Now the battle begins proper. Trumpets are sounded and the battle is joined.
Here, it’s worth stepping back a little and examining what outcomes are required or even needed by the different commanders.
Harold is King of England, he can command supplies, retreat, resupplies, and reinforcements. He doesn’t actually need to win this battle, just the war. He can afford to defend all day, hold out until nightfall, regroup, and attack William again.
William, however, does not have any of those luxuries. He has dwindling supplies, nowhere to retreat to, no chance of resupplying, and no reinforcements are going to come to his aid. His army at this moment is the strongest it will ever be. William needs to force a decision today: 14th October 1066.
These two opposing outcome requirements drive the entire battle from this point on.
They are the primary reason that the battle lasts all day, and why there is a long stalemate where no progress is made on either side.
Harold uses a defence known as a shield wall, this is where the front row of troops interlock their shields, overlapping them one over the other. It therefore forms a ‘wall’, and if that’s not formidable enough for you, then recognise that behind this first layer is a second, and a third, and as is probable here a fourth or even fifth layer of men. This shield wall was dense, resilient to cavalry attack, and most importantly, allowed rotation. It used the strength of the elite troops as the framework and filled in the rest with soldiers known as the fyrd, these are troops taken from lands all over the country and are also known as the levy—each landowner would pledge a certain number of troops to help in times of conflict. One important function of these troops is to push their spears through the gaps in the front of the shield wall, creating a spear ‘forest’. This is extremely dangerous to any attacking force, especially cavalry.
Shield walls enable rotation, which is the process where reserves behind lines can come forward and replace men who have been injured or require rest.
This structure and process can fuel the strength of a shield wall for a very long time.
On flat ground.
But here, the ground is not flat. It was not chosen, it was grabbed opportunistically and it has flaws. These flaws affect both the Norman attack and the English endurance.
The shield wall has been assembled across the tail of the ridge, the English left flank is on the top of a knoll beside the lane, and the centre right descends down the camber of the hill into the valley below. The entire length of the shield wall here is about 180 m.
The English left is protected by a thicket or hedgerow beside Marley Lane, and the right by what appears to be a lake or marsh suggested on later maps. Whatever these two protections were, they were enough to prevent the Normans from flanking the English line all day.
This overall situation makes the English left normal to attack, but the centre right is on a camber, which makes attack here difficult.
These are properties of the land that are possibly mentioned in the Carmen:
“When they saw that the ground was weakening the duke’s left wing, that a wide road lay open for penetrating the right.”
When on a camber, you are unbalanced and your manoeuvring ability is compromised. Swinging an axe or sword unbalances you and cavalry cannot strike with full power.
Initially, this might seem like a stroke of luck for Harold.
Normans have reduced the area to effectively attack the shield wall and Harold can strengthen this part of his wall accordingly.
So, the battle has begun.
There are descriptions in the sources of various movements and appeals, and panics and whatnot.There’s also mention of what is known as ‘feigned retreats’ and some motivation speeches and a moment where William is reported to have shown his face to prove he was still alive. There isn’t enough frontage for the entirety of the Norman army, so they attack in waves, some units engaged, some behind lines replenishing and resting before the next assault. The grand designs of deployment are nullified on the challenging terrain.
The short version of all of this is the English resisted, and the Normans relentlessly attacked. They never disengaged, all day. Nothing materially changed. I think for the majority of the battle, most of what we read in the sources here is simply writing something to cover the sixor so hours of this stalemate. A slow news day.
The Normans try everything, The English resist everything.