[Harry Potter Fan Girl]

I have searched almost 200 websites on teh dates of making or when wepons have started being used during the norman conquest...and sadly i found very little so any help will be highly welcome...or i will be the one asleep in class beacause i was finishing it all night....please HELP!!!

[MrJohnDClare]

What about this http://www.historynet.com/wars_conflicts/w...?page=1&c=y

[Mr Thorpe]

A good overview of the events and a page on the weapons here

[Mr. D. Bryant]

For anyone short of time, the website mentioned by Mr. Clare starts talking about weapons about half way down the second page. It is very detailed, but it only deals with Norman weapons.

The relevant pages on the website mentioned by Mr. Thorpe are this one for Harold's army and this one for William's forces. On both pages the information about weapons is right at the end of the page.

As they are both pretty detailed, a short summary might be useful. The weapons used by both sides were similar. We don't know whether there were Saxon archers (bowmen) at Hastings, whereas there were a large number on William's side. Although the Normans were aware of the crossbow, there is no evidence that they were used at Hastings. They may have been, we just don't know. Both sides used spears, shields and swords. The most deadly Anglo-Saxon weapon was the double-handed axe, which could split a man in two. However, these were only used by the Housecarls or Huscarls, Harold's professional soldiers. Most of his men probably just had a spear, shield and dagger. The lucky ones would have had a sword.

The main difference was that William's army had a large number of horsemen, armoured soldiers on horseback. The Anglo-Saxons never fought on horseback and this gave William an advantage which he eventually used.