Note 139 — Chapter V · THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE CONQUEST AND THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS
Reading edition
It is probable that the expressions in certain later authorities (e.g. W. M., ii., 302, “pedites omnes cum bipennibus conserta ante se testudine”) from which the formation by the English of a definite shield or wall has been inferred mean no more than this. The “bord weal” of earlier Anglo-Saxon warfare may also be explained as a poetical phrase for a line of troops in close order.
See Round, Feudal England, 360–366.