Yesterday and today Channel 4 broadcast a docudrama called ’1066: the Battle for Middle Earth’. The premise of the film is an interesting one, namely to show the effects of the battles of 1066 (Fulford, Stamford Bridge and Senlac Hill) on the ordinary people. The result is something I thought impossible – Channel 4 makes 1066 boring.
For those that like their blood and guts spread liberally about the landscape with a large agricultural implement, then there is probably lots for you. If, however, you want to understand what actually happened in 1066, then this is not going to tell you that much. Although the action is intercut with extracts from the sources, this is fragmented. Interestingly, aside from an initial reference to Domesday Book, the sources chosen are primarily Snorri Sturlusson’s Heimskringla and the Carmen de Hastingae Proelio, both of which are controversial for a number of reasons. The Heimskringla is a saga collection written down in the thirteenth century, though the sagas themselves are much older. The debate about the dating of the Carmen at the moment seems to have reached a consensus on the eleventh century (and I tend to agree), but some historians believe it to be nothing more than a twelfth-century literary exercise. Most of the near contemporary sources we have are Norman, with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle saying very little. The Bayeux Tapestry was also used, but more as illustration than as an attempt to explain.
By focusing on the ‘little people’, in this case the villages of Crowhurst in Sussex, there is little sense of an overall narrative and much that is left unexplained. It is fair enough, I suppose, that we see little of Harold Godwineson, Harald Hadraada (except behind his Gjermundbu-style helmet) or William, but to leave out Tostig (Harold’s younger brother) completely is nonsensical. The fact that he had been earl of Northumbria before being expelled (with Harold testifying against him according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) plays a large part in the Viking invasion in the north and the attack on York. Likewise, the reasons for William’s invasions are also not fully explored. The Normans were just brutish, violent and oppressive: no doubt they were, but so were the Vikings, the English, the Welsh, the Scots, the northerners, the southerners … it was the nature of eleventh-century society.
Accuracy is important of course, but most people would agree that slavish adherence can spoil the visual spectacle. Either way, it was still a little disconcerting to see eighth- (Ordgar) and tenth-century helmets (Harald Hadraada) being worn. I fully expected the Sutton Hoo helmet to pop up at any minute. Also, it is known that although the English did not fight on horseback, they did use their horses to get to battles. There is also a distinction between the select fyrd and the general fyrd (fighting men and men who have to fight), which didn’t come through very well. By the time we got to Senlac Hill, the English army consisted of a lot of frightened farmers, one Viking, a woman (who pops up in the shield wall) and a man who knew what he was doing. Harold shows up half way through and comes on as super-sub when the day is practically lost.
Parts of the film did ring true. Many English women, whose male kin had been killed, fled to nunneries in the wake of the Norman invasion. Once things settled down a bit, they, not unreasonably, wanted to leave. A letter from Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury from 1070, explains that they should be allowed to resume their secular lives if they really had entered a nunnery through fear, rather than any sense of vocation. 1066 was a deeply traumatic year and it took a nearly a century for chroniclers based in England to begin making sense of it. The film would have been better (and far less tedious) if we’d had less of the battles – there is only a certain number of ways you can film an army charging a shield-wall – and more of a focus on the aftermath: given many of the films characters were imagined, then why not do the same for the women, the effects of the murdrum fine (collective responsibility for the murder of a Norman), the Domesday surveys and so on.
Having said that, there were parts of the production, aside from strange helmets, that were deeply irritating. At the beginning we hear people speaking Old English (not Anglo-Saxon please), the Vikings speak Old Norse and the Normans, when they appear, unaccountably seem to speak perfect French. However, in quick order, we resort to modern English and funny accents, some of which are more successful than others: was Ordgar Irish, West Country or what? To speak of the Bayeux Tapestry as ‘woven’ while clearly showing women sewing is just daft. But above all, the whole ‘Little England’ approach was rather nauseating. I could just about stomach the Norman Conquest meets Tolkein, but the ending seemed more like a party political for UKIP.
I will be interested to see what my students, currently revising, made of this. It is not something I would use in teaching – it’s too uncritical of the sources. For anyone unfamiliar with 1066, it certainly wouldn’t expand their knowledge in any significant way or give them an understanding of why this year was so important in European (not just English or British) history: it obscures more than it explains. Standing on the field at Battle on my own, with students and at twilight with fellow Norman historians moved me, alas, this film didn’t.
you shouldn’t knock the film down so much, it’s supposed to be an enjoyable watch mixed with fact not time team. If they were speaking old english noone would understand it, it really doesnt matter. It’s a transalation like watching a dubbed world war 2 film in arabic, not necessarily accurate but for an arab to understand the plot it needs to be arabic. How would they show the effects of the murdrum fine? Women stumbling about crying how poor they were? How utterly boring, if the film was hastings post mortem i wouldn’t watch it, they’d have missed the best bit out.To complain about the viking helmets is picky in its self. Why is not mentioning Tostig nonsensical? Its from the perspective of the ordinary soldiers, you can’t expect the film to cover every aspect of why things happened. Just because he is not mentioned doesn’t mean the film CANNOT MAKE SENSE. I admit the sources were questionable but the film wasn’t made for revisionists to watch and go ‘AH, WRONG!’or a history lesson. It’s easy to be critical but i think the film makers did a good job considering the budget. If people want to know about the accuracy of the modern interpretation of helmets vikings wore they can check a textbook, i’m just glad they finally made a hastings film.
