PART 73
The rediscovery of the Carmen was an important work by Ms Van Houts because it re-established the authority of the poem, or prose, as a valid means of passing on history in a spoken form. It was originally discovered only in 1826 and not published until 1840 - some 200 years after the accounts by William de Jumieges and William de Poitiers. This in part explains for the reason it was not universally accepted at the time it first came under scrutiny. As a result it was considered inferior by critics of the time and had less authority attached to it. Ms Houts re-established that authority and so what we find adds value to our understanding of what happened on the day that the Battle of Hastings took place, as well as the events pre-battle.
The poem is translated as "The Song of the Battle of Hastings". It is 835 lines long of which 600 of those lines relate to the Invasion and the battle. In many respects it can be seen to be an early version of events, because there are sections of text that in a later period might have been considered disrespectful to the all conquering King, by referring to Harold as an able general, with personal abilities, at least as great as William's. Such prose suggests a source that is not close to William.
The section of text that interested me was the reported discussion between The Duke (William) and his envoy, who had been sent by William to talk with Harold on the night before the battle. We know that this took place, because the same discussion is reported in Wace and Poitiers. In this manuscript we are told in the this paragraph:
The Duke then sees the envoy and says:
We know that this was the night before the battle and one of the inconsistencies that those who have studied this subject cannot avoid is this: How could this be correct? The so called accepted version of events claims Harold was camped where the Battle Abbey ground now stand. The port of Hastings, where the Norman camp was supposed to be located is 5.5 miles away over a huge ridge that surrounds the whole of Hastings town, being part of an extension of the South Downs.
Due to the difficulty in traversing this major obstacle horses and carriages needed a route that they could actually use. The incline out of Hastings directly north was too great. There was no London road over the ridge, as there is now. To assume that this is perfectly feasible is not sustainable. The only road that we know existed pre 1800 was the one from the Priory in the same valley as Hastings castle, along the coast over two small valleys to the Manor of Wilting, and from there over two more steep valleys to the Manor of Crowhurst. From Crowhurst the road went directly north to battle, which was the entrance to the peninsular upon which Hastings stood, over two more steep valleys. These roads still exist in part as tracks and footpaths, with the old houses along that route showing the historical development of the route. There was no ridge road until the early 1800's when the Victorians built them.
The Carmen now confirms what Wace tells us in his manuscript, that the two camps were also within view of each other on the night before the battle. Something that confirms the wrong location of the camp at the port or the other alternative is that the location of the battle site is incorrect. A third alternative which might at first seem unlikely is that both these sites have been misplaced. Anyone who has visited the current battle site will know that there is no way that you can see any port, or anything outside of the immediate area of the battlefield, because the battle site is located at the bottom of the ridge on the other side from Hastings.
The conclusion is obvious to a critical eye. However in the days when manuscripts were either right or wrong there was no room for either Wace or the Carmen. Now we know better. There is a logical explanation for this observation. The explanation is not that Wace and the Carmen lied, for no value to the authors at all. It was because they were correct and the battle site was not at Battle and the Norman camp was not where the town now stands. Once you know where the Norman camp is located you then know the answer to this quandary. There is therefore only one conclusion that can be dawn from this irrespective of the site of the port. This confirms that the battle site is in the wrong place, because no port can be seen from the Abbey site irrespective of where it is.
Those who study logistics know that it is impossible for armies to do what is written in the school books. The distance from the port to Harold's camp on the correct battle site needed to be shorter than five and a half miles. We can travel this distance in a few minutes now, but an army travelling with men, ammunition, horses and the paraphernalia of battle require considerable time to get ready. To do so travelling over the route proposed would be a formulae for disaster. Williams men would have been exhausted before they even started fighting.
This issue of the two camps seeing each other before the battle was actually a major fundamental issue in the Victoria era when this matter was last examined. So much so it destroyed careers and resulted in the need to adopt either one view that the manuscripts were wrong, or the other that the site at Battle was wrong. The Victorians simply accepted that the Abbey was build on the site where William made his battlefield oath. An oath that experts now accept as a complete forgery.
Here we are again looking at this issue now with the benefit of knowing where the Normans landed and camped - Wilting Manor Farm. That site is adjacent to what has evidence of being the ancient pre 1100 port of Hastings. From that site it is possible to see the London Road about one hour's walk from that site as it leads up to the top of the Ridge at Telham. The Victorian experts didn't know that and were faced with either accepting or dismissing the evidence of the manuscripts before them.
Wace's manuscript suffered the same fate in Victorian times as the Carmen. His manuscript the Roman de Rue was trashed in the academic press of the day - The Historical Society. The reason being given that everyone who had ever visited Battle Abbey would know that it was not possible for the two armies to see one and other before the battle. This is to me one of the greatest of ironies, because here we are nearly two hundred years later realising that the argument that removed Wace from the bookshelves, is the same argument that now removes the authority of the Battle Abbey site as the true site of the Battle of Hastings from the history books.
This evidence damned Wace and the Carmen to several hundred years oblivion on the top shelf of specialist libraries, where they managed to survive in a very few dusty copies in specialist libraries. Now I can confidently predict that this same set of verses will not only identify the site of the Battle of Hastings, but also by reverse logic also confirm the Norman Invasion camp site - since the same rules must be applied to both.
The site at Battle Abbey may have no archaeology to support it but the site of the correct site of the Battle of Hastings does. We shall come onto that later.
Both the site of the Norman Camp and the site of the Battle must by virtue of the authority in these manuscripts, as authentic documents, identify both the Norman camps site at Wilting and the battle site. The two sites are inherently linked in history and inherently linked by visual identification. I now knew that the battle did not take place at Battle and that it must be visible from the Norman camp at Wilting. This makes it possible to identify the site almost immediately on any winters day, when the leaves are off the trees, standing in the middle of the upper field at Wilting where the Norman camp was located.
Later on in the Carmen text we are told that whilst preparing to meet the enemy;
At this point the battle starts and the first death is the jester Taillefer recorded in several accounts. But the point of interest to me was the confirmation that this was a steep hill. The expression "steeps of the hill" simply did not fit the concept of the hill at Battle Abbey. The Carmen uses the same expression again later when referring to the Duke sighting Harold.
Work at Battle by archaeologists confirms that the Abbey hill was partly created at the time the Abbey foundations were built. It doesn't have the concept of steeps - meaning rises of the land that lead to the top of the hill.
Those who know this area where I live will know exactly where the steeps of the hill at Hastings are located. They are located on what was the old Hastings to London road at Crowhurst. The place where the Domesday evidence located Crowhurst as the most devastated manor in Sussex at the time of the Norman Invasion - along with Wilting.
This Domesday evidence has been accepted now by those experts in Cambridge who study this subject as probably the most significant part of my work. This is because it is based upon evidence of the time and analysis that cannot be faulted once the location of the network of old roads is factored into that analysis. It explains in a logical and scientific way exactly why the manor values changed before and after the Norman Invasion answering what otherwise appears as a complete mystery.
On the other hand the element in this that had mystified me was why the resulting conclusion showed that Crowhurst was equally devastated as Wilting. It should have been less so. The answer now became apparent - because it was where the battle took place. That manor took the longest to recover because it was totally destroyed by the Normans like no other.
It was clear to me that the Norman Landing site and camp of William the Conqueror was pointing me directly to this one place where the battle must have taken place, by virtue of the historical documents. However before investigating those suspicions I needed to do more research. It was Winter at the time and Winter was the time to be in libraries and not out in the fields. I therefore moved on to the Chronicle of Battle Abbey.
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