[1] Taylor’s Wace, p. xv.
[2] Ibid. p. 3.
[3] Archæologia, vol. xvii., p. 105.
[4] Ordericus Vitalis, bk. IV., ch. ii.
[5] Roscoe’s Life of the Conqueror, p. 92. _See_ Note A. at the end of
the volume.
[6] _See_ Note B. at the end of the volume.
[7] Taylor’s Wace, p. xxviii.
[8] Archæologia, vol. xix., p. 186.
[9] Strutt thus disposes of a difficulty which may occur to some
minds.--“If any one should say, by way of objection to this
established rule, that though the illuminator has not given us the
customs, habits, &c., of those people he designed to picture out,
yet is it not most likely that such dresses as are given should be
fictitious, agreeable rather to his own wild fancy than to the real
customs and habits of his own times? To answer their objection, (and
that because the chief materials of the present work are collected
from the ancient MSS.) the reader must be informed, that many of these
MSS. (especially such as are illuminated) were done as presents, or
at the command of kings and noblemen, who are generally represented
in the frontispiece in their proper habits receiving the particular
MS. done for them from the author, and they are generally pictured
attended by their court, or retinue. That these figures should be
habited in the true dress of the times will not be doubted; and
then, as far as the anonymous illuminations which may chance to
follow in the MS. shall agree with those figures in the frontispiece,
so far they may be allowed as authentic; other MSS. were done for
particular abbeys and monasteries, in the embellishments of which no
pains were spared. But a still greater proof of the authenticity of
these delineations is, that on examining all the illuminated MSS. of
the same century together, which, tho’ various, every one written
and ornamented by different hands, yet on comparing the several
delineations with each other, they will be found to agree in every
particular of dress, customs, &c., even in the minutiæ, which perfect
similitude it would have been impossible to have preserved, had not
some sure standard been regularly taken for the whole; therefore the
fancy of the painter will be found to have little share in these
valuable delineations. Besides, these pictures constantly agree
with the description of the habits and customs of the same period,
collected from the old historians.”--_Strutt’s Manners, Customs, &c.,
of the Inhabitants of England_, vol. i, p. 3.
[10] Taylor’s Wace, p. 162.
[11] Ibid. p. 163. n.
[12] “All have hitherto treated the Bayeux Tapestry as a ‘Monument
of the Conquest of England,’ following therein M. Lancelot, and
speaking of it as an unfinished work: whereas it is an apologetical
history of the claims of William to the crown of England, and of the
breach of faith, and fall of Harold; and is a perfect and finished
action.”--_Mr. Hudson Gurney_, Archæologia, vol. xvii., p. 361.
[13] The Abbé de la Rue, in an elaborate paper in the _Archæologia_
(vol. xvii, p. 85-109), supports the opinion that the Tapestry was
prepared at the command of Matilda, daughter of Henry I. and wife of
Henry V. Emperor of Germany. Lord Lyttleton (History of Henry II.,
vol. i, p. 353) and Hume (History of England, vol. i, _note_ F.)
entertain similar views.
[14] Vol. i., p. 328, 8vo. edition.
[15] Archæologia, vol. xvii., p. 105.
[16] Some idea of the labour involved in the work may be learned from
the number of figures represented in it. It contains 623 men, 202
horses, 55 dogs, 505 animals of various kinds not already enumerated,
37 buildings, 41 ships and boats, and 49 trees--in all 1512 figures.
[17] See Plate III.
[18] Queens of England, vol. i., p. 66, edition 1851. I have been
unable to meet with any authority for this statement.
[19] In a short visit which I made to Italy in the winter of 1853-4, I
paid some attention to this subject. I have seen a _vettorino_, when
protesting that his exorbitant charge was a most reasonable one, throw
himself into all the contortions exhibited in the Tapestry.
[20] Lives of the Queens of England, edition 1853, p. 65. _n_.
