POLI 4040 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Pospolite Ruszenie, Arquebus, Muzzleloader
Document Summary
The battle of hastings took place in 1066 between king harold ii of england and william, duke of normandy. William (the norman) faced harold (the english) with many less men than the english, but much better militant tactics. King harold had about 10,000 housecarl and fyrd armed with danish battle-axes. On the other hand, william had fewer men but deployed the troops in three parallel corps; each corps consisted of bowmen, heavy infantry, and mailed horsemen. The battle began with the norman bowmen attacking the english, but they could not defeat the near- impenetrable wall of shields the english had made. William then sent in his heavy infantry but the english defeated them with javelins as they hiked up the hill. After some of the norman flanks began retreating, the english chased after them breaking their ranks. William then led his heavy calvary into battle to break the remaining flanks of english soldiers.
