Battle of Hastings - The Narrative I Derive From the Bayeux Tapestry Part 3

  The Narrative I Derive From the Bayeux Tapestry 

 Introduction

The first book I was given on the Battle of Hastings was D. M. Wilson's " The Bayeux Tapestry". It's a book that shows the Bayeux Tapestry on a 1:1 scale so it's very good at showing what is actually depicted on the Tapestry rather than what you are told it depicts. However, for the purposes of this article I will be using public domain images of the Tapestry ( from Images on web site of Ulrich Harsh. - http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost11/Bayeux/bay_tama.html via Wikipedia_ tituli ) to illustrate my argument. 

The Tapestry sits in a weird place in the scheme of things. It is not allowed to sit wholly in the Art scene as there seems to be only one interpretation allowed of it. But the Tapestry is also mistrusted as a source of historical record. A classic case of 'Heads you lose, tails I win'.

Frame “None” (about 3 p.m.)

Scene 53

Scene 54

Scene 55

This runs from beneath the black horse facing left in Scene 53 to whomever is pointing out William in Scene 55 (Scene 56a seems to be identical). This frame depicts, in my opinion, the initial assault on the English Fyrd line, the subsequent rout of the knights and the following rallying of said knights by William.

The official narrative for these couple of scenes is split between an insertion of the later 'Malfosse' incident and some of the Fyrd gaining a prominence during the battle. Both of which I reject. The main reason I reject them is timing. Now we are told from many sources that the battle started at the third hour (09:00) and lasted until Vespers ( 18:00) (Carmen). So that times the scene 51 et al to 09:00 and the scene 52b/bit of scene 53 to 12:00 or sext and here we have another of those time dislocations that occur throughout the days events - the ending of one encounter and the start of another. 

My view of this frame is that it represents a new attack on troops that had been given time to prepare stout defences against the Norman knights. We know from earlier in the Bayeux Tapestry that Harold had spent time as William’s “guest” in Normandy and so Harold would have been familiar with the tactics of the Norman knights. Harold, earlier in the day had sacrificed about 2500 Huscarls in order to give himself time to prepare the defences to protect his lesser able troops and late arriving Huscarls. And it very nearly worked. 

In my view, this is the start of the main event with William and Harold both in attendance. And given that these sort of battles lasted two to three hours and the excess Norman clergy were doing the recording  then this opening sequence could be any time between 15:00 and 16:00. 

I also believe that scenes 53/54 holds clues as to where this battle took place.  In Scene 54 we see two figures standing at the same level as the Norman knights which suggests that we are looking at the end of a small  ridge. Behind these figures we have a thick brown line which denotes the actual ground - that means that behind these men the ground slopes steeply to an apex and that the ridge is orientated " into" the Tapestry. But there's an added twist. The three men depicted on top of the ridge are shown truncated at the knees as if the ground on the other side of the apex is gently falling away.

So I looked for such a ridge in the landscape and found Ashes Wood and the ridge just inside the wood. The ridge abuts the, what was then, the main Hastings to London road and rises 20 odd metres quickly before gently lowering along the spine of the ridge to about 30 metres lower than the apex. The ridge peters out in about a couple of hundred metres meaning it would have been cosy for the English Army to stand there. 

Frame “Vespers” (about 6 p.m.)

Scene 56b

Scene 57

Scene 58

This runs from Scene 56 to just left of the centre of Scene 58. This frame shows the English line being overrun, death of King Harold and the subsequent death of the remaining Huscarls.

 This is, maybe, the penultimate frame on the Tapestry. The narrative has a gap from the Norman knights being rallied to essentially the extermination of the English Army. There is nothing controversial in this frame other than the “arrow in the eye” incident. It looks like King Harold is trying to pull the arrow out but is not shown to be in distress. The next cameo shows King Harold being slain by a knight. I think the arrow in the eye is very much a disabling injury and not a fatal one as evidenced by two members of the rapidly departing Fyrd in Scene 58.

 One may notice Huscarls being amongst the combatants in this frame and start to wonder why they hadn’t joined their fellows in the first engagement in the morning. The reason could be one of two. Firstly, these are late arriving Huscarls who arrived after the lead elements had set off to halt the Normans. Secondly, these Huscarls depicted could be the personal bodyguard of King Harold II.

 

speculation?

Frame “Compline”? (about 9 p.m.?)

 

Again, this runs from a black horse just to the left of centre in Scene 58 to the end. This frame could just be part of the previous frame showing how the different parts of the English Army dealt with defeat (Huscarls fought to the last man while the Fyrd ran) or it could be portraying the early stages of the Malfosse incident as a separate frame.