1066 (22 page)

This, of course, is Orderic's opinion. Odo's spoliation of monastic land was probably not as great as Orderic here (and elsewhere) implies, and as evidence of Odo's sexual liaisons only one bastard is known - John of Bayeux, afterwards found 'in the court of King Henry'.
¹³
Nevertheless it is undeniable that William's hatred for Odo, his once trusted lieutenant, was still as extreme as it was implacable. The men gathered around William's bedside, including Robert of Mortain, continued to press him to have pity on Odo, offering to give security for the bishop's future conduct. William, a weak and dying man, finally gave way to their constant entreaties. 'Unwillingly I grant that my brother may be released from prison but I warn you that he will be the cause of death and grievous harm to many.' William died soon after, on 9 September 1087, and was buried in the enormous cathedral-like church he had had built at the Abbaye aux Hommes in Caen, one the greatest of all Romanesque churches still standing, just a*s Matilda was buried at her Abbaye aux Dames.

With William dead, four years in the dungeons of Rouen had left Odo neither contrite nor subdued but ready and eager to quench his thirst on the drug of power that had been so abruptly denied him. He swiftly ingratiated himself with Robert Curthose, the new Duke of Normandy, and by early 1088 they were together plotting to overthrow King William Rufus of England and reunite Normandy and England under Robert's single authority. There would be little difficulty, Odo thought, in overcoming King William Rufus; he may well have considered him weak and effeminate. Later chroniclers, all monks, agreed that times had changed for the worse; they complained that the new king's courtiers wore their hair long and in curls, and that they minced around effeminately in wide-sleeved robes and wore shoes that curled up extravagantly at the toes like scorpions' tails.
¹⁴
It was all a far cry from the hard men in crew cuts who had invaded England in 1066. Others were persuaded to join Odo's plot, including old Bishop Geoffrey of Coutances and (with the events at Dover in 1067 now long forgotten) the young Count Eustace III of Boulogne. The plan seems to have been that Odo would secure a strong foothold in the south-east of England and Robert would invade from Normandy. One of Odo's first acts in this rebellion was to send his knights on a petulant rampage through the lands of his old adversary Archbishop Lanfranc. Odo then marched from Rochester to the castle at Pevensey, where he holed up, waiting patiently for Duke Robert's invasion.

Faced with this widening Franco-Norman revolt, King William Rufus had no choice but to appeal to his lowly English subjects for help. He made rash promises of good government and low taxation that, as ever, were rather over-optimistically accepted by the populace: 'he promised them,' the
Anglo Saxon Chronicle
(E) advises us, 'the best law that ever was in this land; and forbade every unjust tax and gave men their woods and their coursing - but it did not last long'. By dint of these promises, Rufus was able to assemble a large Anglo Norman force which surrounded the castle at Pevensey so that Odo could not escape. The English, so the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
continued, were particularly keen 'to get Bishop Odo' whom they regarded as the brains behind the 'foolish'revolt. After six weeks the besieged bishop's provisions ran out and, with no sign of any serious attempt at invasion by Duke Robert, he was forced to surrender. He promised, perhaps already without sincerity, to hand over Rochester, and that he would then leave the shores of England and never return without the king's consent.

Odo was taken under relatively light guard to Rochester in order to arrange for the fortification there to be delivered up. Within its walls, however, were his allies Count Eustace III of Boulogne, the three sons of Earl Roger of Montgomery and perhaps as many as 500 knights. They were in no mood to surrender. Sallying out, they captured the king's men and then took them back within the castle. Odo, seizing the moment, also scurried within. Once more Rufus had to lay siege to Odo. Once more the young king proved a shrewder and more formidable enemy than the bishop had expected. During May 1088 Rufus blockaded the walls of Rochester Castle and erected two siege towers to cut off his uncle's escape. Over the next weeks provisions within ran out and conditions rapidly deteriorated. If we are to believe Orderic Vitalis, Odo and his allies were additionally inconvenienced by a plague of flies truly biblical in scale.
¹⁵
Unable to endure any longer, they finally opened negotiations to surrender.

It was the custom of the time for the victors at a siege to herald their triumph over the defeated with a fanfare of trumpets.
¹⁶
To avoid this final humiliation, Odo tried to win from the king the concession that, although he might be defeated, banished and deprived of his wealth, at least the trumpets would not be blown. Rufus refused. Not for 1,000 gold marks would he agree to his uncle's request; he wanted to enjoy the moment. So it was that Odo and his allies emerged in shame from Rochester to a loud blast of trumpets; apparently Englishmen all around jeered at 'the traitor bishop' and taunted him with cries that he deserved no better than to be strung up from a gallows. Although King William Rufus subsequently forgave many who had taken part in the revolt, including Count Eustace III of Boulogne, Odo was deprived once and for all of his vast possessions in England. He was banished for good, never to set foot on English soil again.

