The Battle of Stamford Bridge ... at Holtby and Low Catton

Both orthodox battle scenarios lead to the Norse army defending Battle Flat: in the first scenario, they fall back to Battle Flat after three hours of fighting west of the Derwent; in the second, they occupy Battle Flat and wait to be attacked.

References to ‘Stamford Bridge’ in these contemporary accounts are assumed to mean modern Stamford Bridge. There is some supporting evidence. The name appears in medieval records referring to somewhere in the vicinity. The river is twice its normal width to the north of modern Stamford Bridge, and the area is known locally as ‘The Shallows’, which implies that it has been shoaled to make a ford. ‘stamford’ means ‘stony ford’, and there is a bed of Keuper sandstone north of the modern town which would have been ideal for a ford. Sandstone is a type of flagstone, and there was a place in the parish named ‘Flawith’, which means ‘flag ford’ according to A H Smith, editor of ‘Place names of the East Riding and York’. This is compelling evidence that a medieval ford existed at modern Stamford Bridge, but what about the bridge?

A section of Roman road has been found at the McKechnie factory, immediately opposite Stamford Bridge on the other side of the river. It is generally assumed, by the Ordnance Survey for one, that it carried the Roman road from Jorvik to Bridlington via Gate Hemsley and modern Stamford Bridge (Figure 4). If so, it might have crossed the Derwent on a bridge, and there is anecdotal evidence of a medieval bridge near the ford (at the location shown in Figure 2). It is almost universally assumed that this is the road that Harold advanced along, and the bridge over which the Norse fell back.

In summary, there are the bones of a conjecture that the Battle of Stamford Bridge was fought at modern Stamford Bridge. The jump from tentative conjecture to received wisdom is the area known as ‘Battle Flat’. Historians think it is implausibly unlikely to be a coincidence, so they treat it as incontrovertible evidence for the Battle of Stamford Bridge’s location. Indeed, since medieval battles generally took the name of their nearest settlement, which might have been several miles away, Battle Flat is the only evidence that supports the orthodox Battle of Stamford Bridge narrative. It deserves further analysis.

Debunking the Battle Flat battlefield

Figure 5 shows the LiDAR for modern Stamford Bridge. The red line shows where the medieval bridge is thought to have crossed the Derwent, about 100m above the current bridge. The black line is the route of the A166, which is thought generally to follow the Roman road. The red rectangle covers some slightly elevated ground that forms the modern town centre. Battle Flat is under the magenta rectangle.

There are some inconsistencies in both the orthodox battle scenarios:

1. Stamford Bridge is inconsistent with Hardrada’s tactics

   Henry of Huntingdon implies that the initial engagement was west of the river by saying that the English forced the Norse to retreat across the bridge at Stamford Bridge. Historians interpret this to mean that the Norse chose to defend the inside bend of the Derwent where it was crossed by the supposed bridge at Stamford Bridge, as depicted by McLynn on Figure 2. Hardrada was a hugely experienced commander. He would not have consigned his army to almost certain defeat by choosing to defend the inside bend of a river whose only escape was across a narrow wooden bridge. After all, what would have happened if the bridge collapsed?

2. A Riccall camp is inconsistent with Heimskringla’s account of the Norse landing party

   The orthodox Norse camp on the night before the battle is at Riccall, an island in the 11th century. This conflicts with Heimskringla, which says that the Norse landing party left their ships at their camp and marched toward Jorvik, for the obvious reason that they could not have marched off an island. We will forbear this for the next few points.

3. Stamford Bridge is inconsistent with the Norse army’s destination

   If the Norse army headed towards Jorvik from Riccall, they are likely to have rowed up the Ouse, as they did before the Battle of Fulford, rather than take a five-hour-plus detour via Stamford Bridge.

4. Stamford Bridge is inconsistent with the battle’s supposed timing

   Riccall is west of the Derwent, Stamford Bridge to its east. The Norse landing party needed to cross the Derwent, and the only orthodox crossings were the ford and bridge at Stamford Bridge. If they were heading for Jorvik, they did not row up the Ouse and march eight miles in the wrong direction. There are two credible routes: a) Rowing 30-miles (down the Ouse to Barmby, up the Derwent to Sutton-upon-Derwent), then marching the final six miles along the Escrick Ridge; b) Rowing to Stillingfleet, then marching east along the Escrick Ridge to Wheldrake, crossing the Derwent on some sort of jury-rigged pontoon bridge, then marching the final eight miles on the Escrick Ridge. Both routes would have taken at least six hours. The Norse army could not have arrived at Stamford Bridge before noon, when the battle is supposed to have started, and would have been lucky to arrive before mid-afternoon, when the battle is supposed to have finished.

5. Battle Flat is inconsistent with the orthodox Norse retreat

   According to the orthodox narrative, the Norse fleet was at Riccall, south and west of modern Stamford Bridge. If, as Huntingdon says, the Norse retreated across the supposed bridge at modern Stamford Bridge, they would surely have headed south to High Catton (HC on Figure 5) and their ships rather than east to Battle Flat. Not only was High Catton in the right direction, but it was narrow, steep-sided and within reach, only 2km from the supposed bridge. The English would have been delayed crossing the bridge, giving the Norse plenty of time to establish an impenetrable shield wall at High Catton or elsewhere on the ridge.

6. Battle Flat is inconsistent with contemporary battle tactics

   Battle Flat is claggy and, well, flat. DeVries tries to make a case for it as defensible but admits that its main selling point is its name. Two far better defensive positions lay nearby: Pasture Hill (PH) and High Catton (HC). If the invaders found themselves trapped in modern Stamford Bridge and unable to reach those places, they would have defended either the elevated land in the modern town centre or the Roman road with its aggers forming readymade fortifications. Moreover, and inexplicably, they would have had to cross the Roman road and the elevated ground to get to Battle Flat. In effect, incomprehensibly, the invaders are supposed to have fallen back across the two best defensive places in the area to make a stand at the least defensible place in the area, and at the only place where the higher ground would be advantageous to the English.

Some of these issues were first aired by Rev. Scott Surtees in his 1869 paper ‘Ancient Battlefields in the Southern Portion of Northumberland’.  Some of the more cautious historians have realised the folly of the orthodox battlefield. DeVries, for instance, despite making some excuses for the orthodox battlefield in his text, admits that its only significant selling point is the Battle Flat name. He then hedges his bets by depicting the Norse shield wall on the elevated ground (red rectangle on Figure 5). McLynn does the reverse. He depicts the Norse shield wall at Battle Flat (blue rectangle) but then explains in his text that they were actually on the elevated ground in the modern town centre. But if the battle was on the elevated ground, it was not at Battle Flat, and that is the only significant evidence for the exact location of the orthodox battlefield.

Barrett and Leadman have another theory. They think that the Norse army made an initial defence of the east/south riverbank before being driven back over the elevated ground to make a stand at Battle Flat. But, if the Norse were driven over the elevated ground, they would not have stopped at the most disadvantageous location. They would have kept going to make a stand at Pasture Hill (PH on Figure 5) or High Catton (HC).

Burne acknowledges that Battle Flat is an unlikely battlefield choice. He excuses it by saying that Viking commanders were happy to accept terrain parity because they: “considered themselves pre-eminent, and their one thought was to form this shield-wall on a fair battleground”. We have never heard this conjecture elsewhere, and it seems unlikely. On the contrary, Viking commanders took pride in choosing the most advantageous battlefield terrain. It was mentioned in Harald Hardrada’s Heimskringla obituary as one of his greatest assets. We are convinced that he would have made his stand on the most advantageous terrain, whereas Battle Flat was the least advantageous terrain in the vicinity.

DeVries has another potential excuse. He reckons that the topography in modern Stamford Bridge might have changed since the 11th century. There is no evidence of it. The topography has not changed significantly since the advent of contour maps in the 19th century, and their predecessors lacked the manpower, tools, or incentive to move huge quantities of earth. The land might have been flattened in the town centre during the 20th century, but there is no reason to think that Battle Flat was significantly different from today.

‘Stamford Bridge’ is an unusual name, clearly referring to somewhere that had a ford and a bridge. As far as we know, this name form is unique, and it is not easy to explain. Why would an Anglo-Saxon settlement with a perfectly good non-tidal ford need a bridge too? By tradition, modern Stamford Bridge carried the Jorvik-to-Bridlington Roman road over the Derwent. Perhaps, then, the bridge was broken when the Anglo-Saxons arrived, so they temporarily replaced it with a ford before repairing the bridge in time for Hardrada’s invasion. But its name implies the ford came first, and the Romans are unlikely to have built a bridge where the river was shallow enough for a ford.

