to act rashly or precipitately.

Frank McLynn ridicules all his predecessors for saying that Harold’s motivation was to try a surprise attack on the Norman camp. Instead, he reckons that Harold was trying to blockade the Normans on the Hastings Peninsula. He has got the right tactic but the wrong blockade. Shortly after the English arrive at Caldbec Hill, McLynn says: “William tried to break out of the peninsula and, to forestall this, Harold sent his men to seize Battle Hill.” Marjorie Chibnall says something similar, that Harold chose to defend Battle Hill because he: “may have supposed that he could effectively bar William’s advance towards London.” Other historians, if they have anything to say about Harold’s route and destination, offer something similar.

It is bunkum. The route to and from the East Sussex coast was along the Rochester Roman road. It crossed the Brede at Sedlescombe. Historians – wrongly in our opinion (see ‘The Landing’ above) – believe that the Normans camped at modern Hastings. It seems unlikely that they would suddenly want to leave the Hastings Peninsula when they could have done freely so at any time in the previous two weeks. But, even if they did, the route would be along the Hastings Ridge to Baldslow and then down the Beauport Park mining track to Sedlescombe and off up the Rochester Roman road. English troops up at modern Battle would have been 3½ miles away from the egress route.

In our opinion, McLynn is right that Harold went to the theatre of war intending to blockade the Normans on the Hastings Peninsula, but he has confused the roads. The only way to implement a blockade was to barricade the landward side of the three egress points, at Sedlescombe, Whatlington and Sprays Wood, in which case Harold never crossed onto the Hastings Peninsula and the battle was not at the orthodox battlefield.

Logistics & Harold’s route to the battle theatre (Clue 8)

There is a suspicious reticence to write about the orthodox battle’s logistics. We have read a hundred or more accounts of the Battle of Hastings. None of them mention Harold’s baggage train or the English victualing needs. They do not have much to say about Harold’s route from London either.

Freeman’s immensely detailed 2200-page book about the Norman Conquest just has this to say this about Harold’s route: “His course lay along the line of the great road from London to the south coast. He halted on a spot which commanded that road, and which also commanded the great road eastward from William's present position.” The fact that he thinks modern Battle is on that road implies that he thought the English came down what was then known as Hastings Road, on the route of the modern A21. The first analysis to depict the English route from London – and still one of only a handful - is by Edward Foord in 1915 (Figure 50). He shows Harold marching directly to ‘Senlac’ along the approximate route of the A21.

Lots of Battle of Hastings analyses are accompanied by initial troop deployment diagrams. Oman’s (Figure 51) and Freeman’s (Figure 52) are two examples among dozens shown on our website, here.

These troop deployment diagrams almost invariably label the A2100 as ‘To London’ or ‘To Tonbridge’, implying that the main route between the south coast and London was along the route of the A21, and therefore also by implication that this was the route upon which Harold arrived.

It is all nonsense. The route of the A21 was only cleared for the construction of the Hastings to Flimwell turnpike in the 1750s. The English could not have driven their baggage train through the Andredsweald in less than a month. They must have used a metalled road and there were only two in the 11th century: the Lewes Roman road to the west and the Rochester Roman road to the east.

Frank McLynn is one modern historian that seems to have sussed it. He says of Harold’s march: “The only real result of his overwhelming confidence was that he wore his men out by a gruelling 58-mile forced march over three days” The A21 route was 53 miles according to Google Maps whereas both Roman road routes were 58-miles. He must be referring to one of the Roman roads but does not say which.

In practice, the English could not have used the Lewes road because it does not pass within 15 miles of the Hastings Peninsula isthmus. It would have taken weeks to get hundreds of carts from the Lewes road to the theatre of war on forest tracks, whereas they arrived in no more than four days. Therefore, the English must have arrived on the Rochester road.

