1066 (33 page)

2
For example, Grape,
Bayeux Tapestry,
p. 23; discussed in Bridgeford, 'Was Count Eustace the Patron?' pp. 180ff.

3
The earliest reference to Count Eustace's whiskers I have found comes from the late twelfth century: Lambert of Ardres,
History,
p. 142, refers to Eustace II as 'Eustace the Whiskered of Boulogne'. Late as this is, there seems no reason seriously to doubt the historicity of the name. My statement in Bridgeford, 'Was Count Eustace the Patron?', that the nickname is found in the Old French Crusade Cycle appears to be incorrect.

4
Although omitted in print in Montfaucon's book, the moustache properly appears in Benoît's original drawing. This was shown by Dr David Hill at the conference on the Bayeux Tapestry in October 1999 at Cerisy-la-Salle. The theory that the moustache is a later 'improvement' by nineteenth-century repairers is, therefore, wrong.

5
Carmen,
pp. 31-2.

6
Eustace's banner is sometimes said to be the papal banner given by Pope Alexander II to Duke William's expedition. Other sources, however, say that this was borne by one Thurstan, son of Rollo: Orderic Vitalis,
Ecclesiastical History,
II, p. 172. Nor has it been conclusively identified as an emblem of Boulogne.

7
Platts,
Origins of Heraldry,
p. 41.

8
The identification of the other three apart from Eustace is not entirely certain. The interpretation here follows
Carmen,
introduction by Barlow, p. lxxxii, where the issue is fully discussed.

9
Carmen, p.
32.

2
For both suggestions, Tanner, 'Counts of Boulogne', pp. 272-4.

3
Ibid., p.
266.

4
Barlow,
Edward the Confessor,
pp. 307ff.

5
The date of the reconciliation is often given as 1077 on the basis that William of Poitiers implies that it had taken place not long before he was writing and he may possibly have completed his work after 13 September 1077. However, the date of William's
Gesta Guillelmi
is subject to conflicting evidence and may well be earlier; see William of Poitiers,
Gesta Guillelmi,
introduction, p. xx. Thus Barlow,
Edward the Confessor, p.
308, suggests a date for the reconciliation of shortly before 1074.

2
F. du Boulay, quoted in Bernstein,
Mystery of the Bayeux Tapestry,
p. 32.

3
The start date for the list was 1066, presumably reflecting the curiously common assumption that English history only begins in 1066. It should have been possible to include some Anglo-Saxon fortunes on the basis of Domesday evidence alone.

4
Orderic Vitalis,
Ecclesiastical History,
II, p. 203.

5
Ibid.,
II, p. 265.

6
Ibid.,
IV, p. 117.

7
Bates, 'The Character and Career of Odo, Bishop of Bayeux', p. 12.

8
William of Malmesbury,
Gesta Regum Anglorum, p.
507.

9
Orderic Vitalis,
Ecclesiastical History,
IV, pp. 40-44; William of Malmesbury,
Gesta Regum Anglorum, p.
277;
Hyde Chronicle, p. 296.

10
Wace,
Roman de Rou,
III
,
lines 9185ff.

11
Harold's brother Wulfnoth was taken by William Rufus to England but placed under restraint in Winchester.

12
Orderic Vitalis,
Ecclesiastical History,
IV, p. 99.

13
Bates, 'The Character and Career of Odo, Bishop of Bayeux'.

14
See Orderic Vitalis,
Ecclesiastical History,
IV, p. 189.

15
Ibid.,
IV, p. 129.

16
Ibid.,
IV, 133ff.

17
With only one exception, the sheer anomaly of Eustace's appearance has simply not been noticed in studies of the Bayeux Tapestry. Only one attempt has been made to address the point: Shirley A. Brown, 'Why Eustace, Odo and William?' Brown suggested that Odo commissioned the tapestry after his fall-out with William and that the purpose of highlighting Eustace, already forgiven for his revolt, was to encourage William to forgive Odo as well. On balance this seems unlikely, both as to date and purpose. Odo and Eustace had specifically fallen out themselves, and highlighting the role of another adversary of William would be an odd and rather oblique way to encourage his forgiveness.

