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In reality, the surviving accounts of the Battle of Hastings are all suspect. They were either written by Anglo-Saxon writers who hated the Normans as foreign overlords, or they were authored by Normans who had an interest in misrepresenting events. This article will disentangle fact from fiction and truth from myth about the Battle of Hastings.

[[File: Hastings 2.jpg |200px|thumbnail|left|A scene from the Bayeux tapestry showing Norman knights charging the shield-wall]]

The background to Hastings was the death of Edward the Confessor, king of England from 1042-1066. He died without an heir, and this, as usual in the Middle Ages, led to a succession crisis.<ref> Lawson, M. K. The Battle of Hastings: 1066 (Stroud, UK: Tempus, 2002), p 12</ref> There were two main contenders for the crown of England; Harold Godwinson, a member of one of the most powerful Anglo-Saxon families and Duke William of Normandy, the future William the Conqueror.