The great English adventure, begun in hope and trepidation in 1066 and recorded so remarkably in the stitches of the Bayeux Tapestry, was finally over for Odo. Now in his fifties, he contrived to interfere, as best he could, in the government of Normandy under the ineffectual rule of Robert Curthose. In November 1095 Odo journeyed to the centre of France, into the rounded mountains of the Auvergne, in order to attend a great council of bishops at the city of Clermont, one of the periodic gatherings of the Catholic Church. In the event it was to be a momentous occasion and its outcome defined the age to come. Over 300 clerics were present; Pope Urban II himself presided. The first nine days of the Council of Clermont proceeded uneventfully, or at least as expected, but as the council neared its end it was announced that Pope Urban was to make a momentous statement. News spread around the city. People flocked to hear what Urban had to say and they arrived in such vast numbers that the council had to be moved from within the cathedral to an open field beyond the city gates. Urban's words survive in only second-hand and mutually inconsistent versions (including one by Baudri of Bourgueil). But the gist is known. He appealed to Western Christians to aid their co-religionists in the East. The beleaguered Emperor of Byzantium had asked for help in his battles against the Turks. Pilgrims making their way to Jerusalem were facing greater and greater difficulties. All this time the knights and armies of the West were slaying each other when it was the duty of Christians, he said, to march in aid of their brethren on a 'righteous war'. For those who died there would be absolution and remission of sins. The enthusiasm with which this revolutionary call was taken up took everyone, including Urban, by surprise. Its primary goal became, if it had not already been at the outset, the capture of Jerusalem from Muslim hands. Thus was born the terrible, tragic, bloodthirsty and ultimately fruitless movement now known as the Crusades.

Hardly in the first flush of youth, Odo was amongst those who decided to take the cross. He may have been fired by religious fervour. Duke Robert himself decided to become a Crusader and, having made his peace with King William Rufus, mortgaged the duchy of Normandy in Rufus's favour. The prospect of being left behind at the mercy of his old enemy Rufus may well have influenced Odo in his decision. We do not know the whereabouts of the Bayeux Tapestry, but if it was now in Odo's possession it is not difficult to imagine the old bishop, on eve of his departure, having the tapestry spread out and displayed for him for one last time. If so, he would have probably received fresh inspiration from what he saw; if not, he would have at least remembered what it showed. By his words, his advice, his prayers, his very presence at the battlefield, he had influenced the outcome of the fight against the English at Hastings. Might he not now also affect the outcome of the forthcoming struggles in the Holy Land?

After travelling around Normandy with the papal legate, presumably in order to preach the Crusade, Odo finally departed the duchy in September 1096. Different crusading armies took different routes. The famous brothers Godfrey of Bouillon and Baldwin of Boulogne took an overland route through central Europe. Odo of Bayeux travelled southwards through France and Italy in the company of Duke Robert of Normandy and, it seems, Count Eustace III of Boulogne. He visited Rome and afterwards met Pope Urban at Lucca. The large party moved south again and wintered in Apulia and Calabria at the southern end of Italy. All talk, no doubt, was of plans for the coming year. Northern Frenchmen would have felt at home in these parts, for these were territories which were ruled by Normans, too. Earlier in the century Norman adventurers had carved out their own principalities in Italy, a private enterprise by hardened mercenaries that had succeeded beyond their dreams. By 1059 Robert Guiscard, whose family hailed from Hauteville, not far from Bayeux, had become the powerful Duke of Apulia and Calabria. Under his command the island of Sicily had been invaded in 1061. Long in Muslim hands, Sicily had now been added to the empire of the Hautevilles.

As 1096 drew to a close, Bishop Odo, apparently still in good health, made the short sea crossing to Sicily in order to visit Count Roger the Great, Guiscard's brother, at Palermo. It was here, in January 1097, that Odo caught his last illness. Gilbert of Evreux, Odo's episcopal colleague from Normandy, remained at his bedside to the end. His final ambition dashed, Odo's last act was to leave his movable wealth, of which there was no doubt plenty, to Arnulf of Choques, a churchman of Boulonnais birth who was to end an eventful career as Patriarch of Jerusalem. A fine tomb in Palermo Cathedral was erected for Odo by Count Roger, but in the last quarter of the twelfth century it was taken down and nothing of it now remains. It is possible that Odo's bones were removed and that they now lie, together with those of other noble Normans, in a side chapel dedicated to Mary Magdalene.

