Coffee and the Crusades LIVE Q&A - 10.14.22 - Battle of Hastings

As a young child, he became the Duke of Normandy, a position he inherited from his father. As a young man, he set out on one of the most daring projects of the Middle Ages, the invasion of England. At Hastings, the charge of William's Norman knights was pitted against Harold Godwinson's axe-wielding infantry. By bloody conquest, William imposed Norman rule on an Anglo-Saxon kingdom, and through an even bloodier occupation, William maintained that rule. Down to this very day, the controversy persists. Some believe that William, by establishing closer ties between France and England, helped to put England at the forefront of medieval civilization, and thus increased the country's long-term power, wealth, and innovation. Others view William as a hostile invader, who despoiled English law, imposed an unjust foreign tyranny, and inflicted decades of horrific suffering on the English people. Regardless of the debate, there's no denying the significance of William's life and career, which would leave an impact that can still be felt to this day. William's father was Duke Robert the Magnificent. By the 1030s, when William was a small child, he was already being treated as his father's potential heir. In 1035, William, probably only seven or eight years old, took part in a ceremony in which he acknowledged his father's grant to an important Norman noble. During this ceremony, William received a blow. This was meant to be a physical manifestation of the pact to which all could refer in the future should any disputes arise. The Normans believed that a small boy would remember the agreement better by the blow he'd endured. It's surprising to moderns to imagine a child being subjected to such a ritual. And yet, for the Normans, this was vital to the initiation of their sons into the world of knightly politics, in which the mutual obligations between vassal and lord were at the heart of society. As son of the Duke, William received a princely education. With his tutor, he learned basic Latin. He also was educated in the ethics and traditions of the Norman elite. And of course, William was trained to be a knight, perfecting the art of cavalry warfare in which his people excelled. He learned to fight in a group of mounted Normans. He was taught to steer hot-blooded warhorses while wielding his shield and lance. A good portion of William's education came from his own father, Duke Robert, who personally imparted his skills to his son. Like all medieval princes, William was brought up with a group of aristocratic boys who would become the central core of his knights. Among these were his cousin, Guy of Burgundy, and William FitzOsborne, both of whom were like brothers to William. In 1035, Duke Robert, to many, William's plan to conquer England must have seemed like some mad, desperate quest. He planned to invade one of the wealthiest and strongest kingdoms in Northern Europe. Some of his advisors took a realist position and urged him to abandon the project, but history is rarely decided by realists. On one side of the English Channel lay the Duchy of Normandy. Its ruler was Duke Robert I, a descendant of Vikings known to some as Robert the Devil and to others, Robert the Magnificent. At his court, Duke Robert fostered a young exile, Edward, son of a deposed English king. The boy Edward would himself eventually become Edward the Confessor, King of England. In 1035, Duke Robert died while returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. His illegitimate son, William, took the throne. Viking blood and a turbulent youth gave William a hard, practical personality, but he was also a man of considerable vision, able to foresee opportunity where others saw only danger. William's early years were spent overcoming rebellious vassals and resisting attacks by his own overlord, King of France. By 1060, William had secured Normandy from internal and external dangers. His thoughts increasingly turned to an invasion of England, so seductively close, just beyond the narrow English Channel. William already had some ties to England. His father's one-time ward, Edward the Confessor, had become King of England in 1042. Edward has often been described as a withdrawn and unwarlike man. The kingdom's true power lay with Edward's brother-in-law, Harold Godwinson, one of Anglo-Saxon England's leading nobles, who acted almost as a second king. When Edward the Confessor died childless on January 5th, 1066, the Anglo-Saxon nobles selected Harold to take the throne. Harold, who had been at Edward's side as he took his final breaths, insisted that the late king had said that he wished him to succeed to the throne. Harold Godwinson quickly proved to be an energetic and formidable ruler. In September of 1066, he defeated an invasion led by Harold Hardrada of Norway, a fierce adventurer king of the old Viking variety. Meanwhile, in Normandy, Duke William's own army was too small to invade England alone, and so he worked tirelessly to recruit allies. Brittany, Flanders, and even the new Norman states of southern Italy would all contribute troops to William's coalition. But William also sought spiritual legitimacy for his campaign. A Norman embassy visited Pope Alexander II in Rome, arguing that Harold Godwinson was an usurper, and that in fact, Edward the Confessor had promised the throne to William during a meeting between the two in 1051. The claim was not entirely outlandish, as Edward and William were distant cousins, and Edward