2.07. The Institution of the House-Carles
A century later than the military reforms of Alfred the feudal danger which had split up the Frankish realm began to make itself felt in England. The great ealdormen of the reign of Ethelred correspond to the counts of the time of Charles the Fat, in their tendency to pass from the position of officials into that of petty princes. Their rise is marked by the decay of the central military organization for war; and during the new series of Danish invasions the forces of each ealdormanry are seen to fight and fall without any support from their neighbours. England was in all probability only saved from the fate of France by the accession of Canute. That monarch, besides reducing the provincial governors to their old position of delegates of the crown, strengthened his position by the institution of the House-Carles, a force sufficiently numerous to be called a small standing army rather than a mere royal guard.
These troops are not only the most characteristic token of the existence of a powerful central government, but represent the maximum of military efficiency to be found in the Anglo-Danish world. Their tactics and weapons differed entirely from those of the feudal aristocracy of the continent, against whom they were ere long to be pitted. They bore the long Danish battle-axe, a shaft five feet long fitted with a single-bladed head of enormous size. It was far too ponderous for use on horseback, and being wielded with both arms precluded the use of a shield in hand to hand combat. The blows delivered by this weapon were tremendous: no shield or mail could resist them; they were even capable, as was shown at Hastings, of lopping off a horse’s head at a single stroke. The house-carle in his defensive equipment did not differ from the cavalry of the lands beyond the Channel: like them he wore a mail shirt of a considerable length, reaching down to the lower thigh, and a pointed steel cap fitted with a nasal.
The tactics of the English axemen were those of the column: arranged in a compact mass they could beat off almost any attack, and hew their way through every obstacle. Their personal strength and steadiness, their confidence and esprit de corps, made them the most dangerous adversaries. Their array, however, was vitiated by the two defects of slowness of movement and vulnerability by missiles. If assailed by horsemen, they were obliged to halt and remain fixed to the spot, in order to keep off the enemy by their close order. If attacked from a distance by light troops, they were also at a disadvantage, as unable to reach men who retired before them.
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Really enjoying this series - my morning needed an account of a horse having it's head chopped off