Original subtitles

This is a story about the people who came sailing across the ocean.

It's a story about a long and perilous journey of upheaval,

which came to change populations and influence politics, trade,

culture, religion and entire societies.

It's a story about the Vikings, and how they transformed the world!

For most people, the Vikings are seen only as plunderers and pirates.

But is that the whole truth?

The process of converting Scandinavia to Christianity is a long story.

They were skilled tradesmen, in part because of their ability to travel.

They're going abroad to take what they seek.

In this series we will dig deeper and gain more insight

into who the Vikings really were.

And the truth turns out to be surprising.

THE LAST JOURNEY OF THE VIKINGS

The story of the people who came sailing across the sea,

is not over yet.

The Vikings, who, in the late eighth century, sailed their long ships

down to Francia, will once again cross the waters.

This time, in the year 1066,

it's a power struggle for the throne of England.

The battle for the throne is a brutal and bloody story

involving many participants from several different countries.

In Normandy, It is Duke William who decides to conquer the throne.

This will be a historic and revolutionary event.

It will also be known as the Vikings' last battle.

But why was it the Normans who finally managed

to conquer England once and for all?

To answer this, we must find out why William, a Norman,

was relevant as a possible successor to the King of England,

Edward the Confessor.

THE LAST BATTLE OF THE VIKINGS

After ruling England for 24 years,

Edward the Confessor dies on January 5, in the year 1066.

Edward's death will start a new power struggle for the English throne.

In Normandy, Duke William, is making plans to become king.

But it will not be easy.

Well, there had been a previously existing relationship

between the royal families of Normandy and of England.

And through this, William had

a familial connection to Edward the Confessor.

Edward and William had common Normanic origins

since Edward was the son of Emma of Normandy.

She was Richard's sister, who also was William's grandfather.

William was a direct descendant of Rollo of Normandy.

And he was Duke of Normandy.

So when Edward the Confessor died,

William expected to be crowned the new king,

King of England, which he greatly desired.

But I think perhaps the more strong aspect of his claim was that

that there is an indication that Edward actually promised

William the throne at some point in the 1050s.

The problem with all of this is that the throne was also claimed

by Harold Godwinson, the son of Earl Godwin of Wessex,

who was purportedly also given stewardship or control

over the throne of England by Edward, near to the time of his death.

Actually, they both were Edward's distant relatives

and Edward didn't have any children.

Neither of them was completely unfounded

when aiming for the throne.

So what we have here are two competing claims.

But also made more difficult by

the suggestion, again, that Harold had actually sworn

an oath of fealty to William

when he had been made a hostage in France.

So I guess in William's mind, all of these things together may actually

give him a fairly good claim to the throne of England,

especially over someone like Harold Godwinson.

But this didn't happen.

On his deathbed, Edward appointed Harold instead.

Harold visited William in Normandy several times.

They had been considered friends.

But that soon passed as Harold was crowned King of England.

When Edward dies,

Harold is also approved by the Anglo-Saxon elites,

which excludes William.

Harold taking the throne

marks the beginning of an era of political instability

where different parties try to take advantage of this breach

in succession to take over England.

There were other claims to the throne as well.

Among them were Harald Hardrada in Norway.

He had been promised the throne, not by Edward,

but by one of his predecessors.

And he was not the only one.

So when Harold was crowned, he knew that others would try

to stake their claim on the throne and began preparations

for a coming invasion of England.

The details of the conflicts that followed

have actually been preserved.

The Bayeux Tapestry is an embroidered cloth roughly 70 metres long.

It was made probably between 1066 and the 1080s.

This embroidered cloth is 70 metres long.

About 70 cm wide.

And in the middle, there's a series of events portrayed

much like a modern comic.

Scattered throughout it are written passages in Latin

that describe the events. "Here stands Harold."

What we see in this is for example the supposed swearing of an oath

by Harold Godwinson to William on royal relics,

which gives William his legitimate claim to the throne of England.

We see the death of Edward the Confessor and very soon afterwards,

Harold's coronation as King of England.

And in response to this, William's preparation for invasion.

