The Last Journey of the Vikings_4of4_The Last Battle of the Vikings
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00:00This is a story about the people who came sailing across the ocean.
00:20It's a story about a long and perilous journey of upheaval, which came to change populations
00:27and influence politics, trade, culture, religion, and entire societies.
00:34It's a story about the Vikings and how they transformed the world.
00:42For most people, the Vikings are seen only as plunders and pirates.
00:48But is that the whole truth?
00:53The process of conversion from Scandinavia to Christianity is a long story.
00:59They were very skilful traders, partly because they could move around.
01:04They're going abroad to take what they seek.
01:08In this series, we will dig deeper and gain more insight into who the Vikings really were.
01:16And the truth turns out to be surprising.
01:46The story of the people who came sailing across the sea is not over yet.
02:15The Vikings, who in the late 8th century sailed their longships from Scandinavia down to Francia,
02:22will once again cross the waters.
02:27This time, in the year 1066, it's a power struggle for the throne of England.
02:34The battle for the throne is a brutal and bloody story, involving many participants from several different countries.
02:42In Normandy, it's Duke William who decides to conquer the throne.
02:48This will be a historic and revolutionary event.
02:52It will also be known as the Vikings' last battle.
03:00But why was it the Normans who finally managed to conquer England once and for all?
03:07To answer this, we must find out why William,
03:11a Norman, was relevant as a possible successor to the King of England, Edward the Confessor.
03:42After ruling England for 24 years, Edward the Confessor dies on January 5th in the year 1066.
03:51Edward's death will start a new power struggle for the English throne.
04:16In Normandy, Duke William is making plans to become king.
04:25But it will not be easy.
04:30Well, there had been previously existing relationship between the royal families of Normandy and of England,
04:36and through this, William had a familial connection to Edward the Confessor.
05:07William was a direct descendant of the family of Rollo of Normandy.
05:19He was very fond of Normandy.
05:25So when Edward the Confessor died, William expected to be crowned a new king,
05:31and that he would become king over England, which he pursued quite ardently.
05:55at some point in the 1050s.
06:03The problem with all of this is that the throne was also claimed by Harold Godwinson,
06:10the son of Earl Godwin of Wessex,
06:13who was purportedly also given stewardship or control over the throne of England by Edward near to the time of his death.
06:43So what we have here are two competing claims,
06:56but also made more difficult by the suggestion, again,
07:01that Harold had actually sworn an oath of fealty to William when he had been made a hostage in France.
07:11So I guess in William's mind, all of these things together may actually give him a fairly good claim to the throne of England,
07:21especially over someone like Harold Godwinson.
07:25But that was not the case. When Edward died, he appointed Harold instead.
07:55Harold, who had been and visited William in Normandy a couple of times, they had some kind of friendship,
08:09but that quickly ended when Harold was crowned a new king over England.
08:25When Edward died, Harold was chosen by the Anglo-Saxon elites, thus excluding William.
08:34With Harold's accession to the throne, a period of political instability began,
08:50where various actors tried to use this gap in the succession to take control of England.
09:05There were other crown candidates, among others, Harald Hardråde in Norway,
09:11who had also been promised the throne, not by Edward the Confessor, but by a previous king before him.
09:17And there were also several crown candidates.
09:20So when Harold was crowned, he understood that now others would come and try to take over the throne
09:27and began to prepare for an invasion of England.
09:34The details of the conflicts that follow have actually been preserved.
10:04It is 70 meters long and about 70 centimeters wide.
10:07And in the middle there is this picture series that is like a drawn series.
10:35Here and there there are also texts that describe what you see written in Latin on these buildings.
10:41For example, here is Harald.
11:04We see the death of Edward the Confessor and very soon afterwards Harald's coronation as king of England.
11:12And in response to this, William's preparation for invasion.
11:17We see him constructing his ships, bringing all of his forces together,
11:22a very large invasion force of cavalry, archers and infantry.
11:26We see them crossing the sea to England and then meeting Harald's force at Hastings.
11:35And in his depiction of the battle, the tapestry does prioritize certain features of the action over others,
11:44especially it gives preference to William's use of cavalry
11:48and the pivotal role that this is supposed to have played in the battle.
11:52It does seem that William is introducing some cavalry tactics that are not being used in England at this time,
11:59which may have given him an edge during the battle itself.
12:03But I think the actual course of events on that day at Hastings,
12:09they must be much more complex than what we see there on the tapestry itself.
12:16The Battle of Hastings
12:21There are an incredible amount of details on this.
12:24You see clothing, hairstyles, horse equipment, how several horses walk next to each other, how the boats look.