Two eventful lives had ended: Eustace, the noble heir of Charlemagne, who sought to raise the fortunes of his comital house of Boulogne, and Odo, grandson of a tanner, a man who became rich and powerful thanks to his half-brother's achievements but whose greed and ambition ultimately caused a dramatic downfall. Their paths had crossed as a result of Duke William's audacious plan to seize the English throne and they came into conflict only a year later when Eustace launched his attack on Dover Castle. Why should these two men, so recently foes, be highlighted on either side of Duke William in the Bayeux Tapestry?
¹⁷
An intriguing alternative to the orthodox theory of Odo's patronage of the work has long been overlooked. Was the patron of the tapestry not Odo at all, but rather Count Eustace II of Boulogne?
¹⁸

On the face of it, this overlooked possibility has a great deal of explanatory power. Eustace could have commissioned the tapestry as a gift to Odo, as part of the process of their reconciliation in the early 1070s and perhaps also in order to gain the release of the
nepos
who had been captured by Odo's knights. The tapestry's highlighting of Odo, in the various ways that it does, would then be a case of flattery rather than self-promotion, but at the same time the role of Eustace and his French army at Hastings, the great charge under the banner of Boulogne and Eustace's role in felling Harold, were all subtly rendered in threads. The English undercurrent consistent with the fact that in 1067 Eustace sided with English rebels. Despite earlier events, he had evidently found some common ground with the men of Kent. Moreover, as a non Norman, Eustace could easily have been open to alternative views about the legitimacy of William's claim to the throne. Could it, therefore, be that this forgotten and enigmatic man, Count Eustace II of Boulogne, was ultimately responsible for the most famous work of art in English history?

18

Turold the Dwarf

Turold the dwarf is perhaps the most captivating of all the figures depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry [scene 10; plate 1]. We see him in the county of Ponthieu, holding the two horses of Duke William's emissaries, who have just arrived at Count Guy's residence on their mission to demand Harold's handover to the Norman duke. There are only fifteen characters named in the whole work; all but four are easily identifiable, known from other sources for the part they played in the drama of 1066. Who is this dwarf engaged in such a menial task, and why has he been singled out so enigmatically by name?

For reasons that must lie at the very heart of the mystery, whoever designed the tapestry has taken pains to point out that the dwarf is called Turold, for the name has been carefully lowered and placed immediately above the dwarf's head. There has been some controversy in the past as to whether the person called Turold is the dwarf or the Norman emissary standing next to him.
¹
But it is important to note that the word 'Turold' stands alone and does not form part of any sentence. Five other times a person is named in the tapestry by a stand-alone name. Harold (twice), William, Robert and Eustace - all are on occasions designated in this way. In each case the name has been placed above the head of the person in question. So, despite the objections of some, there can really be little doubt that the name 'Turold' refers to the dwarf. It is possible that it refers to the knight as well; we have seen how fond the artist was of teasing us with multiple meanings, and Turold was a common name.
²
What can be stated with more probability, however, is that the dwarf is called Turold, and it is the dwarf who provides us with the most compelling mystery.

Turold is a dwarf in the strictest medical sense. Some observers have questioned this, preferring to see his apparently small stature as an attempt at perspective.
³
Strangely, however, this debate has proceeded without bringing even minimal medical evidence to bear on the issue. Not only is Turold small. His head is especially large for the rest of his body;indeed his head and neck account for almost a third of his total height. In this, he is unlike any other figure in the tapestry;more normally, the proportion of head and neck to the rest of the body is a fifth or a sixth. It is, of course, unrealistic to expect an anatomically correct portrait. But the disproportionately large head is a key symptom of a type of dwarfism known as achondroplasia. Caused by a random genetic mutation, achondroplasia is the most common form of dwarfism encountered today; its incidence cannot have been any different in medieval times. Thus
'la teste ot grosse'
'the head is large'- was how the twelfth-century poet Beroul described a dwarf named Frocin. Achondroplastic dwarfs have normal intelligence and lifespan. They also tend to be well built. Turold's normal intelligence and upper body strength are shown by his ability to control the two horses. His pointy beard shows that he is not a child. Very short limbs, strong upper body, disproportionately large head, normal intelligence, beard all this goes a long way towards showing that the artist of the tapestry has left us with a portrait of an adult male achondroplastic dwarf.
⁴