We see him constructing his ships, bringing all of his forces together,

a very large invasion force of cavalry, archers, infantry.

We see them crossing the sea to England and then meeting

Harold's force at Hastings.

And in its depiction of the battle, the tapestry does prioritise

certain features of the action over others,

especially it gives a preference to William's use of cavalry

and the pivotal role this is supposed to have played in the battle.

It does seem that William is introducing some cavalry tactics

that are not being used in England at this time,

which may have given him an edge at the battle itself.

But I think the actual course of events on that day at Hastings,

they must be much more complex

than what we see there on the tapestry itself.

It is incredibly detailed.

You can see what they wore, their hairstyles,

the horses armour and how they were marched in rows

as well as the design of the ships.

It is incredibly detailed and an invaluable asset

for archaeological research in order for us to understand

the battle of Hastings and the era itself.

It's also quite amusing to see because it has everything

from quirky figures to monsters.

You always discover something new every time you see it.

Although there is a new king in England, Harold Godwinson,

it is a time of worry and uncertainty.

This is the calm before the storm.

Following the death of Edward and the crowning of Harold,

several auguries were seen.

One of these was when Halley's comet passed the Earth.

Many saw it as a sign of troubled times.

And in England people worried about what was to come.

So in the months following Harold's coronation,

events start to spiral quite rapidly.

Of course, we already know that in Normandy,

William is intending to pursue his claim to the throne and he begins

to construct his fleet and gather his invasion force.

Harold Godwinson knows about this and he has encamped his army

in southern England waiting for the invasion to take place.

But if we head north, we find that William isn't the only person

seeking to claim the throne of England in 1066.

In Norway we come across a man, a King, named Harald Sigurdsson,

also commonly known as Harald Hardrada who himself

has a fairly tenuous claim to the English throne and he intends

to assert that right.

So just as William is constructing his own fleet and invasion force,

Harald Sigurdsson is doing the same and he is actually assisted

and in an alliance with Harold Godwinson's brother,

an earl by the name of Tostig who had previously been exiled from England.

So, while Harold Godwinson and his army are sitting in the south,

in late September, Harald Sigurdsson and Tostig's invasion force

lands in Yorkshire.

They head towards York which is the major city in that region

to receive its submission and this would give them a firm foothold

for their later movements into the English countryside.

But on their way there, on the 20th of September,

a few miles outside of the city in a place called Fulford,

they run into two Anglo-Saxon earls and their forces,

who have mobilised to come and attempt to stop the invasion.

The battle results in a Norwegian victory and Harald Hardrada

goes on to receive a submission of York

and he prepares his forces to march south.

During this time, Harold Godwinson has actually got word

of the Norwegian force and their presence in Yorkshire.

And what he does is he basically gathers all of his troops

and force marches them to the north.

And a few days later, on the 25th of September,

they come into contact with the Norwegians

at a place called Stamford Bridge.

Harold meets Harald

and fights against him on Stamford Bridge.

This is when Harold comes out victorious.

It is said that the bridge was held by a strong Norwegian warrior

who single-highhandedly killed over 40 men until a cunning Englishman

approached him, probably from some kind of boat,

and stabbed him from underneath.

After he was defeated,

they could cross the bridge and emerge victorious.

The battle of Stamford Bridge was decisive for a number of reasons.

First, it resulted in a Norwegian defeat.

Harald Hardrada was slain in what is often described in the

kind of anglocentric perspective on the Viking age

as the last Viking invasion of England.

So this initially seems positive, because

Harold Godwinson and his army have seen off one invasion force,

but unfortunately it's while he is in the north that Harold learns

that William has brought his forces across the Channel and

landed in the south.

So, having just fought a major engagement, Harold has no choice

but to turn his army around again and head south.

And over the course of several weeks, he makes his way

towards the southern coast.

In order to conquer England,

William has to make a huge amount of preparation.

Everything must be perfectly planned and executed.

There is no room for error.

It goes without saying that Harold Godwinson's army would have

been under-strength and tired after Stamford Bridge,

but he still had to head south to meet William's force

on the southern coast.

