The Bayeux Tapestry ElucidatedBruce, J. Collingwood (John Collingwood)
History
The Bayeux Tapestry Elucidated
Bruce, J. Collingwood (John Collingwood)
Bayeux tapestry
The result of the fool’s interference in behalf of Harold soon appears.
We are now introduced to two personages, sent by Duke William, who, in
their master’s name, demand the deliverance of the captive. Guy is
standing, and wears a haughty air. He holds an axe in his hand, by way
of asserting that he has the power of life or death over his prisoner.
He is partially habited in the costume of war. Under his chlamys he
wears a tunic of scale armour, probably composed of overlapping pieces
of leather. This dress, though not so secure as one of mail, would
nevertheless present considerable resistance to the stroke of a weapon.
Odo is represented as wearing a dress somewhat similar in the battle of
Hastings; also a figure which I take to be William approaching Mount St.
Michael. His hose are composed of party-coloured materials; several
other personages in the Tapestry, chiefly individuals of consequence,
are so adorned. The Saxons, and probably the Normans also, were in the
habit of protecting their legs in the day of battle by binding them
round with slips of leather or other material. Guy has an armed
attendant, standing aloof, but ready to act; and the two messengers of
William apparently press their mission with great vigour. The legend of
this is, UBI NUNTII WILIELMI DUCIS VENERUNT AD WIDONEM--Where the
messengers of Duke William came to Guy. The horses of the messengers
stand hard by, held by a _dwarf_, who, although he wears a beard, is
evidently a Norman, for his hair is shaven off the back of his head.
Over this little fellow, in the Tapestry, is written the word TUROLD.
Who this personage was we have no means of knowing. He may have been
some favourite with the ladies employed upon the embroidery, who adopted
this mode of conferring immortality upon him; or, as Miss Agnes
Strickland has suggested, he may have been the artist who was employed
to design the Tapestry, and who, though he could not with historic truth
be introduced into any of the principal scenes, yet, very laudably,
wished for a place upon the canvas. It is, however, important to
observe, that the son of a person named Turold occurs in the Domesday
Survey, among the under-tenants of Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, for the county
of Essex.[44] The celebrated Norman ballad _The Song of Roland_ seems to
have had for its author a person of the name of Turold, if we may credit
its concluding lines, “And so endeth the history sung of Turoldus.”[45]
This inscription bears upon the subject of the authenticity of the
Tapestry. Had the work been constructed some considerable period after
the events which it describes, it must have been compiled from historic
documents, and so have contained none but historic personages. As it is,
there are several individuals introduced to us in the Tapestry of which
we have no trace in the chronicles of the day, but with which the
draftsman takes it for granted that all are as familiar as himself--a
very natural and very common oversight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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