History of England 1-6

So battle was joined. The Normans cried out ‘God is our help’ as they ran against the enemy, while the English called upon ‘Christ’s rood, the holy rood!’ William wore sacred relics around his neck. As the Normans advanced upon them, the English put up their shields in order to form a ‘wall’. They were essentially in a defensive formation, and it seemed that they were rooted to the spot. But the Normans had another tactic. On two occasions they pretended to flee from the enemy, only to wheel around and cut off their pursuers. The core of the English army, however, held its ground and fought all day. Then Harold was killed, at dusk, by a stray arrow. With their leader gone, the soldiers weakened. They fled into the night. If Harold had not fallen, his forces might have prevailed. But ‘if ’ is not a word to use in history.

William and his army rested for five days, and then advanced on London by way of Dover and Canterbury. He was now in a foreign country still governed by men who were unwilling to submit to him; he was surrounded by foes. The earls of the northern shires were implacably opposed to him, as were the people of London itself. So he trusted his violent instincts; he took the offensive and began a campaign of terror. He was beaten back at London Bridge, and in revenge he burned Southwark to the ground. He then lit a circle of fire around London, ravaging the countryside all around; he left a trail of destruction and rapine through Hampshire, Surrey and Berkshire. The entries for ‘waste lands’ in Domesday Book tell the story of his progress. The leaders of the English, trapped in London, now agreed to submit. A delegation came to Berkhamsted, in Hertfordshire, and formally yielded to his power. The English were accustomed to foreign kings, after all, and the transition from Canute and the half-Norman Edward the Confessor to William was not considered unacceptable. Surrender was preferable to resistance and further bloodshed. With the death of Harold, too, they lacked an effective war leader.

William then led his troops into the capital. There may have been some local resistance among the Londoners, but his victory was complete. He was crowned king of England on Christmas Day in Westminster Abbey. As duke of Normandy, however, he was still in theory a vassal of the king of France. This dual status would bear bitter fruit in the years, and centuries, to come. From this time forward England would be involved in the affairs of France, and of western Europe, with many bloody battles and sieges that did not really come to an end until the defeat of Napoleon in 1815.

8

The house

The British roundhouse, the Roman villa and the Anglo-Saxon hall – many of them built in the same place through successive centuries – have gone into the earth. A few ruined villas remain as evidence of ancient civilization, but most of them are now part of the land on which they once rested.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the standard house consisted of one square room on the ground floor, with another square room built above it; access to the latter was generally granted by means of an external staircase. The furniture was simple, and scarcely varied at all from that of the Anglo-Saxons. A board laid on trestles acted as a dining table, and a wooden bench was the primary form of seating. In the houses built of stone, alcoves or recesses in the wall could be used for the same purpose. There were very few chairs or stools, except for the chair of state in noble households. Some of the richer families might own chests, coffers and cupboards; the bed was essentially a bag of straw laid upon a carved frame.

Only the wealthy possessed houses of stone with a ‘hall’ on the ground floor. A larger proportion of families owned houses built of wood and thatched with straw or reeds or heather; the windows boasted no glass, but wooden shutters could be barred at night for safety and comfort. Nevertheless the wooden house was always draughty and smoky. It was generally on two floors, like its stone counterpart, with a living room and kitchen on the ground floor; on the upper storey was a bedroom for the master of the house and his family. In the poorer dwellings the inhabitants would sleep on the floor, with heather or straw as their bedding. There might be a wooden booth in front of the house, where goods and produce could be sold; behind the house might be located a warehouse or small factory where those goods were manufactured.