Unsurprisingly, then, no evidence of a pre-18th-century bridge exists at modern Stamford Bridge. H G Ramm reports that York Sub-Aqua Club went looking for its buttresses in 1964 but found nothing medieval. The banks adjacent to modern Stamford Bridge were excavated in 2000 for the same purpose. They too found nothing medieval. As noted above, medieval sources mention ‘Stamford Bridge’. The VCH, for instance, records references to it in 1280 and 1581. This implies a medieval bridge existed in the vicinity of modern Stamford Bridge, but the original documents do not give its exact location.

In our view, the bridge was ‘near’ modern Stamford Bridge rather than ‘at’ it. Thus, the contemporary accounts are referring to ‘Stamford bridge’, lower case ‘b’, meaning ‘the bridge near Stamford’ rather than a settlement named ‘Stamford Bridge’. Old English seldom capitalised proper nouns, and then inconsistently, so little can be learned from the original manuscripts. If there was an Anglo-Saxon ford at modern Stamford Bridge, there is unlikely to have been a need for a bridge further upstream. We will return to its exact downstream location momentarily. We guess that a parish named Stamford Bridge encompassed the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Stamford and the nearby bridge, giving the settlement its modern name.

If we are right, no Roman or medieval bridge stood at modern Stamford Bridge. Its first bridge was built in 1727, soon after the Derwent Navigation Act of 1702 authorised work to make the Derwent navigable to Malton. This work included a lock at Kexby. We guess that its associated weir raised the upstream river level, flooding the ancient ford at modern Stamford Bridge, so they replaced it with a bridge.

In our view, the medieval ‘bridge at Stamford’, where the battle took place, was not at modern Stamford Bridge but was nearby. Thus, modern Stamford Bridge does not match the contemporary account battlefield descriptions and has no battle-related archaeology because the battle was not fought there. We believe that the Norse accounts will pin down the battle’s key locations.

Heimskringla's battle account

The English accounts do not provide enough information to resolve their apparent inconsistencies. We need to incorporate information from the Norse sagas. Four of them cover Hardrada’s invasion of Northumbria. They are known as Heimskringla, Fagrskinna, Morkinskinna and Orkneyinga. We focus on Heimskringla, recorded by Snorri Sturluson around 1230, because it has the most original detail and synthesises the others (https://momentousbritain.co.uk/images/00000135/Heimskringla-Vol3.pdf). We are more positive about Norse sagas than proper historians, but we are selective about which bits to trust. Not the fantasy and magic, of course. Nor anything that glorifies Norse kings or Norse culture. Doubtless, they herald Hardrada’s successes and fudge his failures. But they had no incentive to invent incidental geographic detail or to move the location of major events.

Historians have always tried to fit saga events into a Battle of Stamford Bridge narrative based on the English accounts, rejecting any saga statements that are inconvenient or inconsistent. A more coherent narrative can be built by doing the reverse, fitting the English account’s events into a narrative based on Heimskringla, in which case nothing is inconsistent, and nothing needs to be rejected.

Heimskringla starts by saying that Hardrada was due to attend a meeting in Jorvik (Finlay): “An assembly was arranged for early on the Monday in the city”. This Monday was the day of battle. Hardrada was not expecting any resistance, so a third of the men were left at the camp to guard the fleet, while the landing party left their armour. This is what Heimskringla says about the initial encounter (Laing):

Now as they came near the castle a great army seemed coming against them, and they saw a cloud of dust as from horses’ feet, and under it shining shields and bright armour. The king halted his people, and called to him Earl Toste, and asked him what army this could be. The Earl replied that he thought it most likely to be a hostile army, but possibly it might be some of his relations who were seeking for mercy and friendship, in order to obtain certain peace and safety from the king. Then the king said, “We must all halt, to discover what kind of a force this is.” They did so; and the nearer this force came the greater it appeared, and their shining arms were to the sight like glancing ice.

So, the Norse landing party was approaching Jorvik (Y on Figure 6) when they saw an army heading towards them. They must have been approaching Jorvik from the east because they eventually retreated across the Derwent. In case it is not obvious, if they had been approaching Jorvik from any other direction, they would have had to retreat an implausible 12km or more to cross the Derwent. The Fulford glacial moraine ridge - warm colours on Figure 6 – crossed between the Derwent and Jorvik.

This means that, contrary to the orthodox narrative, the Norse army could not have been at modern Stamford Bridge (S) when they spotted the enemy approaching them. For one, if they were anywhere east of the moraine ridge, the view of the ‘great army’ coming towards them would be obscured by the moraine ridge. Instead, they would see successive enemy ranks cresting the ridge. For two, by the time they realised the size of the army heading their way, the vanguard of that army would be upon them, but this was not the case. For three, if they were anywhere east of the moraine ridge and the wind was from the east, they would first see the English vanguard with no dust; if the wind was from any other direction or there was no wind, they would see a dust cloud before seeing any men.

Hence, the Norse army must have been on the Fulford moraine ridge or west of it to have had any view of the oncoming ‘great army’. They would not have had a useful view from ground level, so they must have been on the ridge. Hardrada orders the Norse to hold their position: “We must all halt to find what kind of a force this is”. As the gap closes, Hardrada realises the enemy is approaching. Heimskringla reports this conversation with Tostig:

Then said King Harald, “Let us now fall upon some good sensible counsel; for it is not to be concealed that this is a hostile army and the king himself without doubt is here”. Then said the earl, “The first counsel is to turn about as fast as we can to our ships to get our men and our weapons, and then we will make a defence according to our ability; or otherwise let our ships defend us, for there these horsemen have no power over us”. Then King Harald said, “I have another counsel. Put three of our best horses under three of our briskest lads and let them ride with all speed to tell our people to come quickly to our relief. The Englishmen shall have a hard fray of it before we give ourselves up for lost.” The earl said the king must order in this, as in all things, as he thought best; adding, at the same time, it was by no means his wish to fly. Then King Harald ordered his banner Land-ravager to be set up; and Frirek was the name of him who bore the banner.

It sounds like nothing happens between Hardrada’s discussion with Tostig and planting the banner around which the shield wall is formed. If so, and if we are right that Hardrada and Tostig were on the Fulford moraine ridge, then the main battlefield was on the moraine ridge too. This makes sense. The moraine ridge was the only militarily advantageous place between York and Stamford Bridge. If Hardrada could choose any location west of the Derwent to defend, it would be a raised area on the Fulford moraine ridge. It just so happened that he was already there.

Heimskringla moves on to a detailed description of the initial engagement and the battle. We will return to this in the Revised Battle Narrative section below. It does not mention the Norse retreating over a river, but its purpose was to glorify Norse culture and Norse kings, and so it wouldn’t. Indeed, after the glorious death of the Norse commanders in the melee, it just has this to say: “and then it went, as one might expect, that all had not the same fate, for many fled, and were lucky enough to escape in various ways; and darkness fell before the slaughter was altogether ended.”

Reconciling the battle accounts

A dichotomy seems to exist between the contemporary accounts. Heimskringla implies that the battle was fought on the Fulford moraine ridge, some two miles west of modern Stamford Bridge. Huntingdon implies that the fighting started west of the river and ended east of the river after the Norse army was forced to retreat across the bridge. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle implies that the battle was entirely east of the Derwent. The C recension of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle includes an extra folio about a Norwegian holding the bridge against the entire English army, which implies the battle started west of the river, but it was added long after the events, and was quite probably copied from Huntingdon. The original C recension agrees with the others that the battle was ‘beyond the bridge’ and therefore implies that it was entirely east of the Derwent.