18
Bridgeford, 'Was Count Eustace the Patron?'.

2
This is suggested by Bennett, 'Encore Turold dans la tapisserie de Bayeux'. If the knight is also called Turold, a prime candidate would be Turold of Rochester, another knight of Bishop Odo with land in Kent. He was also accused of encroachments by Archbishop Lanfranc. But the name was common.

3
For the view that Turold is not a dwarf, see Bennett, 'Encore Turold dans la tapisserie de Bayeux'.

4
I am grateful for information in this respect to Dr S. Pavan.

5
Keats-Rohan,
Domesday People,
pp. 430-32.

6
Adigard des Gautries,
Les Noms des personnes scandinaves en Norm-andie de 911 a 1066,
pp. 171-3 and 342-7.

7
Wilson,
Bayeux Tapestry,
p. 176, alludes to this theory. Whether the dwarf is Turold and whether the dwarf designed the tapestry are clearly two different questions but they seem to be conflated by Gibbs-Smith in Stenton (ed.),
Bayeux Tapestry, p.
165.

8
J. J. G. Alexander,
Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work,
pp. 9-16.

9
Ibid.,
pp. 12-16.

10
Rita Lejeune (herself a noted scholar of the
Chanson de Roland),
'Turold dans la tapisserie de Bayeux'. Lejeune, however, thought that the name Turold did not apply to the
dwarf-jongleur.

11
Faral,
Les Jongleurs en France au Moyen Age.

12
Domesday Book, p.
92. The land of Adelina
Joculatrix
lay in Upper Catford;
Domesday People, p.
124.

13
Domesday Book, p. 445 (Berdic joculator regis).

14
Lomenec'h,
Chantres et menestrels a la cour de Bretagne, p.
24.

15
The suggestion that the
jongleur
accompanied the two Norman knights is
made by Lejeune, 'Turold dans la tapisserie de Bayeux', but it simply does not conform to what we see in the tapestry.

16
For Count Guy's family connections,
Carmen,
introduction. For monkish opinion of him, Hariulf,
Chronique de Saint-Riquier, p.
250; William of Malmesbury,
Gesta Regum Anglorum, p.
419.

17
For medieval dwarfs generally, Johnson, 'Medieval German Dwarfs'; Harward,
The Dwarfs of Arthurian Romance and Celtic Myth;
Ver-chere, 'Peripherie et croisement'.

18
Johnson, 'Medieval German Dwarfs', p. 212. Johnson's statement that William the Conqueror had a dwarf and that dwarfs held horses in state processions may be a confusion based upon Turold in the Bayeux Tapestry.

19
Runciman,
History of the Crusades,
III, p. 93.

20
Orderic Vitalis,
Ecclesiastical History,
III, p. 319.

21
Hariulf,
Chronique de Saint-Riquier, p.
149.

22
Song of Roland,
tr. Burgess.

23
Le Gentil,
La Chanson de Roland,
chapter 3. There is much debate as to whether the poem is the result of successive versions over a long period of time or the product of a single poet. Burgess,
Song of Roland, p.
14, concludes: 'My own preference is to see Turoldus as the author, relating his own version of a heroic poem which would have existed in a variety of earlier states.'

24
Moignet,
La Chanson de Roland, p.
16.

25
Some specialists (but not all) consider this subsequent episode to be the work of another poet.

26
For example, Maclagan,
Bayeux Tapestry, p.
25; S. R. Brown, 'The Bayeux Tapestry and the Song of Roland'. It is often also said that Taillefer, a 'Norman' knight, sang the
Chanson de Roland
as the Normans advanced at Hastings. A
jongleur
called Taillefer is mentioned juggling with his sword by the
Carmen
but there is no mention of him singing the
Roland.
William of Malmesbury
(Gesta Regum Anglorum,
1120s) states that the Normans sang of Roland and Charlemagne as they advanced but does not mention any Taillefer. In the 1160s Wace amalgamated the two traditions. The earliest surviving version of the
Roland
refers obliquely to the Norman victory (and certain later events) and, therefore, this cannot have been sung at Hastings. It is not impossible that an earlier version than this was sung but the evidence of Malmesbury is relatively late. The name Taillefer has not been found in Normandy. It is most strongly associated with the nobility of Aquitaine and the Languedoc. Given the French tenor of the
Carmen,
it is most likely that the Taillefer at Hastings was a non-Norman Frenchman of some description.