If the English arrived on the Rochester Roman road, the battle could not have happened at the orthodox battlefield. It is on the Hastings Ridge. The Rochester Roman road crossed the Brede at Sedlescombe (S on Figure 41). A metalled Roman mining track could have got the English as far as the Beauport Park bloomery. Then what? The Romans discovered that the steepest hill that a heavily laden cart could safely negotiate was about 9% but the climb from Beauport Park onto the Ridge was over 20%. The English would have had to unload their carts and carry their cargo onto the Ridge. It would have taken all day, during which they would have been hopelessly vulnerable on a steep downslope with no weapons, no shields, no armour. The Normans would have wiped them out. It is implausible.

Harold would only have ascended the Hastings Ridge if he thought the Normans were at their traditional camp near modern Hastings. His only credible motivation would have been to blockade them on the relatively barren eastern end of the Hastings Ridge or to try a surprise attack. Both are implausible. On the second, William knew where the English were because they had been exchanging messages, he had fortified his camp and he had posted guards against an attack. An attack on this camp would have been a Rorke’s Drift style mass suicide. On the first, the Normans could circumvent a Hastings Ridge blockade by descending to the Roman mining track between Sedlescombe and modern Winchelsea, from where they could trap the English army on the eastern side of the Hastings Peninsula. Even if the English did get onto the Ridge above Beauport Park hoping to implement a blockade or a ‘surprise’ attack on the traditional Norman camp at modern Hastings, they needed to stay put or move towards modern Hastings, whereas they would have had to move away from modern Hastings to get to Battle, or Telham Hill or Caldbec Hill.

Evans worked this out independently. He has been sheepishly teaching his students that the English are more likely to have left the Rochester Roman Road at Cripps Corner (CC Figure 41), to cross the Brede at Whatlington ford (W) and climb up to the Ridge on the route of the modern Whatlington Road. ‘Sheepish’ because the drop from Woodmans Green to Whatlington is 15% in places, too steep for heavily laden carts on unmade tracks. Worse, the first carts would have rutted the ford and the riverbanks, and William would almost certainly have ambushed them at the crossing.

There is one other feasible route the English might have taken to get onto the Hastings Ridge, exiting the Rochester Roman road at Cripps Corner and then marching along ridgeways via Netherfield (N). But it is also slopey, exceeding 10% in places, and it required a risky crossing of the narrow ambush-prone isthmus at Sprays Wood (I).

In practice, it is logistically implausible that the English arrived at the battle theatre on any route other than the Rochester Roman road, and therefore logistically implausible that they ever climbed onto the Hastings Ridge, so the battle was not fought at the orthodox location.

The shield wall was enclosed (Clue 10)

The orthodox battle narrative has a straight or straightish shield wall that self-evidently contradicts Clue 10. It is possible that the historians have the right location but the wrong shield wall deployment. Figure 53 shows what an enclosed shield wall with 6000 to 8000 men would have looked like at the orthodox battlefield. It is roughly on the 80m contour.

Figure 53: Enclosed shield wall on Battle Ridge

This English troop deployment would explain why William failed to outflank the English line, and it would explain why Baudri’s men behind the line did not attack Harold from the get-go. Of course, this would apply anywhere if the shield wall was enclosed.

If William was faced with this enclosed shield wall, he would have split his forces to attack along the shallow ridge crest to the east and northwest (cyan arrows on Figure 53). This would contradict some key clues that the orthodox battlefield previously matched: Clue 3, that the Normans advanced up a steep slope; Clue 9, that the three Norman divisions attacked from the same direction within sight and hearing of William in the middle; and Clue 23, that there was a plain below the contact zone. It would also be an even worse match for Clue 27, that the battlefield was narrow, and Clue 28, that the fighting was more intense in the middle.

If Harold had found himself defending the orthodox battlefield, he would have deployed his troops as shown on Figure 53. It would have given him a reasonable chance of surviving the day. But it is not the battle described in the contemporary accounts.

William’s military tactics (Clue 11)

Every Battle of Hastings military analysis ever produced, bar this one, proposes that Harold deployed a straight or straightish shield wall. William had a huge cavalry, Harold had none. William’s best chance of victory against an open shield wall would have been to outmanoeuvre his footbound adversaries. At the orthodox battlefield, as we briefly explain in Clue 11 above, this means he would have sent his cavalry around the ends of the English line to lop off Harold’s head before any fighting had begun.