had taken refuge at the court of William's father. Pope Alexander decided to endorse the invasion. William had already proved himself a reliable supporter of the papacy's reform effort, and this made him an attractive ally. The Pope sent William a papal banner to carry into battle. The bayou tapestry illustrates the intense preparation for William's campaign. The gathering of men and horses, the felling of trees for the building of ships, the loading of provisions. At last, on September 27, William's ships were launched across the channel. The Norman army landed at Pevensey, and soon established a base at Hastings. The Battle of Hastings was fought on October 14. Harold organized his troops in front of a forest, at the top of a steep slope. An enemy would be forced to attack uphill. The Anglo-Saxon warriors, houseguards, fought as an infantry force, standing in a tight shield wall formation, ready to smash any attacker with their enormous axes. William hoped to overwhelm the Anglo-Saxon infantry with Norman cavalry. On their fearsome warhorses, Norman knights were formidable indeed, able to deliver a devastating charge, famous for shattering infantry formations. After his archers unleashed arrows at the sturdy houseguards, the Norman knights moved in. At first, the houseguards did indeed hold the advantage. Beating back Norman charges as quickly as they were deployed, the fighting was fierce and bloody. Confusion began to spread through the Norman ranks, and at one point, rumors spread that Duke William himself had been slain. This caused one Norman contingent to fall back in a panic, but William himself rode out to rally them, famously lifting up his helmet to show his face, crying out, Seeing their enemies break, some of the English rushed to give pursuit. When the Normans rallied, they defeated these English divisions. Later, William organized a number of feigned retreat maneuvers, which drew more English troops into pursuit, allowing the Normans to swing around and crush their pursuers. Late in the day, King Harold himself fell in battle, traditionally from an arrow wound to the eye. This proved to be the decisive moment. Many of the English troops broke and fled, though the royal bodyguards stood firm, fighting to the death. The Norman cavalry mowed down the fleeing troops. The battle was over. The Normans were victorious. Duke William was now William the Conqueror. The field was littered with corpses, but William searched for the body of Harold, so battered and bloody as to be virtually unrecognizable. William apparently had the body of the last Anglo-Saxon king buried by the sea, since Harold had so strongly stood in defense of the coast. William's victory at Hastings was only the beginning of the Norman capture of England. Some of the Anglo-Saxon nobility tried to resist his conquest, but William harried the countryside, brutally suppressing any resistance. Ultimately, William was crowned king on Christmas at Westminster Abbey, and so began the age of Norman England. William the Conqueror is widely known to have been the illegitimate son of Robert I, Duke of Normandy. In light of the earth-shattering Norman conquest of England in 1066, much has been made of the circumstances of William's birth. Was this Norman upstart who took England by force even the rightful Duke of Normandy? Over the centuries, William's detractors have delighted in pointing out that he was supposedly born on the wrong side of the sheets. But how accurate is this idea? Today, on Real Crusades History, we will explore this question. William was born in either 1027 or 1028. His father was the Duke of Normandy, Robert the Magnificent. His mother was Herleva, a Norman maiden of obscure origins. Herleva most likely sprang from the ministerial class, the urban bourgeoisie from which the Norman dukes traditionally recruited their lesser court servants. The tradition holds that Robert was deeply attached to Herleva, and that the two enjoyed a close relationship. One fanciful story describes Herleva, after lying with the duke, dreaming of a tree that sprang from her body and covered the whole of Normandy. However, Robert and Herleva were never married, according to the rules of the Christian church. Today, people wonder at this illegitimate son becoming not only Duke of Normandy, but King of England. But how did the Normans of the mid-11th century, William's contemporaries, view the relationship between his parents? How was William himself viewed by his own society? Did the Normans consider William's birth to be socially disadvantaged? The 11th century was an age of great change. The centuries-long integration of Roman, pagan, and Christian heritage into the civilization of Christendom was reaching its apogee. The Normans themselves were latecomers to this process, having recently been pagan Vikings. Increasingly, they were conforming themselves to church law, and yet many old traditions persisted. The Historia Normanorum, written in the late 10th, early 11th century by Dudo of St. Quentin, contains a highly revealing eulogy on Christian marriage. The language shows that the Normans were determined to betray themselves as models of Christian legitimacy. For the Normans, Christian marriage was now clearly the ideal, and yet the keeping of concubines endured. William's great-grandfather famously married Gunnor after having kept her as a concubine. The Burgundian monk and chronicler, Ralph Glaber, reveals much about William's early status. He tells us that while Duke Robert had no son