12:34There is an incredible amount of detail and a very important source for archaeological research
12:40to understand the battle at Hastings and this time as well.
12:45The Battle of Hastings
13:15It is also a lot of fun to look at because there are some ingenious figures and small monsters.
13:22There is always something new to discover when you look at the tapestry.
13:31Although there is a new king in England, Harald Goodwinson, it's a time of worry and uncertainty.
13:39The Calm Before the Storm
13:44This is The Calm Before the Storm.
14:10The Calm Before the Storm
14:19When Edvard had died and Harald had become king, there were also several signs of war.
14:24Among other things, Halley's Comet came that year.
14:28Many people took it as a sign that something overwhelming and terrible was going to happen.
14:34In England, people were worried about what was going to happen.
15:05The Calm Before the Storm
15:10The Calm Before the Storm
15:16The Calm Before the Storm
15:33But if we head north, we find that William isn't the only person seeking to claim the throne of England in 1066.
15:40In Norway, we come across a man, a king, named Harald Sigurdsson, also commonly known as Harald Hardrada,
15:47who himself has a fairly tenuous claim to the English throne.
15:51And he intends to assert that right.
15:55So just as William is constructing his own fleet and invasion force, Harald Sigurdsson is doing the same.
16:01And he's actually assisted and in alliance with Harald Goodwinson's brother,
16:06an Earl by the name of Tostig, who had previously been exiled from England.
16:11So while Harald Goodwinson and his army are sitting in the south,
16:15in late September, Harald Sigurdsson and Tostig's invasion force lands in Yorkshire.
16:23Yorkshire
16:35They head towards York, which is the major city in that region, to receive its submission.
16:42And this would give them a firm foothold for their later movements into the English countryside.
16:49But on their way there, on the 20th of September, a few miles outside of the city, at a place called Fulford,
16:56they run into two Anglo-Saxon earls and their forces,
17:00who have mobilized to come and attempt to stop the invasion.
17:10The battle results in a Norwegian victory.
17:13And Harald Hardrada goes on to receive the submission of York.
17:18And he prepares his forces to march south.
17:22During this time, Harald Goodwinson has actually got word of the Norwegian force and their presence in Yorkshire.
17:31And what he does is he basically gathers all of his troops and force marches them to the north.
17:38And a few days later, on the 25th of September, they come into contact with the Norwegians at a place called Stamford Bridge.
17:48Stamford Bridge
17:52Stamford Bridge
18:12Harald goes to meet Harald, who he confronts on the battlefield at Stamford Bridge.
18:21And this is where Harald wins.
18:26It is said that the bridge was held by a very big and strong Norwegian warrior.
18:33They held the bridge alone and killed 40 men.
18:36Before the end, an Englishman was cunning and came from below in some kind of boat or something, it's not really clear.
18:43And they chased him away.
18:46Then he died and they were able to take the bridge and win this battle.
19:16Goodwinson, his army have seen off one invasion force.
19:20But unfortunately, it's while he is in the north that Harald learns that William has brought his forces across the channel and landed in the south.
19:27So having just fought a major engagement, Harald has no choice but to turn his army around again and head south.
19:33And over the course of several weeks, he makes his way towards the southern coast.
19:46Stamford Bridge
20:00In order to conquer England, William has to make a huge amount of preparation.
20:06Everything must be perfectly planned and executed.
20:10There is no room for error.
20:16It goes without saying that Harald Goodwinson's army would have been understrength and tired after Stamford Bridge.
20:22But he still had to head south to meet William's force on the southern coast.
20:27But I think that if Harald Hardrada and his Norwegian force had not landed in Yorkshire and forced that engagement with the English,
20:37that the outcome at Hastings might well have been very different.
20:41As it was, we know that Hastings was a long and drawn out battle.
20:45It certainly wasn't over quickly.
20:48And if Harald and his forces had been fresher, if Harald had had more troops,
20:52maybe the course of history would have been changed there.
21:15Stamford Bridge
21:36An invasion like William's is not an invasion that is prepared in a few weeks.
21:42Even if William could not be certain that he would have access to the throne immediately after Edward's death,
21:50or what Harald's reaction would be, it must have been plans that he had prepared for a long time.
21:58And we can see that in his use of ships to lead this invasion.
22:04The construction of a fleet like this is not something that is done in a few weeks.
22:09So even if he was not certain of his accession to the throne,
22:14he had to know that whatever happens, the maintenance of his royal authority in England
22:21would require a very important naval presence.
22:39Stamford Bridge
22:57He also may have sought papal consent in order to launch his campaign,
23:01which would have again strengthened the legitimacy of his actions.