In our opinion, Heimskringla is too specific to be wrong about the initial battle location west of the Derwent, and it is independently corroborated by Huntingdon. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle seldom makes factual mistakes. Therefore, its statement that the battle was fought ‘beyond the bridge’ has probably been misinterpreted. There are three possibilities:

1. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s ‘beyond’ does not mean what it would today. It had previously said that Hardrada and Tostig were “beyond York”. This cannot mean ‘beyond’ in the modern sense relative to King Harold because he was in York at that time. The ASC has a specific use of the term ‘beyond the sea’ to mean in Continental Europe. All the other occurrences of ‘beyond’, in our view, mean ‘be yonder’; i.e. ‘some distance from’. So, when it says Hardrada and Tostig were ‘beyond York’, it probably means that they were ‘some distance from York’. ‘Beyond the bridge’ might therefore mean ‘some distance from the bridge’, which would be true if they were on the Fulford moraine ridge.
2. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was not referring to the bridge over the Derwent. The English army would have had to cross a bridge over the Foss outside York (marked with a red X and Y on Figure 10). Perhaps the Chronicle means the battlefield was east of the Foss, which is not terribly helpful, but is at least consistent with the other accounts.
3. Harold was not the relative origin. For example, Edinburgh is ‘beyond Hadrian’s Wall’ relative to London but not relative to Inverness. Historians assume this ‘beyond’ is from Harold’s perspective, but perhaps it was relative to somewhere or something else, Worcester, maybe, since that is where one of the recensions was written. If that relative origin was west or south of Stamford Bridge, the ASC could be saying that the main battlefield was west of the Derwent.

We do not know which of the three possibilities is right, but they are all plausible, and any one of them would make the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle consistent with the other accounts. We are convinced that the battle started on the Fulford moraine ridge, that the Norse army was forced to retreat across the Derwent, and that they made a stand at the bridge.

Care is needed when interpreting medieval battle locations. They typically took the name of the nearest settlement or landmark, but that might be some distance away: the Battle of Worcester was 2km south of Worcester; the Battle of Naseby was 2km north of Naseby. English contemporary accounts agree the battle was fought somewhere that sounds like ‘Stamford Bridge’. Heimskringla does not say where the battle was fought, but the previous day the Norse army approached Jorvik from Stanforda-bryggiur, so it makes sense they did so again on the day of battle. This might be several miles from the place that sounds like Stamford Bridge.

Roman roads east of York

Anglo-Saxons seldom built significant river bridges that were not associated with Roman infrastructure. The bridge from which Stamford Bridge got its name was therefore likely to have been connected on both sides of the Derwent to a metalled Roman road. There is a lot of confusion about the routes of the Roman roads east of York.

The route of the A166 between Gate Hemsley and Garrowby Hill has been labelled ‘ROMAN ROAD’ on Ordnance Survey maps since 1912 (Figure 4). The OS presumably believed it was a section of the Jorvik-to-Bridlington Roman road. This was based not on physical evidence, but on intangibles like the road’s straightness, parish boundaries, and ancient places with ‘Street’ in their name. With no physical evidence, the Ordnance Survey could be wrong.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Ivan Margary mapped Britain’s Roman roads. Figure 7 is a copy of his 1955 diagram of the Roman roads around the Vale of York. It is not one of his more reliable. According to his notes, the route of Margery 810 between the Foss and the Derwent was based entirely on parish boundaries. Again, with no physical evidence, he could be wrong.

In 1962, RCHME updated Margary’s diagram for the roads around Jorvik (Figure 8). It added no new physical anchors to the route of the Derventio roads, so it is no more likely to be right.

Two sections of Roman road paving were discovered in the 1950s. One was at the McKechnie factory, opposite modern Stamford Bridge on the north side of the Derwent. The other was at Apple Tree Farm, two miles northeast of Jorvik. Historians presumed that they were part of the Roman road from Jorvik and Bridlington, the orthodox route for which was thought to be from Jorvik’s north gate to Apple Tree Farm to Gate Hemsley to the McKechnie factory, across the Derwent to modern Stamford Bridge, then east to Garrowby Hill on the route of the A166, and on to Bridlington.

The first indication that the orthodox route of Margary 810 might be wrong appeared in 1976 when the Royal Commission published a B&W photo showing crop marks of a Roman road junction at Low Catton, 800m south of the Derwent railway crossing (Figure 9). The camera is above the Derwent and facing east towards Reckondales. The road running from bottom to top in the middle of the photo is therefore heading east from Low Catton. It extrapolates east to Garrowby Hill and Bridlington, west to Jorvik. It seems very probable, then, that this is Margary 810, the important Roman military road between Jorvik and Bridlington. The left branch, best seen in the top left of the photo, is heading northeast towards the Post Office at modern Stamford Bridge.

Ian G. Lawton has been searching for Roman archaeology to the east of York since the early 1990s. In 1991, he found archaeological remains of a major Roman settlement on the west bank of the Derwent traversed by a metalled Roman road. He reasoned that this must be Roman Derventio, a settlement which was known to be in this vicinity. He published the coordinates of his newly discovered stretches of metalled Roman road between Dunnington and Low Catton in his 1994 paper ‘The Roman Roads Around Stamford Bridge’.

Lawton produced a map of all the sections of metalled Roman road that he had confirmed, but it is not to scale. We have therefore superimposed his coordinates onto a heat relief map for Figure 10. Sections of proven Roman road are shown as red dots and red lines. Lawton suggested two ways that these sections might have linked up, shown as faint black lines. One is a northerly route, designated SBR1, connecting Apple Tree Farm (A) to Gate Helmsley (G), and a Roman fortress at the McKechnie factory north of modern Stamford Bridge (S). The other is a southerly route, designated SBR2, from Jorvik (Y) along the crest of the Fulford moraine ridge to Dunnington (D) and thence to Derventio (V) and east to Garrowby. Lawton’s SBR2 road route looks compelling, with many confirmed points. SBR1, his northern road, is less convincing, with only two points, at Apple Tree Farm and the McKechnie factory, separated by a large gap.

Moreover, the Roman Roads Research Association (RRRA) subsequently published an aerial photo (Figure 11) showing a cropmark road heading just north of east from Apple Tree Farm. It is therefore heading towards Derventio and Low Catton, some 30° south of Lawton’s SBR1. We think it had a different route.

In 2005, the NAA published its archaeological pipeline survey (Figure 12), which confirmed Lawton’s Derventio settlement west of the Derwent (the orange hatched area in the bottom left), and his SBR2 road route (the solid orange line running through the hatched area). It confirmed the roads shown on the Royal Commission cropmark photo (Figure 9), highlighted in red by us. It showed a newly discovered Roman road heading roughly north-south along the moraine ridge from High Catton (shown as a solid orange line). It suggested other putative Roman road routes shown as dotted orange lines.

Crucially, for our purposes, the NAA diagram showed a Roman settlement at Low Catton. Therefore, the Roman settlement spanned the Derwent with a metalled Roman road on both sides, suggesting they were connected. The Romans almost never directed metalled roads to cross tidal sections of rivers, and only then if the diversion was very far. This suggests that Low Catton was either above the Derwent’s head of tide in Roman times or that its head of tide was up near Malton. If the former, the road would have crossed by a ford, or if the latter, it would have crossed by bridge. We will return to this in the next section.

In recent times, information about Roman roads in Britain has been collated by the Roman Roads Research Association (RRRA). They publish a Roman road route diagram for the Vale of York (Figure 13). It proposes Margary 810 headed directly from Apple Tree Farm towards Low Catton, albeit as a dotted line to indicate that this part of the route is unsubstantiated by physical evidence. They depict the western side of Lawton’s SBR2, leaving Jorvik’s south gate and running along the Fulford ridge crest. However, whereas Lawton proposes that it branches off the moraine ridge at Dunnington, they propose that it continues along the ridge to meet Margary 810 near Holtby. They do not further extrapolate this road to Gate Helmsley to follow the route of the A166, thereby orphaning the proven section of Roman road at the McKechnie factory, so they speculatively connected it to a fork off Margary 810 at what is now Wilson’s Plantation. 

We support Lawton’s route for the more southerly road, but we are not convinced that he or the RRRA has got the more northerly route correct. We propose instead that three metalled Roman roads were constructed east from Jorvik at different times. The earliest left Jorvik’s northeast gate to Apple Tree Farm, continued east to Holtby Manor, headed northeast to Gate Hemsley and crossed the Derwent on a ford at modern Stamford Bridge (shown as a red and magenta line on Figure 14). We guess that it was replaced by Lawton’s SBR2, southerly route, which left Jorvik’s southern gate, ran along the Fulford moraine ridge crest to Dunnington (Du), and crossed the Derwent on a bridge at Derventio (black line).  The third followed the route of the first to Holtby Manor but then continued east to cross the Derwent on the Derventio bridge (red line).

