105 Old English History, p. 334.
106 For Baudri's poem see Q.R., July 1893, pp. 73-5. As to Baudri's authority, I need only repeat what I wrote in the English Historical Review (ix. 217): 'Mr Archer endeavours, of course, to pooh-pooh it. Now I call special attention to the fact that the test I apply to Baudri is that which Mr Freeman applied to the Tapestry, the obvious test of internal evidence. But Mr Archer's ways are not as those of other historians: instead of examining, as I did, Baudri's account in detail he dismisses it on the ground that the writer's "description of the world" at that date could not be accurate (Ibid., 29). We are not dealing with his "description of the world"; we are dealing with his lines on the battle of Hastings.'
107 Norm. Conq., iii. 467, 477.
108 English Historical Review, ix. 42-3, 603.
109 Though I have already done so in English Historical Review, ix. 250.
110 English Historical Review, ix. 42.
111 Mr Freeman rendered the 'sagittis armatos et balistis' of William by 'archers, slingers, and crossbowmen'. 'Balistæ' can hardly mean slings and crossbows, and I think, on consideration, it is best referred to the latter; but the question is not of much importance.
112 So, too, in Arch. Journ., xl. 359: 'You may call up the march of archers and horsemen across the low ground between the hills.'
113 Norm. Conq., iii. 462. I regret that I must call attention to the fact that I gave (English Historical Review, ix. 250) this precise reference for my statement that, according to Mr Freeman, the infantry were all archers, explaining that in another passage (p. 467) William of Poitiers had led him to take a somewhat different view. Mr Archer, however, has printed (English Historical Review, ix. 603) the other passage (p. 467) in triumph by the side of my statement. He further denies that Mr Freeman held, even on p. 462, that the infantry were all archers. Anyone can test the value of Mr Archer's denial for himself by referring to Norm. Conq., iii. 462, where he will find that Mr Freeman, describing the Norman host, mentions no infantry but archers.
114 As he had merely copied from the Tapestry on p. 462, so he copied William of Poitiers on p. 467.
115 The distinction between archers and crossbowmen is of little or no consequence, the missile being common to both.
116 My opponents complain that in the former passage Mr Freeman assigns this task to 'the heavier foot' only; but my point is that no palisade is here mentioned, and no attack on it by any infantry, heavy or light, and no weapons assigned to that infantry of any use for the purpose.
117 This is an excellent instance of what I said as to Mr Freeman's 'imaginary' references to the now famous palisade. I have challenged my opponents to disprove my statement that none of Mr Freeman's own authorities says anything here of a palisade. And, of course, they cannot do so.
Here is another instance in point. We read on pp. 486-7 that Robert of Beaumont was specially distinguished in the work of breaking down the 'barricade' (see also supra, p. 273). But when we turn to William of Poitiers, the authority cited, we find no mention of a 'barricade', but read only of him 'irruens ac sternens magnâ cum audaciâ'. As the writer had just described how the Duke 'stravit adversam gentem', we see that Robert, in his charge, laid low, not a barricade, but 'adversam gentem'.
This brings me to an extraordinary case of mediaeval plagiarism. The author of the Ely history has applied this description of Robert's exploits to the Conqueror himself at Ely (Liber Eliensis, pp. 244-5). The passages 'Exardentes Normanni—deleverunt ea', 'Egit enim quod—magna cum audacia', 'Scriptor Thebaidos vel Æneidos', et seq., are all 'lifted' bodily from William's narrative of the Battle of Hastings and applied to the storming of the Isle of Ely!
118 Norm. Conq., iii. 467.
119 'The Norman infantry had now done its best, but that best had been in vain' (Ibid., 479).
120 Norm. Conq., iii. 481.
121 Ibid., 767-8.
'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.
125 Compare the death of Robert Marmion, at Coventry, under Stephen, when he fell into one of the ditches he had dug to entrap the enemy's horse. The passage quoted by Andresen in his Wace (ii. 713) from Michel's notes to Benoit is very precise: 'Fecerant autem Angli foveam quandam caute et ingeniose, quam ipsi ex obliquo curantes maximam multitudinem Normannorum in ea præcipitaverant. Et plures etiam ex eis insequentes et tracti ab aliis in eadem perierunt.'