Figure 54 shows two typical examples of shield walls that have been proposed at the orthodox battlefield - note that we added the red shield wall overlays for clarity and consistency. These two are by Major-General J ‘Boney’ Fuller (L) and Lieutenant-Colonel A H Burne (R). Four more are shown on Figure 33, Figure 51 and Figure 52, by Major E R James, Colonel C H Lemmon, Sir Charles Oman and Augustus Freeman respectively. Dozens of others are shown on our website – link on page 208. They are all implausible.

Figure 54: Some proposed English troops deployments at the traditional battlefield

Figure 55: Flank attack on narrow shield walls

Figure 55 overlays five shield walls that have been proposed at the orthodox battlefield onto a heat relief map. Harold was commanding the troops from behind the English line, always assumed to be at the location of the quire of the original Battle Abbey, shown as a white X on Figure 55. He was protected by his personal guard, which put up no significant defence in the real battle.  If William had been faced by any shield wall that has been proposed at the orthodox battlefield since the turn of the 20th century, he would have sent his cavalry around the ends of the English line on the route shown by black arrows.

Some historians have suggested natural barriers that protected the English flanks. Allen-Brown and McLynn propose impenetrable woodland, Freeman and Fuller propose ravines, Foord, Oman, Lemmon and Lace propose marshland. They are all wrong. There are no ravines near the orthodox battlefield today and erosion makes fluvial valleys deeper. There is not enough water near the Hastings Ridge crest to create a ravine anyway. The slope is too steep for water to accumulate other than in small clay pools. Dr Helen Read, a world-renowned expert on medieval woodland, confirmed to us that there is no such thing as impenetrable mature deciduous woodland in temperate latitudes. Indeed, quite the opposite: The more mature a deciduous woodland, the denser the canopy, the greater the gap between trees, and the less vegetation on the understorey. A study of 27 ancient woodlands by Elisa Fuentes-Montemayor showed understory vegetation coverage of less than 20% and typically 0%.

Figure 56: Streams flanking the traditional battlefield, northeast to the left and west to the right

The only landscape feature that might have hindered the Norman cavalry from outflanking the defence is streams. There was one on each side of the orthodox battlefield. In practice, they would have offered no protection at all. Figure 56 shows us standing over them at the locations the Norman cavalry would have crossed. They have barely more than a trickle of water. Dr David Robinson, a world-renowned expert on medieval landscapes, told us: “away from the immediate coast, rates of erosion are very slow and the physical form and depth of the valleys are unlikely to have changed since the 11th century.”  In other words, they would have been no more daunting in the 11th century than today, and they would not daunt a hedgehog today.

All these 20th and 21st century shield wall proposals have been influenced by Willhelm Spatz’s 1898 analysis that showed neither army had more than 8000 men. Beforehand, it was assumed that each army had 20000 men or more, enough to occupy the entire length of Battle Ridge. Figure 57 shows 25000-man shield walls that were proposed by Freeman and George. It would have done nothing to prevent getting flanked. It just means that the Normans would have had to cross 200m downstream, following the route of the black line.

Figure 57: Shield wall dispositions and Norman loop

Military historians worked this out long before us. They have devised other excuses for William’s failure to outflank or loop the defence. Major James says: “Flank attacks were but little practised in 1066, and Harold did not think of one as possible”, Lieutenant-Colonel Burne: “Enveloping or flanking moves were seldom attempted”. Both are right when the adversaries have similar mixes of infantry and cavalry because they are similarly mobile, but they are patently wrong when infantry comes up against cavalry. Forming enclosed loops to prevent getting flanked by cavalry had been standard military practice since Roman times. Just two weeks previously, Harald Hardrada looped his shield wall to prevent getting flanked by the English cavalry at Stamford Bridge. In practice, medieval military commanders were obsessed with protecting their flanks and devising ways to outflank the enemy. William and Harold would have been no exception.