[21] His words are “L’opinion commune à Bayeux est que ce fut la reine
Mathilde, femme de Guillaume-le-Conquérant, qui la fit faire. Cette
opinion, qui passe pour une tradition dans le pays, n’a rien que de
fort vraisemblable.”--_Jubinal’s Tapisserie de Bayeux_, p. 1.
[22] Letters from Normandy, vol. i. p. 241.
[23] Ducarel, Appendix I., p. 3.
[24] William of Malmesbury’s English Chronicle (Bohn’s edition), p.
196.
[25] _See_ Note C., at the end of the Volume.
[26] Bohn’s edition, p. 253.
[27] Taylor’s Wace, p. 76.
[28] General Introduction to Domesday, vol. i., p. 312.
[29] Ducarel’s Antiquities of Normandy, Appendix, p. 4.
[30] The first account of the hood is in a book written in Latin by
the Emperor Frederic II. _See_ History of Inventions and Discoveries
by John Beckmann, translated by William Johnston, vol. i. p. 330.
[31] Introduction to Domesday, vol. i, p. 295.
[32] _See_ Archæologia, vol. xxiv.
[33] Rich’s Companion to the Latin Dictionary, art. _Adoratio_.
[34] Quoted in Taylor’s Wace, p. 156.
[35] _See_ Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson’s Popular Account of the Ancient
Egyptians, vol. i, p. 235; and Bonomi’s Nineveh, p. 136.
[36] Archæologia, vol. 24, plate LV.
[37] Illustrations of Cædmon’s Paraphrase, Archæologia, vol. xxiv., p.
339, plate LXXV. Hudson Turner’s Domestic Architecture
of England, vol. i., p. 4.
[38] Pictorial History of England, vol. i. p. 637.
[39] Taylor’s Wace, page 7.
[40] This observation, together with some others which may not in
every case require to be specially noted, has been taken from a clever
series of papers on the Bayeux Tapestry, which were published in the
_Ladies’ Newspaper_ for 1851-2.
[41] Akerman on Celtic and Teutonic Weapons.--_Archæ._, vol. xxxiv.
[42] Mr. Charles Stothard in the Archæologia, vol. xix, p. 189.
[43] Taylor’s Wace, p. 11.
[44] Introduction to Domesday, vol. ii. p. 404.
[45] The Song of Roland, London, 1854.
[46] William of Malmesbury, (Bohn’s edition) p. 279.
[47] Thierry’s Norman Conquest (London, 1841), p. 41.
[48] The following passages from the _Chronicle of Florence of
Worcester_ furnish distinct evidence as to the marriage of Harold with
Algitha:--“Regnavit autem Haraldus mensibus IX. et diebus totidem.
Cujus morte audita, comites Eadwinus et Morcarus, qui se cum suis
certamini subtraxere, Lundoniam venere, et sororem suam _Algitham
reginam_ sumptam ad civitatem Legionum misere.” “Anno regni XXIII. rex
Anglorum Eadwardus decessit. Cui ex ipsius concessione comes Haroldus,
filius Godwini West-Saxonum ducis ... successit; qui de _regina
Aldgitha_, comitis Alfgari filia, habuit filium Haroldum; eodemque
anno a Normanorum comite Willelmo peremptus est in bello.”--_Monumenta
Historica_, pp. 614, 642.
[49] Planche’s Strutt, vol. i., p. 14.
[50] Pict. Eng., vol. i., p. 637.
[51] Thierry’s History of the Normans, p. 36.
[52] It is often asserted that the house of Percy derived its name
from one of the family having slain Malcolm, King of Scotland, by
thrusting the spear into his eye when he came forward to demand the
keys of Alnwick Castle. That historic name occurs in the Battle Abbey
Roll, and is derived from the cradle of the family, the hamlet of
Perci, in Normandy.