23:05And in trying to understand exactly how William brought his invasion force together,
23:11the bio-tapestry is actually quite informative.
23:14It shows stacks of armour and weapons being loaded onto his ships,
23:18and also their use to transport infantry, archers and cavalry.
23:24This is clearly a very large and powerful invasion force.
23:35William's troops must now be loaded onto the many ships that will carry them across the sea,
23:41towards the coast of England.
23:53These boats were very low. They were very close to the beach and the water.
23:58So in order to get supplies, armaments, weapons and horses on board,
24:05you needed a plank to walk on.
24:09You did not need to lift the horses, they could walk on their own.
24:15And there was probably a space on the boat where they could stand still,
24:20get food and drink water in peace and quiet.
24:25William's cavalry will be of vital importance at the Battle of Hastings,
24:31because William has decided to employ a novel tactic.
24:44Norman battle tactics are seen to prioritise the use of heavy cavalry formations.
24:50In this, their tactics markedly differ from those of Harold Godwinson's force.
24:55In England at the time, armies arrived on the battlefield as mounted infantry.
24:59They rode to battle, but generally dismounted to fight on foot.
25:04And this isn't what we see the Normans doing at Hastings.
25:08It's possible that they're here using some tactics that they've refined and learnt from the Carolingians,
25:14and it's clear that the cavalry play a pivotal role in the battle.
25:19It's been suggested that one of the tactics used by the Norman cavalry was the feigned retreat,
25:24in which horsemen would approach the enemy, pretend to wheel in panic and run away,
25:31and with the hope of basically drawing out the enemy formations to chase them.
25:37And this is what we see on the bio-tapestry.
25:41Elements of the English force...
25:46pursuing elements of the Norman force and being cut down when they do so.
25:52And this seems to be how the English are worn down throughout the day.
26:11And if this is the case, if the priority that the tapestry gives to the cavalry
26:16actually reflects the historical reality of the battle,
26:20then what we see here is cavalry being used in quite an innovative and sophisticated way,
26:26and simply in ways that the English had not used them before.
26:41The Battle of Hastings
26:47I think as in all these discussions, there's no single factor to explain
26:52why the Normans won at the Battle of Hastings.
26:56As always, there's many different issues that we need to consider.
27:00If we're to believe the accounts of the battle,
27:02then the use of cavalry and cavalry tactics certainly seems to have played a role.
27:07The English did not fight on horseback.
27:10They were not necessarily used to encountering cavalry in the field.
27:15And so the Normans' novel and innovative use of cavalry may have certainly contributed to their victory,
27:22especially if there was indiscipline among the English ranks,
27:26which led to them pursuing any feigned retreat by the cavalry itself.
27:38The Battle of Hastings
27:46But I don't think it's really fair to say that these cavalry tactics
27:50automatically gave the Norman force an edge over the English one,
27:55simply as we see in the fact that the battle wore on for a very long time.
28:00It was not a quick affair.
28:02It was towards the end of the day that the English force was finally routed.
28:07But I think certainly the use of cavalry had a role to play there,
28:12especially if there was indiscipline among the English ranks
28:16and they did indeed fall for the tactic of a feigned retreat.
28:22That would have probably played quite an important role in their defeat.
28:32When you basically ride down the enemy side,
28:36which has a very difficult time defending itself when big horses come.
28:40You can set up a shield wall and you can set up a spear to point the horses,
28:46but many horses can still get through.
28:49And then you break up the army completely and come in behind,
28:55and then you start fighting with other types of weapons.
29:02THE ENGLISH CAVALRY
29:26That was probably what William had planned.
29:30But that was not the case when it came to the actual battle.
30:01HASTINGS
30:24I think to really understand the events of Hastings,
30:28we do have to look back at the events immediately preceding it.
30:32We need to remember that just a couple of weeks before Hastings,
30:35Harold Godwinson had fought off another invasion force,
30:39this time in the north of England at Stamford Bridge.
30:42So to have force-marched his army north to fight a very drawn-out and vicious battle,
30:49to then force-march his army south again,
30:52would have had a huge impact on the ability of the English
30:56to bring a healthy and rested army into the field.
31:00Harold's forces would have been depleted, they would have been tired,
31:04and I think he certainly would have lacked reinforcements
31:07that he would have otherwise have desperately needed.
31:26THE ENGLISH CAVALRY
31:46It is said that before the battle, the Englishmen sat up,
31:51drank and sang hymns and kept their morale up all night,
31:57while the Normans prayed and were lazy and lazy.