But I think that if Harold Hardrada and his Norwegian force

had not landed in Yorkshire and forced that engagement

with the English,

the outcome of Hastings might have been very different.

As it was, we know that Hastings was a long and drawn out battle.

It certainly wasn't over quickly.

And if Harold and his forces had been fresher,

if Harold had more troops,

maybe the course of history would have been changed there.

The kind of invasion William led can't be prepared in a few weeks.

Even if William couldn't be sure to become king

right after Edward died,

or how Harold would react,

he must have been planning this for a while.

It shows in the way he uses the ships to lead the invasion.

Building such a fleet isn't doable in a few weeks.

Even if he couldn't know for sure whether he'd succeed the King or not,

he had to be really sure that, no matter what,

maintaining his royal authority in England would require a fleet

and a very important maritime military force.

Before the events on Stamford Bridge, he must have been quite ready

already to lead the invasion.

He also may have sought papal consent in order to launch his campaign which

again, would have strengthened the legitimacy of his actions.

And in trying to understand exactly how William

brought his invasion force together,

the Bayeux Tapestry is actually quite informative.

It shows stacks of armour and weapons being loaded onto his ships,

and also they're used to transport infantry, archers and cavalry.

This is clearly a very large and powerful invasion force.

William's troops must now be loaded onto the many ships

that will carry them across the sea. Towards the coast of England.

These ships were built low and could sail onto the shoreline.

To load the ship with necessities, armour, weapons and horses,

all you needed was a board.

They didn't need to lift the horses. They could walk onto the ships.

It is likely they had plenty of space on board for the horses to be

safely stabled, watered and fed peacefully.

William's cavalry will be of vital importance at the battle of Hastings.

Because William has decided to employ a novel tactic.

Norman battle tactics seem to prioritise the use

of heavy cavalry formations.

In this, their tactics markedly differ

from those of Harold Godwinson's force.

In England at the time,

armies arrived on the battlefield as mounted infantry,

they rode to battle, but generally dismounted to fight on foot.

This isn't what we see the Normans doing at Hastings.

It's possible that they're using some tactics that they've refined

and learned from the Carolingians and it's clear that the cavalry

play a pivotal role in the battle.

It has been suggested that one of the tactics used by the Norman cavalry

was the feigned retreat in which horsemen would approach the enemy,

pretend to wheel and panic and run away with the hope of

basically drawing out the enemy formations to chase them.

And this is what we see on the Bayeux Tapestry.

Elements of the English force... pursuing elements of the Norman force

and being cut down when they do so.

And this seems to be how the English are worn down throughout the day.

And if this is the case, if the priority that the tapestry

gives to the cavalry actually reflects the historical reality

of the battle, then what we see here is cavalry being used in quite

an innovative and sophisticated way

and simply in ways that the English had not used them before.

I think as in all these discussions, there's no single factor to explain

why the Normans won at the battle of Hastings.

As always there's many different issues that we need to consider.

If we're to believe the accounts of the battle,

then the use of cavalry and cavalry tactics

certainly seems to have played a role.

The English did not fight on horseback,

they were not necessarily used to encountering cavalry in the field.

And so the Normans' novel and innovative use of cavalry may have

certainly contributed to their victory,

especially if there was indiscipline among the English ranks

which led to them pursuing any feigned retreat

by the cavalry itself.

But I don't think it's really fair to say that

these cavalry tactics automatically gave the Norman force an edge

over the English one.

Simply, as we see in the fact that the battle

wore on for a very long time, it was not a quick affair.

It was towards the end of the day that the English force

was finally routed.

But I think certainly that the use of cavalry had a role to play there,

especially if there was indiscipline among the English ranks and they

did indeed fall for the tactic of a feigned retreat.

That would have probably played quite an important role in their defeat.

Cavalry can be used effectively in flat terrain by essentially

trampling the opposition who would be hard pressed

to defend against large horses.

They could form a shield wall and use spears to impale the horses,

but many will still break through and this will break the enemy lines

and the aggressor can attack with other weaponry.

That was probably what William intended.

But the battle did not play out as planned.