[53] The walls of Tintagel Castle “were evidently constructed in
a framework of wood; the square holes which pierce the walls at
regular intervals, from the foundations upwards, show the places
once occupied by bond pieces, by which the wooden frames were held
together.”--_Notes by Rev. W. Haslam, in Report of Royal Inst.
Cornwall_, 1850.
[54] Ingulph’s Chronicle (Bohn), p. 14.
[55] Taylor’s Wace, p. 83.
[56] The Normans seem to have been particularly addicted to the
worship of relics. They carried them about their persons, and had them
enclosed in the handles of their swords. In the _Song of Roland_ that
hero is represented, when dying, as addressing his sword thus:--“Ah,
Saint Durandal! in thy golden pommel what precious relics lie hid!
A tooth of Saint Peter!--Blood of Saint Basil!--Hair of Monseigneur
Saint Denis!--Vesture of the Virgin Mary! And shall a pagan possess
thee?” Being thus at all times provided with relics, they were never
at a loss as to the administration of an oath. In the Song already
referred to we have a case in point:--‘Be it as thou wilt,’ answered
Ganelon, and upon the relics of his sword he swore to the treason and
consummated his crime.
[57] Wace, p. 138.
[58] Wace, p. 20, 21.
[59] William of Malmesbury, p. 249.
[60] Malmesbury, p. 252.
[61] Vol. i. p. 322.
[62] “Having first washed the corpse, it was clothed in a
straight linen garment, or put into a bag or sack of linen, and
then wrapped closely round from head to foot with a strong cloth
wrapper.”--_Strutt_, vol. i., p. 66.
[63] The custom of carrying the dead in some slight envelope to the
sarcophagus which was to be its last resting place, accounts for the
mischance which occurred at the burial of William the Conqueror, force
being required to thrust the body into its too narrow cell. Bede
tells us (_Ecc. Hist._ b. iv. c. xi.) how the stone coffin for Sebba,
King of the East Saxons, was too small, and when the attendants were
for bending the knees of the corpse a miracle ensued, and the coffin
elongated of itself.
[64] Wace, p. 89.
[65] Annals of Roger de Hoveden, vol. i. p. 130.
[66] The _paludamentum_, or official dress of a Roman general, to
which the episcopal _pallium_ is probably to be traced, was either of
a brilliant white, scarlet, or purple colour.
[67] See note D, at the end of the volume.
[68] Hinde on Comets, p. 52.
[69] Thierry, p. 60.
[70] Taylor’s Wace.
[71] Sir N. Harris Nicolas’ Hist. Royal Navy, vol. i., p. 24.
[72] Wace, p. 123.
[73] Vol. i., p. 464.
[74] “This mode of steering was retained till a comparatively late
period. In a bass-relief over the doorway of the leaning tower of
Pisa, built in the twelfth century, ships are represented with paddle
rudders, as those in the Bayeux Tapestry representing the Norman
Invasion. They must have been in use till after the middle of the
thirteenth century; for in the contracts to supply Louis IX. with
ships, the contractors are bound to furnish them with two rudders. By
the middle of the following century we find the hinged rudders on the
gold noble of Edward III. The change in the mode of steering must,
therefore, have taken place about the end of the thirteenth, or early
in the fourteenth, century.”--_Smith’s Voyage and Shipwreck of St.
Paul._
[75] They are engraved in Smith’s Collectanea Antiqua, vol. ii., p.
238.
[76] Wace, p. 210.
[77] Crit. Inquiry into Ancient Armour, vol. i., p. 8.
[78] When Harold, in 1063, conducted an expedition against the Welch,
he found the heavy armour of his troops unsuitable to the service on
which they were engaged, and immediately changed it. Ingulf says,
“Seeing that the activity of the Welch, proved remarkably effective
against the more cumbrous movements of the English and that, after
making an attack, they retreated into the woods, while our soldiers,
being weighed down with their arms, were unable to follow them, he
ordered all his soldiers to accustom themselves to wear armour made
of boiled leather, and to use lighter arms. Upon this the Welch were
greatly alarmed, and submitted.”
