The Battle of Stamford Bridge

The Battle of Stamford Bridge occurred on the 25^th September 1066 and is one of the most significant military encounters in the early medieval period but it has become largely overshadowed by the third engagement of that year near Hastings. History is written, as they say, by the victors and the Normans saw little reason to praise the achievements of their former enemy. Nevertheless, it is perhaps just because the Battle of Stamford Bridge was so significant that it has come down to us despite the best efforts of the Normans.

Throughout most of 1066 Harold Godwinson, King of England since January, prepared to receive Duke Guillaume of Normandy to contest his right to the crown. King Edward, later called the ‘Confessor’ had died without an heir. His public choice, Edward Aetheling, had died in 1057 and Edward had not chosen a replacement. Duke Guillaume claimed that King Edward had promised him the throne but he could only present hearsay evidence of this. The weakness of Guillaume’s claim is perhaps underlined by the fact that he tricked Harold Godwinson into swearing and oath over hidden holy relics in 1064 to support him.

Despite lacking any public credence beyond a claimed blood relationship as cousins Guillaume went to great lengths to prepare for taking the crown by force and it was probably for this reason that Harold maintained the fyrd, the Anglo-Saxon army throughout the most of summer, only disbanding them so that a bumper harvest could be brought in from the fields and not left to spoil.

It is not surprising then that King Harold was totally outmanoeuvred by an enemy that few had given any serious consideration to; the King of Norway. Harald Hardrada had fought a long and fruitless was against Denmark and seen his political stock fall as a result. When he made a public claim to King Edward’s throne it was seen as bluster by a man who was desperate to remove a stain from his otherwise excellent military record. It may even have been nothing more than that until Tostig, the younger brother of Harold Godwinson, arrived at the King of Norway’s court.

Tostig had been the Eorl of Northumbria but he was deposed by a popular revolt in response to his harshness. King Edward ordered Harold of Wessex to restore his brother but Harold chose to side with the people of Northumbria and counselled the king to exile Tostig instead. Without the support of the strongest eorlderman in the kingdom King Edward could do little to help one of his favourites. Tostig was exiled and Morcar, the younger brother of Eorl Edwin of Mercia, became Eorl of Northumbria in his place. The House of Mercia were great rivals with that of Wessex and this was seen as tremendous coup on their part.

King Hardrada assembled the largest Viking army ever to threaten England but it was a diverse force of mercenaries and volunteer supporters. At its heart he had a core of Norwegian veterans but they were supplemented with men from Orkney, Scotland, Greenland and even Danes against whom he had been fighting for so long. Perhaps most tellingly the fact that the King of Norway had Tostig Godwinson, a Saxon, for an ally, illustrated the desperation that clung to his actions.

On the 20^th September 1066 King Hardrada fought the battle of Fulford Gate before the walls of York and destroyed the Saxon Army of the North under the command of the eorls Edwin and Morcar. His invasion of the north and the capture of York was a masterstroke. King Harold now found himself between two powerful enemies and risked losing the northern half of his kingdom. He had to act and only a radical response would guarantee him success.

Although King Hardrada’s claim to the English throne might be considered weak his resolve to succeed can perhaps be judged by his decision after the capture of York to remove his army to Riccall where his fleet was based, probably leaving only a small force to garrison the city. In other days the Vikings would have pillaged the city but Hardrada saw it now as his capital in the north of England and he was not about to allow anyone to spoil what belonged to him.

The Saxons of York were tasked with bringing hostages and food to Stamford Bridge as a sign of their acquiescence on the 25^th of September. King Hardrada marched out of Riccall with some 7,000 men to meet the delegation. Due to the very warm weather and probably because they believed that all Saxon resistance in the area had been destroyed many of the Vikings went without their heavy armour. When they reached Stamford Bridge they camped on a hill renowned for its flat top and oval shape with the river Derwent to the north crossed by single wooden bridge. At the due time Saxons arrived but they were not a delegation of beaten men from York, it was King Harold of England at the head of a massive Saxon army.

In only 5 days King Harold had formed his Royal Companions into the core of a new army and marched north from London calling Saxons to his banner as he marched. It was not normal for Saxon fyrdmen to fight in regions where they had not been raised as a levy but on this occasion they did. Leaving the south in the command of his younger brother Harold literally raced north to save his crown.

