THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS AND THE BEGINNINGS OF ANGLO-NORMAN ENGLAND

THE FINAL NORMAN ASSAULT

Night fell. Stars emerge in the clear October sky. Yet the fight continued. The Duke used all his fighting men in his last concerted throw of the dice, the last effort to break the English shield wall. The archers began to assail the English warriors with arrows. Presumably fresh supplies had arrived, and the Tapestry, almost as if by emphasis, shows large quivers standing next to the small figures that now form a continues line in the lower margins. There is no reference in contemporary chronicles to archers shooting, a high trajectory clouds of arrows to fall on the stubborn heads of the Eng-lish, and especially onto the less protected heads of the Fyrd in the rear ranks. It first finds mention in Henry of Huntingdon and is then expanded upon by Wace. The Tap-estry gives no real hint but does suggest the importance of the Norman archers at this stage of the fighting by sheer number shown. It could be said that a few of the archers are depicted with somewhat elevated bows but not noticeably more so than at the start of the fighting. The archers may have sent in a short barrage that no doubt would have had more effect on the mauled English shield wall than it had earlier. The Norman infantry and knights would then begin to advance again, up that corpse and blood strewn slope towards the English wall, as the Norman infantry and knights struggled up that blood lake slope, the English drew back slightly in preparation for yet another Norman attempt to break the shield wall, almost immediately the Norman archers once more loosed their arrows. It is also possible, however, that because the elements of the Norman army were now intermixed after hours of hard and bloody fighting, and that many groups were fighting at the ridge rather than cooperating in well organized lines, the archers were forced to aim high to avoid hitting their own men. The shafts would then have fallen on the ranks of the still stubbornly fighting English warriors.