The inscription is HIC ODO EPISCOPUS TENENS BACULUM CONFORTAT PUEROS--Here Odo holding a staff exhorts the soldiers.[99] The staff which Odo wields is, I suspect, the badge of command--the marshal’s baton as it were--and not a weapon, as some writers suppose. William himself, in the next group, is represented with a similar implement. During the middle ages the priests of the sanctuary were not unfrequently to be found in the battle-field. Some of them were much more at home in the midst of the _melée_ than in guiding sin-stricken souls to a Saviour. The bold Bishop of Durham, Anthony Beck, never left the precincts of his castle but in magnificent military array. He fought personally at the battle of Falkirk, and drew from a soldier, who felt perhaps a superstitious dread at aiming a deadly blow at one invested with the sacred office, the merited rebuke, “To your mass, O priest.” Richard I., when at war with Philip of France, took a French Bishop prisoner. The Pope sent to demand his liberation, claiming him as a son of the church. Richard upon this sent the Bishop’s coat of mail to the Pope, just as it was, besmeared with the blood of the slain, employing the words of Jacob’s sons, “This have we found; know now whether it be thy son’s coat or no.” The canon laws indeed forbade a priest to shed blood; but this was evaded, it is said, by the use of a mace instead of a sword. The warrior-priest did not stab a man; he only brained him. It is on this ground that the baton held by Odo has been considered by some writers to be a weapon. In consequence of the confusion and panic which attended the disasters in the Malfosse, a report was spread among the Normans that William was dead. At the same time, too, according to one writer,[100] Eustace Count of Boulogne strongly urged the Duke to withdraw his forces from the field, considering the battle to be lost beyond recovery. A Saxon shaft at that moment laid Eustace low, and delivered William from his importunity. The Duke, nothing daunted by this disaster, rushed among his troops, encouraged his men to maintain the combat, and to assure them of the falsehood of the report of his death, raised his helmet and exhibited himself to his people. This act is exhibited in the Tapestry (_Plate XV._); at the same time, his standard-bearer, who never left him throughout the day, draws attention to the circumstance. The group is labelled, HIC EST DVX WILEL:--Here is Duke William. By these energetic means the Normans returned to the onset.