Even if the English did have some sort of natural flank protection, the Normans could have looped behind the English line by backing up to the Rochester Roman road and following whatever route the English used to arrive at the battlefield. Moreover, Baudri (Otter) says: “Backing up the enemy line, at a distance, were horsemen, waiting to intercept anyone trying to flee”. In other words, there were already Norman horsemen behind the English shield wall before the battle began. If they could get there, so could the rest of William’s cavalry. If there were any horsemen behind an open shield wall, they could have ridden up from behind to kill Harold before the battle began.

In summary, the orthodox battlefield contradicts William’s military tactics.

Harold did not withdraw or flee before the battle (Clue 12)

A passive shield wall has no hope of victory, its best outcome is to survive. If Harold’s objective was to survive and he was at the orthodox battlefield, he would have withdrawn or would have left to recruit more men.

Safety was just four miles from the orthodox English camp at Bodiam. Right up to an hour before of the battle, the English could have reversed to safety back up the way they came, or Harold could have returned to London to collect the rest of his army. If Harold was not there, William would not have attacked. Even when the Normans were at the bottom of the battlefield hill, perhaps 30 minutes before hostilities began, Harold could have ordered his men to melt away into nearby woodland and make their way to safety through Lordship Wood. Instead, according to Wace, the English watched the Normans appear over rising ground, getting ever more discouraged about their chances of survival.

The only plausible explanation for Harold’s failure to flee or withdraw is that he couldn’t. This would only be so if the English were trapped, or at least if Harold thought they were trapped. This could not be the case at the orthodox battlefield, so it contradicts this clue.

The battlefield was visible from the Norman battle camp and close enough that the English troop deployment and English Standards could be seen (Clue 16)

Brevis Relatio (Dawson) describes William’s arrival at the Norman battle camp: “Accordingly, coming to a hill which was on the side of Hastings, opposite that hill upon which Harold with his army was there under arms, they {William and his commanders] halted for a short time surveying the army of the English”, then: “he [William] began to enquire of a certain soldier who was near him, where he thought Harold was. The soldier answered that he thought he was in the midst of that dense array, which was before them on the top of the hill, for as he was thinking, he saw Harold's standard there.”

The highest part of Telham Hill, near the Hastings Ridge, is at an elevation of 125m. Battle Abbey, where Harold and his Standard are assumed to have been, is at 85m. His men are supposed to have been 10m below at roughly 75m. In between, blocking the view, is Starr’s Green at 100m.

Figure 58: Battle Abbey (red arrow) viewed from Telham Hill

There is an east-west ridge between Telham Hill and Battle. It is at 110m on the ridge, falling to 95m at Loose Farm, to 70m where the public footpath passes west of Glengorse, back up to 79m over a conical hill through which the railway was cut, then down to 50m at Battle Abbey Farm. Moving west along Telham Hill improves the view around the shoulder of Starr’s Green but lowers the elevation so that the Abbey is increasingly obscured by Loose Farm ridge. There is only one view of Battle Abbey, shown by a red arrow on Figure 58, looking north from 50.8989, 0.5046, 100m east of the power transformer. It looks through a gap where the public footpath runs between the shoulder of Starr’s Green to the east and the 79m conical hill to the west. Even here, the bottom of the Abbey buildings, and therefore the orthodox location of the middle of Harold’s shield wall, are obscured by vegetation on the Loose Farm ridge. The English flanks would have been obscured by the two hills just mentioned. It was therefore impossible to view any part of the English troop deployment from Telham Hill, contradicting Brevis Relatio.

The battlefield was at or near ‘Senlac’ (Clue 18)

Orderic has the only reference to ‘Senlac’, and no one knows what he meant by it. By tradition, it was a Norman French name meaning ‘bloody lake’. But Orderic says that the place was ‘anciently known as Senlac’, which means that it is an Old English name. If so, it meant ‘sandy lake’ or ‘sandy loch’, which we think referred to the upper Brede estuary or, less likely, the entire Brede estuary or the Brede basin. The orthodox battlefield would contradict all these meanings. We have no proof these meanings are right. The only certainty is that Senlac was ‘where the war took place’, which is consistent with the orthodox battlefield.

