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Now we know what that order was. There were three columns of attack, consisting of the fully armed and mounted knights. That on the left was composed of the Bretons in the main, and had the duty of charging over the space now occupied by, or neighbouring to, the pond in Battle Abbey park. That on the left, which was to charge the steepest part of the hill, was to cross the ground on which the station has been built in modern times; it was a column mainly French and led by Roger of Montmorency. The central column, which was to take the sharp hill between the two others, was composed mainly of Normans and was led by William himself. Upon the jutting promontory of the height which these three columns were to attack, stood the Saxons on foot, depending largely upon the axe as a defensive weapon, but also upon the throwing-spear or javelin, and to some extent upon the sword. In front of the attacking army was scattered in open order a line of archers, whose function was the permanent service of the missile weapon, to wit, to shake the enemy’s infantry, upon which, so shaken, the cavalry should charge.[[5]]
Now all this the artist has attempted to represent. You have the attack represented both to the right and to the left and falling upon a body which faces two fronts; this is to symbolise the convergence of the three columns upon the semicircular front of the Saxon position upon Battle Hill. No particular figures are given; not even Harold is to be distinguished. Some critics too ingenious have discovered in the head of the Norman charge the person of Taillefer, “Iron-shear,” who certainly rode out before the army singing his song of Roncesvalles and tossing his sword (or by another account, his lance) into the air. There is nothing of this in the Tapestry.
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