There is a popular story that the bridge that separated the two armies was only wide enough to allow a couple of men to walk side by side across it. When the Saxons marched down to the bridge from the opposite hill their way was barred by a Viking warrior in full armour who then went onto defend the bridge while his comrades assembled their defence. He was a giant and his armour was so thick that none could pierce it until a Saxon sailed under the bridge in a fishing skiff and pierced him with a spear from below. It may be nothing more than a folk tale but it makes such a striking tale that I included it in my novel.

Once the bridge was captured the Saxons crossed onto the southern bank at the foot of the hill. The Vikings could not offer much in the way of resistance due to their lack of armour but Hardrada had decided to stand and fight. This decision may have resulted from the fact that the ground he held gave him a significant advantage and that Riccall was some 10 miles distant with several bridges like the one at Stamford for his large army to cross with blood thirsty Saxons at their backs.

Before the battle commenced King Harold made one more attempt to appease his brother Tostig, offering him wealth, land and a title. Tostig is said to have remarked that the offer was fair but what grant of land could King Hardrada, his ally, expect, to which Harold wittily replied; “all that any Viking has a right to expect, six foot of ground to lie in or little larger as he is so much bigger than most!” Tostig chose to remain with his ally.

Although the Saxons had the advantage of numbers and better equipment they suffered a cost in fighting to the top of the hill. They pressed on with stoic determination and once they crashed their shield-wall into that of the Vikings they began to press them back. Lacking sufficient armour the Vikings began to suffer losses and their nerves were rattled. To bolster his men King Hardrada strode into the front rank and devastated the Saxon warriors he found there. He might have turned the tide but for a slight missile, an arrow, that flew over the heads of the Saxons and into the throat of the giant king, severing the vertebrae in his neck. King Harald Hardrada of Norway was dead.

It is said that following this event the two armies separated and that King Harold offered the Vikings a chance to gather up their king and return home; for whatever reason they spurned his good grace. The battle resumed but now it took on the character of a last stand. The Saxons fell onto their ancient enemy with no intent of showing them any quarter.

Eystein Orre, a favoured jarl of King Hardrada’s arrived with the reinforcements from Riccall but after a 10 mile forced march his men were hardly in any shape to fight. The main Viking force was splintering and beginning to give way. Some had already started running. When the end came it was vicious and bloody. Throwing down their shields and spears the once great Viking army fled for their ships. Perhaps remembering some of the outrages enacted on the Army of the North the Saxons showed no mercy and cut them down in their thousands.

Only when both sides reached Riccall did the slaughter finally cease. There King Harold offered terms to Prince Olaf, Hardrada’s son. He allowed the prince and all the surviving Vikings to return home if they promised never to sail to England again. Of the 300 ships that made up the bulk of the fleet it was said that Prince Olaf only had enough men left to crew 30 vessels.

The Battle of Stamford Bridge was a great victory for the Saxon King Harold. He had destroyed the largest Norse army ever to threaten England and killed the famous King of Norway. It was a high point in Saxon military history but it was also the breaking point as well. Eorl Edwin and Eorl Morcar had made a fateful decision when they chose to fight the Battle of Fulford Gate 5 days earlier instead of closing the gates of York and resisting a siege, which is what everyone had expected would happen. The loss of their army had compelled King Harold to move north to rescue the situation leaving the south of the kingdom vulnerable.

It was probable that King Harold had been persuaded to take this drastic action because the unseasonal storms that had roared through the English channel and kept the Normans bottled up in their port were still raging when he set out. Duke Guillaume was running out of time and Harold gambled that he could return to London before the Normans were able to set sail. Of course this was not the way it turned out and King Harold was forced to return to London with a battered army that had lost many of its most notable warriors at Stamford Bridge.

King Harold’s defeat of King Hardrada was a significant achievement, however. The King of Norway was a very successful commander who had experience of fighting for the Byzantine Empire and, it was said, had only known defeat once in his first battle fought when he was a boy. Harold did not just defeat his enemy, he destroyed him. This victory alone would have made Harold’s position in England almost unassailable but he was called all too soon to the battlefield once more at Sentlache Ridge near Hastings. Duke Guillaime forced the issue and King Harold chose not to wait for the reinforcements that his army so dearly needed. The rest is the history written by the victors.