born of a Christian marriage, it was a long-standing custom of the Normans to take their rulers from among the sons of their chieftain's concubines. Ralph, as a churchman, expresses his personal distress at this idea, but he also points out that, according to the standards of the Norman warrior elite, William should be considered Duke Robert's legitimate son who could legally succeed his father. So while the Normans, in theory, had adopted the church's view of marriage, in practical terms, they still, at times, operated via older methods. William's very name is indicative of his status. The naming of noble children was not a random affair in the medieval era. A high-ranking family drew upon a collection of names to indicate status, and William's name was certainly among the ducal stock. Historian David Bates says that any notion of William having a socially disadvantaged childhood because of the circumstances of his birth is a total myth. It was only later, long after William's death, that his so- How's everybody doing today? Welcome to Coffee and the Crusades, the Real Crusades History live-streaming show on the Real Crusades live-streaming channel. It is October 14th. Is the audio sounding good to everybody? Let me know in the chat. Happy to see everybody here. Coffee and the Crusades, where we talk about all things medieval history, live on the Real Crusades live-streaming channel. It is October 14th. So everybody, if you could guess what is significant about October 14th. I actually got up this morning and didn't even realize that- I kind of forgot that this was such an important day, but this is an important day. This is a landmark event that happened back in 1066. It's the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, of course, where the Normans conquered England. And so I've kind of been thinking about William the Conqueror and the Normans and their legacy. Really, one of those really interesting aspects of the 11th century, probably the most important aspect of the 11th century, are the Normans. On the one hand, they've been viewed as thugs bent on nothing but conquest. And, you know, let's face it, it's easy to see why they were viewed that way or are still viewed that way. And at the time, there were certainly a lot of people who viewed them that way. We've got some great images from the Bayou Tapestry. They've also been viewed and are still viewed today as the great state builders of the 11th century, the most innovative and important, perhaps, group in the 11th century who sort of helped usher in the high Middle Ages. I think we can certainly look at the conquest of England. Oh, that's kind of... Let's see here. There's something on that image right there that may not be okay for YouTube. Anyway, where was I? I think we look at the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066. I mean, we are looking at the most ambitious and the most large-scale and skillful expedition, conquest, expansion of power since the era of Charlemagne, really. And the Normans were the ones who were really making that happen during this period. The next thing that's going to happen, of course, is the First Crusade, which is going to be led by several important Normans, one of them William the Conqueror's son. And I think there are some parallels between the conquest of England in 1066 and the First Crusade. Of course, the First Crusade is much more... Well, it's universally regarded as a good thing in the Latin Christian world during the time and since. Well, of course, today there are different opinions, but throughout the history of the Latin Christian world in the Middle Ages and into the early modern era, it was regarded positively, whereas the Norman conquest of England, there's a bit more ambivalence about it, even at the time. Let's go ahead and read. We'll get to some questions here. This is a quote from William the Conqueror at his death. And this is the thing that's interesting about medieval Christian civilization, is the way that it insisted on requiring its rulers to fess up to the wrong that they'd done, which I think is a rare thing in history. This is from William the Conqueror himself. I have persecuted its native inhabitants beyond all reason. Whether gentle or simple, I have cruelly oppressed them. Many I unjustly disinherited. Innumerable multitudes, especially in the county of York, perished through me by famine or the sword. And of course, he's talking about the brutal harrowing of the North that came in, I believe it was 1069, a few years after the conquest of England because the North was an area where there was the concentration of some resistance. And William put that down through an absolutely brutal campaign of terror where he burned the farmlands, which of course caused widespread famine. I know we have some chroniclers from the time talking about orphaned children showing up at monasteries starving to death, which is something I personally can't get out of my mind when I think about William the Conqueror. When you become a parent, these kind of things hit closer to home for you too. You know, that is the reality of medieval warfare, sort of the often overlooked brutality that accompanied medieval warfare because one of the things that accompanies medieval warfare is usually the devastation of crops. And what William did in the harrowing of the North was particularly, particularly brutal. Oh, I think we, oh, sorry. Particularly brutal because he was trying to wipe out the ability of that region to be a hub of resistance. It