ORDERIC VITALIS

Orderic Vitalis was a Chronicler and Benedictine monk at Saint-Everoul. Some time between 1110 and 1115, Orderic' Vitalis’s superiors ordered him to write the history of Saint-Evroul. The work, the Historia Ecclesiastica (Ecclesiastical History), grew under his hands until it became a general history of his own age. Saint-Evroul was a house of wealth and distinction.

Ms Chibnal the Norman expert from Cambridge wrote:

‘Rollo's benefactions to the Church, the capture of Charles the Simple by Herbert, count of Péronne,! the invasion of England, and the battle of Hastings in 1066. This implies that Orderic was already recording oral traditions, and either making extracts from earlier chronicles or using extracts made by others. In spite of the local and special nature of many of his interpolations, he thought of them as an integral part of more general history, even abstaining from a longer account of the Belléme family on the grounds that his concern was with the history of Duke William.

Ms Chibnall continues a few pages further on:

‘This conflation of sources was an application of one of Augustine's principles, that differences between the Gospels occurred because the evangelists each recorded only some of the events they knew, so that they supplemented rather than conflicted with each other. Such a method, particularly suited to the use of sources of equal reliability, came to be applied with or without discrimination to other sources. Orderic used it in some parts of his history, where he had two or three sources for the same event, as for his reconstruction of the battle of Hastings. To his description of the closing stages of the battle, taken principally from William of Poitiers, he added from William of Jumiéges that Harold had been killed in the first onslaught, and recorded the deaths of Earl Leofwine, possibly from Florence of Worcester, and of Engenulf of Laigle from oral information. Ín this instance William of Jumièges was mistaken ; but since he was precise and William of Poitiers vague about the time of Harold's death, Orderic's conjecture was a plausible one. In general two or three sources were the most he attempted to combine in a detailed narrative; in passages where references crowd on top of each other he was most likely using a collection of exempla, or citing from memory.’

Thus it is explained that most statements made by Orderic Vitalis were merged with others at the time, with the exception of those who attended the events under discussion. One element survived this tribulation was picked up in the Victorian era by A.E. Freeman who wrote his book The History of the Norman Conquest of England published between 1867 and 1879. He was the sole person to notice that Orderic Vitalis had taken the name of the battle to that of the ‘Battle of Senlac’. Orderic had continued the work of Jumiéges and had therefore seen the original text, confirming. historians assumed it must be wrong, because he was the only person to report it.

‘Senlac’ is the Saxon tranlation of the words ‘Isen -Lacu’ meaning ‘iron pond’, providing a reason for its use and also identifying the site at the Battle of Hastings. It must be remembered that he was also responsible for identifying the landing site because he worked on Jumieges manuscript after his death and that was correct as well. All those who reported the landing site elsewhere were wrong.

‘Isen Lacu’ occupies an important chapter in the book 1066 The Battlefield (Nick Austin, Ogmium Press 2024). It identifies the pond, seen in the image above in full flood, at the bottom of the battlefield hill in Crowhurst. The pond was given this name because of the iron ore that flows out of the bloomery next to the battlefield, making it look like the blood of the Saxons when raining to those who believe in such things. Orderic Vitalis worked on the  William de Jumiéges manuscript prior to his death ensuring that he saw the original manuscript featuring ‘Pebesellum’. A conclusion that can be drawn is his work was fastideously correct and therefore his naming of ‘Isen Lacu’ as the original Battle of Hastings name confirms it’s location in Crowhurst by the bloomery. No bloomery exists anywhere that could be mistaken for the battlefield bloomery, other than the one in the Forewood adjacent to the Great Field of Crowhurst. Wiki says correctly and is probably the reason it was rejected by those with interests in retaining control of the developments at Battle:

‘Freeman considered what Orderic Vitalis called the battlefield, 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". A further possibility of Senlac comes from the iron rich sandstone deposits within the local area and the local Wealden iron industry that started before the Roman invasion and carried until the late 1700s. Some have posited that the original Saxon name could also have been Isen-Lacu, which means "iron pond". It is possible that the meaning was changed when translated into Latin. The argument goes that if the original name was Iron Pond, then the accepted location for Senlac Hill is wrong.’

It confirms our belief that academics spend far too long hypothesising about what might or might not have happened. Where there is evidence as displayed upon this web site the only conclusion is that the battle took place where stated in Crowhurst and the Normans landed at the Port of Hastings. It is time the authorities recognised this fact and paid to dig up the bodies and stopped trying to justify an unjustifiable case at Battle Abbey, because they own it. It is the most remarkable conspiracy story of all time, where the government are seeking to cover up their ineptitude through a claim of academic support and the support of historians who have not read the documents. The time has come for all those who respect academic truth to recognise the mistakes of the past. If you disagree file your comments in the discussion section. We will respond.