The Forgotten Battle of 1066

Most British people can name at least one battle from 1066; the Battle of Hastings. In fact this is the one event that seems to encapsulate the very essence of 1066 as a subject; the killing of King Harold and (almost) inevitable Norman Conquest of England.

Some people can also name a second, earlier encounter; the Battle of Stamford Bridge. It is often reported that this is the battle that fatally injured King Harold’s Saxon army, along with the forced route march from London to York and back again to reach Hastings, making the Norman Conquest of England (almost) inevitable.

But why did King Harold have to march north to save his kingdom and let the Normans land in the south unopposed? The answer is because there was a third battle, one that preceded Stamford Bridge; the forgotten battle of 1066.

For some reason most accounts of the Battle of Fulford Gate held on Wednesday 20^th September 1066 are reduced to a sentence in the preamble to the Battle of Hastings. I find this curious as major engagements are usually considered important in telling the history of campaigns, especially those events that lead to such drastic consequences as seen in 1066; an entire civilisation was destroyed!

For Harald Hardrada, the King of Norway, the invasion of Northumbria represented a tactical masterpiece in his attempt to claim the English throne. He landed his army at Riccall, close to York, which was too far for King Harold to interfere with. He expected some resistance from the local eoldermen of course, they were duty bound to protect the kingdom but he probably anticipated a siege of the walled city of York. What he actually got was a pitched battle at site not of his choosing.

King Hardrada was a very experienced military commander who had only ever been on the losing side once and even then he had been but a boy. He had fought all over the known world from Norway to Russia and onto the Holy Land. Against him at Fulford Gate stood two young brothers, the eorls Edwin and Morcar, and they had chosen a defensively strong position.

The Saxons fielded a mixed force of approximately 4500 men, about 2,000 of which might have been well armed and armoured, the remaining 2500 would have been less well equipped and trained peasants and villagers. Against them the Vikings brought an army of some 7000 Norse warriors with another 3000 guarding the fleet at Riccall. For the early medieval period these figures are impressive and are similar to those engaged later at Stamdord Bridge and Hastings, in other words this was a very serious encounter.

In fact there is much about the Battle of Fulford Gate to occupy the imagination of anyone with an interest in this kind of history. The defence of York by the Saxons has about it a quality similar to the more famous Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC) in that a smaller indigenous army attempted to hold back a much larger invader at a strong defensive position. It is almost a hopeless cause but undertaken with admirable bravery on the part of the Anglo-Saxons.

There is also the chance to see how the military mind of Harald Hardrada might have worked in formulating a plan to nullify the advantages of his enemy. Although the battles of this period most often involved the pitting of two shield-wall formations against each other this does not mean that there was not some tactical manoeuvring going on as well. King Hardrda displayed his experience in the way he was able to coax his younger adversaries into making a critical mistake.

The strategic impact of the Battle of Fulford Gate is also important. At the conclusion of the battle the Norwegians found themselves in a seemingly strong position. They had captured the capital of Northumbria and knew that it would take King Harold, who was in London watching the movements of the Normans, some time to arrange a response to the threat that they now posed. At this point it was King Hardrada of Norway who posed the greatest threat to England, that is why King Harold moved north to meet him.

If Eorl Edwin and Eorl Morcar had chosen to act differently, however, then the course of 1066 might have been very different. Although their army was smaller than the Vikings’ it was sufficient to man the walls of York and repel any attacks; a siege would have been necessary. Had the eorls employed that tactic then Harald Hardrada might well have found himself trapped between two Saxon forces when King Harold did move north and the subsequent battle might have left the Saxons in a much better condition to meet the threat of the Normans; but that’s history for you!

The Social World of the Anglo-Saxons: The Aethelings and the Eoldermen

As you would expect with any society that was characterised by a hierarchical class system there would be the top class who were defined by their wealth and by the power that they wielded. In the Anglo-Saxon world the upper class were known as the aethelings, who were principally the royal family. The king was the obviously the head of this very exclusive group and he would be joined by his queen, their children who would hold the ranks of prince and princesses, and any other immediate family members such as brothers and sisters who would hold the same rank but be differentiated by their position in line to inherit the throne. 

The position of aetheling granted many privileges but it also bestowed certain responsibilities too. Aethelings were expected to support the king and queen and to lead the army on campaign. Military service was considered important as the cult of the warrior was a mainstay of Saxon culture and it also gave the ambitious a chance to prove their worth against the enemies of the people. Harold Godwinson, when he was Eorl of Wessex, built up a formidable reputation for himself as successful warlord defeating King Gruffydd ap Llwellyn of Wales at the command of King Edward of England.

