A 'good' fit is not enough since many landscapes can matched to the limited words therefore all the revealed evidence must be effectively a perfect match. This paper describes the rigorous tests applied to the written words. It was the iterative way that the landscape and literature were tested and how, subsequently, the actions described and the physical finds were consistent with the literature that allowed the battlesite to be confidently identified. This paper sets out how early literature was employed as another archaeological resource.
The literature was then employed to understand the actions described but now set in the context of the landscape from the time of the battle that had been revealed by archaeology. These sources provided the basis for the early archaeological research by seeking matches between the text and the landscape although over 20 recent writings, which suggested battle locations, were used to define the scope of the search area. It is argued that it is this development which provides the context for the transfer of the name-form from the burh at Pevensey (as hastingaceastre) to the new site at this time.įifteen primary, literary sources were studied when the project, whose aim was to locate the battlesite of Fulford, began. There are aspects of the settlement history of Hastings itself which indicate that a burh or citadel there was built there by King Æthelred in the late tenth century as a bulwark against the new wave of Viking incursions at the time. Its functional and spatial relationship to the royal centre of Eastbourne is also seen as an important factor at various times in the mid and late Saxon period. It shows a range of other characteristics, including heterogeneous tenure, which mark it out as a burh at this period. The siting of a burh at Pevensey, rather than at Hastings, is argued here as being more appropriate to the strategic requirements of King Alfred’s burghal system in the late ninth century. This paper revisits the thesis put forward by Pam Combes and Malcolm Lyne in 1995, in which they argued that the burh of hæstingaceastre, included in the Burghal Hidage of the late ninth century, was located at Pevensey rather than at Hastings.
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