What this means for the location of the medieval ‘bridge at Stamford’

Lawton concludes in EYO863 that the river was probably spanned by a Roman bridge at Low Catton. His only evidence is a 1m cubed stone block – now lost - that may have been “either a bridge pier or cut-water” (DYO1744). We are not convinced he is right. As far as we know, there were only three tidal estuary crossings in the entire country, at London, Brough and Chester. The Derwent crossing at Derventio may have been a fourth, but the Derwent’s head of tide must have been downstream of the ford at Stamford Bridge, so it was no more than a mile upstream. Thus, the Romans had no obvious incentive to build a bridge at Derventio. This suggests to us that the Derwent’s Roman-era head of tide was downstream of Derventio and the crossing was by a ford.

It makes little difference here because a Roman wooden bridge would have rotted by the 11th century anyway. The Anglo-Saxons were not enthusiastic bridge builders, but they were expert woodworkers, perfectly capable of building a timber bridge over a 9m wide river. Whether they replaced the timber on Roman bridge abutments or replaced a ford with a wooden bridge, there was an Anglo-Saxon bridge over the Derwent, and the most likely place for it was at Low Catton.

Lawton realised back in 1994 that his discoveries might have far-reaching implications for the Battle of Stamford Bridge’s location. His very last paragraph ends: “If we enter the realms of speculation, perhaps we could envisage the Roman construction succumbing to time and decay, with a later build constructed upon the remains of the Roman stonework. Perhaps this crossing point formed the focus for that day’s activity [i.e., the battle] with the high ground of the earlier Roman settlement, and the Low Catton ridge on the opposite bank forming the arena for the event.” Brilliantly perspicacious and accurate, we think, although probably incomplete.

Lawton’s Derventio spanned the Derwent. The Derwent bridge and the part of Derventio on the east bank match the descriptions of ‘Stamford bridge’ over which the Norse army fell back, and the place where they made a stand (modern Low Catton). However, the armies engaged somewhere before the Norse fell back. To work out where that was, we need to investigate the Norse camp’s location.

Riccall & the Norse fleet

Most of the primary sources agree that the Norse army camped on or beside their ships. By tradition, the fleet was moored at Riccall, so the Norse camp is thought to have been at Riccall. In our view, it is implausibly unlikely.

1. If the Norse camped at Riccall, they could not have arrived at the battlefield in time to fight the Battle of Stamford Bridge or would not have taken a route that went anywhere near it. Heimskringla says that the Norse landing party marched from their camp to the battlefield, but Riccall was an island, so they could not have done. They might have rowed somewhere, then marched, but they were heading for Jorvik. It is difficult to imagine why they would not have rowed upstream to land at Fulford, meaning they never went within seven miles of Stamford Bridge. If they rowed down the Ouse to Barmby, then up the Derwent to Sutton-upon-Derwent and marched to Stamford Bridge, it would have taken at least eight hours, so they would not have arrived at the battlefield before the battle was supposedly near its end.
2. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle C recension says: “Ða amang þissan com Harold Engla cyningc mid ealre his fyrde on ðone Sunnandæg to Tada þær his lið fylcade”, (Starkey) “Then meanwhile Harold king of the English came with all his army on a Sunday to Tadcaster and mustered there with his fleet”. The English fleet can only have got to Tadcaster from the Humber estuary, but the route would have passed within 200m of Riccall. The Norse army is hardly likely to have let them pass unmolested, and if they did, Hardrada would have been forewarned of the English army’s approach, yet all the contemporary accounts emphasise that he was taken by surprise.
3. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that the English army marched from Tadcaster through Jorvik on the morning of the battle. Heimskringla explains that the weather was so warm on the day of battle that the landing party left their armour behind. The English army would have created a dust cloud. They would have had to pass along a ridge crest within seven miles of Riccall. The Norse fleet guard would have seen a dust cloud less than seven miles away and warned Hardrada, yet the contemporary accounts emphasise that he was taken by surprise.
4. Riccall was an island in a tidal salt marsh. Heimskringla says that the Norse army walks from their ships to the battlefield, that the Norse messengers ride from the battlefield to the ships, and that Marshall Styrkarr rides from the battlefield to the ships to deliver news of defeat. This would only be possible by land, which means that the camp was not on an island.
5. Riccall had less than 50 acres of pastureland, and the grass quality would have been poor. It would have sustained no more than 250 sheep, barely enough to feed the Norse army for three days. They needed to move.
6. Heimskringla says that on the day before the battle, the entire Norse army went to Jorvik where the townsfolk agreed to Hardrada’s conditions for surrender. He takes hostages and organises various meetings, including the fateful one in Jorvik on the following morning. Heimskringla (Finlay) says: “In the evening the king went down to his ships”. So, the king returned to his ships on the evening before the battle. He clearly could not have returned to his ships by water, so he must have returned by land. Therefore, the ships must have been moored somewhere with a land link to Jorvik. Hardrada returned to his ships on the eve of the battle, so they were still there the following morning. Therefore, the Norse fleet was moored somewhere with a land link to Jorvik at dawn on the day of battle. It could not have been at Riccall or any other island.
7. Heimskringla describes Marshall Styrkarr’s journey from the battlefield back to the ships. He encounters a wagon on the way, kills its driver and steals his coat. The account ends by saying (Laing): “He then took the skin-coat, sprang on his horse, and rode down to the strand”. It means ‘down’ in the sense of ‘descended’, so the ships were moored at a sandy or shingle strand beneath some sort of higher ground. Neither would apply to Riccall.
8. Auden reckons that the Ouse would have been too easy for Harold to blockade, thereby trapping the Norse fleet on the marsh. He thinks that they withdrew to open water, presumably to somewhere on the Humber estuary, on the day after the Battle of Fulford, but if they did, they did not stay there because it is too far from the battlefield.

Unsurprisingly, then, there is no evidence that the Norse fleet was at Riccall on the eve of the battle. The Norse army camped at Riccall before the Battle of Fulford and returned to their ships the same evening. No accounts say that they moved to a new camp, so historians assume they were still there on the eve of the Battle of Stamford Bridge. But they were not, for the reasons listed above. Therefore, Hardrada moved his fleet and camp. We will try to deduce where and why.

Fewer Norse camp candidates exist than might be expected. The camp could not have been upstream on the Ouse because that would not have led to a battle near the Derwent. The Humber Levels are ruled out too because the Norse could not have walked or ridden across a marsh. The only plausible camps are on the Derwent. As we conclude above, the fleet was not moored on an island, which discounts Barmby (M), Bubwith (U) and East Cottingwith (EC). They were not moored on the west bank downstream of Kexby because it is lined by stretches of marshland known locally as ‘ings’. The east bank is less marshy, but it has few settlements. This is important because the groundwater would have been brackish. If the Norse camp was on a tidal stretch of the Derwent, it must have been at a settlement with a well. The bigger the settlement, the better because thousands of Vikings would have eaten prodigious amounts of livestock and grain. Indeed, this seems the most likely explanation for the move: the Norse army had eaten all the food on Riccall and needed more.

Setting Heimskringla aside momentarily, the camp could have been at modern Stamford Bridge. Its location above the Derwent’s medieval head of tide meant that it had unlimited fresh water from the river, and it would have had access to grain and livestock at Buttercrambe’s rich farmland on the other side of the ford. But a camp at modern Stamford Bridge would contradict several Heimskringla battle events: 1) There would be no point in putting the fastest riders on the fastest horses to summon the fleet guard if they were only two miles away and within sight; 2) Eystein Orre’s fleet guard were exhausted after running to the battlefield from their ships, which would not be so if they were only two miles away; 3) There would be no point sending Marshall Styrkarr to the ships with news of defeat because the fleet guard could see the initial battlefield; 4) Marshall Styrkarr gets so cold on his ride from the battlefield to the ships that he has to steal a coat from one of the locals, which is hardly likely on a ride of only two miles. In other words, modern Stamford Bridge was in sight and too close to the battlefield to have been where the Norse camped.  

Heimskringla’s description of Marshall Styrkarr’s journey from the battlefield to the Norse ships is enlightening. As we say above, he encounters a wagon on the way, kills its driver and steals his coat. The account ends by saying (Laing): “He then took the skin-coat, sprang on his horse, and rode down to the strand”. It means ‘down’ in the sense of ‘descended’, so the ships were moored at a sandy or shingle strand beneath some sort of higher ground. The only places in the entire region where a navigable section of the Ouse or Derwent is overlooked by higher ground adjacent to a sandy or shingle strand are at Fulford and Sutton-upon-Derwent, where they meet moraine ridges. The Norse did not moor on the Ouse, for reasons we explain above. Therefore, the only place that matches Heimskringla’s Marshall Styrkarr account is Sutton-upon-Derwent.