[79] Archæologia, vol. xxiv., p. 270.
[80] _See_ Fenwick’s Introduction to the _Slogans of the North of
England_, and the Notes to the Introduction.
[81] “And all had their cognizances, so that each might know his
fellow, and Norman might not strike Norman, nor Frenchman kill his
countryman, by mistake.”
_Taylor’s Wace_, p. 172.
[82] The Saxons as well as the Normans paid great attention to the
opinions of the ladies, even upon martial subjects. Strutt says,
they “would not go to battle or undertake any great expedition
without consulting their wives, to whose advice they paid the
greatest regard.” This excellent antiquary pays more regard to
truth than gallantry when in the same sentence he adds, “They
also superstitiously placed great faith in the neighing of
horses.”--_Manners of the English_, vol i., p. 17.
[83] “This standard ... was sumptuously embroidered with gold and
precious stones, in the form of a man fighting.” Can Malmesbury have
had in view here the description which Æschylus gives us of the shield
of Polynices?
“His well-orb’d shield he holds,
New-wrought, and with double impress charged:
_A warrior blazing all in golden arms_,
* * * * *
Such their devices.”
[84] Florence of Worcester distinctly states that it was “contrary to
the custom of the English to fight on horseback.”--_Bohn’s Ed._ p. 157.
[85] Meyrick, vol. i., p. 27.
[86] Akerman, in the Archæologia, vol. xxxiv.
[87] A stream which enters the sea a few miles to the east of the
river Orne, upon which the city of Caen is situated.
[88] Roger de Hoveden, vol. i., 134. Ordericus Vitalis, vol. i., p.
464.
[89] Perhaps this is an elipsis for _ad litus Pevensæ_; more probably,
however, these irregularities of construction are to be ascribed to
the low state of Latinity at the period.
[90] A stroke has probably been over the last A in
_Hastinga_, so as to make it _Hastingam_, which the construction
requires. _Raperentur_ seems to have been used as a deponent verb,
contrary to classical usage.
[91] This was not the first occasion on which a similar occurrence
took place. The following passage bearing upon the subject may
interest the reader:--“Thou sayest well Sancho (quoth Don Quixote),
but I must tell thee that times are wont to vary and change their
course; and what are commonly accounted omens by the vulgar, though
not within the scope of reason, the wise will nevertheless regard as
incidents of lucky aspect. Your watcher of omens rises betimes, and
going abroad, meets a Franciscan friar, whereupon he hurries back
again, as if a furious dragon had crossed his way. Another happens to
spill the salt upon the table, and straightway his soul is overcast
with the dread of coming evil: as if nature had willed that such
trivial accidents should give notice of ensuing mischances. The wise
man and good christian will not, however, pry too curiously into
the counsels of heaven. Scipio, on arriving in Africa, stumbled as
he leapt on shore; his soldiers took it for an ill omen, but he,
embracing the ground, said, ‘Africa, thou canst not escape me--I have
thee fast.’”--_Don Quixote_, Part II. chap. lviii.
[92] It has been argued from the occurrence of AT
instead of AD, and of CEASTRA for
CASTRA, in these inscriptions, that the clerk who wrote
them was an Englishman. It must, however, be borne in mind that the
original Norman language, which had a common origin with the Saxon,
was at the period of the Conquest spoken in comparative purity at
Bayeux. In other parts of the duchy French prevailed.
[93] It was my privilege when wandering over the ground rendered
memorable by the battle of Hastings to enjoy the companionship of Mr.
Lower, of Lewes. To his local knowledge, his extensive acquaintance
with antiquarian science, and his friendly attention, I am largely
indebted.
[94] Lower on the Battle of Hastings, ‘Sussex Arch. Col.,’ vi. 18.
