17 Things I Learned At The Norman Conquest

We came. We saw. We made this tapestry. Conquering England, you guys.

1. The food was amazing.

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The conquest launch party definitely had the best food I've ever eaten. You could just walk up and eat whatever you wanted.

2. Actually, it was a great party in general.

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Probably the high point of the entire experience.

3. People love to hang out by the reliquary.

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Mostly swearing oaths, making vows and whatnot. I didn't even hear most of it, but it sounded like it was getting intense.

4. People brought lots of animals on the boat.

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I'm still not sure why this happened! It was really fun, but exactly why do you need that falcon? Nobody ever explained this in a way that made sense.

5. You'd be amazed how many warriors can fit on a single boat.

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There were like 30 dudes in this one tiny boat. It didn't smell great, but that's true of battles generally.

6. Then there was this guy, who just had to deal with the empty boats.

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Sorry, guy.

7. The people on horses think they're big time.

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Honestly, they're right. It looked like a lot of fun! I didn't get a horse, but I was busy embroidering this the whole time so it's probably just as well.

8. When a Horse Goes Down, It's Total Chaos

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I saw this happen a couple times, and it was completely insane every time. In general, I still think you have to choose horse over no-horse, but it's a lot closer than you'd think.

9. A lot of people got hit in the head with swords.

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There weren't a ton of helmets around, so sword-to-the-head was probably the #1 cause of death, followed by trampled-by-horse and died-of-mysterious-illness-on-the-way-to-the-battle.

10. The Shield Wall Really Works.

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I mean, there are tons of dead guys with arrows sticking out of them in this picture, so obviously it doesn't work perfectly. But it's still impressive.

11. You can do a lot of damage with just a stick.

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Don't overthink it. Everyone wanted a sword or some awkward chain-swingy thing, but this guy was just clocking fools left and right with a tree branch. It totally worked.

12. It Got Rough Out There

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I'm not even sure what to say about this one. I still feel bad for that horse.

13. Everybody Loves The Tower Until The Tower Gets Set On Fire

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Here's the thing about battles: everything gets set on fire. So I don't know how they didn't see this coming.

14. Even if nobody was in a tower, you still had to set it on fire.

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I'm not sure if that's a rule or if people just decided to, but they were really serious about it.

15. Sometimes it was hard to tell what we were even pillaging.

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You know, fog of war.

16. Harold III is a badass.

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He got shot in the eye with an arrow, and then he just pulled the arrow out and kept fighting. It was probably the most hardcore thing I've ever seen.

17. He's still dead, though.

Right after Harold III pulled the arrow out, some guy straight up trampled him to death. It was grisly, but by then we'd been pillaging for two months straight and it was probably time to wrap things up. Good hustle, everybody!

(With apologies to the Bayeux Tapestry.)