27
Song of Roland,
tr. Burgess, lines 1515ff. See also 1490ff. for the interesting description of Turpin's horse which in some respects is similar to Odo's.

28
As argued by Short, 'The Language of the Bayeux Tapestry Inscriptions'.

29
A belligerent Norman monk Turold of Fecamp, afterwards of Malmesbury and then Peterborough, is sometimes proposed as the author (for example, de Bouard, 'La Chanson de Roland et la Normandie'). A Peterborough record speaks of him as a
'nepos'
of King William and on the basis of this it is often said that he is either a son or nephew of Bishop Odo. However,
'nepos'
could denote other relationships besides nephew and Turold of Fecamp was probably a more distant kinsman of Duke William.

30
Joseph Bedier, quoted in Douglas, 'The Song of Roland and the Norman Conquest', p. 105; Moignet,
La Chanson de Roland,
pp. 278ff.

31
Bender,
Konig und Vasall,
pp. 26ff.

32
Hariulf, clearly a late source, states
(Chronique de Saint-Riquier, p.
61) that Charlemagne gave Angilbert 'the whole maritime region'. But even in his known capacity as Abbot of Saint-Riquier, Angilbert was undoubtedly one of the most important men in Ponthieu.

33
It is tempting to try to make something of the fact that Angilbert's nickname was Homer and the Greek Homer is mentioned in passing in the
Roland
(line 2616). It is at least possible that the name Homer was familiar to the poet because of Angilbert.

34
This point was not addressed by Douglas, 'The Song of Roland and the Norman Conquest'. See also F. Lot, 'Etudes sur les legendes epiques franchises', who concluded (p. 376) that 'Historically and psychologically, it is impossible that the
Chanson de Roland
is by a Norman.' It should also be mentioned in passing that Normandy did not exist at the time of Charlemagne and the references to Normandy and the Normans in the
Roland
are anachronistic.

35
The suggestion that the
Roland
is later than the tapestry because the tapestry shows lances both couched and thrown whereas the
Roland
only speaks of them as couched (a later technique) tries to deduce too much from what are, after all, specific and very different works of art. Moreover, lances are also thrown in the
Roland,
by the Saracens, and the preference for describing the couched lance on the Christian side may be aesthetic or ideological rather than realistic.

36
Song of Roland,
tr. Burgess, lines 372, 2332.

37
Bridgeford, 'Camels, Drums and the Song of Roland'.

38
The possible allusions are: King William's advance into Scotland in the autumn of 1072 (line 2331); the capture of Jerusalem by Atsiz ibn Abaq in 1071 (line 1566); the devaluation of the Byzantine currency in or after 1071 (line 132); the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 (Baligant episode); the capture of Palermo in January 1072 (line 2923).

39
Song of Roland,
tr. Burgess, line 2923. From the context Sezile (line 200) must be a town in Spain, not the island of Sicily.

40
Song of Roland,
tr. Burgess, lines 2503ff. The mention of the Holy Lance has been used by some specialists to date the poem after 1098, when a Holy Lance was discovered by a crusader, Peter Bartholomew, at Antioch. The idea that the poet was reacting to news of the Antioch discovery, whose authenticity was 'disproved' when Bartholomew perished undergoing an ordeal by fire a year later, is not in itself particularly persuasive and the argument is made redundant by the prior existence of the Saint-Riquier tradition.

41
John 19:31-5.

42
Loomis, 'The Passion Lance Relics and the War Cry Monjoie'.

43
Hariulf,
Chronique de Saint-Riquier, p.
150.