The Men Who Fought with King Harold at Hastings - Medievalists.net

"No eleventh- or twelfth-century narrative provides reliable figures for troop strengths. Depending on the source, Harold either levied a great army from throughout the kingdom (so the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, D text, under 1066, and William of Poitiers), or rushed into battle with too few troops (so John of Worcester and William of Malmesbury). The few accounts that provide actual figures are wildly exaggerated, which is par for the course for medieval sources."

"The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio, a poem that may have been written shortly after the battle, tells us that Duke William led an army of 150,000, and faced an English army of 1,200,000. Master Wace, writing in the 1170s, places the English forces at a mere 400,000. William of Poitiers, who served Duke William first as a soldier and later as a chaplain, is only slightly more credible. He praises William for providing supplies at his own expense for 50,000 men-at-arms"

Harold Godwinson marched to Hastings on 14 October 1066 with thousands of men, but precise numbers and identities of those warriors remain uncertain. Eleventh- and twelfth-century narratives provide no reliable troop figures and give contradictory accounts of whether Harold levied a great army or rushed into battle with too few men. Some medieval claims present armies in the hundreds of thousands, while other medieval figures are lower yet still implausible. Modern historians commonly estimate about 6,000–8,000 men on each side, an inference based on ridge topography and assumed battle formation, but that estimate is conjectural.

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