On the morrow, he ordered his own dead to be buried, and gave the English peasants leave to do the same office for the others; but William refused to give up Harold's body to his mother, Gytha. An ancient manuscript in the Cottonian library, apparently written at Waltham Abbey about a hundred years after the battle, relates that two monks were deputed by William to search for the body of the king. Unable to distinguish it among the nameless dead by which it was surrounded, they sent for Harold's mistress, Edith, called "The Swan-necked," whose eye of affection was not to be deceived. It was buried under a heap of stones, whence William afterwards permitted it to be removed to Waltham.
There is a story related by Giraldus Cambrensis, that Harold, after receiving his wound, escaped from the field, and lived several years an anchorite in a cell near St. John's Church, in Chester. This account is, however, in the highest degree improbable, and there is no reason to doubt that the last of the Saxon kings died a soldier's death on the field of Hastings.
CHAPTER XI.
ENGLISH AND NORMAN ARCHITECTURE AND CUSTOMS.
Saxon Architecture; Theories about it—Documentary Evidence—Ancient Churches—Characters of the Saxon Style—Illustrations from an Anglo-Saxon Calendar—Old Manuscripts—English Scholarship—Music and the Minstrels—Musical Instruments—Games and Sports—Costume—The Table—Household Furniture—Material Condition of the People—Norman Costumes—Condition of Learning and the Arts—Refinement of the Normans—The Bayeux Tapestry.
Few subjects in mediæval art have led to so much controversy as that of English architecture; one party of writers claiming for it a place as a distinct and separate style, and another totally denying its very existence.
It was usual for writers on architecture before Rickman's time to denominate all buildings in which the semicircular arch or the zigzag moulding prevailed as "Saxon," no matter how highly finished or how richly carved they might be; and, consequently, all our fine Norman churches are in their works described as Saxon.
When this designation was proved to be incorrect, a reaction took place, and some of our writers went so far as to deny the existence of any building of a date anterior to the Conquest. It was argued by these writers that the English built with wood only, and that, consequently, all their erections had long since perished. But though it is true there is evidence to show that the usual material for building was wood, and that it was sometimes overlaid with lead and other metals, yet we find, on the other hand, in the works of early writers, indubitable proofs to show that stone was also used, particularly in rebuilding the churches and monasteries which had been destroyed by the Danes. Alfred set aside a sixth part of his income for this purpose, and we are told by Asser that "he built the houses majestic and good, beyond all the precedents of his ancestors, by his new mechanical contrivances."