wasn't really about devastating the local people. It was about preventing, you know, the Scandinavians or, you know, different rebel groups who might want to land there and make it a bastion for resistance. And so he wiped the region out and that caused widespread famine. There are some historians who think that it's been overstated. One of those is R.L. Brown. And this is a book that if you guys are looking for a really good book about the Norman Conquest, R. Allen Brown, The Normans and the Norman Conquest. This is a guy who is pretty pro-Norman. He was an English scholar, wrote pretty extensively about the Normans. But this is an interesting book. And he tends to argue in favor of William's Conquest, that it was a beneficial thing long term. So, you know, you guys can tell me what you think of that. But now that we've read that little quote from William himself, where he was, he's castigating his sins. And again, that's something I really find refreshing about medieval Christian civilization. In most societies, when a leader does something like that, it's, they're not gonna, they're not gonna fess up to it. And, you know, that fear of God was such a real thing in the medieval world. And that's why he was, you know, when William was dying, he felt eternity breathing down his neck, like so many rulers. And he did his best to make up for the evil that he'd done. But I think, you know, people with power always do. I mean, it's just a reality in history that they do. They do things that are unsavory. I think, you know, it might be possible to argue that it's not possible. I mean, this is probably one of the oldest debates in philosophy is the idea that is it possible to wield power without doing evil? But this is something that was taken, this is a concept that was taken seriously in the medieval world. And elites, rulers felt this keenly. And it's interesting how, you know, the society kind of held them to account in ways that through much of history, that's just not, it's just, I mean, it's just, it's impossible to think of a ruler admitting that they had done something wrong. Anyway, but having discussed that, this is from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle from 1087. So this is from an Anglo-Saxon perspective, discussing William the Conqueror and his rule of England. Among other things, it is not to be forgotten the good peace that he made in this land, so that a man who had any confidence in himself might go over his realm with his bosom full of gold unhurt, nor durst any man slay another man, had he done ever so great evil to the other. And if any common man lay with a woman against her will, he forthwith lost the members that he had sinned with. He truly reigned over England and by his capacity, so thoroughly surveyed it, that there was not a hide of land within England that he knew not who had it or what it was worth, and afterwards set it down in his writ. Well, that last part's just kind of like, you want to make sure he knew how rich he was. But it is interesting, he talks about this, the peace in England and the stability. And this is something that we can't overlook about the Normans, is that, yes, they were brutal conquerors. Yes, they committed brutal acts in the process of conquests and they caused suffering, but they also created the most stable and the most effective governments of the period, in which people were able to prosper. Some of the chaos of kind of private warfare that was going on in other parts of Christendom at the time was not a feature in William the Conqueror's Normandy and in William the Conqueror's England. And, you know, it's arguable, like for example, this guy, Brown, argues that William and the Normans brought stability to England that had not been there previously. And it's kind of forgotten sometimes. You know, there's kind of this notion that, oh, well, William showed up and just conquered England from the legitimate ruler, the legitimate Anglo-Saxon king. But Harold Godwinson was not from the traditional royal line. He was not from Alfred the Great's line. Edward the Confessor, who had died in 1066, in January of 1066, I believe it was, he had been, but there's some indication that he was pretty, well, not just indication, we know he was pretty close to the Normans. At one point, I can't remember at what point this was, but there was a Norman noblewoman who married into the English royal family. And Edward the Confessor does seem to have had a proclivity for the Normans. And William the Conqueror argued that he left the kingdom to him. Now, Harold Godwinson, of course, argued that on his deathbed, Edward the Confessor had left the kingdom to him. So that's kind of the reality, I think, about the Norman conquest of England, is it's not really, before William engaged in this endeavor, he didn't just say, you know what? I want England. I'm going to get an army together and go take it. He spent a lot of time trying to justify his claim to England. He tried to convince the Pope of this, and he was successful. The Pope granted William a papal banner to take on this campaign, which is kind of a stunning thing in some ways. It was a campaign against Christians, but the idea behind it was that England had faltered in implementing the reforms of the reformed papacy. And because of that, it was justified to have the Norman Duke, who was an ally to the Pope and who was implementing those reforms. And that's another thing, too, about William. I mean, he was very much in line with the papacy, the