But who can this dwarf be? Our quest to answer this question is not helped by the fact that 'Turold' was a common name. Unfortunately for us, many a proud Norman parent chose to call his or her infant son 'Turold' for it was a forceful name, carrying a
frisson
of the pagan past; it was ultimately derived from the Old Norse personal name Thorvaldr, which literally meant 'the Power of Thor'. Introduced into Normandy by invading Vikings of the ninth century, it became extremely popular in the form of Turold or Thorold (and other variant spellings). Surviving documents represent only the tip of the iceberg but they attest to twenty-eight Turolds living in Normandy before 1066.
⁵
The name was particularly common in the east of the duchy, but it is also found as far west as the Channel Islands. The
Domesday Book
listed fourteen invaders called Turold who by 1086 had established themselves in England.
⁶
The popularity of the name in medieval times has left its mark in the current surnames of Thorold in England, Torode in Guernsey and Theroude (among others) in France, and in several place names in Normandy as well. On the island of Jersey it is recalled by the district still known as Trodez and by a little lane called Rue de la Fosse Tauraude. What is more, a clutch of medieval Turolds can be found in other parts of France, and elsewhere on the continent as well.

There is, of course, no reason why a dwarf should not be someone of remarkable achievement. One very intriguing theory about Turold, advanced from time to time, is that he was the genius who designed the Bayeux Tapesry.
⁷
Could this be the answer to the enigma of Turold? Did he cast himself in a modest cameo role within his own masterpiece, much as Alfred Hitchcock was to do in our own times? Intriguing as this theory is, it is unlikely to be the case. We must not forget that the evidence suggests that the designer of the tapestry was English, or at least connected with St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury. Several factors show Turold to be French and to be based in France. The tapestry's Turold is shown in Ponthieu, rather than Normandy, but we should not be overly surprised to find this typically Norman name in a region which lay just over the Norman border. That Turold is French in a broad sense is further confirmed by the fact that the back of his head is shaved. At this point in the tapestry the Normans and other Frenchmen are invariably identified by their shaven napes.

Nor does the general style of eleventh-century self-portraiture lend weight to the hypothesis that Turold was the tapestry's artist. In illuminated manuscripts the artist did sometimes depict himself in small form. But typically the diminutive artist seems to be shown in a position of deference or supplication to a divine or saintly figure, drawn much larger, or to his ecclesiastical or secular superior, similarly illustrated as large.
⁸
This was the whole point of the artist's minimised appearance. Turold, as we have seen, is a dwarf and his diminutive appearance is not to be confused with this modest convention. Moreover, he specifically turns his back on the others depicted in the same scene. Other examples of manuscript self-portrait show the artist in the course of his work or in possession of his tools.
⁹
Once again, there is nothing in the tapestry which would indicate that Turold is a draughtsman or artist. On the contrary, his costume seems to suggest that his profession is specifically something else. What that profession is turns out to be the next important clue.

Turold's unusual costume comprises a pair of short, wide breeches with a pair of 'under-trousers' beneath. In 1966 Rita Lejeune pointed out that from other evidence this curious costume can be identified as that of a
'jongleur'
- in other words, an entertainer who might be a jester, acrobat, juggler, minstrel, bard or other performer.
¹⁰
The dwarf Turold, it seems, is a
jongleur. Jongleurs
added a sparkle and colour to medieval life that is not often evident from the dry tomes of history.
¹¹
Most of the surviving information comes from the centuries that followed 1066, but things cannot have been so very different in Turold's day. The repertoire of a troop of
jongleurs
was as exciting as it was various. They plied their trade in marketplaces, along the pilgrim routes and in the great baronial castles. Some would juggle with apples, balls or knives. Others sang exciting tales, long heroic sagas told from memory, or showed off their skill at rhyming and repartee. There were
jongleurs
who could imitate the sound of birds;others performed tricks with dogs, horses and other animals or recounted bawdy jokes. Many were musicians who might be heard playing viols, rotes, lyres, cymbals, tambourines or bells. In fact,
jongleurs
could be seen doing practically anything that an audience eager for distraction might pay to see. Only one aspect of a
jongleur's
performance survives in the English word 'juggler'.

At the lower end of the social scale was the
jongleur
of the ordinary people, a poor, ragamuffin busker, who was seen at markets and fairs and at stopping points along the pilgrim routes. Then there was the
jongleur
who would travel from castle to castle, knocking on great oak doors and offering his services to the lord and lady. At the announcement of an important event, such as a noble or royal marriage or the dubbing of a knight,
jongleurs
would converge from far and wide. Sometimes eager and impoverished
jongleurs
arrived in such numbers that it was necessary to turn them away.

