The ensuing slaughter is unflinchingly rendered: in the lower border, dismembered bodies are stripped by battlefield looters. In it, William is portrayed ordering his men to build a fleet of longships, stock them with arms and armor, food, wine, and horses, and set sail for England, where they feast, plan, and finally attack. Scholars have never pinned down where or by whom the embroidery was carried out, or where it was meant to be displayed-a mystery compounded by the fact that this is the only storytelling textile strip of this sort preserved from the Middle Ages. By Christmas, 1066, William the Conqueror had been crowned king of England, but facing a rebellion, he continued to lay waste to a huge swath of the country before he had all of England firmly within his grasp. His forces quickly marched west, to Dover and Canterbury, then east, leaving devastation in their wake. Harold’s sizeable army was no match for the mounted warriors William had brought from Normandy. Forced to defend two coasts almost three hundred miles apart in quick succession, Harold Godwinson succeeded in defeating the king of Norway, but fell on the field at the Battle of Hastings, just up the coast from Pevensey, shot through the eye with an arrow. Harold Hardrada had crossed the North Sea to invade near present-day Newcastle in the north of England, arriving at almost exactly the same time as William’s army made land further south. 410, the Anglo-Saxons ruled England-they were a mix of people from Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.) Edward had been succeeded by a newly appointed ruler, Harold Godwinson, but both William and the King of Norway, Harold Hardrada, also laid claim to the throne. William had been preparing for the invasion since the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, Edward the Confessor, had died without a direct heir months earlier.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |