The Battle of Hastings

In class, we started the topic of Medieval Times. We started learning about the battle of Hastings, which occurred in England during 1066. The battle was between King Harold, Edwards’s successor, and Duke William of Normandy. It was a bloodthirsty and savage battle, though in the end Duke William of Normandy victoriously won and claimed the throne of England.

The game that I chose:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/games/hastings/index_embed.shtml

Briefly, this game was shown through Williams and Harold’s pointsn of view during the battle. Its straight forward because, all you really need is to know your facts, and its nothing to complicated. It also shows the main points of the battle, and what happened. What I enjoyed about this game is that it gives a visual image of the battle. And that way, I could get a better understanding of how the battle somewhat looked like. And I also liked how they gave Williams and Harold’s point of view because that way, there’s two sides of the story. Whilst playing the game, I learned that Harold was quiet exhausted by the time he had to fight William, because he had marched 190 miles to fight and defeat his brother Tostig and his ally Harald Hardrada, then he had to travel back south to fight William. Harold also had peasant soldiers who weren’t as strong. So basically, Harold had no chance against William in the battle. There were a lot of events that happened during the Battle of Hastings. First of, Harold was worn-out before the battle with Duke William of Normandy. That was because he had to travel up north to fight with Harald Hardrada, then march back down south to fight with William, and along the way he had lost many soldiers due to the fact that there wasn’t much food, and that some where just much too weak to carry on. So therefore Harold grabbed untrained peasants from the fields to fight along side him. Harold and his army had created a strong shield wall, to try and block off from the cavalry and the archers of the Normans. But the Normans had a strategy to unbalance the Brits from their shield wall. They did this by pretending that William had fallen and fleeting, then quickly turning back when their shields were down. King Harold had died with an arrow through the eye, and the throne as well as England belonged to William. This game is a valuable learning experience because like I said before, it gives a visual of the battle as well as information to add to your understanding. As well its not too hard, and it can be a great tool to help before quizzes and tests.