Hilaire Belloc - Premium Collection: Historical Works, Writings on Economy, Essays & Fiction. Hilaire Belloc

      Another evidence of date is the fact (to which I shall make continual allusion in the text) that the Bayeux Tapestry follows fairly closely the Roman de Rou, Wace’s poem describing the Conquest; and that poem cannot be earlier than the middle of the twelfth century—it is usually put as late as the last third of the twelfth. Not only is Wace followed, but certain other authorities which help to date the production.

      Now this would be quite conclusive but for one rebutting argument, the value of which I leave to the judgment of the reader. The written sources which the Tapestry appears to follow would repose upon certain common traditions, memories, and earlier documents, and the Tapestry might be imagined to repose upon the same. But the general rule in tracing the sources of human work of this sort is that the written account precedes the pictorial and serves as a basis for it, while the convergence of this evidence with the evidence of accoutrements and dress leaves little doubt.

We have in the Bayeux Tapestry something certainly later than 1140,1 almost certainly later than 1150, probably as late as 1160, but, on the other hand, certainly prior to the date 1200.

1. The bier of Edward the Confessor is designed in the twelfth century fashion, not in the eleventh—the long vestment of the royal personages throughout is a twelfth-century not an eleventh-century type. The description of the coat of mail in Wace (verses 6522 and the following) is that of the Tapestry; and most important of all the coat of mail of the Tapestry is no longer the mere breastplate, but the full coat of the Crusading period.

      It is true that we have very little information upon the eleventh century armour, but with the Crusades we do get a full description, and we have a right to judge by what we know rather than by what we do not know. Thus Ordericus Vitalis remarks the full coat as a novelty.

      The helmet with a nasal is not now in any document before the seal of Baldwin, the late 1115, but after that date it is common, as one may see in the seal of Charles of Flanders or of Matthew of Montmorency. Indeed, the seal of William the Conqueror himself gives no sign of the nasal, and the same is true of the seals of the First Crusade. This kind of helmet is wholly twelfth century; but remark that William, in the Chronicles, lifted his helmet to show his face. So there is here doubt.

      NOTES

       The corresponding reference-numbers will be found in the following text.

2. Many of our historians carelessly talk of Harold being brought to Rouen. We have no proof of this. There is just one allusion in the Chronicles to the place where delivery of Harold’s body was made from Guy to William, and the place mentioned is what we should expect, a frontier town, Eu. The Palatium does not only mean a place, it also means an institution; and though Rouen was William’s chief city, whenever he moved, his clerks and staff of government—that is, his “Palatium”—moved with him.

3. Mr. Oman in his version of the affair makes Bonneville the scene of the oath. I have not seen the proof of this. The two fundamental pieces of evidence—Wace and the Tapestry—both say Bayeux. William had a castle above the river Touques at Bonneville, and ruins of it, or of a later construction upon its site, can be seen to-day; but it is a good two days’ march from Bayeux.

      The French word “parliament” meant, of course, any general assembly for discussion, and was here used of something earlier than any representative assembly, though these were already springing up in the Spanish March of the Pyrenees, to which district we owe the origin of representative institutions.

4. I have never understood why this third messenger should have been confused with Harold himself. The Latin inscription is quite clear: “Here they gave to Harold the Crown of King.” The people holding the axes are not Harold, neither is the man offering the crown, that I can see.

5. The Tapestry, of course, does not show Freeman’s famous “Palisade,” and that for an excellent reason. The Palisade never existed outside the imagination of Oxford.

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      The first three sections of the Bayeux Tapestry must be taken together, for they describe one incident, which is the departure of Harold from Bosham the port of Chichester, and a manor of his own. Of strictly contemporary evidence to that journey we have none. We can only guess that the year in which it was taken was the year 1064. As to its motive the Bayeux Tapestry gives of course the current Norman version, or rather hints at it. Edward the Confessor is in his palace at Westminster. It is important to note the conventional signs of his rank, the sceptre and the crown. It is the reappearance of the same symbols in the crowning of Harold—which was in the Norman version his supreme act of treason—that is particularly insisted upon. Edward, thus officially presented as it were, is giving a message: that is certainly the symbolism of the attitude, and it is exceedingly likely, though not equally certain, that the person to whom the message is being given is intended for Harold. But it is remarkable that the inscription here says nothing of the nature of that message, and that the point of capital importance—William of Malmesbury’s assertion that Harold was sent by Edward to assure William of his succession to the English throne—is not set out. Taking Wace as the basis of the Tapestry—and this is the best hypothesis—Harold sailed to release from William’s custody his brother Wulfnoth, who had been kept as a hostage in Normandy for King Edward to guarantee King Edward the fidelity of Godwin. But we must remember that the Roman de Rou does mention Edward’s sending Harold to assure William of the succession. And on the whole it is most likely that the intention of the Tapestry is to suggest this. Harold and his knights ride to Bosham. Harold himself is conventionally distinguished by the hawk on the wrist. The Church of Bosham is introduced into the story probably or certainly with the object of emphasizing (as the Tapestry perpetually does) the religious enormity of Harold’s later action, and both this visit to the Church and the Feast in the Upper Room before embarking, which forms the fourth episode, are clearly intended to refer to incidents which were traditional in the Norman story. But we have, I think, no remaining text giving either the visit to the Church or the Feast.

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      In the fifth division Harold and his suite embark, and it should be noted how large a company the Convention of the Tapestry supposes.

      The intention of the expedition was almost certainly to make a Norman port. Once in the Channel the square-rigged ships could not beat into a wind that was too westerly for them or too much south of west, and their land-fall was at some point upon the coast of Ponthieu, of which district Count Guy was the lord. The point upon the coast of Ponthieu where the ships beached,