Now this would be quite conclusive but for one rebutting argument, the value of which I leave to the judgment of the reader. The written sources which the Tapestry appears to follow would repose upon certain common traditions, memories, and earlier documents, and the Tapestry might be imagined to repose upon the same. But the general rule in tracing the sources of human work of this sort is that the written account precedes the pictorial and serves as a basis for it, while the convergence of this evidence with the evidence of accoutrements and dress leaves little doubt.
We have in the Bayeux Tapestry something certainly later than 1140,[[1]] almost certainly later than 1150, probably as late as 1160, but, on the other hand, certainly prior to the date 1200.
[1]. The bier of Edward the Confessor is designed in the twelfth century fashion, not in the eleventh—the long vestment of the royal personages throughout is a twelfth-century not an eleventh-century type. The description of the coat of mail in Wace (verses 6522 and the following) is that of the Tapestry; and most important of all the coat of mail of the Tapestry is no longer the mere breastplate, but the full coat of the Crusading period.
It is true that we have very little information upon the eleventh century armour, but with the Crusades we do get a full description, and we have a right to judge by what we know rather than by what we do not know. Thus Ordericus Vitalis remarks the full coat as a novelty.
The helmet with a nasal is not now in any document before the seal of Baldwin, the late 1115, but after that date it is common, as one may see in the seal of Charles of Flanders or of Matthew of Montmorency. Indeed, the seal of William the Conqueror himself gives no sign of the nasal, and the same is true of the seals of the First Crusade. This kind of helmet is wholly twelfth century; but remark that William, in the Chronicles, lifted his helmet to show his face. So there is here doubt.
NOTES
The corresponding reference-numbers will be found in the following text.
[2]. Many of our historians carelessly talk of Harold being brought to Rouen. We have no proof of this. There is just one allusion in the Chronicles to the place where delivery of Harold’s body was made from Guy to William, and the place mentioned is what we should expect, a frontier town, Eu. The Palatium does not only mean a place, it also means an institution; and though Rouen was William’s chief city, whenever he moved, his clerks and staff of government—that is, his “Palatium”—moved with him.
[3]. Mr. Oman in his version of the affair makes Bonneville the scene of the oath. I have not seen the proof of this. The two fundamental pieces of evidence—Wace and the Tapestry—both say Bayeux. William had a castle above the river Touques at Bonneville, and ruins of it, or of a later construction upon its site, can be seen to-day; but it is a good two days’ march from Bayeux.