126 See below, p. 292.
127 Early Oxford, pp. 191, 192. And see my preface.
128 See above, p. 278, for Mr Freeman's view.
129 'Angli vero, illos putantes vere fugere, cœperunt post eos currere volentes eos si possent interficere' (Brevis Relatio). 'Ausa sunt, ut superius, aliquot millia quasi volante cursu, quos fugere putabant urgere' (Will. Pict.).
130 Though admitting, in a footnote, that the 'Brevis Relatio' was opposed to this assumption.
131 Supra, p. 278.
132 Q.R., July 1892, p. 20.
133 Miss Norgate has indignantly retorted (English Historical Review, ix. 50) that Mr Freeman 'only' omitted the words from 'sicque' onwards. But it is precisely on these words that my statement is based. Mr Freeman, moreover, did not even quote the rest à propos of the feigned flight, where we should look for it.
134 So does Will. Gem., as quoted by Mr Freeman (iii. 133): 'de suis miserunt si quos forte hostium a regio cœtu abstraherent, quos illi in latibulis degentes incautos exciperent.' See also my Addenda.
135 Cont. Rev., p. 354.
136 See above, p. 251.
137 See above, p. 259.
138 Norm. Conq., iii. 763-4.
139 Social England, i. 299. 'Mr Oman, like Mr J. H. Round, knows nothing of the famous "palisade", but only of the "shield-wall" of the English' (Speaker, December 2, 1893).
140 Norman Britain, p. 79.
141 Ibid., p. 80.
142 Social England, p. 300.
143 Cont. Rev., p. 353.
144 Ibid., p. 335.
145 English Historical Review, ix. 607.
146 Ibid., ix. 219-25.
147 Ibid., 224, 257.
148 Norm. Conq., ii. 469; and supra, p. 356.
149 Cont. Rev., 352.
150 Ibid., 348.
151 Cont. Rev., 335-6.
152 'The Reviewer ... tells us that ... Mr Freeman ... is wrong, completely wrong, in his whole conception of the battle.... His attack must be held to have failed' (Cont. Rev., pp. 335, 353).
153 Norm. Conq., iii. 763.
154 Cont. Rev., p. 349. Cf. Mr Archer's articles passim.
155 English Historical Review, ix. 22.
156 English Historical Review, ix. 607.
157 Ibid., ix. 606. Supra, p. 269.
158 Ibid., ix. 606, 607. My readers are invited to refer to this article and to that in the Cont. Rev. (March 1893), and test my statement for themselves.
159 Anglo-Saxon Britain, p. 172.
160 Norman Conquest, iii. 454.
161 e.g. Vinogradoff and Dr Andrews.
162 Norm. Conq., ii. 352.
163 Ibid., 327.
164 Ibid., 326.
165 Ibid., 332.
166 'We shall get rid of the talk about "an officer and a gentleman".' (Macmillan's, xxiv. 10).
167 Vita Wlstani.
| Mr Freeman | Mr Archer |
|---|---|
| Of the array of the shield-wall we have often heard already as at Maldon, but it is at Senlac that we get the fullest descriptions of it, all the better for coming in the mouths of enemies. Wace gives his description, 12941:—(Norm. Conq., iii. 763). | Now, there are six distinct objections to translating this passage [of Wace] as if it referred to a shield-wall. These objections are, of course, of unequal value; but some of them would, by themselves, suffice to overthrow such a theory (Cont. Rev., 349). |
In discussing Mr Freeman's treatment of the great battle, we saw that the only passage he vouched for the existence of a palisade1 consisted of certain lines from Wace's Roman de Rou, which he ultimately declared to be, on the contrary, a description of 'the array of the shield-wall'.2 The question, therefore, as to their meaning—on which my critics have throughout endeavoured to represent the controversy as turning—did not even arise so far as Mr Freeman was concerned. Still less had I occasion to discuss the authority of Wace, Mr Freeman's explicit verdict on the lines (iii. 763-4) having removed them, as concerns his own narrative, from the sphere of controversy.