reformed papacy and their ideas about the type of men who should be running the church in Normandy. The one thing he disagreed with the Pope on was who should get to appoint those men. But it's interesting, the reformed popes, while they really held their enemies to that, like, for example, the Holy Roman Emperor Henry, who endlessly fought with the Pope over this issue of who would get to appoint the bishops, when it came to his allies, the Pope just tended to let them appoint the bishops so long as those bishops were in line with the reform ideas, which there was motivation for rulers like William the Conqueror to appoint such bishops, bishops who were approved or who were in line with the reform ideas. Because, well, that's a whole other thing. We can get into that. But that is kind of interesting. I mean, maybe a bit hypocritical. I guess we could debate that. But yeah, the Normans, like, for example, Roger of Sicily, the Norman conqueror of Sicily, basically controlled the church in Sicily. He appointed the bishops. He was officially recognized as the papal legate, which is kind of unheard of. He was a layman. But this is something that the popes, the reformed popes did with their allies. They let them control the churches in their realm. And part of that was because they had to do that. Because if you're going up against the Holy Roman Emperor and you're trying to struggle with him, you do have to have some lay support. And the reality is that to have the support of somebody like William the Conqueror or Roger of Sicily, you did have to let them pretty much control the church in their realm. Because that's how important the church was at the time. Some of the most important components of the army, the Norman army, were knights who were owed by the abbeys. But, you know, the Normans were instrumental in implementing the reform. So history is complex. It's full of contradictions and issues that endlessly have to be unpacked. But I'm curious what you guys think. I don't want to ramble too much about the Normans. But what do you guys think about the Norman conquest of England and the Battle of Hastings? Certainly that was a battle that I think, you know, it's almost one of those clear things that we can see the early medieval world versus the high medieval world. I mean, you've got a traditional Anglo-Saxon infantry-based army, the sort of army that Alfred the Great would have employed for the most part with some updated equipment against, you know, heavy Norman cavalry and very effective Frankish archery. That's another thing. I mean, the infantry employed by the Normans was not just sort of a rabble the way some people might imagine. I mean, we look at some of the imagery. Let's even see if we can see some of it. We have armored archers at the Battle of Hastings. So this was not just a ramshackle affair of undisciplined infantry. Yeah, right here. Look at this. You guys can see right here the front of this image in the Bayou Tapestry. We've got a couple different types of archers here. We've got guys who are not armored. But then right here, we got this guy who's got a halberd. He's an archer. So, you know, what does that tell us? Was he a professional archer? Was he somebody who was just wealthy enough to afford that stuff? But the archers were very effective at the Battle of Hastings. The whole army worked so well together. I mean, that's the thing. That's why William won that battle. It's because of the command and control. Because he was able to really control his whole army in ways that Harold Godwinson was not. So it's pretty intriguing. All right, let's see here. What else do we have? I love the Bayou Tapestry. It's endlessly fascinating to just look at this stuff and consider what it says to us. I've read before that because they think that the seamstresses who did this were probably English, that it's possible that some of the details they get about the Norman equipment might be wrong. But anyway. So it looks like you guys have a lot of questions in the chat about the Crusades instead of the Norman conquest of England, which is okay, which is okay. And I wanna invite you guys tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern time, 7 p.m. Central time, we're gonna do a live stream where we show the purgatory scene from Knights of the Cross. Oh, cool, look at this. We got a question here. And that's gonna be on the main Real Crusades History channel. I'll do a post on it on Facebook. Lawrence writes, some Saxons broke from the ranks when Normans were repelled, then were isolated and killed. Yeah, exactly. Harold wasn't really able to control everything that was going on in his army, whereas William was. And even when things kind of went badly for the Normans, William was able to get things to kind of come together again. He was able to regroup the different units. And the Normans had the most advanced cavalry units in the West at the time. And it wasn't just Normans. I mean, this was something that was, you know, the other Northern French groups who were involved at this battle were exhibiting similar types of cavalry tactics. These groups of men who trained together in groups of like five to 10. And then that unit was a part of a conroy, which was a somewhat larger group. But you had smaller groups that were then also attached to larger groups and they could operate effectively. I mean, this is not poorly organized stuff. I mean, it's kind of amazing when you think about how in the 19th century there was this idea that, well, you know, in