By their very nature the aethelings were few in number, certainly not enough to govern the whole of the kingdom. To assist in this there was a lower tier to the upper class known as the eoldermen. Again these were rich and powerful men given clearly defined areas of the kingdom to manage. They were responsible for administering the king’s law, taking military action to defend the peoples for whom they were responsible, and seeing that the kingdom was properly administered.

An eolderman usually had the title of eorl and he would be responsible for a whole shire or a particular town. In later days it was not uncommon for some eorls to be responsible for several shires. Although not originally an inherited title by the late 10^th century it had become something of the norm for a particular title to remain with one family, such as Eorl Godwin passing on the Eorldom of Wessex to his second son Harold Godwinson.

Along with members of the aethelings and the archbishops and bishops the eoldermen formed the ‘Witan’. In essence the witan was the king’s council although he was not necessarily bound to call it or accept its’ recommendations. It did have one very important function, however, and that was to decide on who had the best claim to the crown should a king die without an heir; they may even have decided against a named heir if they found him lacking in some way.

In January 1066 England found itself in a situation where childless King Edward died without a named heir. Although the Eorl of Wessex had no direct claim to the crown it was suggested that King Edward favoured him as he lay dying. It was known that the Duke of Normandy also had his eyes set on the English throne but he had very little influence with the Witan. The claim that came from the King of Norway was dismissed out of hand. In choosing Harold Godwinson the Witan functioned well within its’ remit, irrespective of what the pope might think. In their eyes he was the only Saxon capable of fulfilling the duties of the king and they saw no reason why they should bow to a foreign duke with a questionable claim.

The Social World of the Anglo-Saxons: The Theigns

Above the ceorls, the peasants of the Anglo-Saxon world, sat the ‘theigns’. They were to all intents and purposes the middle class. To qualify as a theign a man needed to own a minimum of 5 hides of land. A hide was not an exact measurement in Anglo-Saxon England but roughly equated to enough land for a family to live on. Although a ceorl from the top end of that class, a geatsas, might own that much or even more land this alone did not qualify them to be considered theign-worthy; they still had to be promoted to that position.

Theigns were appointed by the king initially and they did service to him accordingly, if they failed in this respect they could lose their lands and be demoted to the peasant classes or even suffer execution if their transgression was considered serious enough. In the begin it seems that theigns were warriors who took on the more common duties of management and they were made responsible for overseeing the building and maintaining of defences, bridges, and the organisation of the fyrd; the Saxon army. They were expected to give military service for which they would supply their own equipment; horses, servants, arms and armour. Later, the theigns also took on a more administrative role in ensuring that the peasant classes obeyed the king’s law and fulfilled their duties.

As with the peasants the theigns had within their class further sub-divisions but these were not as clearly separated as in the ceorls. A theign’s rank with regard to his peers would largely depend upon how much land and wealth he owned. Lower theigns would have at least the minimum five hides although most would have more than that. Middling theigns would probably have double to three times as much whereas high-theigns would own land holdings of the size of estates.

Royal-theigns were high-theigns who had been appointed by the king and they were only one step down from becoming eoldermen, that is, a member of the ruling classes. As with the peasants ability and achievement were rewarded with grants of land and money, so it was quite possible for an adept Saxon to move from being a ceorl to becoming a theign. The law did not allow him to move beyond that class but his son, if equally capable, had the opportunity to become an eolderman and be granted an eorldom of his own.

As with huscarls the king was not alone in enjoying the service of theigns, particularly rich eoldermen also appointed their own theigns. Indeed, it was even possible for a high-theign to have lower theigns giving service to them.

In many respects the theigns were the backbone of the fyrd. They could be expected to be reasonably well equipped and they had the wealth to allow them the time to practice the martial arts needed by a Saxon warrior. Although not as numerous as the coerls the theigns were a more capable body of fighting men and would have formed the front line of a shield wall; most certainly they would be in the second line. Battle gave the theigns a chance to prove their bravery and prowess, and many a many enjoyed the boon of a new grant of land or pieces of gold given by whichever lord they owed allegiance to after such a display. This would make them eager warriors and, therefore, dangerous men when swords were drawn and battle joined.