The case, however, is at once altered when Mr Archer insists on ignoring Mr Freeman's words, and makes an independent examination of the lines, quoting also other passages which were not vouched by Mr Freeman, as proving 'beyond the shadow of a doubt that Wace did mean to represent the English at Hastings as fighting behind a palisade'.3 So long as I make it clearly understood that this question in no way affects the controversy as to Mr Freeman, I am quite willing to discuss the question thus raised by Mr Archer.
It is most naturally treated under these three heads:
(1) Did Wace believe and assert that there was a palisade?
(2) If so, what weight ought to be attached to his authority?
(3) If we reject it, can we explain how his mistake arose?
I have elsewhere4 discussed 'the disputed passage' (supra, p. 267), and agreed with Mr Archer that there are 'four views which have been suggested' as to its meaning.5 Two of them, I there showed, were successively held by Mr Freeman, and the two others successively advanced by Mr Archer. When I add (anticipating) that, according to M. Paris, 'le passage de Wace présente quelque obscurité',6 and that M. Meyer introduced yet another element of doubt in a special kind of shield ('de grands écus') not previously suggested, it will be obvious, quite apart from any opinion of my own, that the passage presents difficulties.
So long as I only dealt with Mr Freeman's work, I found on his admission that the passage described the shield-wall.7 Now that we are leaving his work aside, I fall back on my own conclusion, namely, that the passage is with equal difficulty referred either to a palisade or to a shield-wall. The word 'escuz', it will be seen, occurs twice in the passage. Mr Archer held, at first, that in neither case did it mean real 'shields',8 but he afterwards assigned that meaning to the second of the two 'escuz', while still rendering the first 'in a metaphorical sense'.9 It is obvious that when Mr Freeman took the lines to describe 'the array of the shield-wall', he must have done so on the ground that 'escuz' meant 'shields'. That is my own contention. While fully recognizing the obstacles to translating 'the disputed passage' as if it referred throughout to a shield-wall, I maintain that 'escu' means shield, as a term 'which is one of the commonest in Wace' and invariably means shield.10
But to cut short a long story, it was decided by Mr Gardiner to settle this issue by submitting the disputed passage to the verdict of MM. Gaston Paris and Paul Meyer. In spite of my protest, this was done without my articles and my solution of the problem11 being laid before them at the same time. A snap verdict was thus secured before they had seen the evidence. I am sure that Mr Gardiner must have thought this fair, and editors, we know, cannot err; but it seems to me quite possible that these distinguished French scholars were not familiar with the shield-wall, an Old English tactic, and were not aware that this information was the great feature of the battle. Had all this, as I wished, been duly set before them, their verdict would, of course, have carried much greater weight.
But having said this much, I frankly admit that their verdict is in favour of Mr Archer's contention, and, so far as the first 'escuz' is concerned, against my own.12 They may not agree in detail with each other, or with either of Mr Archer's views, but, on the broad issue, he has a perfect right to claim that their verdict is for him so long as he does not pretend that it also confirms 'Mr Freeman's interpretation', by ignoring the historian's own latest and explicit words.13 It must also be remembered that this admission in no way diminishes the obscurity of the passage, which, as we have seen, is beyond dispute, and which forms an important element in my own solution of the problem.14
Having now shown how the matter stands with regard to 'the disputed passage', I need not linger over those which Mr Freeman ignored, and which Mr Archer adduced to strengthen his views as to the main passage. I have dealt with these elsewhere,15 and need here only refer to ll. 8585-90, because that passage raises a point of historical interest quite apart from personal controversy. I have maintained that it can only be accepted at the cost of 'throwing over Mr Freeman's conception of the battle',16 and have proved, by quoting his own words, that he placed the standard with Harold at his foot 'in the very forefront of the fight'.17 I do not say that he was right in doing so: he was, I think, very probably wrong, and was influenced here, as elsewhere, by his dramatic treatment of Harold. But as this can only be matter of opinion, I have not challenged his view; I only say that those who accept it cannot consistently appeal to a passage in Wace which places the standard in the rear of the English host.
