My thoughts on 1066 events

The Closed Shop (and Minds) of "Professional" Historians   This is not one of my normal posts on the Battle of Hastings but rather a rant about the interactions I've had with "professional" historians. That is not to say that the dealings have been anything but courteous but at the same time totally dismissive.  Let's start with English Heritage. Wace's tome, Roman de Rou runs to 11419 lines in Glyn S Burgess's translation. From lines 7699 to 8920 it details events surrounding the battle give or take a couple of lines.  Now in line 7947/8 it states " The priests and the ordained climbed up to the top of a hill to pray God, say their prayers and watch the battle" . Applying this to the official site at Battle Abbey one finds a mound about a kilometre away that could be the hill in question. Question is what level of detail can be seen at that distance? English Heritage had a very snazzy answer Well, they wrote, Wace got confused between the ...

  The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis  by kind permission via PCsclear I am using the translation by Marjorie Chibnall from the Oxford Medieval Texts. ( ISBN 0-19-820220-2). The page number of the English translation and the quotation are presented in bold.   Page 173         “Several men of religion had come with the warriors from Normandy” Until I read this, I had no idea that Odo was not the only bishop to have come over with William. Orderic names the other bishop as Geoffrey of Coutances. This backs up what Wace wrote in his Roman de Rou. It further solidifies in my mind that the final Scenes of the Bayeux Tapestry from Scene 51 onwards are linked to specific times of the day. It may be that the group working on the Tapestry were working from notes made at the time of the battle(s) by observing clergy Page 173         “Battle was joined on 14 October at the third hou...

 The Narrative I Derive From the Bayeux Tapestry -  Final Summary Summation  Over the past three posts I have tried to convey my idea of what the Bayeux Tapestry is trying to say about the fateful day. I have tried to show that the scenes from 51 onwards can be grouped into four time stamped events - Initial contact, success at wiping out the Huscarls, initial contact with the main body and the subsequent victory on the field of battle.  I have brought in rarely corroborating evidence from other early reports because I needed to let my audience know that my ideas were not just flights of fancy but based on things that are out there.  There's a few things to point out. Scene 50 which contains just three people King Harold and the two "scouts" must be either a fanciful idea on the part of the Norman clergy or recorded by the English clergy accompanying Harold to the battle. No matter what, the three of them were not around at the end of the battle to question! I h...

    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 I mages 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 r...

  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 I mages 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 “Tierce” (about 9 a.m.) This includes Scenes 51a, 51b and 52...

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 ( from I mages on web site of Ulrich Harsh.  -  http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost11/Bayeux/bay_tama.html  via Wikipedia_ tituli)  of the Tapestry 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'. The Bayeux Tapestry   This embroidery, to give its proper English n...