The battlefield was at or near ‘Herste’ (Clue 19)

Here is Eleanor Searle’s translation of the CBA statement about ‘Herste’.

CBA Folio 12: “The monk went quickly to Marmoutier and brought with him into England four monks from there: Theobald, nicknamed ‘the old’, William Coche, Robert of Boulogne, and Robert Blancard, men of outstanding in character and piety. They studied the battlefield and decided that it seemed hardly suitable for so outstanding a building. They therefore chose a fit place for settling, a site located not far off, but somewhat lower down, towards the western slope of the ridge. There, lest they seem to be doing nothing, they built themselves some little huts. This place, still called Herste, has a low wall as a mark of this.”

Searle’s translation is ambiguous, unclear whether the battlefield or the little huts are at Herste, or both. Here is a transcript of the original Latin passage from ‘They studied’:

Qui memoratum belli locum considerantes, cum ad tam insignem fabricam minus idoneum, ut videbatur, arbitrarentur, in humiliori non procul loco, versus ejusdem collis occidentalem plagam, aptum habitandi locum eligentes, ibidem ne nil operis agere viderentur mansiunculas quasdam fabricaverunt. Qui locus, huc usque Herste cognominatus, quandam habet spinam in hujus rei monimentum.

Roy Porter discusses this passage in his 2014 paper ‘On the very spot: In defence of Battle’. He discusses Nick Austin’s argument that Herste referred to his proposed battlefield at Crowhurst: “Austin says that the use of ‘qui’ at the start of both sentences implies that the original author intended their mutual subject to be the battlefield … Herste is the monastic scribe’s mistaken attempt at writing a phonetic version of ‘Crurst’, which he claims was the local dialect form of Crowhurst.” Porter responds: “First, the double use of qui does not imply that both sentences have as their subject the battlefield. Searle’s translation uses a standard usage known as a connective relative to differentiate between the monks in the first sentence and the battlefield in the final sentence. The subject of the first sentence is the group of monks from Marmoutier, who are listed in the immediately preceding sentence. The subject of the final sentence refers to the place the monks chose instead of the battlefield. This was Searle’s understanding of the text, as in a footnote to this passage she notes that Herste is identified elsewhere in The Chronicle as being to the north-west of the abbey site and that this alternative location offered the monks a more suitable building site, being level ground by comparison with the hillside on which the battle was fought. When considered on its own merits, Austin’s interpretation of this passage is eccentric, but when viewed in the context of The Chronicle as a whole it seems perverse. This is because the whole thrust of this part of the narrative is to underline that the abbey was built on the battlefield at the express order of William I.”

Confusion reigns! Porter argues that Austin’s grammatical argument is faulty, implying that the little huts were at Herste, not the battlefield. Then, in the same paragraph, he agrees with Eleanor Searle’s argument that the battlefield was at Herste. Austin shoots himself in the foot too. Having provided his Latin grammar evidence that Herste was the name of the battlefield, in the next paragraph he argues that Herste referred to Crowhurst, 1400m from the battlefield, where he thinks the monks built their little huts.

We originally thought that one source of the confusion is some unfortunate typos in Porter’s paper and an important one in Searle’s. He misspells ‘agere’ as ‘agree’ and ‘quandam’ as ‘quondam’, he copies Searle’s typo omitting the space between ‘huc’ and ‘usque’, and he omits some punctuation. These errors give a very different meaning to the Latin text. He graciously explained to us that his interpretation was made on the original pre-typo Latin text, but Searle’s errors would have been in that too.

Anyway, we  agree with Searle, and therefore with Austin’s grammatical argument, that CBA is saying that the battlefield was at a place named Herste. The cause of confusion, we think, is that that Searle divides one long Latin sentence into three English sentences. The subject of the Latin sentence is the battlefield, so Herste refers to the battlefield. The English sentences have different subjects, leading to the ambiguity. It is not only semantics. It would be absurd for CBA to record the location of some temporary little huts but to omit the location of the battle. Having said this, the little huts were ‘not far off’ from the battlefield, so chances are that they were both in Herste.