Sutton-upon-Derwent had other camp attractions. It was one of only two significant non-island settlements on the navigable part of the Derwent. The other, Kexby, was close to the battlefield and in sight of it, so inconsistent with Heimskringla. Sutton-upon-Derwent also had the only section of estuarine firm riverbank long enough to moor the entire fleet, and it was a farm (‘Sutton’ means ‘south farm’).

The route from Sutton-upon-Derwent to Jorvik went along the Escrick Ridge crest to High Catton, down a Roman road to the Derventio bridge, across the bridge, and then along the 810 Roman trunk road. It was 12½ miles, roughly a three-hour march. Heimskringla says that Hardrada was expected in the morning. It sounds about right.

According to Huntingdon, the Norse fleet had roughly 350 ships. They would have needed roughly 3km of riverbank to moor. The Derwent flowed around the south of the moraine ridge in those days (it has rerouted since), and a tributary ran up east of the ridge. Each of the three sides would have had roughly 1km of mooring space, ideal for the Norse fleet (shown as magenta line on Figure 16). Indeed, it was the only 3km stretch of contiguous solid riverbank between Stamford Bridge and Brough.

Battle Timing

We will try to substantiate our proposed locations for the Norse camp and the initial battlefield by checking them against two timings described in the contemporary accounts. First, we have to work out where the English had probably camped on the eve of the battle.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle clearly says that the English were at Tadcaster at dawn on the day of battle (Whitelock): “Then in the middle of these proceedings Harold, king of the English, came on the Sunday with all his force to Tadcaster, and there marshalled his troops, and then on Monday went right on through York.” Unfortunately, it is contradicted by Heimskringla, which says that they were at Jorvik: “That same [Sunday] evening, after sunset, King Harold Godwinson came from the south to the castle with a numerous army, and rode into the city with the good-will and consent of the people of the castle. All the gates and walls were beset so that the Northmen could receive no intelligence, and the army remained all night in the town.”

In general, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is more reliable about English troop movements than the Norse sagas. It is surely right in this case. Secrecy was crucial to King Harold’s plan. He wanted to take the enemy by surprise. Tostig was related to some of the Northumbrian barons. He would have had spies in the city and in the nearby countryside. If the English army arrived in Jorvik on the Sunday evening, those spies would have seen and heard their arrival and would have immediately sent news to Hardrada and Tostig. Heimskringla says that Harold stations guards to prevent spies from getting out, but it would have been too late, and they could not stop the field spies anyway.

Heimskringla describes the English army as ‘immense’ on the day of battle, whereas it describes Harold’s accompaniment to Jorvik as only ‘numerous’. We guess it is trying to say that Harold arrived at Jorvik after curfew with his personal guard, too few men to spook Tostig’s field spies.

In our view, Harold probably did go to Jorvik on the eve of battle. He needed intelligence from the city elders. They knew about the Norse strength and location, and they knew of Hardrada’s plan to come to Jorvik on Monday morning. Harold also needed to press local militiamen into service and ensure his army could pass through Jorvik’s gates.

We will assume henceforth that the main English army left Tadcaster soon after dawn on the day of battle. Harold might have been with them or, more probably, waited for them in Jorvik.

Forester’s Huntingdon translation says: “the armies were engaged from daybreak until noonday”. Greenway has much the same: “They engaged at dawn, and after fearful assaults on both sides they continued steadfastly until midday”. At that point, the Norse army is forced to retreat over the river. A Norwegian giant on the bridge (Forester): “stayed the advance of the whole English army till the ninth hour”. Times were calculated from sunrise in those days. We lost six days when adopting the Gregorian calendar, so times we need are for October 1st, when first light was at 05:30, and sunrise was just after 06:00. These translations say the engagement started at the ‘height of the morning’, usually interpreted to mean dawn, the Norse fell back around noon, and the giant was overcome around 15:00. It seems implausible that the battle lasted six hours or that the giant could have blocked the English army for three hours. We think the translations are faulty.

Huntingdon’s original Latin statement says: “Coeuntes namque a summo mane usque ad meridiem, cum horribiliter ruentes utrinque perceverarent, maximus Anglorum Norwagenses cedere sed non fugere compulit”. The translations above are linguistically viable, but the English marched from Tadcaster, at least 10 miles away, and they would have breakfasted before leaving. The battle could not have started at dawn, or indeed, much before midday. In our view, ‘coeuntes’ in this instance meant ‘coming together’, in the sense that the armies moved towards each other. Huntingdon’s sentence therefore means: “For, coming together from the height of the morning until midday, while they continued to rush terribly against one another on both sides, Harold compelled the Norwegians to give way, though not to flee.” In other words, the armies marched towards each other for most of the morning, and the engagement was shortly before noon.

If both armies left their camps after breakfast, at 07:00, they would each have marched around 10 miles by 10:00. Ten miles from Tadcaster via York on metalled Roman roads would have taken the English army to the Foss river crossing (X or Y on Figure 10). Ten miles from Sutton-upon-Derwent via Derventio on metalled Roman roads would have taken the Norse army to the Fulford ridge. They would have spotted each other around 10:00.

At the initial sighting, Tostig could not see the other army clearly enough to identify them, so they were roughly two miles apart. Heimskringla says that the English closed the gap to hailing distance, then Harold made a peace offer, withdrew, issued battle orders, and advanced. It must have taken at least 60 minutes, probably longer. If the armies sighted each other around 10:00, the battle started no earlier than 11:00 and could easily have been towards noon. Then a melee, the death of Hardrada, more negotiation and another melee before the arrival of Orre’s fleet guard. Hardrada would have dispatched his messengers to summon Orre’s fleet guard at around 10:30. It was a ten-mile ride, around 30 minutes. The fleet guard had to dress for battle and jog 10 miles in armour. Orre’s fleet guard would therefore have arrived at the battlefield around 13:00. The fleet guard nearly turned the battle, but ran out of steam, allowing the English to regain the upper hand. It probably took 60 minutes, taking the timeline to 14:00. Huntingdon (Greenway) says that: “the Norwegians were forced to give way before the superior numbers of the English, but retreated in good order. Being driven across the river …” If they retreated in good order, they presumably shuffled millipede-like two kilometres to the River Derwent, then filtered over the bridge at Stamford in single file. This could not have taken much less than an hour, pushing the timeline close to 15:00. The giant was overcome around 15:00, which means that he probably held out for only a handful of minutes.

Revised Battle Narrative

At first light on the day of battle, the main English army was camped at Tadcaster, the Norse army at Sutton-upon-Derwent. Heimskringla describes events at the Norse camp (Findlay): “On the Monday, when Haraldr Sigurðarson had eaten breakfast, he had the trumpets blown for going ashore, then he makes his army ready and divides the troops, which parts are to go and which are to be left behind. In every company he had two men go inland for every one left behind.” So, one third of the Norse army was left at the camp to guard the fleet, while two-thirds went ashore heading for Jorvik via Derventio. Meanwhile, presumably also after breakfast, the main English army left Tadcaster heading for Derventio via Jorvik.

At roughly 10:00, the armies see each other as the Norse army crests the Fulford Ridge near Holtby (magenta line on Figure 17). The English had just crossed the Foss (cyan line), so the armies looked at each other along Margary 810. Hardrada orders his army to halt until they can identify the advancing army. As the English close the gap, Hardrada realises it is the enemy and guesses that they are probably led by King Harold. He orders messengers to summon the fleet guard and deploys his men. Heimskringla again:

Then King Harald arranged his army, and made the line of battle long, but not deep. He bent both wings of it back, so that they met together; and formed a wide ring equally thick all round, shield to shield, both in the front and rear ranks. The king himself and his retinue were within the circle; and there was the banner, and a body of chosen men. Earl Toste, with his retinue, was at another place, and had a different banner. The army was arranged in this way, because the king knew that horsemen were accustomed to ride forwards with great vigour, but to turn back immediately. Now the king ordered that his own and the earl’s attendants should ride forwards where it was most required. “And our bowmen,” said he, “shall be near to us; and they who stand in the first rank shall set the spear-shaft on the ground, and the spear-point against the horseman’s breast, if he rides at them; and those who stand in the second rank shall set the spear-point against the horse’s breast.”

