NOTE DD. p. 411. William’s Ravages in Sussex

The ravages of William’s army in Sussex stand confessed in the Norman writers, and there can be little doubt that they were systematic ravages done with the settled object of bringing Harold to a battle. The lasting nature of the destruction wrought at this time is shown by the large number of places round about Hastings which are returned in Domesday as “wasta.” As many of these as can be identified I have marked in the map.

On the other hand Mr. Hayley, a South-Saxon antiquary, who is quoted by Sir Henry Ellis (i. 314) and Mr. Taylor (Wace, 262), strangely attributes the harrying of those places which lie at all near the line of Harold’s march to the English, and not to the Norman army. This notion would hardly have needed any answer except from the sort of sanction given to it by the two writers who quote Mr. Hayley. I do not suppose that any army of any age ever passed through a district without doing some damage, but to suppose that Harold systematically harried his own Kingdom, and not only his own Kingdom, but a shire specially attached to his house and which contained a large portion of his private estates, does seem to me the height of absurdity. A King who was, as William of Poitiers tells us (see p. 412), hastening to save the country from ravage, who, as Wace tells us (see p. 437), indignantly refused to inflict the slightest unavoidable damage on any of his people, was certainly not likely to mark his course by systematic devastation. And, what is more, on such a hasty march as Harold’s evidently was, Swend himself could not have done the sort of permanent damage which is implied in the lands being returned as “wasta” twenty years after. The ravaging must have been something complete and systematic, like the ravaging of Northumberland a few years later. Such ravaging could only have been done by an army permanently encamped in the country, as William’s was at Hastings. Also if Harold had ravaged, he would have ravaged along his whole line of march, and not have waited till he was within a few miles of Senlac. But Mr. Hayley does not produce a single instance of a return of “wasta” along the early part of Harold’s march; all the points are near either to Hastings or to Senlac. I have no doubt that all these entries record ravages inflicted by the army of William.