The diversity of Continental origins amongst those responsible for the ‘Norman Conquest’ of England in 1066 was first noted by the chroniclers of the event. According to William of Poitiers the battle of Hastings was a multi-national affair involving the men of Maine, the French, the Bretons and the men of Aquitaine, as well as the Normans. The passage in question describes a particular manoeuvre and does not in itself exclude the additions to the list found in Orderic Vitalis, who mentioned also the Burgundians and men from north of the Alps. William of Poitiers had stated that Normans, Flemings, French and Bretons had gathered at Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme, in Picardy, for the crossing to England. Accounts of the battle of Hastings make no specific mention of men from Flanders, though William of Poitiers's short list of Hastincls wamors begins with the name of Eustace, count of Boulogne, in neighbouring Picardy. In addition to six Normans, it includes also the names of Aimery, vicomte de Thouars in Poitou, and Geoffrey, son of Rotroc count of Perche. The chroniclers are concerned, apparently, with auxiliary troops, composed of the well-born and led by nobles, rather than with mercenaries of the ‘cannon-fodder’ type. It seems that the battle was fought by a central core of Normans, led by William, with a group of Bretons on the left wing, probably led by Count Alan, and on the right wing an assemblage of auxiliary troops from Maine, Aquitaine and elsewhere, part or all of which was commanded by Eustace count of Boulogne. According to William of Poitiers, the non-Norman auxiliaries of William's victorious army were paid off and returned home shortly after the battle. Men from Anjou, Brittany ans Maine were still serving in January 1070, complaining bitterly and asking to be discharged, according to Orderic Vitalis. The multi-national lists of William of Poitiers and Orderic Vitalis are for the most part readily comprehensible. William of Normandy, son-in-law of Baldwin count of Flanders, had conquered Maine in 1063, and his family's links with Aquitaine went back to the early tenth century; a more recent alliance linked him to the Burgundian counts of Nevers. Eustace of Boulogne certainly had his own agenda, as the former husband of a sister of Edward the Confessor, but that union had linked him to William's family because Edward's mother was William's great-aunt Emma of Normandy.