So, the Norse army was arranged in a long, thin, enclosed loop. The English had archers and cavalry, the Norse had none. Enclosing footbound infantrymen to defend against cavalry had been standard military practice since Roman times. King Harold approached in person to negotiate a truce. Hardrada and Tostig rejected his offer. Heimskringla picks up the story:

Now the battle began. The Englishmen made a hot assault upon the Northmen, who sustained it bravely. It was no easy matter for the English to ride against the Northmen on account of their spears; therefore, they rode in a circle around them. And the fight at first was but loose and light, as long as the Northmen kept their order of battle; for although the English rode hard against the Northmen, they gave way again immediately, as they could do nothing against them. Now when the Northmen thought they perceived that the enemy were making but weak assaults, they set after them, and would drive them into flight; but when they had broken their shield-rampart the Englishmen rode up from all sides, and threw arrows and spears on them. Now when King Harald Sigurdson saw this, he went into the fray where the greatest crash of weapons was, and there was a sharp conflict, in which many people fell on both sides. King Harald then was in a rage, and ran out in front of the array, and hewed down with both hands; so that neither helmet nor armour could withstand him, and all who were nearest gave way before him. It was then very near with the English that they had taken to flight. King Harald Sigurdson was hit by an arrow in the windpipe, and that was his death-wound. He fell, and all who had advanced with him, except those who retired with the banner.

In summary, after a long period of posturing with no combat, some Norsemen charge out of the shield wall to attack the English. The English surround them. There is fierce hand-to-hand combat. Hardrada joins the fray on foot. He gets too close to an English archer who shoots him fatally through the throat. Heimskringla continues:

There was afterwards the warmest conflict, and Earl Toste had taken charge of the king’s banner. They began on both sides to form their array again, and for a long time there was a pause in fighting. But before the battle began again Harald Godwinson offered his brother, Earl Toste, peace, and also quarter to the Northmen who were still alive; but the Northmen called out, all of them together, that they would rather fall, one across the other, than accept of quarter from the Englishmen. Then each side set up a war-shout, and the battle began again.

Thus, Tostig takes command of the Norse army and reforms the shield wall. Harold offers another truce. Tostig rejects it again. The English attack again. Just as they are getting the upper hand, the fleet guard arrive under the command of Eystein Orre, fiancé of Hardrada’s daughter:

Eystein Orre came up at this moment from the ships with the men who followed him, and all were clad in armour. Then Eystein got King Harald’s banner Land-ravager; and now was, for the third time, one of the sharpest of conflicts, in which many Englishmen fell, and they were near to taking flight. This conflict is called Orre’s storm. Eystein and his men had hastened so fast from the ships that they were quite exhausted, and scarcely fit to fight before they came into the battle; but afterwards they became so furious, that they did not guard themselves with their shields as long as they could stand upright. At last they threw off their coats of ringmail, and then the Englishmen could easily lay their blows at them; and many fell from weariness, and died without a wound. Thus almost all the chief men fell among the Norway people.

For a while the English buckle under the onslaught, but the fleet guard are exhausted after jogging ten miles in armour. They discard their armour to concentrate their energy on swinging axes. It makes them vulnerable. Heimskringla says that all the ‘chief men’ were killed in this phase of the conflict. It does not mention Tostig’s fate, but one of the other sagas says that he: “fell there with glory and a good reputation”.

Heimskringla is mute about the Norse retreat, but Henry of Huntingdon takes up the story:

“… the Norwegians were forced to give way before the superior numbers of the English, but retreated in good order. Being driven across the river, the living trampling on the corpses of the slain, they resolutely made a fresh stand. Here a single Norwegian, whose name ought to have been preserved, took post on a bridge, and hewing down more than forty of the English with a battle axe, his country’s weapon, stayed the advance of the whole English army till the ninth hour.”

So, the Norse fell back to the river and crossed the bridge. A rearguard was stationed at Low Catton to blockade the bridge while the others fled back to their ships. The main flight route can be worked out from Marshall Styrkarr’s journey to the ships:

Then he [Strykarr] was met by a wagoner and he was in a fur-lined coat. Then spoke Styrkárr: ‘Will you sell the coat, farmer?’ ‘Not to you,’ he said. ‘You must be a Norwegian, I recognise your speech.’ Then said Styrkárr: ‘If I am a Norwegian, what do you want, then?’ The farmer answers: ‘I would like to kill you, but unfortunately I have no usable weapon.’ Then said Styrkárr: ‘If you cannot kill me, farmer, then I shall try whether I can kill you.’ He swings up his sword and brings it down on his neck so that his head flew off, after that took the fur-lined coat and leapt on his horse and went down to the shore.

He ‘went down to the shore’, so he was on a ridge of some sort. If, as we think, the Norse fleet was at Sutton-upon-Derwent, he must have travelled along the crest of the Escrick moraine ridge, and this would be the quickest and safest route from Low Catton.

Looking for evidence

Where then should archaeologists look for evidence of the battle? Two places stand out: Derventio and the main battlefield.

Derventio is straightforward. On the day of battle, the Norse army fell back across ‘Stamford bridge’ (small b) at Derventio with the English in hot pursuit. The bottleneck likely caused casualties on the west side of the bridge, opposite Low Catton. Part of the Norse army made a stand on the east side of the bridge to buy time for those fleeing to their ships. The stand was eventually crushed by the English, with more loss of life, at Low Catton. The English chased the fleeing Norse back to their ships, probably causing a large number of casualties all along the Escrick Ridge to Sutton-upon-Derwent.

We are unsure about the exact initial battlefield location. It was on the Fulford moraine ridge near its intersection with Margary 810, but the road’s route is uncertain. It probably ran through a dip at Holtby while the Norse would have wanted to defend rising ground (orange areas on Figure 19).

There are three candidates for the initial battlefield: Mirk Hills to the northeast of Holtby (a on Figure 19), Mill Hill to the southwest (b), and Mill Field (c) to its southwest. Heimskringla is not much help. It says that the shield wall was enclosed, which implies they were on open ground. It says that the shield wall was equally deep all the way around, which implies the slope was the same all the way around. It says there was an inner shield wall and an outer shield wall. The inner shield wall was to prevent English archers from shooting over the facing shield wall to hit the rear of the opposite wall, in which case the shield wall was an eccentric ellipse or stadium (i.e. sausage) shape. English bows had draw weights of 80lbs plus. Pulled to the chest, they would have had a range of around 100m. The Norse shield wall was therefore probably no more than 75m across the short side. ‘Long but not deep?’ Heimskringla describes the deploying of three ranks. Assuming the main Norse army had 6000 men, of which perhaps 1000 were archers, barons and their entourages, the shield wall would have been roughly 600m on the long side.

Mill Hill was the best defensive position between Derventio and Jorvik, higher and steeper than any other hill, but it is conical at the top, whereas Heimskringla implies the shield wall was elongated. It is also too small, with a shield wall around 400m on the longer side. Unless we have overestimated the size of the Norse army, it is not a great fit for Heimskringla’s description. Mirk Hill is lower and shallower than Mill Hill, but a better fit to Heimskringla’s battlefield description, with a 75m by 600m shield wall being one of several possibilities. Mill Field is a third potential battlefield. It is 5m above the surrounding land, with a steep southern slope, and almost exactly the right size and shape, with a shield wall roughly 60m across and 600m long.

Each of the three battlefield candidates has a case. Mill Hill is the best defensive location but the least good fit for Heimskringla’s description. Mill Field is the worst defensive location but the best fit for Heimskringla’s description. Mill Hill is midway. We can only say that we think the battlefield was on one of these hills near Holtby, hence the name of this paper.

Some loose ends

The battle scenario outlined above is simple, logical, and militarily sensible. It ties together all the source accounts into a coherent narrative, just leaving what might seem to be a contradiction, three interesting military puzzles and English Heritage’s criticisms of Heimskringla.

A possible contradiction

Forester’s translation of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum says: At last someone came under the bridge in a boat, and thrust a spear into him, through the chinks of the flooring. The English having gained a passage, King Harald and Tostig were slain; and their whole army were either slaughtered, or, being taken prisoners, were burnt.

It seems to imply that Hardrada was killed after the English crossed the Derwent. Heimskringla and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle say that Hardrada was killed at the main battlefield. If that is what they are saying and they are all right, the main battlefield was east of the river. We think the main battlefield was west of the river. If we are right, one or other of those sources is either wrong or has been misinterpreted.

Historia Anglorum, or its translation, looks culpable. It contradicts the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle account, which carries the same narrative, only with Hardrada and Tostig being slain at the main battlefield before the surviving Norsemen retreated over the bridge. Huntingdon was writing 55 years after the event. He may have worked from a faulty contemporary account that has since been lost. We suspect that Forester’s translation is more to blame. His term ‘having’ and his semicolon make it sound like Hardrada and Tostig were killed as a consequence of the English gaining passage across the bridge, which means they died on the east side of the river. We disagree with the translation.

