A History of Rameslie and The Battle of Hastings

What if the landscape of the Norman invasion was larger, more complicated and less securely understood than we have assumed? Where exactly did William’s forces come ashore? Across what landscape did they move? And where should archaeologists now look for the physical evidence of the Battle of Hastings and its dead?A History of Rameslie and the Battle of Hastings brings together medieval history, landscape reconstruction and archaeology to offer new proposals for investigating some of the most enduring mysteries of 1066.At its centre is Rameslie, an extensive religious estate in Sussex which passed into the possession of the great Norman Abbey of Fécamp. Its lands were intimately connected with Hastings, Rye, Old Winchelsea and the coastal landscape into which Duke William’s invasion fleet arrived. That connection raises important questions about Norman knowledge of the area before the invasion and about how the events of September and October 1066 should be reconstructed.The book re-examines William’s preparations, the Channel crossing and the traditional picture of the Norman landing. Rather than treating the invasion as a single event confined to one familiar location, it considers the practical problems of bringing a vast fleet, thousands of men, horses, weapons and supplies ashore and explores a wider invasion landscape and additional possible landing areas along the Sussex coast.It then turns to the Battle of Hastings itself. Medieval chronicles, the Bayeux Tapestry, the development of Battle Abbey, antiquarian discoveries, landscape evidence and modern archaeology are brought together to reconsider where the fighting may have extended beyond the conventionally understood battlefield. The slopes, valleys, former wetlands and approaches around Battle are examined as possible components of a much larger battlefield landscape.Particular attention is given to one of the great archaeological mysteries of 1066: where are the dead? The book reconsiders the evidence for Norman casualties and burial and proposes areas in which modern archaeological investigation might test theories about the extent of the fighting and the treatment of the fallen.Behind these new proposals lies an extraordinary and little-known history. An abbess at Wareham in Dorset, the murder of a king at Corfe, a monastery near Oxford, the reign of Cnut and the Norman Abbey of Fécamp all become connected with Rameslie. Its story stretches from before the Norman Conquest to 1247, when the English Crown recovered Rye and Old Winchelsea as the political danger of strategically important English ports remaining in the possession of a French monastery became increasingly apparent.Part history, part archaeological investigation and part historical detective story, this book argues that the landscape of 1066 still has questions to answer and that some of the physical evidence for the Norman invasion and the Battle of Hastings may yet remain undiscovered beneath the Sussex landscape.In this unique book, David EP Dennis takes the reader through two centuries of medieval intrigue and into a new investigation of one of the most famous, but still surprisingly mysterious, events in English history.