Take a step back. As Porter says, the purpose of the passage about Herste is to corroborate the monks’ claim that the Abbey is on the battlefield. The mechanism, again as Porter says, is that CBA Folio 21 says that Herste was near the Abbey. In effect, everywhere near the Abbey was on the battlefield, so it does corroborate the monks’ claim, albeit through the backdoor. But were they telling the truth? The monks are known to have invented and/or forged a lot of the other evidence that the Abbey is on the battlefield. Perhaps the same applies to their claim about Herste.

CBA Folio 12 says that the battlefield ‘is still called Herste’, which implies it was known as Herste at the time of the battle. Herste is an Old English word which also implies that the name dates to the battle. Yet no evidence of Saxon era settlement has ever been found in the vicinity of the orthodox battlefield. If the orthodox battlefield had no Saxon era settlement, there was no reason for it to have had an Old English name. CBA says that Herste was an orchard whereas ‘herste’ was Old English for ‘woodland’. Orchards are planted and picked artificially, but there is no evidence of Saxon era occupation at Battle Abbey. Even if it was an orchard at the time of the battle, it would not have been named Herste because Old English has other words for ‘orchard’. These include the generic term ‘ort-geard’ from which ‘orchard’ derives, ‘apple-tún’ for an apple orchard, and ‘pir-gráf’ for a pear orchard. For all these reasons, it seems implausible that there was a place named Herste at or near the orthodox battlefield at the time of the battle.

Therefore, the monks gave the name Herste to a place adjacent to the Abbey. There was a manor named Herste just three miles away. Monks spent most of their time scheming ways to acquire nearby land. It is totally implausible that they did not know of this manor. Choosing that particular name was bound to create confusion and ambiguity. Compound names including ‘herste’ were very common. Croherste, Bodeherste, Lankherste and Cogherste, for example, were all nearby. The monks could easily have avoided any confusion by picking a unique name with a ‘herste’ suffix, or indeed any unique Old English name. We think they wanted to cause confusion and/or ambiguity.

The monks of Battle Abbey wanted everyone to think that the Abbey was built on the battlefield. If the battle was fought at Herste and it was more than, say, one kilometre from the Abbey, there was a danger of getting debunked if an external reference divulged the battlefield’s name. By giving the name Herste to somewhere near the Abbey, external references to the battlefield’s name would endorse their argument rather than debunk it. This is exactly analogous to Hechelande and ‘Senlac’, the Norman battle camp and Orderic’s name for the battlefield, respectively. They were in the wrong direction and too far from Battle Abbey for the battle to have been fought there, so the monks invented a Hechelande and a Senlac close to the Abbey.

Thus, this clue contradicts the orthodox battlefield because the Abbey’s Herste was a post-Conquest name given by the monks of Battle Abbey. The Herste that existed at the time of the battle was in north Sedlescombe.

 Porter goes onto say that Austin’s Herste battlefield theory is ‘eccentric’ and ‘perverse’ because “because the whole thrust of this part of the narrative is to underline that the abbey was built on the battlefield”, but he misses the point. Austin reckons that the monks inserted fake evidence into what was previously a genuine battle narrative. ’s point but Austin does argue that the . So they both argue that Herste is the name of the battlefield and the name of the place where the huts were built.  the thrust of the passage is to show that the Abbey is on the battlefield, but Austin agrees. His argument hitherto is neither eccentric nor perverse. It is better described as inconsistent. It does get a little surreal when he goes on to argue that Herste was a local dialect pronunciation of ‘Crowhurst’, although he does have some supporting circumstantial evidence.

A lateral ditch adjoined the battlefield (Clue 23)

Wace says that there was a ditch into which the Normans were shield charged at the start of the battle. He goes on to say that more Normans died in this ditch - all crushed or suffocated - than in the whole of the rest of the battle. He says that the Normans passed this ditch during their advance without noticing it. They could not have marched over this ditch without noticing it, so it must have been lateral, to the side of the battlefield and parallel to it. The battlefield was on a slope, so this lateral ditch was probably fluvial.