The Latin original says: “Transeuntes igitur Angli, Haroldum et Tostig occiderant, et totam Norwagensium aciem vel armis straverunt vel igne deprehensos combusserunt”. Forester’s translation of ‘occiderant’ to ‘were killed’ is viable, but it is pluperfect, so it would normally be translated as ‘had fallen’. We translate this passage as: “The English gained passage, Harald and Tostig had fallen, and the entire Norwegian army was either slaughtered or burned.” It looks to us like a list of events to conclude the narrative, with no implication that Hardrada or Tostig died as a consequence of the English gaining passage over the bridge. If so, the main battlefield could be west of the river without contradicting any sources.

Military Puzzle 1

Huntingdon says that the Norse make a ‘fresh stand’ after being forced over the river. It is important because it is the only evidence in all the contemporary accounts that there might have been any organised fighting east of the river. It is one of the main justifications for the main battle having been fought at Battle Flat. But why then is it not mentioned in any of the other accounts?

We think the ‘fresh stand’ is being taken out of context. The whole passage reads: “Being driven across the river, the living trampling on the corpses of the slain, they resolutely made a fresh stand. Here a single Norwegian, whose name ought to have been preserved, took post on a bridge”. Once the giant had been overcome, Huntingdon explains that the English swarmed across the bridge to chase and slaughter the fleeing Norsemen. It is clear to us that Huntingdon’s ‘fresh stand’ refers specifically to the Norse attempt to hold the English at the bridge and that he does not say or imply that there was any organised fighting east of the river.

Military Puzzle 2

If, as Heimskringla says, Hardrada quickly realises that he is outnumbered and outgunned, why did he reject Tostig’s advice to flee for the boats?

Heimskringla starts its obituary for Hardrada by saying: “King Harald never fled from battle …”. It sounds like he was always itching for a fight, no matter what the odds. But this is not what it means. It is trying to say that having engaged in a battle, he never fled. Reading back through Heimskringla it is clear that he assiduously avoided battle if he thought he might lose. The rest of the sentence says:

… but often tried cunning ways to escape when faced with great superiority of forces.

Hardrada was faced with superiority of forces at Stamford Bridge. His only chance of survival, apart from fleeing, came from incompetent English command or the timely arrival of his fleet guard without exhausting themselves. Neither was likely. Moreover, Hardrada had brought an entire generation of Norwegian warriors. If his army was badly defeated, Norway would be left powerless and undefended. One would have thought he would be especially circumspect considering the consequences of defeat, which makes it all the more odd that he rejected Tostig’s advice.

The obituary ends:

All the men who followed King Harald in battle or skirmish said that when he stood in great danger, or anything came suddenly upon him, he always took that course which all afterwards saw gave the best hope of a fortunate issue.

We think this was the case at Stamford Bridge. In our opinion, Hardrada worked out that he had a greater chance of surviving the battle at Holtby than of successfully fleeing, because the latter was fraught with danger too.

It is 3km from Derventio to Holtby. The English army could not have been more than 3km west of Holtby when Hardrada acknowledges what it is. The English horsemen could beat the footbound Norsemen to the bridge and blockade it. Even if the Norse could get there first, it might have taken an hour for them to stream single file over the bridge, during which time those still on the west bank would be trapped and vulnerable. Meanwhile the English horsemen could cross the Derwent upstream at Howsham and get back on the other side, to catch the fleeing Norsemen in the open. Moreover, Hardrada could not be sure that the ships were safe. Harold might have dispatched part of his army to overcome the fleet guard and hole the ships, in which case the Norse army would get trapped at Sutton-upon-Derwent on adverse terrain.

If, as we think, the Norse army was on rising ground near Holtby, they were at the best defensive position west of the Derwent. Hardrada may well have reasoned ‘better the devil you know’. He says as much when he explains to Tostig how difficult the English will find the battle. He sends messengers to summon the fleet guard. If they had arrived in time and were not exhausted, they might well have turned the battle.

Hardrada’s faith should also be considered. He would have believed to his bones in Valhalla and Tiwaz, the magical spear that Odin wielded to control battles. If he chose to fight, he would have expected that Odin would use Tiwaz to deliver a Norse victory. Fighting valiantly, at the very least, would guarantee him a place in Valhalla. Fleeing could not be influenced by Odin or Tiwaz. If he chose to flee, his survival and his place in Valhalla would depend on factors outside of his control. In this light, it makes sense that he chose to fight.

Tostig, a Christian, on the other hand, would not have believed in Valhalla or Tiwaz, and he had led an immoral life. His inclination would have been to fight another day on more favourable terms, then to buy salvation by building monasteries when he gained power.

Military Puzzle 3

Considering that a single Norse warrior held the entire English army at bay on the bridge, even if it was only for 30 minutes, it sounds like the Norse survivors should have been able to hold the riverbank until dusk, then flee for their ships under the cover of darkness.

The most common explanation for why the Norse did not try harder to hold the riverbank is that they were too demoralised to fight once their champion had been defeated. Clearly ridiculous. We guess the issue was that the ships were lightly defended. The Norse survivors could not tarry by the riverbank for fear that English horsemen would cross the Derwent upstream on the ancient ford, then ride south down the Fulford moraine ridge to sabotage the ships.

It was 7½ miles from Derventio to the riverbank at Sutton-upon-Derwent, where we think the fleet was moored. The fittest Norsemen could jog cross country at roughly 6mph without armour. They could get to the fleet in perhaps 75 minutes. The English horsemen could trot at roughly 10mph. They could get to the fleet in perhaps 45 minutes. Whoever was commanding the Norse army would have calculated that the fittest of the Norse survivors could make their escape if they had at least a 30-minute head-start. Huntingdon’s account seems to say that they stationed a bridge guard, including the Viking champion, to buy time. Presumably, their orders were to block the bridge for at least 30 minutes.

The English accounts say or imply that all the invaders were killed or captured. Heimskringla says some survivors from the battle did escape, although these might have been the lucky few that Harold allowed to return home. By the sound of it, the bridge guard did not quite hold out long enough.

English Heritage on Heimskringla

Our analysis above relies heavily on Heimskringla’s account. Historians do not trust it. Leadman says that it is too poetic to be credible. It certainly has errors. For instance, it says Morcar died at the Battle of Fulford. It certainly exaggerates the achievements and heroic deeds of its main protagonists, but it had no incentive to invent place names, troop composition or enemy manoeuvres. Thomas Carlyle said that the sagas were among the greatest works of history ever written. We are inclined to agree.

In our opinion, all the apparent inconsistencies between Heimskringla and the traditional narrative stem from historians working backwards: they assume the traditional narrative is correct and list Heimskringla’s many contradictions as faults. But the traditional narrative is not fact. It is conjecture based on interpretations of enigmatic accounts. In our opinion, almost every part of the traditional narrative is wrong. What we try to show above is that alternative interpretations of the English contemporary accounts match Heimskringla, thereby establishing a more credible narrative.

English Heritage (EH) go a step further than their predecessors by listing the most extreme examples of Heimskringla’s supposed faults and inadequacies. We thought it might be useful to counter-comment. Note that EH spell Sturluson’s name as Sturlasson and that they use A H Binns’s 1968 Heimskringla translation. We will switch to that for this section. This is what it says about the days before the battle:

Now King Harald began his expedition to conquer York, and the army lay at Stamford Bridge, and because the king had won such a great victory against great chieftains and superior force, everyone was afraid, and did not think there was any hope of withstanding him. The townsfolk decided to send an offer to Harald, yielding themselves and the town to him, and on the Sunday King Harald went with his troop and all the army to York, and had a meeting outside the town, and all the great men agreed to submit to King Harald and gave him hostages, rich men’s sons whom Tostig could pick out for the king, because he knew who were the worthiest men in the town. They went back in the evening to the ships with an undisputed success and were contented. It was decided that there should be a meeting in the morning in the town, when King Harald was to appoint governors of the place and give them offices and areas.

