[6] 'Gisarmes.'
[7] Even down to the fifteenth century the Normans are said to have called the English 'courts vestus.' See the songs at the end of the Vaux-de-vires of Olivier Basselin.
[8] This seems further explained afterwards by the description of the English knight's helmet:
Un helme aveit tot fait de fust,
Ke colp el chief ne réceust;
A sez dras l'aveit atachié,
Et environ son col lacié.
But the text is often so imperfect, and at such variance from the ordinary rules of Norman French grammar, that it is frequently hard to be certain as to the fidelity of a translation.
[9] Ordericus Vitalis states that the spot where the battle was fought was anciently called SENLAC. That word certainly sounds very like French, and as originating in the blood which flowed there: but his expression has been thought to carry the antiquity of the name, in his opinion at least, much earlier than the date of the battle. We think it right to subjoin Wace's original record of the privileges of the men of Kent and London; as to which see Palgrave's Rise and progress of the English Common-wealth, I. ccclxxii.
Kar ço dient ke cil de Kent
Deivent ferir primierement;
U ke li reis auge en estor,
Li premier colp deit estre lor.
Cil de Lundres, par dreite fei,
Deivent garder li cors li rei;
Tut entur li deivent ester,
E l'estandart deivent garder.