How did the Battle of Hastings start? What did medieval accounts have to say about the Battle? Was King Harold really killed by an arrow to the eye? Find out the answers here.
On 14 October 1066, one of the most significant battles in English history took place in Sussex, known to later generations as the Battle of Hastings. During this encounter, King Harold II, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, was killed. William, Duke of Normandy – also known as William the Conqueror or William the Bastard – was the victor, and so began the Norman Conquest of the kingdom of England.
In the years that immediately followed, the Battle of Hastings became the subject of numerous re-tellings, composed by English and Norman writers. Many of these accounts are contradictory. Their writers were trying to justify or condemn the Conquest, and this shaped the way they portrayed the battle.
