I’m sure you’re thinking battles have nothing to do with language, other than coarsening it. That’s where you’re wrong, the word beautiful solely exists in the English language because of this battle, and that’s why I emphasize the Battle of Hastings so much in our homeschool history.
{This post contains affiliate links. For more information read my disclosure page}
Why is the Battle of Hastings important?
I’ve been watching our Illuminations schedule for the Battle of Hastings for quite a while. The Battle of Hastings is one of a handful of dates my kids memorize. They’re turning points changing how the world works.
Three different men vied for the crown of England after Edward the Confessor died, Harold of Wessex, an Anglo-Saxon, Harold King of Norway, and William Duke of Normandy. The two Harolds fought it out and Harold of Wessex emerged triumphant but weakened to face William.
The battle was fought over an entire day at Hastings, in the end, William was triumphant and that was the start of the Norman invasion.
Because of his victory, the English language got a complete overhaul, and William created and stabilized the feudal system. He started monasteries, convents, cathedrals, and castles being built throughout England (and beautifully replaced writing). His reign started an entire cultural revolution (which when my kids are older we will get into in more detail, that’s a fascinating lesson all by itself).
Our Battle of Hastings lesson
Follow Ticia Adventures in Mommydom’s board Mystery of History 2 on Pinterest.
To prepare for our Battle of Hastings lesson I spent time perusing my Mystery of History 2 pinterest board, and searching Youtube. Eventually I had my plans.
We spent an entire day just on this one lesson from Mystery of History 2, because there are a lot of resources on this one battle. I’ll walk you through a few of the resources we used, and link to a few more at the bottom of the post.
First we listened to the Audio set and took notes in our notebooking pages.
From there we watched the Time Commanders’ Battle of Hastings which illustrated just how much difference the right commander makes because in this version the Normans lost the battle.
Then we watched “A Young Kids’ Guide to the Battle of Hastings,” which my kids thought was okay, but weren’t particularly impressed.
After all of that information, we sat down to play out our Battle of Hastings simulation from Junior General.
More Middle Ages history lessons over the years
We’ve gone through the history cycle at least a couple of times and there were a few time periods we covered three times. That means there is a wide variety of cool history ideas on here. This is just a few you might like.
- Middle Ages peasant unit
- Jousting lesson
- Marco Polo Unit
- History of Saint Patrick (barely Middles Ages)
- Silversmith
What we learned from our Battle of Hastings lesson
History is not a given, there were several points in the battle it could have gone either way, as we saw in the Time Commanders video.
Leadership makes a difference. At one point William’s soldiers thought he was killed, so he removed his helmet and they gained new hope and fought on like before.
The conquerors write the history and set the tone. William came in from France and spoke a different language. Through sheer force of will and with the might of the British throne behind him, he changed the English language closer to what we know today.
Resources for Battle of Hastings lesson
- Events leading up to the Battle of Hastings
- Norman Conquest
- Italeri French Warriors: 100 Years War Kit
* (best version of miniature soldiers I could find on Amazon, I need to do more research into this)
I will have an entirely different post on the Bayeux Tapestry, which William’s wife created for him to celebrate the battle. Future Ticia 2022 hangs her head in shame because this post still lies unwritten because I need to get better pictures of the kids amazing “tapestries” which sit rolled up in our map bin.
The map bin my husband keeps urging me to clean up and maybe get rid of several maps in there. Poor Jeff, he puts up with so much.
“Battle of Hastings Re-Enactment 2009, 32” by jgmdoran is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
Leave a Reply