ABSTRACT
When William, Duke of Normandy, was crowned King of England by Ealdred, Archbishop of York, at Westminster on Christmas Day 1066, he could reflect that he had within his grasp a prize so glittering that it outshone the gains made by any other eleventh-century military commander. If, indeed, as William of Malmesbury later claimed, he was accustomed to pump up his courage by telling himself that it would be dishonourable to appear any less brave than Robert Guiscard-a Norman of inferior rank and relative penury who, nevertheless, had established his dominion in a large part of Apulia-then, on that Christmas Day, he had cause to believe that he had outstripped even Guiscard’s achievement (Jamison 1938:247). The actual invasion had been a very great risk; only the scale of the pickings had made it worthwhile. The need to cross the Channel meant that England could not have been conquered by attrition, nor could it have been invaded in secret. To gain England William had had to assemble a formidable and expensive army, ship it across to Sussex, and defeat Harold Godwinson, a man who was William’s equal in courage and energy and who had, moreover, the advantage of fighting on his own ground, backed by the resources of a rich country.