32:03And then you can imagine that this one who has gone through a battle,
32:07been out marching for a long time, and also not slept all night,
32:10but is sitting and drinking beer,
32:12may not be in the best condition when you start fighting.
32:16While the Normans were quite rested,
32:19and exhaustion is almost an exclusive winning factor in itself,
32:26that the opponent does not dare to fight anymore, they are defeated.
32:31So a combination of several different bad circumstances for England,
32:36good circumstances for the Normans,
32:38led to them actually winning the battle, and thus England.
32:46It's important still to remember that the Battle of Hastings
32:48was not a quick affair.
32:50It was actually quite a protracted engagement
32:53that lasted throughout most of the day.
32:56And so in all of these things, I think that luck certainly played a role.
33:00If any one of these factors had combined in a different way,
33:04then the course of events may have turned out very differently.
33:08It's also possible that there was some kind of ideological factor
33:14in the Norman victory at Hastings.
33:16No matter whether we believe the histories given to us
33:21by the bio-tapestry and later commentators or not,
33:24it seems that William clearly believed that he had a right
33:28to pursue his claim to the throne of England.
33:30And I think that this really psychologically would give him the edge
33:36in motivating himself and his forces to carry the victory on that day.
33:45The Battle of Hastings
33:56When the battle is finally over, William stands victorious.
34:01From now on, he will be known as William the Conqueror.
34:08Many thousands died in this battle.
34:11It is said that Harold's lover was looking for his body on the battlefield
34:18and she could identify him because of a birthmark
34:22because the body was so damaged.
34:41The Battle of Hastings
34:57There is clear evidence of what it looked like after the battle
35:03where bodies were laid to the right and left,
35:06skulls and mules, horses were killed,
35:09parts of the body were cut off, blood everywhere.
35:13Some are still lying and have not died yet,
35:17but are still lying and are injured,
35:19while others can lie in large piles on each other.
35:22These are terrible scenes as you can see.
35:40The Battle of Hastings
35:51But today, it is not exactly localized where this battle took place.
35:56When you have a battlefield like this,
36:01you can often find finds that point to this place.
36:05Here you should find a lot of arrowheads,
36:08parts of armaments that have been torn apart,
36:11bones, even if they were probably gathered together
36:15and buried or burned,
36:17and even the animals were probably taken care of in some way.
36:21But there should still be a lot of finds left.
36:23If you are looking for it, you should be able to locate it,
36:26but you don't know exactly where it was,
36:28just roughly where it was.
36:36Sometime after the Battle of Hastings,
36:40the Bayeux Tapestry is made,
36:43which depicts the events surrounding the great battle.
37:06It is as if it is the victor who writes the story,
37:10and the Bayeux Tapestry is embroidered a couple of years after the Battle of Hastings.
37:15It is probably William's family or relatives,
37:19or at least the winning side,
37:21who is behind the design and content of this settlement.
37:28You have to keep in mind that it is a work
37:33that represents these historical events from the Norman point of view,
37:39which seeks to highlight William's role
37:44and also seeks to legitimize William's conquest of England.
38:02We still have a lot of questions about the origins of the Bayeux Tapestry.
38:06Who made it?
38:08In what context?
38:10And how was it originally used?
38:16Obviously, it was someone or a group of people
38:19who were very well informed about the origins of the Bayeux Tapestry.
38:23It was a very well-informed group of people,
38:26who were very well informed about the origins of the Bayeux Tapestry.
38:29It was a very well-informed group of people,
38:31who were very well informed about the events
38:33that led to the conquest of England,
38:36because it is very detailed.
38:38It is also someone or people who have very precise knowledge
38:42of naval construction techniques,
38:45as well as military techniques on the battlefield,
38:49cavalry equipment, arches, etc.
39:00The final part of the tapestry is missing.
39:04The tapestry was rolled for a long time,
39:08so it is possible that this final part was used or torn.
39:13so it is possible that this final part was used or torn.
39:18So we don't know what the last scene was on the tapestry.
39:24It is possible that it was William's accession to the throne,
39:28and his coronation.
39:40William is crowned at Westminster Abbey in London
39:44on Christmas Day in the year 1066.
39:47He is now the ruler of England and Normandy.
39:58NORMANDY
40:08William brought several Normans from Normandy
40:12and offered them land and high titles in the new country, England,
40:17to maintain power.
40:19He had to use a lot of violence to be able to maintain power,
40:24because there were many Englishmen who were very dissatisfied
40:29that a Normand came and became king in England instead of an Englishman.
40:43One of the first steps in the conquest of Normandy in England
40:47was to reorganize the territories and change the elites.
40:54In this way, he redistributed the land among the Norman elites
40:59who accompanied him in England.
