Fet orent devant els _escuz_ De fenestres è d'altres fuz, Devant els les orent levez, Come cleies joinz è serrez; Fait en orent devant closture, N'i laissierent nule jointure, Par onc Normant entr'els venist Qui desconfire les volsist. D'escuz e d'ais s'avironoent, Issi deffendre se quidoent Et s'il se fussent bien tenu, Ia ne fussent le ior vencu. In his first edition, writing, I believe, under the influence of Taylor's version, Mr Freeman gave these lines in a footnote to his narrative of the battle, and appears to have then looked on them as describing his palisade.[21] But in his 'second edition, revised', in preparing which he went 'minutely through every line, and corrected or improved whatever seemed to need correction or improvement' (p. v), he transferred these lines to his appendix on the battle, where he wrote concerning them as follows: [(At Maldon) the English stood, _as at Senlac_, in the array common to them and their enemies--a strong line, or rather wedge, of infantry, forming a wall with their shields (i. 271).][22] Of the array of the shield-wall we have often heard already, as at Maldon (see vol. i. p. 271), but it is at Senlac that we get the fullest descriptions of it [_sic_] all the better for coming in the mouths of enemies. Wace gives his description, 12941: 'Fet orent devant els escuz De fenestres è d'altres fuz; Devant els les orent levez. . . . . . Et s'il se fussent bien tenu Ja ne fussent li jor vencu.' So William of Malmesbury, 241. 'Pedites omnes cum bipennibus, conserta ante se scutorum testudine, impenetrabilem cuneum faciunt; quod profecto illis eâ die saluti fuisset, nisi Normanni simulatâ fugâ more suo confertos manipulos laxassent.' So at the battle of the Standard, according to Æthelred of Rievaux (343), 'scutis scuta junguntur, lateribus latera conseruntur' (iii. 763-4). The unquestionable meaning of Mr Freeman's words is that Wace's lines (like the other passages) describe the time-honoured shield-wall, 'the fortress of shields, so often sung of alike in English and in Scandinavian minstrelsy' (iii. 372). Appealing to this, his own verdict, in my original article,[23] I spoke of these lines as referring to the 'shield-wall', and maintained that 'escuz' meant shields, not 'barricades'. This also, it will be seen, must have been Mr Freeman's view, when he pronounced these lines to be a description of the shield-wall. I therefore declared that the only evidence he adduced for his palisade had been demonstrably obtained by misconstruing his Latin, and (on his own showing) by mistranslating his French. This has been my case from the first: it remains my case now. Unlike our forefathers on the hill of battle, I will not be decoyed into breaking 'the line of the shield-wall'.[24] MY ARGUMENT AGAINST IT