Watching Time Team yesterday morning (as I often do) they unearthed an interesting fact about the Battle of Hastings that has made me smile all weekend. The skill of the Norman cavalry is usually cited as a prime reason why they were successful in defeating Harold and the weary English army (they had just marched 200 miles south from their success at the Battle of Stamford Bridge near York). I have always imagined the ferocious Normans riding through the English ranks on enormous horses cutting the poor home side into shreds. Not a bit of it. According to Time Team the Norman horses were only around 12 hands high, which is about the size of a large donkey. This is backed up by the Bayeux Tapestry that does seem to show large men riding rather small horses (see above) - not, it seems, the women who did the stitching getting fed up of doing big horses! Poor old King Harold, defeated by an army whose cavalry where riding tiny horses; perhaps the English soldiers were just laughing too much.
Lions led by donkeys!
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