Quote Originally Posted by Sinner
The idea of the fake retreats comes from the Norman chronicler of the battle, and it's likely that he wanted to avoid tarnishing the victory by admitting that the Normans broke at least twice only to be rallied by their leaders. The feigned retreat tale was commonly used by the victors of a battle to mask any embarassment that part or all of their army nearly or actually ran away.
Interesting and very likely the truth as the victor often rewrites history.

The AI tried this on me last night feigning with mounted sergants, my archers had a field day and their whole army routed and broke. I finally got some good use that day from my hobilars that I had held behind my spearwall and I chased down hundreds of fleeing Germans. The lesson here on offense is don't feign cav attacks against a hardened position backed by a significant number of missle troops. On defense the lesson is sometimes it's better to get distracted micromanaging a distant unit and neglect your main troop body so you don't get suckered into chasing down fast cavalry and getting butchered yourself ;).