Much research has been made by French antiquaries, to discover the old
Chant de Roland, but in vain.
[271] W. PICT. Chron. de Nor.
[272] For, as Sir F. Palgrave shrewdly conjectures, upon the dismemberment of the vast earldom of Wessex, on Harold's accession to the throne, that portion of it comprising Sussex (the old government of his grandfather Wolnoth) seems to have been assigned to Gurth.
[273] Harold's birthday was certainly the 14th of October. According to Mr. Roscoe, in his "Life of William the Conqueror," William was born also on the 14th of October.
[274] William Pict.
[275] Thus Wace,
"Guert (Gurth) vit Engleiz amenuisier,
Vi K'il n'i ont nul recovrier," etc.
"Gurth saw the English diminish, and that there was no hope to retrieve the day; the Duke pushed forth with such force, that he reached him, and struck him with great violence (par grant air). I know not if he died by the stroke, but it is said that it laid him low."
[276] The suggestions implied in the text will probably be admitted as correct; when we read in the Saxon annals of the recognition of the dead, by peculiar marks on their bodies; the obvious, or at least the most natural explanation of those signs, is to be found in the habit of puncturing the skin, mentioned by the Malmesbury chronicler.
[277] The contemporary Norman chronicler, William of Poitiers. See Note (R).