Assuming then, for the sake of argument, that Wace mentions a defence of some kind,18 even though not consistently19 in front of the English troops, let us see whether his statement is corroborated, whether it is in harmony with the other evidence, and whether, if it is neither corroborated nor in such agreement, his authority is sufficient, nevertheless, to warrant its acceptance.
As to corroboration, Mr Archer undertook 'to produce corroborative evidence from other sources';20 but this at once dwindled down to one line—'tending in the same direction'21— from Benoît de St Maur, who does not even mention a palisade.22 There is therefore, on his own showing, not a shred of corroborative evidence.
As to the second point, I may refer to my arguments against the palisade,23 where I showed that none of our authorities is here in agreement with Wace.
We come, therefore, to our third point, namely, the weight to which Wace's testimony, when standing alone, is entitled. Here, as elsewhere, I adhere to my position. As I have written in the Quarterly Review:
Even if Wace, clearly and consistently, mentioned a palisade throughout his account of the battle, we should certainly reject the statement of a witness, writing a century after it, when we find him at variance with every authority (for that is our point), just as Mr Freeman rejected the bridge at Varaville,24 or the 'falsehood' of the burning of the ships, or the 'blunder' of making the Duke land at Hastings, or his anachronisms, or his chronology. For, 'of course', in the Professor's own words, 'whenever he [Wace] departs from contemporary authority, and merely sets down floating traditions nearly a hundred years after the latest events which he records, his statements need to be very carefully weighed'.25
Let me specially lay stress upon the points on which, when Wace and the Tapestry differ, the preference is given by Mr Freeman himself to the Tapestry as against Wace:
Had the tapestry been a work of later date, it is hardly possible that it could have given the simple and truthful account of these matters which it does give. A work of the twelfth or thirteenth century26 would have brought in, as even honest Wace does in some degree, the notions of the twelfth or thirteenth century. One cannot conceive an artist of the time of Henry II, still less an artist later than the French conquest of Normandy, agreeing so remarkably with the authentic writings of the eleventh century (iii. 573).
[In the Tapestry] every antiquarian detail is accurate—the lack of armour on the horses (iii. 574). [But] Wace speaks of the horse of William fitz Osbern as 'all covered with iron' (iii. 570).
Wace again, is 'hardly accurate' (iii. 765), we read, as to the English weapons, because he differs from the Tapestry. As to Harold's wound, 'Wace places it too early in the battle' (iii. 497); Mr Freeman follows the Tapestry. As to the landing of the Normans at Pevensey:
Venit ad Pevenesæ, says the Tapestry ... Wace ... altogether reverses the geography, making the army land at Hastings, and go to Pevensey afterwards' (iii. 402).
As to the 'Mora', the Duke's ship, the Tapestry shows 'the child with his horn'; Wace describes him 'Saete et arc tendu portant'. Mr Freeman adopts the 'horn' (iii. 382). Harold, says Mr Freeman, was imprisoned at Beaurain.
This is quite plain from the Tapestry: 'Dux eum ad Belrem et ibi eum tenuit'. Wace says, 'A Abevile l'ont mené....' This I conceive to arise from a misconception of the words of William of Jumièges (iii. 224).
This illustrates, I would remind Mr Archer, the difference between a primary authority and a mere late compiler.
To these examples I may add Wace's mention of Harold's vizor (ventaille). Mr Freeman pointed out the superior accuracy of the Tapestry in 'the nose-pieces' (iii. 574), and observed that 'the vizor' was a much later introduction (iii. 497).27 Here again we see the soundness of Mr Freeman's view that Wace could not help introducing 'the notions' of his own time into his account of the battle. Miss Norgate admits that he 'transferred to his mythical battles the colouring of the actual battles of his own day', but urges that these narratives illustrate the 'warfare of Wace's own ... contemporaries'.28 Quite so. But the battle of Hastings belonged to an older and obsolete style of warfare. That is what his champions always forget. If Miss Norgate's argument has any meaning, it is that the men who fought in that battle were 'Wace's own contemporaries'.
