THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS

A chronicle of the significant 1066 battle.

At the time of the Norman conquest, England, writes Bradbury, was “one of the most developed political units in western Europe,” its Anglo-Saxon rulers having solidified control over most of the country and expanded into Scotland and Wales. Normandy—not the present province, but the region of northwestern France controlled by people of Scandinavian descent—was emerging as a continental power, as well, and ranging far afield in search of lootworthy venues. When William II, the Duke of Normandy, came to power, he concentrated Norman power further, facing down the threat of local peasant rebellions and war with neighboring Anjou. William was decidedly unpleasant: When snickered at for being illegitimate, he “ordered the hands and feet of thirty-two mockers to be cut off.” Regardless of his temperament, owing to the confusing lineages of medieval Europe, William had about as much right to be king of England, across the Channel, as anyone. When Harold took the throne after more or less promising that he wouldn’t, William committed himself to storming the island and making England a Viking-tinged French colony. The author’s account is mostly dutiful and only occasionally illuminating. More of the book, though, is given over to a nearly real-time, blow-by-blow description of the Battle of Hastings and its hacked-off limbs and arrow-pierced eyes. Usefully, Bradbury points out that the result of the fight was far from a foregone conclusion, as many popular accounts have it, with the outcome hanging in the balance over the course of a long, bloody day. Yet, specialists aside, readers will find themselves bogged down by the author’s wonky attention to such things as the composition of a Norman shield (“some have a few rivets—four, six, nine, even eleven—probably to hold together the planks of wood”) and the exact composition of the opposing forces.

Medieval history buffs of an obsessive trainspotting and detectorist bent will be pleased—general readers, less so.