By the beginning of September 1066, King Harold II was in a quandary. Expecting Duke William of Normandy to invade, he had summoned the fyrd (what passed for the army in Anglo-Saxon times; made up of a proportion of the freemen of each shire who were required to perform military service in defence of the land) back in April and they had long since passed the usual two to three months’ service. And now they were starting to grumble; not only was the food running out – the region around the south coast of England having been stripped bare to feed several thousand soldiers – but also the men were beginning to look to their own homes. Summer was passing and, with the onset of autumn, thoughts turned to the harvest. If they did not return home in time, crops would wither in the fields, creating a very real risk of famine in the new year.
This episode was written by Paul Bernardi.
By day, Paul works as an IT manager for a major financial institution in the UK and has done so for the best part of 30 years. But in the evenings and weekends he writes historical fiction novels. His current multi-part series is set against the backdrop of the Norman Conquest; a period which he studied in depth at the University of Leeds back in the 1980s, where he gained a Master’s Degree in Anglo-Saxon history.
Keen long term listeners might recall that this isn’t the first outing for Paul with the history network, he penned episode 4 of season 18 which looked at Operation Foxley, and this was inspired from research for his book To the Devil His Due a historical fiction novel following SOE’s attempt to kill Hitler. We’ll put links to Paul’s books on the website.
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