At dawn on the day of battle:

And on the Monday when King Harald Sigurdarson had eaten, and all his army had breakfasted, he ordered the signal for landing to be blown. He divided up the army who was to go or stay behind, had two men from each troop ashore whilst one remained, so he had two parts of the army. Earl Tostig got ready to go ashore with his troop with King Harald. But Olaf the king’s son stayed behind to look after the ships, so did Eystein Moorcock, son of Porbrand Arnason, who was the best and dearest to King Harald of all his nobles. King Harald had promised him his daughter Maria when they got back to Norway. The weather was very hot and sunny, and they left their mailshirts behind and went ashore with shields and helmets and spears and wore their swords and many had bows and arrows.

The engagement:

They were very happy, with no thought of any attack, and when they were getting near the town they saw [a great cloud of dust and under it] bright shields and shining mail. They saw that a great army was riding towards them and King Harald straight away halted his army, had Earl Tostig called to him, and asked him what army that might be that was coming towards them. The earl answered that it was most likely enemy, but it might be, he said, some friends of ours, who may wish to join us with friendship and offer us their help and loyalty. The king spoke, “We must await quietly this army which is coming”. They did so and the army got bigger and bigger as it got nearer and they saw it clearly, and it was like looking at an ice-field. Then said the earl, “My lord, let us take some shrewd plan; it is not to be hidden that those are enemies, and the king himself must be with such an army”. Then said King Harald, “What is your advice?”. Earl Tostig answered, “The first thing to do is to turn back as quickly as possible to our ships for our men and our armour and then after offer such battle as we can; but another plan would be to take to our ships, and then the cavalry cannot overcome us”. The king said, “We shall do something else. Put our fastest horses under three bold fellows: let them ride as fast as they can and tell the Norwegians of the danger; they will come straight away to help us. The English must sooner expect more fight from us than flight, and we shall fight bitterly a good time before we acknowledge we are beaten”. The earl said, “You must decide in this, my lord, as in everything, and I was no more eager to flee than anyone else”.

EH: “Heimskringla states that Tostig and Hardrada waited with their army at Stamford Bridge. However, due to an understandable confusion concerning local topography, Sturlasson is less precise in identifying Stamford Bridge as the actual site of the battle.”

MB: Heimskringla does not say or imply that Tostig and Hardrada waited with their army at Stamford Bridge on the day of battle. It does say that the Norse army and their commanders were at Stamford Bridge several days before the battle, preparing to sack York. It is irrelevant to the battle narrative because it also says that they went back to their ships later that day and that they slept on their boats on battle-eve. Heimskringla does not say or imply - imprecisely or otherwise - that Stamford Bridge was the actual site of the battle, not least because it implies the battlefield was elsewhere.

EH: “Sturlasson was ignorant of the topography of both the battlefield and East Yorkshire, seeming to believe that the geography of Hardrada’s campaign was condensed into a very limited area with Stamford Bridge, Fulford and Riccall all located close to the walls of York.”

MB: Fulford was close to the walls of York. Heimskringla does not say or imply that Stamford Bridge was near the walls of York. It never mentions Riccall. EH are trying to match Heimskringla to their interpretation of the English accounts. They think that Sturlasson is compressing the geography because they assume that Heimskringla’s references to the location of the fleet and the location of the battle referred to Riccall and Battle Flat. Heimskringla says nothing of the sort. Its statements that the approaching army was too far away to identify whether it was hostile, that Hardrada orders the fastest riders be put on the fastest horses to summon the fleet guard, and that the fleet guard arrives so exhausted that some die from weariness, imply to us that Sturlasson knew perfectly well how far it was between York, the fleet and the battlefield.

EH: “It is also apparent that Sturlasson could have confused events that occurred at the Battle of Hastings with those of Stamford Bridge.”

MB: The Battle of Hastings and the Battle of Stamford Bridge both featured incomplete losing armies and shield walls that were breached when troops ran out to chase retreating attackers. However, there are only two ways that a determined shield wall can be defeated: 1) By killing or barging aside everyone in a section of the wall; 2) For everyone in a section of the wall to leave their position. The fact that the English won means that they successfully employed one or other of these tactics. The latter would be quicker and less casualty-prone. We guess that attackers always tried to goad parts of a shield wall out of place and that ill-discipline in shield-walls was a common problem with less experienced troops.

EH: “The Heimskringla is confused as to whether the Viking army is making its way towards York or Stamford Bridge early on the morning of Monday 25 September 1066.”

MB: Heimskringla says that on Sunday: “It was decided that there should be a meeting in the morning in the town”. Then on Monday: “They were very happy, with no thought of any attack, and when they were getting near the town they saw a great cloud of dust and under it bright shields and shining mail.” It is clearly saying that the Norse army was heading for York and getting near. Again, EH try to match Heimskringla to their interpretation of the contemporary accounts. They wrongly assume that the battle was fought at Stamford Bridge, so wrongly assume that the Norse army was heading for Stamford Bridge. Heimskringla is not confused. It says that the Norse army was heading for York and means it.

EH: “According to the Heimskringla, Hardrada and Tostig had barely reached Stamford Bridge when they became aware of Harold’s approach”.

MB: Again, Heimskringla says nothing of the sort. It does not say or imply that the Norse army was at Stamford Bridge on the day of battle. It says: “when they were getting near the town they saw a great cloud of dust and under it bright shields and shining mail.” It is implying that the Norse army was on the Fulford moraine ridge when they spot the English leaving York. Again, EH try to match Heimskringla to their faulty interpretation of the English contemporary accounts. They think that the initial engagement was on the west bank of the Derwent, so they wrongly assume the Norse army had only just got across the bridge at Stamford Bridge when they become aware of the English army.

EH: “The Heimskringla states that as the Viking army neared Stamford Bridge it became aware of Harold’s army approaching from the west along the north bank of the Derwent.”

MB: Heimskringla does not say or imply that the Norse army was nearing Stamford Bridge on the day of battle. It does not say or imply that the English army approached Stamford Bridge along the north bank of the Derwent. EH try to match Heimskringla to their faulty interpretation of the English accounts and their faulty interpretation of the contemporary geography. Heimskringla only says that Hardrada sees the English army as the Norse army approaches the town/city/castle. This is only possible if the Norse army was on the Fulford moraine ridge or west of it.

EH: “For the detail of the fighting on Battle Flats we are forced to rely upon the Heimskringla with all its anachronisms”.

MB: Heimskringla provides the only detailed account of the fighting. It is therefore true that everyone has to rely on this part of the narrative, but Heimskringla does not say or imply that any fighting happened at Battle Flat or Stamford Bridge. Again, EH try to match Heimskringla to their faulty interpretation of the English accounts. We presume the anachronisms to which EH refer are the presence of English ‘cavalry’ and archers, insofar as most historians think that they were not present in English armies until the 12th century. We have mentioned these above. In short, we think the ‘cavalry’ is a mistranslation of ‘horsemen’ and that the archers were there.

Sources

Contemporary sources

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (of which three versions covered the invasion, known as C, D and E); reasonably contemporary with events
John of Worcester; Chronicon ex Chronicis; c1125
Henry of Huntingdon; Historia Anglorum; c1125
William of Malmesbury; Gesta regum anglorum; c1135
Fagrskinna; c1200; Translation by Alison Finlay, 2004
Snorri Sturluson; Heimskringla; c1200; Translation by Samuel Laing (Vol III), 1844

Modern sources

Auden, G A; The Strategy of Harold Hardrada in the Invasion of 1066; 1927; Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, VI
Charles R.B. Barrett; Battles and Battlefields in England; 1896; A.D. Innes & Co
F.W. Brooks; The Battle of Stamford Bridge; 1956; East Yorkshire Local History Series (No. 6)
Alfred H. Burne; The Battlefields of England; 2005, Pen and Sword Books
Kelly DeVries; The Norwegian Invasion of England in 1066; 1999; The Boydell Press
English Heritage; English Heritage Battlefield Report: Stamford Bridge 1066; 1995; English Heritage
Edward A. Freeman; The History of the Norman Conquest, Vol III; 1864; Clarendon Press
Historic England listing: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1416328
I.G. Lawton; Roman Roads Around Stamford Bridge; 1997; SYO
A.D.H. Leadman; The Battle of Stamford Bridge; YAJ Volume 11 (1890)
Ivan D. Margary; Roman Roads of Britain; 1973; John Baker
Frank McLynn; 1066 The Year of the Three Battles; 1999; BCA
Northern Archaeological Associates: Stamford Bridge Water Pipeline; 2005
H.G. Ramm; A Romano-British kiln, and the Roman road at Stamford Bridge; YAJ Volume 38 (1955)
H.G. Ramm; The Derwent Crossing at Stamford Bridge, The; YAJ Volume 41 (1966)