At the very top of the profession was the
jongleur
who had become attached to the court of a wealthy patron. The resident
jongleur
would provide the entertainment at his lord's castle and would accompany him when he visited other important persons. His standard of life would have been immeasurably better than that endured by his itinerant confreres. Indeed, he might even be rewarded with a grant of land, the most important and enduring form of wealth. The names of a few of these eleventh-century stars survive. The
Domesday Book
of 1086, for example, reveals that a lady
jongleur
(or possibly the wife of a
jongleur)
called Adelina held land in Hampshire under the patronage of Roger of Montgomery, the Earl of Shrewsbury.
¹²
The Domesday survey also tells us William the Conqueror employed a
jongleur
called Berdic, whom he rewarded after the Conquest with three villages in Wales.
¹³
But of Berdic himself nothing more is known. Nor is William the Conqueror the only person depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry known to have employed a
jongleur.
His Breton adversary Conan II (1040-66), whom we see in the embroidery escaping down a rope from the town of Dol, retained a singer-harpist named, curiously enough, Norman.
¹⁴

As for Turold, the fact that he is named and depicted in the tapestry suggests that he was one of these more important
jongleurs,
a performer who had been patronised by a member of the nobility. And his specific association with Count Guy in the embroidery suggests that he was none other than the count's own
jongleur
and household dwarf. The tapestry shows Turold only once; his feet are firmly set on the soil of Picardy; and he is depicted in the same scene as the Count of Ponthieu. There is certainly nothing that suggests that the dwarf has, just now, travelled from Normandy, as a companion to Duke William's two knights.
¹⁵

Count Guy of Ponthieu was a rich man and he wielded significant power within his region. Closely related to the King of France and a cousin of Count Eustace II, he comes across in the sources as greedy, callous and camp; this was, after all, the man who held the marooned Harold for a large ransom.
¹⁶
The idea that he might have employed a household dwarf as his
jongleur
certainly does not jar with other reports of his character. If we are right in taking Turold to be a court dwarf, he stands in the line of a long tradition. Dwarfs have found employment in wealthy households in many periods of history, stretching back to ancient Egypt and imperial Rome, and through to Renaissance times and beyond.
¹⁷
For the medieval period with which we are concerned the evidence for court dwarfs is not abundant but it does exist. Thus in the 1060s Bishop Gunter of Bamberg is recorded as having a dwarf named Askericus.
¹⁸
In the late twelfth century Count Henry II of Champagne, the King of Jerusalem, possessed a dwarf named Scarlet, who, in a bizarre accident, perished with him as he tried to save his lord and master from falling absentmindedly out of a window.
¹⁹
The examples can certainly be multiplied as the ages progress. The pages of medieval literature, especially from the twelfth century onwards, are full of additional evidence of the medieval fascination for dwarfs and for the existence of court dwarfs in particular. The golden-haired harpist Cnu Deireoil of Celtic myth played music that was so sweet that his listeners invariably fell asleep. The court dwarf in the German Arthurian poem
Wigalois
(c. 1200) sang songs so wonderful that they could not be erased from memory. In Chretien de Troyes' poem
Erec et Enide
(c. 1160) we come across a more sinister dwarf who accompanies his lord and lady on their travels, brandishing a whip and barring the way to innocent strangers. There were also stories of wild dwarfs who dwelt in forests and caves, with magical powers and great hoards of gold, even a whole race of dwarfs with their own king and queen. Wild dwarfs could look up at the night sky and read the stars as if the whole of the heavens were a vast illuminated manuscript, and when the chance beckoned they would cast magic spells on the world asleep.

There is thus sufficient evidence, over an extended period, for the medieval fascination with dwarfs and we should not to be surprised if Turold is a
jongleur
attached to the noble household of Count Guy of Ponthieu. This certainly remains no more than an implication from what we see in the tapestry;no written evidence supporting it survives. But it seems an entirely reasonable hypothesis on the basis of which to continue our investigation. Let us now consider what kind of
jongleur
Turold might have been. Some churchmen held
jongleurs
in very low esteem, regarding them as typically blasphemous, vulgar and drunk. Honorius of Autun (c. 1080-c. 1117) fulminated that they were all the servants of Satan and would end up in hell. The image of a
jongleur
in hell, in the process of having his tongue torn out by devils, can be seen above the west door of the early twelfth-century church at Conques in central France. In the same vein, Orderic Vitalis, writing around the 1130s, tells the story of a
jongleur
who, having made an irreverent joke about certain holy relics, was said to have been struck dead by lightning that very night.
²⁰