There were some fluvial ditches near the orthodox battlefield – shown on Figure 49. None of them could have been Wace’s shield charge ditch. Asten Brook was below the orthodox shield wall, but it crossed the orthodox battlefield approach so the Normans could not have passed it without noticing, and it was 300m away, too far for the Normans to have been shield charged. Streams also radiated away from the orthodox battlefield, one heading east, one heading west, but the Normans would not have passed them on their advance, and they would need to have been shield charged in a semi-circle to fall into either of them.

By tradition, a single ditch, usually referred to by the umbrella term ‘Malfosse’, encompasses all the contemporary account references to ditches near the battlefield. Many places have been proposed as the Malfosse ditch, the most popular of which is Oakwood Ghyll, some 1300m north of the orthodox battlefield. None of them are within shield charge distance, so this clue contradicts the orthodox battlefield.

The fighting was more intense in the middle (Clue 28)

Figure 59: Slopes around traditional battlefield

Wace (Taylor) says that William chooses to: “fight in the middle throng, where the battle shall be the hottest”. Figure 59 shows the slope analysis at the traditional battlefield, with level ground shown in green, 10% slopes in yellow, and 20% in red. The cyan arrows show the consensus three Norman divisions, with the consensus shield wall shown in transparent grey.

You will need to use some imagination to regress the terrain. The land to the east of Battle Abbey has been built on, creating artificial slopes. The terraces south of the Abbey were made when the land was flattened for the 13th century abbey. Try to smooth it out in your mind. Hopefully, you will see that the ground in front of the middle division had a 15% slope, whereas the ground in front of the flank divisions was barely 5%.

It will hopefully be clear that if the battle was fought at the traditional location, the fighting would have been more intense on the shallow flanks than the relatively steep centre. Indeed, there is no reason there would have been any fighting on the steep slope in front of the Abbey terrace, so this clue contradicts the orthodox battlefield.

Why Battle Abbey is where it is

English Heritage say: “there is a widespread consensus among historians that William the Conqueror founded Battle Abbey as a penance for the blood shed at the battle and to commemorate his great victory”. They are probably right, but neither of these reasons ties the Abbey to the battlefield. Æthelstan’s Muchelney Abbey was penance for the Battle of Brunanburh which happened hundreds of miles away. Richard de Luci’s Lesnes Abbey was penance for his role in Thomas Becket’s death which happened fifty miles away. Contemporary medieval battle memorials are never positioned on their battlefield, which is one reason why medieval battlefields are so elusive. Instead, they are located in population centres, where lots of people will see them. Think Karnak, Titus Arch and Trafalgar Square, for instance.

There are plenty of alleged religious motives for William to have built his Abbey. CBA (Searle): “I [William] shall found a monastery for the salvation of all, and especially for those that fall here, to the honour of God and of his saints, where servants of God may be supported: a fitting monastery with a worthy liberty. Let it be an atonement: a haven for all, as free as the one l conquer for myself.” Brevis Relatio (Van Houts): “[William] had an abbey built to the memory of this victory and for the absolution of the sins of all who had been slain there.” Any or all of these are plausible, but again, none of them tied the Abbey to the battlefield. As far as we know, there is no religious merit in the notion that proximity to the place of sin helps the salvation of the sinner. If this were true, there would be lots of monasteries on medieval battlefields, whereas there is no evidence there are any.

Professor Searle discounted all these reasons too because she thought that William placed his abbey on the battlefield to curry favour with his barons; an act of insolence to humiliate the English. It seems unlikely to us. The Abbey was clearly going to take a long time to build, by which time the worst of the danger would be over. Battle Abbey was so remote that Anglo-Saxon renegades are unlikely to have given two hoots what it was used for. And, anyway, the local population, just 370 families on the entire Hastings Peninsula, were mostly Jutes. If William wanted to humiliate anyone important, he would have built his abbey at Tamworth or Winchester (and, perhaps for this very reason, he built a castle at Tamworth and a cathedral at Winchester). 

