There is a wealth of historical and modern cartographic sources and GIS databases available to this project from England, Normandy, and the Hastings area specifically. They consist of historical maps, geospatial data, the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain, an historical environmental record, historical parish boundaries, and high resolution point data. In the study, most of these sources are employed as reference data but they do provide a further layer of evidence complementing the written records discussed
previously. Each of these sources will be discussed in turn. It should be noted that these data are particularly relevant to the mapping of England and northern France undertaken in Chapter 4 in response to research question 1. They are also relevant to the local land uses and topographical changes in the Hastings area addressed in Chapters 5 and 6, as well as efforts to locate and map the course of the battle in Chapter 7. Given their
importance, each of the sources will be discussed briefly in turn in the following sections.
2.4.1 Historical Maps
Several historical maps were consulted for this project. They range in date from the mid- fourteenth century until the early twentieth century. The majority of the maps focus on East Sussex, however an early eighteenth-century map of Normandy and a fourteenth- century map of England have also been included. There have been no comprehensive studies which have examined historical maps with respect to the Norman Conquest.
12
However, Appendix A is a copy of a study by the author which examined a selection of relevant maps to the Norman Conquest. Each of these sets of maps will be examined below, in chronological order.13
The Gough Map is “the earliest surviving map of Britain that shows the island in a geographically recognizable form” (Lilley, Lloyd, & Campbell, 2009; Lloyd & Lilley, 2009, p. 29).14 It is believed to have been developed in the fourteenth century but some authors place its date in the late thirteenth century (Lilley, Lloyd, & Campbell, 2009; Lloyd & Lilley, 2009, p. 29). The map can be viewed and searched digitally through a dedicated website (King's College, London, 2011).15
There are two maps from the late sixteenth century, as discussed in Appendix A, which depict the coast of Sussex in detail. These maps were developed for defense purposes during the time of the Spanish Armada (1588).
The Delisle map of Normandy represents the local roads, forests, rivers and settlements of the duchy from the early eighteenth century (1716). As the map was produced prior to the French Revolution it is generally considered more reliable than those drawn
afterwards, due to the fact the internal borders of France were re-arranged after 1789 largely for administrative purposes. In England, it is assumed that borders changed very slowly in the centuries before the nineteenth century (Hoskins, 1977, p. 79) as even the parish boundaries are applicable back to 1500 (see Section 5.4.5). Thus, based on this observation, one may reasonably assume that the boundaries from the early eighteenth century are similar to those of the eleventh. This map can be accessed through an online map collection (Cartography Associates, 2012).16
13
For further discussion on these maps see Appendix A. 14
There were maps developed by Ptolemy in the second century AD however, no originals survive (Cosgrove, 2007, p. 83). There are renaissance reconstructions but they post-date the Gough map. 15
http://www.goughmap.org/ 16
The most detailed map of the entire study area is the Yeakell and Gardner map from the eighteenth century (1783). This map has been deemed along with another map by the same cartographers to be, “the most important of all Sussex maps” (Kingsley, 1982, p. 91), because it accurately presents the land uses and roads of that time period (Kingsley, 1982, p. 92). These roads will be relevant to this project because “[f]ew new roads were created between Saxon times and the turnpike and ‘enclosure’ roads of the eighteen century” (Hoskins, 1977, p. 242).17 Therefore, the local medieval road or simple track network could be derived from this map. A digital copy of the map sheets can be located through a University of Sussex website (Fontana, 2000).18
2.4.2 Geospatial Data
For northern France, a basic GIS dataset was accessed through the Map Library at the University of Western Ontario. These data included boundary files for the European countries as well as point files for towns and cities. Local rivers could also be accessed. The data follows the North American Datum of 1983 (ESRI Data & Maps, 2008;
Kimerling, Buckley, Muehrcke, & Muehrcke, 2009, p. 461).
2.4.3 Ordnance Survey
The Ordnance Survey of Great Britain (OS) has produced three maps which cover the Battle area in some detail. A printed map at a scale of 1:25000 from the “Pathfinder” series provides both the topography and land uses (Perkins & Parry, 1996, pp. 54-61).19 It also provides names of locations which could prove useful in interpreting the landscape (Ordnance Survey, 1992). However, this map is printed and not currently available in GIS format, thus limiting its use in this study.
17
These additions to the road network will be considered when developing the medieval road network. 18
http://www.envf.port.ac.uk/geo/research/historical/webmap/sussexmap/sussex.html 19
A detailed list of what is displayed in the “Pathfinder” maps is available in Perkins and Parry’s book (1996, pp. 57-8).
The digital vector-based dataset is the 1:50,000 scale maps of Great Britain known as the “Landranger” series (Perkins & Parry, 1996, pp. 61-68; Ordnance Survey, 2012). These maps include many different elements such as buildings, infrastructure, place-names,20 railways, roads, and water bodies (Perkins & Parry, 1996, pp. 64-65; Ordnance Survey, 2012). However, they do not include the topography. For elevation data, another dataset, known as the “Panorama” series will be accessed. The Panorama series includes
contour lines and accompanying digital elevation models or DEMs at a raster resolution of 50 m (Perkins & Parry, 1996, p. 67). All GIS data is disseminated in 100 km2 blocks based on the British National Grid coordinate system (Kimerling, Buckley, Muehrcke, & Muehrcke, 2009, p. 69; Ordnance Survey, 2012). All of these data will be accessed from the Ordnance Survey website (Ordnance Survey, 2012).
There is also a wide range of Ordnance Survey maps from the early twentieth and nineteenth centuries which can be accessed. In this study the maps from the first and third edition will be reviewed. The first edition maps were drawn in the early 1800’s and revised in the 1880’s particularly with the addition of the railroad. The copies in use here were reprinted in the late 1960’s with a detailed description accompanying each map (Sheet 73 Sheerness and Dungeness, 1969; Sheet 88 Hastings, 1969). The third edition was surveyed during the First World War and represents the start of the interwar period between the First and Second World Wars (Brighton & Eastbourne, 1920; Hastings, 1921). These maps were accessed through the Map Library at the University of Western Ontario and scanned.
2.4.4 Historic Environmental Record
The environmental record of the Hastings area is accessible using a GIS vector-based database which records the land uses and historic periods of features in the landscape. The main columns in this database are the characterization, sub characterization and period. There is also a text column which provides an interpretation of the location. The
20
The local place-names are discussed in the English place-name society’s reference books on place names. The reference book employed in this study will be the Sussex edition (Mawer, Stenton, & Gover, 1930).
land use classifications are discussed in Rippon’s book through several examples
including Cornwall (2004, pp. 101-3) and Lancashire (2004, pp. 106-9). Rippon’s book also provides numerous cartographic examples including examples with Domesday data (2004, pp. 129-31). Bannister has developed several documents which provide various interpretations of the Sussex database (SHLC - II, 2010). These are available online. The database for this project was accessed through the East Sussex Historical
Environmental Record (ESHER, 2013).
2.4.5 Historical Parishes and Counties
Information on historical parishes and counties of England is available from a GIS database containing data from 1500 to 1851. The file was digitized from another study which looked at nineteenth-century parishes.21 This data can be accessed through the UK Data Archive. (Burton, Westwood, & Carter, 2004).
2.4.6 High Resolution Point Data
For this study, high resolution point data used to map out the battlefield was purchased commercially from Stanfords Business Mapping. The extent of the data was roughly a four square kilometer box which was centered on the town of Battle, with all of the buildings and trees removed. The data format was points spaced approximately 5 m apart. When interpolated into a 5 m resolution raster, these points represent the modern landscape (Stanfords Business Mapping, 2009).22