49
50
51
52
In the next panel ([47]), which is the disembarkation, the horses are again insisted upon, and one curious point which I would remark, the un-stepping of the mast. There are not a few descriptions in the later Dark Ages and the early Middle Ages which lead us to believe that the mast of their small craft was not fixed: for instance, the Danes going up river above London Bridge. Let me repeat again, at the risk of tedium, that the episode of the disembarkation of horses, which the men of the time seem to have been particularly struck by, makes the Tapestry follow Wace. Once landed, the army in the next panel ([48]) fully accoutred—or rather patrols of it—rides out to forage, and you get as a sequel (in [49]) the raiding of houses, the slaughtering of cattle and of sheep, the commandeering of horses; and next again (in [50]) you have the preparing of a meal, and it is to be remarked how minute are the details here compared with the vagueness of detail in the building of the ships. Look, for instance, at the little stove of charcoal on which one of the cooks is preparing the meat, and the spits with their roasted pieces, and see how the draughtsman—whoever he was—knew more of courts than of artisans. And the feast itself, which follows, is interesting as showing a table laid out in continuity with classic custom, served from the inside of its horse-shoe or oblong. In the inscription, though hardly to be discerned upon the Tapestry, we have the benediction of the meats by the bishop—and the bishop should mean Odo. But we have, I believe, no MSS. authority for that little incident at all. The bishop is probably brought in here for the purpose of the next scene, where he sits with his brother, Duke William, and with his other brother, Robert, making council. The symbolism of the three figures is obvious; the portraiture of William reappears, the unarmed priest upon the left, the vassal brother upon the right making ready to draw the sword. In the next panel ([52]) there is given the throwing up of earthworks for a fortified camp at Hastings (the spade is half warfare), and here notice the figure of Robert of Eu, for it exactly follows the account of Wace. The figure holds the lance, and in command of the building of the camp is the man whom the Roman de Rou speaks of as commanding the same work.
With this panel the preliminaries of the action may be said to end, and the advance towards the battle itself to begin. There are two incidents in the next panel introducing that advance: one in which a messenger from Harold reaches William (whose portrait is again clearly marked), another in which the act of war begins with the burning of a house.