the middle ages, there was no strategy. It was all just guys running around hitting each other with swords. This is what some of the Victorians thought, you know, and it's just crazy. I mean, the abilities of the Norman generals were just as high as at any point in history. I mean, it was, you know, this was not an incapable rabble. Okay, let's get to questions now. So Lawrence had a good one. And Bleak says, hello, you made it here today. And if anybody wants to send a paid question, I will keep an eye on the Super Chats or Power Chats in our case. Description down below, you've got the Power Chat link if you guys are interested. Chris says, I have seen a replica of the tapestry in Houston back in 2012. I wish I could have seen that. That would have been amazing. Oh, here's one from Sheila. Sheila says, I always felt a little salty about William the Conqueror only because I admired Alfred the Great and his legacy. However, we wouldn't have the Great Plantagenet Dynasty without William. Yeah, you know, I do think we do have to kind of face the fact that England at the time of the Norman Conquest was kind of still stuck in that earlier period, you know, the Alfred the Great era. And things were moving forward quite rapidly in Northern France. You know, this was where Latin Christendom was coming of age and suddenly you had the ability to project force in ways that were impossible previously. This was going to lead to the Crusades. This was going to lead to the expansive power of Latin Christendom, which is so striking, which the Muslims, you know, Ibn al-Athir marvels at in his chronicle, how all of a sudden in the late 11th century, the Franks were everywhere and they were attacking everybody and they were really tough to deal with. This group that, you know, I mean, let's put it this way. The Arabs were not afraid of Charlemagne. I mean, not on any grand level. I mean, the Carolingians did take out some of the Muslim holdings on the toe of France and, you know, in Catalonia, but it was a very different thing once we get into the late 11th century and we've got the Normans and this great push from the North of France that's going to change everything. And, you know, England was very much brought into that with the Normans. I think we kind of have to consider that. Okay, so Chris says, I wonder if it comes to people liking Anglo-Saxons more so than the Normans. Part of it is in the English-speaking world, there's this tendency, you know, if we look at the Victorians and that period to identify with the Anglo-Saxons, even though, you know, they're not yet the modern English or British. I mean, they were their own thing. They are at the root of that, but Anglo-Saxon is not modern English. Again, it is at the root of it, but, you know, modern English includes a lot of the legacy of the Normans as well. So the Normans do play a pretty key role in creating what became England and the English-speaking people. What was the first last battle led by the Crusaders? Arguably, the Great Turkish War in the 1680s was the last time a Pope issued a crusade bull is what some historians speculate. What else are you guys thinking about today? Troy, what is the correct orientation to fly the red, white, and black Templar flag? I'm not sure which flag you're talking about there, Troy. I can't remember if the white, now that you bring that up, I can't remember if the white or the black is on top in most of the images we see, but if you look at the pictures, you can see. Blake, I don't remember the exact number, but how many troops could the military orders field in Outremer? It varies depending on the time, but I mean, early on, it was not many, and then at a certain point, it became substantial. It was one of the most substantial components of the army, certainly by the time of the Battle of Mochisard in 1177. Lambert, how long did the economy created by the Kingdom of Jerusalem last? Was commerce still possible after the raising done by the Mamluks? Did Cyprus effectively take over as the hub of trade? Interesting questions, Lambert. The Kingdom of Jerusalem's economic boom lasted all through its high points, the mid to late 12th century into the early 13th century, and it really started to decline to some extent with the Mongols, but most importantly with the Mamluks, for sure. And no, that entire region really collapsed after the Mamluk conquests. An interesting thing to think about. It's one thing we don't often hear about with the Crusader States is the fact that they turned the coast of Palestine into such an economically prosperous region during that period, whereas it previously and afterwards had not been. And Cyprus did become an important trade hub. It was before and it continued to be after that. What else do we have here? You guys are talking about the Ohio flag. We're not gonna talk about the Ohio flag today, but let's see here from Sheila. I thought the Normans hacked Harold's body up on purpose. Am I perhaps thinking of someone else? I believe that his body was pretty hacked up. The idea is that his mistress, Edith Swanneck, identified it, which is a really great story. I think it's most likely more of a legendary sort of thing, but William did have his body buried in a somewhat respectful manner. Tom Jensen, I bought a Templar Sergeant hoodie and t-shirt. Well, thanks, Tom. I appreciate that. Yeah, just FYI, guys, description down below. You can check out the products, the gear at the Real Crusades History Store, which speaking of which, I am wearing the