Feudal England: Historical Studies on the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries

by John Horace Round

'Un fosse ont d'une part fait

Qui parmi la champaigne vait

* * * *

En la champaigne out un fosse:

Normanz l'aueient adosse

En beliuant l'orent passé

Ne l'aueint mie esgarde.'

I had followed Taylor in my rendering of this passage; but Miss Norgate (English Historical Review, ix. 46) would prefer to say that the Normans did not heed, than that they did not notice the fosse. 'The passage,' as she says, 'is somewhat obscure.'

[¹²³] Miss Norgate has rightly pointed out (ix. 47) that Henry places the disaster during the great feigned flight.

[¹²⁴] Cont. Rev., p. 348.