In our opinion, the entire argument is inside out. We think that William would have wanted his abbey anywhere except the battlefield and absolutely anywhere other than where Harold died. Putting it elsewhere would rob English insurgents of a focus. It would prevent the English from using the abbey to venerate Harold as a martyr. It would prevent the monks from being haunted by the souls of unburied English warriors - a huge fear at the time. It would prevent scavenging on the abbey grounds. It would let William hide the evidence of his sins. It would be clear that he was not glorifying violence. It would let him use the battlefield land for his own purposes. It would let him choose a location for his abbey where it might help the defence of his new realm. 

Conversely, it is perfectly plausible that the Abbey was built at Battle despite the battle having happened elsewhere. In addition to all the reasons just mentioned, perhaps the battlefield land belonged to another religious order. If so, William would not have wanted to rile the Pope by sequestering land from the Church when the whole idea was to earn the Pope’s absolution. Or perhaps the monks of Marmoutier decided to build it elsewhere. CBA says that they thought the battlefield was inappropriate for an important abbey. It goes on to say that William instructed them to build his abbey on the battlefield anyway, but perhaps this last bit was invented whereas the need to build elsewhere was not.

Assuming the battle happened elsewhere, why might William have chosen to build his abbey on the summit of Battle Ridge where the building materials had to be hauled uphill and where there was no running water? CBA says that this was not a problem because they were mysteriously found nearby after the Abbey construction had been started. It sounds fabricated to appear to be divine intervention. Springs are never on hill crests, there is no evidence of nearby quarrying, and the building materials on show in the Abbey museum are from Caen and Purbeck.

It is possible that William instructed the monks of Marmoutier to build his Abbey on a hill because he wanted it to be prominent. Battle Ridge is not as prominent as Caldbec Hill or Blackhorse Hill, but perhaps William preferred it because it was closer to the battlefield, or more reminiscent of the battlefield, or perhaps he just liked it. Or perhaps the monks of Marmoutier preferred it because it was treeless on the ridge crest and therefore had better foundations and less need for site clearance. Professor Searle reckons that William probably wanted to position his Abbey on the Hastings Ridge for defensive purposes. She notes that it played an important defensive role when Sussex was invaded by the French several centuries later. But he could have chosen anywhere on the ridge. Blackhorse Hill and Caldbec Hill were both 40m higher and had better defensive possibilities.

We think the overwhelming reason for the Abbey’s general position was the route of Marley Lane. We explain in Clue 7 above that there was only one metalled road from the Rochester Roman road onto the Hastings Ridge, a mining track through Beauport Park. It was designed to drop iron ore carts down to the Brede, far too steep to haul cargo up. The only route that carts could have taken between the Rochester Roman road and the Hastings Ridge was modern Marley Lane. It was an unmetalled track in those days, too rutted and bumpy for an army baggage train, but it was shallow enough - never more than 8% - to haul building materials onto the ridge for the construction of the Abbey, at least during the summer months. Moreover, the land was probably in Harold’s ownership which became William’s upon accession. As far as we can see, placing the Abbey at Battle would have been convenient for construction, politic and militarily sensible.

Figure 60: Battle Abbey lines of sight

We think that the Abbey’s exact location was probably chosen for line of sight (Figure 60). It is at the only exact location on the Hastings Ridge that had a treeless view towards Old Winchelsea and Old Pevensey (black dotted lines), the two most likely incursion points for a future invasion. There would not be many days when either could be seen with the naked eye, so we guess that there were message relay towers on Standard Hill and Lower Snailham. It also happens to be the only place on the Hastings Ridge that has line of sight to part of our proposed Hurst Lane battlefield. This might have had some significance in its placement.

None of this absolutely refutes the possibility that the Abbey is on the battlefield. Only physical evidence elsewhere can do that. Rather, it is to say that the evidence that the battle happened at the traditional location is flimsy and probably contrived. The battle could have happened on pretty much any hill within, say, five miles of Battle. And, given the lack of archaeology and poor match with the contemporary account battlefield clues, it is unlikely to have happened at the traditional location.