Battle of Hastings shirt today, of course, because it is Hastings Day. You can pick that up in the store too, in the description below. And this is the Battle of Hastings mug, which interestingly, looks like Sheila says she got a Battle of Hastings coffee mug. So very cool. This is it. So it's Hastings Day, October 14th. And before we go, I would kind of like to hear from some of you guys, what are your thoughts about the Battle of Hastings? What do you guys think? What do you think about William's claim? William's claim that he was a rightful heir to the throne of England? Lawrence, did Edward the Confessor's promise to gift England to William was under duress? Did William just invent that as an excuse to invade England? We don't know. We really don't know. According to William, because he was related to Edward, that is why he was given that status by Edward. Was it under duress? That doesn't seem likely. Edward had a good relationship with the Normans. He had a lot of Norman clergymen in his kingdom. In fact, that was one of the things that some of the Anglo-Saxons didn't like about Edward was that he seemed a little too friendly with the Normans. Did William just invent this as an excuse to invade England? He may have. That's the thing. We really don't know the truth behind, you know, behind who really had the best claim. Now, if you guys want to read a very pro-William argument on that, R. Allen Brown in The Normans and the Norman Conquest, he argues that, of course, William had the claim. Of course, he did. And that Harold Godwinson had absolutely no claim. And it is true that Harold Godwinson did act as kind of a rebel at times. There's speculation that he was kind of bullying Edward the Confessor. Edward the Confessor was married to his sister and they had a poor relationship, apparently. There's some indication that possibly Harold was kind of ruling behind the throne and sort of plotting to take the throne away from Edward's dynasty and make it his own. And indeed, he did lead. He did engage in some rebellious activity, some rebel fighting that did cause some devastation in England. You know, so we shouldn't just think that only the Normans caused warfare in England. England had been a bit of a battleground for a long time. In fact, despite the brutality of the Norman Conquest, one thing that does happen after that is it ends this great contest, you know, over who's going to rule England, like the various Scandinavian powers who were trying to control England. There had been a lot of brutal fighting. England was kind of right there at the hub of some great powers and the Norman Conquest ends that. I mean, you know, by the time we get to Richard the Lionheart's period, England is the peaceful and prosperous and unaffected by war. I mean, that's one of the reasons why Richard didn't spend a lot of time there. People always say, oh, he didn't spend any time in England. Well, England was at peace. He was where the fighting was, and England was prosperous and unaffected by, you know, the real fighting between France and the Angevins on the continent. Okay, let's do a couple more. Let's do a couple more questions here. Let's see here. What are the results of the Battle of Hastings? Decisive Norman victory. We have Ellen from Ashen Ringlet saying hi. What's going on, Ellen? Connor, would English succession law have allowed Edward to gift England to William or would it have automatically passed to someone else? Well, exactly. Part of the problem here is that Edward the Confessor did not have a direct heir. So the question was, who had the rightful claim? And the Norman Dukes did have some type of arguable claim because, again, I can't remember who was the Norman... Okay, I'm going to employ some of you guys as official researchers here. Who was the Norman woman who married into the English royal family? Or was it the wife of King Knute, maybe? Somebody looked that up. Was it Emma? Her name was Emma, I think. Somebody looked that up for me. Let's see here. Ten more questions, please. No, I'm going to have to go. I do need to get back to work. And I'll tell you what, guys. We'll kind of end with a couple of announcements here. I am going to be very busy over the next couple months. One of the things that happens when you plug away long enough at YouTube is you start getting advertisers who want to work with you. And that's a good thing. It helps keep the channel going. And right now, there's a lot of that in the pike. So there's going to be a lot of content on the main channel over the next couple of months. So you guys will have a lot of stuff to watch. So I'm glad for that. But I am going to announce today, officially, I am going to cut this live stream down to just on Tuesdays. Just to kind of try to stay on track with all the work I've got. So that's going to start effectively next week. And I think that should be enough, right? That'll be enough of you guys listening to me ramble about stuff. So yeah, Tuesdays is going to be Coffee and the Crusades from now on, noon Eastern time. Same time, 11 a.m. Central time. So we'll keep that going. And also, if everybody would please join us this evening on the main Real Crusades History channel for our live stream, where we do some updates about Knights of the Cross. So yeah, I will see you guys on Tuesday. And also, I will see you this evening with Austin Kelly. We'll do some updates on Knights of the Cross. We'll watch a scene from the pilot. So that'll be good. And I will talk to you guys then. All the best.