I think to really understand the events at Hastings,

we do have to look back at the events that immediately preceding it.

We need to remember that just a couple of weeks before Hastings,

Harold Godwinson had fought off another invasion force,

this time in the north of England at Stamford Bridge.

So to have force marched his army north, to fight a very drawn out

and vicious battle, to then force march his army south again,

would have had a huge impact on the ability of the English

to bring a healthy and rested army into the field.

Harold's forces would have been depleted, they would have been tired,

and I think he certainly would have lacked reinforcements

that he would have otherwise desperately needed.

It is said that the English stayed up all night, drinking and singing

to raise morale before the battle.

Whilst the Normans prayed and bathed.

And an army that recently fought in battle, marched for days,

and didn't sleep the night before, rather spent it drinking,

might not be in perfect condition for fighting.

Whereas the Normans were well-rested.

Exhaustion by itself is almost enough to determine the outcome of a battle.

One side simply cannot fight. They will be conquered.

So several bad circumstances for the English and good circumstances

for the Normans led to the Normans winning the battle

and thus all of England.

But all these things considered,

I think it's important still to remember that the battle of Hastings

was not a quick affair.

It was actually quite a protracted engagement that lasted

throughout most of the day.

So in all of these things, I think that luck certainly played a role.

If any one of these factors had combined in a different way,

then the course of events may have turned out very differently.

It's also possible that there was some kind of ideological factor

in the Norman victory at Hastings.

No matter whether we believed the

history given to us by the Bayeux tapestry

and later commentators or not,

it seems that William clearly believed that he had a right

to pursue his claim to the throne of England.

And I think that this really, psychologically,

would give him the edge in motivating himself and his forces

to carry the victory on that day.

When the battle is finally over, William stands victorious.

From now on he will be known as "the Conqueror'.

Thousands fell in battle.

It is said that Harold's

lover searched for his body on the battlefield and could only

identify him by a birthmark, because the body was so badly mangled.

It's a testimony of how brutal the aftermath of these battles were.

There were bodies strewn over the battlefield.

Horses were killed. Limbs were cut. Blood everywhere.

Some wounded combatants hadn't died yet and lay whimpering on the ground.

Whilst others might have been piled up on top of each other.

It would have been a horrific sight.

But to this day we still don't know where the battle took place.

We can usually find remains that point to the location of a battle.

We should be able to find

arrowheads, parts of broken armour.

Bones, even if they likely gathered the dead and buried or burnt them.

As well as the animals. Still, much should remain on the site.

If you look, you should find these things,

but we don't know the exact location. We only have a rough estimate.

Sometime after the battle of Hastings,

the Bayeux Tapestry is made,

depicting the events surrounding the great battle.

History is written by the victors.

The Bayeux Tapestry was made a few years after the battle of Hastings.

It's likely William's family or at least the victorious side

ordered the construction and design of the tapestry.

We must also remember that it is a tapestry which portrays

those historical events from the Normand point of view.

So it aims at highlighting William's role.

It also aims at legitimising the conquest of England by William.

We still have a lot of unanswered questions regarding the origins

of the Bayeux Tapestry, who made it, what the context was,

and how it was used at first.

Without a doubt it was someone or a group of people

who were very well informed on the events during the conquest of England

since it was very detailed.

It was also someone or people with very precise knowledge

on shipbuilding techniques

and military techniques on the battlefield,

the cavalrymen and archers' equipment, etc.

The ending part of the tapestry is missing.

The tapestry was rolled up for a long time,

maybe that ending part got worn out or teared apart.

We don't know what the last scene was on the tapestry.

It's possible that it was William's ascension to the throne

and his coronation.

William is crowned at Westminster Abbey in London,

on Christmas Day in 1066.

He is now the ruler of England and Normandy.

William brought several Normans from Normandy and offered them land

and titles in England in order to maintain his hold on the throne.

He had to exercise a lot of violence in order to maintain this hold

because many Englishmen were displeased with having

a Norman king instead of one of their own.

One of the first steps of the Normand conquest in England

was to reorganise the territories and to change the elites.

