The Battle of Hastings
Dan Snow's History Hit
00:00
William of Poitier and Harold of Wessex
William of poitier gave a figure of about 60 thousand normans and implied that harold had many more. In line with anglo scandinavian practice, leaders and participants were slaughtered rather than captured and ransomed. Most modern historians have concluded that the numbers on both sides were fairly balanced - seven to eight thousand in each army. What the normans had which the english did not were the mounted knights, the cavalry. William could his rushing up the hill because we're told it was a narrow place, so he can't deploy his whole army. We don't really know how big any of the armies were.
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