Hello Josh,
Two points.
1) To complain about anachronisms is not picky. When choosing to use artefacts, in this case helmets, so out of context, the producers are making an assumption about the past, i.e. that nothing changed between the eighth and eleventh centuries. It shows a lack of sensitivity to context and respect for the past. No one would seriously suggest that nothing changed between the seventeenth and twenty-first centuries, so why assume that for earlier centuries?
2) The aftermath of 1066 is far from boring. Women carried memories and stories of the battle and passed them down through the generations. England and then parts of Wales and Scotland, had to adjust to new rulers and laws. New customs and liturgies were introduced in cathedrals and monasteries. War does not just affect those in the front line of battle – that’s pretty short term – but resounds down the years.
This film was still an opportunity missed.
Whilst I agree with some of the comments by Gesta I tend to support Josh’s view. At last someone has made a film about the Battle of Hastings! The Lord of the Rings was a highly successful film – and not just with Tolkien readers. So if referring to Orcs and Middle Earth is what it takes to get people (not necessarily those still in education) interested in their own history that’s fine by me. Get them interested first, then worry about the helmets etc. Being pedantic can seriously put off people and that’s not what the director wanted. I hope enough people who have never considered pre-1066 English History (would there be many such people in a Channel 4 audience?) had their appetites wetted and have gone on to read up about the Anglo Saxons.
The topics covered were probably enough for a whole series which some of us would love, but that wasn’t the aim. A little taster, just to wake up the interest in those who might otherwise ‘not bother’.
My grandfather was born in Harold Terrace and brought up on Caldbec Hill in Battle. My ancestors come from East Sussex and Kent. But my grandmother said the ancestors probably came over with the Conqueror, fell on the nearest women and never moved!!! I sincerely hope not, but she may have been referring to their potency – no family with less than 10 children!!!
I think the comparison to the Lord of the Rings movies has a different message. The movies changed numerous things compared to the original books, but they kept the key sense of the story and the motivations of the main characters.
In comparison, this seemed to present the motivations of the people displayed in a fashion that mirrored a 2nd World War film. All “English” people were rugged individualists fighting for their land and families. All “Norman” people were evil bloodthirsty killers just after the land, with the exception of the “good Nazi” (sorry, Norman) who had been coerced into it by threats against his family.
So it wasn’t so much a modern presentation of medieval history, as a live action medieval-themed cartoon.
Hello Valerie,
If this programme had been advertised as anything but a docu-drama, I would have had considerably fewer problems with it. As it was advertised as a docu-drama it was incumbent on the producers to get details right: using helmets obviously earlier was a mistake for reasons I outlined above (and that was just one example).
Like you, I do wonder how many viewers had no knowledge of earlier medieval history. I suspect not many.
Thank you for including the oral tradition about your ancestors passed on from your grandmother. We are as much Norman as we are Saxon, Dane or Celt (something the film forgot).
Looking forward to the next series of Timewatch on BBC2.
Whilst I was not personally bothered by the helmets – not knowing any better – I can easily understand the frustration of those who do know, and it seems so unnecessary to make these errors when the wardrobe clearly had access to helmets of the correct design.
More worrying was the total demonisation of the Normans. There was a sop to current Frenchmen in making a Breton a minor hero, but the final caption about 1/5 of the UK still being owned by Norman descendants left me wondering just what the makers were trying to achieve politically – the final overthrow of the House of Lords or just higher inheritance tax? As a member of a family – disinherited some 3 centuries ago when they became Quakers – who can trace our ancestry back to William himself I had to keep reminding myself that this was the writer’s attempt to show us how the English at the time experienced the conquest.
However, like Gesta, I found the whole too long – it could have been condensed into one evening’s film – and lacking in details.
Hello Rikki,
Yes, the Normans were made out to be particularly brutal. I think the producers’ interpretation of the Conquest owed more to E.A. Freeman than any current historiography and it was just one of the many reasons that the film left a bitter taste in my mouth. What an awful lot of people forget is that many landholders had been disinherited following the invasion of Cnut in 1016 and also that Edward the Confessor’s mother, Emma, was a Norman.
I completely agree, this was actually boring. Slow, ponderous, and without much substance. The battle scenes were actually quite poor.
And it wasn’t in the least bit accurate. The moment they said that Harold ‘took the throne for himself’ I realised we were in trouble.
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Thanks for this post. I definitely agree with what you are saying. I have been talking about this subject a lot lately with my father so hopefully this will get him to see my point of view. Fingers crossed!
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