Note 84 — PART II HISTORICAL STUDIES

The words 'and the lighter troops behind them', which originally followed here, have been objected to by Miss Norgate, who had originally made the same statement,84 but who now wishes to withdraw it.85 Henry of Huntingdon, however—like Æthelred, a contemporary authority—agrees with him in describing the dismounted knights, men with shields and loricæ like the 'housecarls' at Hastings, as forming an 'iron wall' along the English front.86 If then mailed warriors formed the front line, it is difficult to see where the 'inermis plebs', as Æthelred terms it, could be but 'behind them'. The fact is that the Battle of the Standard, for which we have excellent authorities, is of no small value for the study of the Battle of Hastings, as my opponents seem to be uncomfortably aware. 'The tactics,' Mr Freeman admits, 'were English.' We find there again the same dense array,87 the same tactics for defence, though now rendered less passive by the development of the bowman.88 There can, I think, be little question, if we combine the several accounts, that the Standard, with the older chiefs around it, formed the kernel of the host;89 that the rude levies of the shire were massed round about them;90 and that the outer rim was formed by the mailed knights, with the archers crouching for shelter behind their 'iron wall'.