Senlac Hill

Coordinates: 50°54′43″N 0°29′15″E / 50.91194°N 0.48750°E / 50.91194; 0.48750

Senlac Hill (or Senlac Ridge) is the location where Harold Godwinson deployed his army for the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066. The name Senlac was popularised by the Victorian historian E.A. Freeman based solely on a description of the battle by the Anglo-Norman chronicler Orderic Vitalis. Freeman went on to suggest that the Normans nicknamed the area Blood lake as a pun on the English Sand lake.

It is not improbable that Orderic would have known the English name for Senlac as he spent his early life in England having been born to an English mother. His education, towards the end of his time in England, was from an English monk. However, Freeman's hypothesis has been criticised by other historians as it relies purely on the evidence from Orderic Vitalis. Orderic was born several generations after the Battle of Hastings and chroniclers who were more contemporary with the battle did not use the name Senlac.

Origin

The Battle of Hastings was fought in 1066 at this location. The English position was on top of the hill where the Abbey later stood, and the Normans approximately where the photographer is standing.

The name Senlac was introduced into English history by the Victorian historian E.A. Freeman, his only source for this being the Anglo-Norman chronicler Orderic Vitalis.^[1][2][3][4] Freeman suggested that Senlac was the correct name of the Battle of Hastings site since the name of the hill was Senlac and was near a stream called Santlache.^[1] Orderic describes Harold's forces as assembling for the battle ad locum, qui Senlac antiquitus vocabatur, and the battle itself as being fought in campo Senlac .^[2]

Blood lake

Orderic was born in Atcham, Shropshire, England, the eldest son of a French priest, Odeler of Orléans and an English mother. When Orderic was five, his parents sent him to an English monk with the name of Siward, who kept a school in the Abbey of SS Peter and Paul at Shrewsbury.^[2] Although Orderic moved to a monastery in Normandy at the age of ten, he seems to have maintained his links with England.^[2] Freeman concluded that it was perfectly possible for Orderic to have known the English name of the ridge.^[2] The Chronicle of Battle Abbey describes what it calls Malfosse, which was a large ditch that opened up during the course of the battle (some sources say after the battle^{[lower-alpha 1]}), where many soldiers of both sides fell and were trampled to death, the result was rivulets of blood as far as one could see.^{[5][lower-alpha 1]} In fact there was a local legend that was maintained for centuries after the battle that the soil in that area turned red after a heavy rainfall.^{[7][8][lower-alpha 2]}

.."Asten^{[lower-alpha 3]} once distained with native English blood; Whose soil, when yet but wet with any little rain, Doth blush, as put in mind of those there sadly slain, When Hastings' harbour gave unto the Norman powers. Whose name and honours now are denizened for ours. That boding, ominous brook !"
From Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion 1612^[7][11]

Freeman suggested that Senlac meant Sand Lake in Old English with the Norman conquerors calling it (in French) Sanguelac. Freeman regarded this use as a pun because the English translation of Sanguelac is "Blood lake".^{[1][lower-alpha 2]}

The name "Senlac"

The River Asten near Sheepwash Bridge, Bulverhythe.^{[lower-alpha 3]}

Several historians disagreed with the Freeman analysis. John Horace Round published his "Feudal England: Historical Studies on the XIth and XIIth Centuries" in 1895 and in it strongly criticises the Freeman view.^{[lower-alpha 4]} He pointed out that Senlac was not an English word and was simply a fad if not an invention of Orderic Vitalis.^{[12][lower-alpha 4]}

The Norman chroniclers William of Jumièges and William of Poitiers who were contemporary with the Battle of Hastings did not record the site of the battle as Senlac and the Chronicle of Battle Abbey simply recorded the location in Latin as Bellum (Battle).^[2][13]

Later documents however indicate that the abbey had a tract of land known as Santlache (Sandlake) with the name Sandlake continuing for several centuries as a tithing in Battle.^{[4][14][15][16]}

Etymology

The Anglo-Saxon origin of the name Hastings was probably Hæsta-inga (and variations) meaning "clearing of Hæsta's people".^[17] However another possible, again of Anglo-Saxon origin, is Asten-enge meaning "meadow of the Asten" (the Asten is the stream that runs through the battlefield^{[lower-alpha 3]}).^[18]

Freeman considered what Orderic Vitalis called the battlefield, namely Senlac, may have been a corruption of the original Anglo-Saxon name. Other scholars have suggested that the Anglo-Saxon form would have been scen-leag meaning "beautiful meadow".^[1][18]

Notes

Citations

References

• Drayton, Michael (1876). The complete works of Michael Drayton now first collected. With introduction and notes by the Rev. Richard Hooper. London: J.R.Smith. 
• Freeman, Edward A. (1869). The History of the Norman Conquest of England its causes and results: Volume III. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 
• Gelling, Margaret (1985). Place-Names in the Landscape. London: Phoenix. ISBN 1-84212-264-9. 
• "Angling". Hastings and St Leonards Observer. East Sussex: The British Newspaper Archive. 5 October 1935. Retrieved 8 October 2016. 
• Harris, Roland B. (2009). "Battle: Historic Character Assessment Report". Rother District Council. Retrieved 20 November 2014. 
• Lower, Mark Anthony (1851). The Chronicle of Battel Abbey, from 1066 to 1176. London: John Russell Smith. 
• Lower, Mark Anthony, ed. (1848). "Sussex Archaeological Collections Vol. 15". Lewes, Sussex: Sussex Archaeological Society. 
• Morillo, Stephen, ed. (1999). The Battle of Hastings: Sources and Interpretations. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press. ISBN 0-8511-5619-3. 
• Report of the forty second meeting British Association for the Advancement of Science. London: John Murray. 1873. 
• Poole, Reginald L., ed. (1913). The English Historical Review Volume: 28. London: Longman, Green and Co. 
• Round, John Horace (2010). Feudal England: Historical Studies on the XIth and XIIth Centuries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 1-1080-1449-6. 
• Searle, Eleanor Tr, ed. (1980). The Chronicle of Battle Abbey. Oxford: OUP. ISBN 0-1982-2238-6. 
• Seward, Desmond (1995). Sussex. London: Random House. ISBN 0-7126-5133-0. 
• Vitalis, Ordericus (1853). Thomas Forester Tr., ed. The Ecclesiastical history of England and Normandy. Volume i. London: Henry G. Bohn.