In that way, he redistributed the lands among the Normand elites

who went to England with him.

It allowed him to spread his control over the territories

in a rather effective way.

William's strategy in England was rather similar to what Rollo

had initiated with Normandy more than 100 years earlier.

But he went even further.

One of the first things he did was parcel land to his barons,

in that sense he brought the Norman aristocracy over to England

and installed them, essentially, within the system of government.

It resulted in dispossession of lands

as well as the execution of a number of important people

in the Anglo-Saxon elite.

But despite this, he did face rebellions - quite a number of them.

And these had to be put down.

This culminated in a campaign into northern England in what is known

historically as the Harrying of the North.

While the brutality of this campaign is debated by historians,

it certainly shows that William was not afraid to crush

any political opposition with overwhelming force.

The Church was divided, even if William

received the blessing of the pope prior to the invasion.

There was always a power struggle in the Church

and between local nobles in different areas

as well as between peasants and the invaders.

He came and was crowned, but had to fight to maintain control

over England.

He managed to hold on to the throne and the Norman rule

lasted unchallenged for hundreds of years.

To win the battle for the English crown,

William used his multicultural heritage.

For instance, he landed soldiers directly onto the shore

from shallow draft ships...

a tactic that his ancestors used for centuries.

Perhaps the knowledge of how to ship horses across the seas,

was also something that the Vikings had brought to Normandy.

Furthermore, William used his Frankish heritage,

cavalry and archers, to great effect.

In addition, his timing was good,

as he arrived not long after the battle of Stamford Bridge.

And finally, he had luck on his side.

William the Conqueror ruled England and Normandy

as two separate countries until his death in 1087.

After his death, the kingdom was divided between his sons.

His son Robert became Duke of Normandy

and his son William became the new king of England.

According to the history books,

the battle of Hastings marks the end of the Viking Age.

The Vikings have now become kings.

From the end of the eighth century, when the first raids began,

to the 11th century, the Vikings made an astonishing journey.

They began by attacking and looting monasteries,

went on to become colonisers,

and finally, they seized the supreme power.

If we ask ourselves, "What caused the disappearance of the Vikings?"

We have to keep in mind that the Vikings came from

several different nations.

They established themselves in Europe, in England

as well as the islands of Northern Europe.

But as Scandinavia was christened,

their values changed to an

ideal not built on the plunder and slaughter of your fellow men.

Rather the focus was on trading and maintaining peace.

I don't necessarily think it's right to talk about

an end to the Viking age.

This is an arbitrary historical period that we have constructed.

I also believe that what we see at the time, and the reason why

there aren't any Viking attacks in the same way they took place

in the ninth and tenth century, is because globally

forms of power have changed.

There are well-established kingdoms now, strong political entities,

that have different concerns and different incomes.

Besides, when the Vikings were integrated into European societies,

they became Christians and part of society.

Social affairs became central.

Alliances and relations

became a central part of politics and power in Europe.

There globally is an evolution

following an opportunistic scheme.

Strategies adapt to the most profitable scenario in any situation.

In the ninth century, the political entities are weak

and can't really put up a defense.

It allows the plundering phenomenon which is quite anarchic

and that evolves into more organised forms of wealth exploitation.

They grew too big to cling on to the old ways.

Cities were built. Power was centralised.

People became dependent on the larger scope of things.

At that point it was no longer viable to plunder in foreign lands.

They had to adapt to the new world.

When we think about the events

of this time that we call the Viking age,

we need to appreciate the impact that they've

had on the social and political development of Europe

over the past millennium.

It was the events of 793,

the events of the mid-ninth century

and eventually of 1066 that shaped the political landscape of Europe.

And I think it's important to appreciate the continuities

between the Viking age and the modern day.

It was these processes of raiding, trade, warfare and colonisation

that effectively shaped the social and political landscape

of Europe today.

And therefore, without the Viking age,

I don't think we'd have the modern world as we know it today at all.

Truly, the Vikings transformed the world around them.

We have only just scratched the surface

when it comes to the history of the people who performed these feats.

There is much more to be told and investigated.

Subtitles: Lily Ray www.plint.com