[95] During the middle ages the English were much given to the
irreverent use of this great name; so much so was this the case, that
_Godamites_ became, in France, synonymous with English. Joan of Arc
usually designates her enemies by this term.
[96] Vol. xix., p. 206. Mr. Amyot does not profess to adhere strictly
to the text of Gaimar, but has introduced into his translation some
incidents mentioned by other writers.
[97] On accompanying Mr. Lower to the spot, in January, 1853, I was
satisfied of the correctness of his views.
[98] Sussex Archæological Collections, vol. vi., p. 27.
[99] There has been a discussion respecting the word _pueros_, some
supposing that the parties thus addressed were young soldiers,
inexperienced recruits. It is probable, however, that the word is
equivalent to the phrase, “lads” among us, or the word “_boys_” in the
lines which carried so much terror to the heart of James the Second,
after he had seen a specimen of the stalwart youth which Cornwall
produces--
“And must Trelawney die, and must Trelawney die?
Then twenty thousand Cornish _boys_ will ask the reason why.”
[100] Benoit de Saint-More. Taylor’s Wace, 193.
[101] The special correspondent of _The Times_, writing from the
Heights of Alma, Sep. 21st, 1854, says, “The attitudes of some of the
dead were awful. One man might be seen resting on one knee, with the
arms extended in the form of taking aim, the brow compressed, the lips
clinched--the very expression of firing at an enemy stamped on the
face and fixed there by death; a ball had struck this man in the neck.
Physiologists or anatomists must settle the rest. Another was lying on
his back with the same expression, and his arms raised in a similar
attitude, the Minié musket still grasped in his hands undischarged.
_Another lay in a perfect arch, his head resting on one part of the
ground and his feet on the other, but his back raised high above
it._--_The Times_, Oct. 11th, 1854. _See_ also Sir Charles Bell’s
_Anatomy of Expression_, 3rd edition, p. 160.
[102] M. A. Lower’s Battle Abbey Chronicle, p. 7.
[103] Ibid.
[104] The Tapestry represents the death of Harold as rapidly
succeeding the infliction of the wound in his eye. The impression left
by a perusal of Wace is, that at least an hour or two elapsed between
the one event and the other. The diversity of statement between these
authorities is probably more apparent than real. After Harold was
wounded in so important an organ as the eye, it was impossible that he
could long withstand the onset of William’s troops; his defeat, or, in
other words, his death, was certain. However manfully Harold may have
borne up under the inconvenience and pain of his wound, the artist
of the Tapestry is logically correct in at once bringing us to the
conclusion of the scene.
[105] Ingulph’s Chronicle, p. 139.
[106] Lower’s Chronicle of Battle Abbey, p. 11.
[107] Sussex Archæological Collections, vol. 1., page 33.--For some
years the public have been admitted to the Abbey grounds only on one
day of the week, and that the day (Monday) most inconvenient to those
who reside at a distance from Battle. Let us hope that henceforth no
one respectfully requesting permission to muse upon the spot where the
deed was done on which the modern history of the world has turned,
will meet with a denial.
[108] History of the Anglo-Saxons (European Library), p. 337.
[109] Lingard’s Hist. Eng., vol. i., p. 313.
[110] Vol. i., p. 487.
[111] General Introduction to Domesday, vol. i. p. 311. In all
probability William obtained the title of Conqueror from the Latin
word _conquiro_, which in its legal acceptation signified to acquire.
It is still used in this sense by the Scottish lawyers.
[112] Saxon Chronicle, Bohn’s edition, p. 462.
[113] Ingulph’s Chronicle, p. 140.
[114] Henry of Huntingdon, vol. i. p. 216.
[115] William of Malmesbury, p. 279.
[116] _See_ Wright’s Biographia Britannica, vol. ii., p. 10.
[117] Would not the United States of America do well to notice this?
[118] Hodgson’s Northumberland, Vol. III., Part iii., pp. 3, 11.
[119] Raine’s St. Cuthbert, p. 88.