41:02This allowed him to distribute his control over the territories
41:06in a fairly effective way.
41:09NORMANDY
41:31One of the first things he did was parcel land out to his barons.
41:35In that sense, he brought the Norman aristocracy over to England
41:39and installed them essentially within the system of government.
41:57But despite this, he did face rebellions, quite a number of them,
42:02and these had to be put down.
42:04This culminated in a campaign into northern England
42:07in what is known historically as the harrying of the north.
42:11While the brutality of this campaign is debated by historians,
42:17it certainly shows that William was not afraid
42:20to crush any political opposition with overwhelming force.
42:34There were divided opinions within the church.
42:37Even if William had received the protection of the pope
42:40before he invaded England, there were always power conflicts
42:45both within the church and between different leaders in different areas
42:49and also between the bourgeoisie and those who invaded.
42:54He came and was crowned, but had to fight and work quite a long time
42:59to actually get control over all of England.
43:04But he managed to retain power,
43:06and the Norman government was strong for a couple of hundred years.
43:30To win the battle for the English crown,
43:32William used his multicultural heritage.
43:36For instance, he landed soldiers directly onto the shore
43:40from shallow draft ships,
43:43a tactic that his ancestors used for centuries.
43:49Perhaps the knowledge of how to ship horses across the seas
43:52was also something that the Vikings had brought to Normandy.
43:57Furthermore, William used his Frankish heritage, cavalry and archers,
44:02to great effect.
44:04In addition, his timing was good,
44:06as he arrived not long after the Battle of Stamford Bridge,
44:10and finally, he had luck on his side.
44:16William the Conqueror ruled England and Normandy
44:20as two separate countries until his death in the year 1086.
44:27After his death, the kingdom was divided between his sons.
44:32His son Robert became Duke of Normandy,
44:35and William became the new King of England.
44:39According to the history books,
44:41the Battle of Hastings marks the end of the Viking Age.
44:44The Vikings have now become kings.
44:48From the end of the 8th century, when the first raids began,
44:52to the 11th century, the Vikings made an astonishing journey.
44:57They began by attacking and looting monasteries,
45:01went on to become colonizers,
45:04and finally, they seized the supreme power.
45:10The Vikings
45:18You might ask, what made the Vikings disappear?
45:22The Vikings were people from several countries.
45:27For several years, they had settled down in Europe,
45:30in England, and on islands in Northern Europe.
45:35In Scandinavia, Christianity is an ideal
45:40that is not based on plundering and killing,
45:47but rather on trade and peace.
45:53I don't necessarily think it's right to talk about an end to the Viking Age.
45:58This is an arbitrary historical period that we have constructed.
46:23The Vikings are now well-established kingdoms,
46:25with strong political entities,
46:27who have other interests and other sources of income.
46:31When the Vikings have integrated so much in Europe,
46:37they are Christians.
46:39They are part of the political society.
46:42Sociopolitics is the important power-alliance relationship.
46:47They are part of Europe's politics and power factors.
46:52Overall, we see an evolution that follows a certain form of opportunism,
46:59where strategies adapt to what is most profitable in a given context.
47:05When we start from the context of the 9th century,
47:09where we have relatively weak political entities
47:14who are not able to defend themselves,
47:17we have this phenomenon of rather anarchic plundering,
47:22which evolves towards more organized forms of exploitation of wealth.
47:29They became too large to continue the traditional Viking society.
47:35Instead, they began to build cities, more concentrated power.
47:39People became more dependent on a larger context,
47:43and they could no longer fight left and right.
47:47They had to adapt to these conditions.
47:50When we think about the events of this time that we call the Viking Age,
47:54we really need to appreciate the impact that they've had
47:57on the social and political development of Europe over the past millennium.
48:03It was the events of 793, the events of the mid 9th century,
48:11and eventually of 1066 that shaped the political landscape of Europe.
48:16I think it's important to appreciate the continuities
48:19between the Viking Age and the modern day.
48:21It was these processes of raiding, trade, warfare, and colonization
48:26that effectively shaped the social and political landscape of Europe today.
48:32Therefore, without the Viking Age,
48:35I don't think we'd have the modern world as we know it today at all.
48:41The Viking Age
48:46The Viking Age
48:51The Viking Age
48:56The Viking Age
49:01The Viking Age
49:06The Viking Age
49:11The Viking Age
49:16The Viking Age
49:21The Viking Age
49:24Truly, the Vikings transformed the world around them.
49:28We have only just scratched the surface when it comes to history
49:31of the people who performed these feats.
49:34There is much more to be told and investigated.
50:04The Viking Age