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Norman invasion - preparation

60 second histories

This video covers:

A description of the lead up to the invasion from the Norman perspective; the ships, the supplies and the crossing to England

One of my jobs was to make sure the ships for the invasion of England were sea worthy. There were so many of them, they came from all over; Walter Giffard provided thirty ships and a hundred knights with horse; Hugh of Montford gave fifty ships and of course Bishop Odo of Bayeux sent no fewer than a hundred ships! All together, including the smaller craft there must have been around a thousand ships which was just enough to transport around ten thousand men and three thousand horses with their weapons and armour as well as supplies for a month. It was a nightmare, for instance imagine all those horses going over to England they would all consume thirteen tons of grain, the same amount of hay and of course in return they gave us seven hundred thousand gallons of urine and five million pounds of manure in a month! In August, the month before the invasion the weather was unseasonable with foul weather and ceaseless rain, so even with everything ready, we had to wait for a favourable wind to take us across the Channel but eventually the weather changed and on a hot sunny day on the twenty eighth of September with a southern breeze we set sail.
Eras: 
Norman Conquest
Topics: 
Invaders
Character: 
Norman shipwright
Key words: 
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