But, even where Wace's authority is in actual agreement with the Tapestry, Mr Freeman did not hesitate to reject, or rather, ignore it, as we saw in the matter of the fosse disaster.
As to Wace's sources of information, and the prima facie evidence for his authority, a question of considerable interest is raised. Mr Archer discusses it from his own standpoint.29 On Wace's life, age and work, facts are few and speculations many. These have been collected and patiently sifted in Andresen's great work, with the following result:
Wace was certainly living not merely in 1170,30 but in 1174, for he alludes to the siege of Rouen (August 1174) in his epilogue to the second part of the 'Roman'.31 It is admitted on all hands, though Mr Archer does not mention it, that he did not even begin the third part till after the coronation of the younger Henry (June 14, 1170).32 Allowing for its great length, he cannot have come to his account of the battle at the very earliest till 1171, 105 years after the event. For my part, I think that it was probably written even some years later. But imagine in any case an Englishman, ignorant of Belgium, writing an account of Waterloo, mainly from oral tradition, in 1920.
Mr Archer contends that Wace was born 'probably between the years 1100 and 1110' (ante, p. 31). Andresen holds that the earliest date we can venture to assign is 1110,33 forty-four years after the battle. Special stress is laid by Mr Archer on Wace's oral information:
He had seen and talked with many men who recollected things anterior to Hastings and the Hastings campaign. Among his informants for this latter was his own father, then, we may suppose, a well-grown lad, if not an actual participator in the fight (ante, p. 32).
'We may suppose'—where all is supposition—exactly the contrary. If Wace was born, as we may safely say, more than forty years after the battle, 'we may suppose' that his father was not even born before it. All this talk about Wace's father is based on ll. 6445-7, of which Andresen truly remarks, 'Die Verse "Mais co oi dire a mon pere, Bien m'en souient mais Vaslet ere, Que set cenz nes, quatre meins, furent", u.s.w., sind viel zu unbestimmt gehalten, so dass wir aus ihnen streng genommen nicht einmal entnehmen können, ob der Vater im Jahre 1066 schon auf der Welt war oder nicht' (p. lxx). I venture to take my own case. Born within forty years of Waterloo, I can say with Wace that I remember my father telling me, as a boy, stories of the battle. But he was born after it. The information was second-hand. Over and over again does Mr Archer lay stress on the fact (ut supra) that Wace gives us 'the reminiscences of the old heroes who fought at Hastings as no one else has cared to do'.34 I must insist that Wace himself nowhere mentions having seen or spoken to them. He does mention having seen men who remembered the great comet (Mr Archer italicizes the lines35); but this exactly confirms my point. For when Wace had seen eyewitnesses he was careful, we see, to mention the fact. Men would remember the comet, though little children at the time. One of my own very earliest recollections is that of a great comet, even though it did not create the sensation of the comet in 1066. Wace had talked with those who had been children, not with those who had been fighting men, in 1066.
I need only invite attention to one more point. Mr Archer assures us that 'Wace is a very sober writer', with 'something of the shrewd scepticism' of modern scholars.36 What shall we say then, of his long story (ll. 7005-100) of the night visit, by Harold and Gyrth, to the Norman camp, to which Mr Archer appeals as evidence for the lices (l. 7010)? 'Nothing,' replies Mr Freeman (iii. 449), 'could be less trustworthy.... No power short of divination could have revealed it.'37 Mr Archer tells us he has only space for one instance38 of Wace's conscientiousness. That instance is his story of the negotiation between William and Baldwin of Flanders on the eve of the Conquest. Of this story Mr Freeman writes:
Of the intercourse between William and Baldwin in his character of sovereign of Flanders Wace has a tale which strikes me as so purely legendary that I did not venture to introduce it into the text.... The whole story seems quite inconsistent with the real relations between William and Baldwin (iii. 718-19).
Comment is superfluous.
Having now shown that Wace's evidence is not corroborated, is not in accordance with that of contemporary witnesses, and cannot on the sound canons of criticism recognized by Mr Freeman himself, be accepted under these circumstances, I propose to show that my case can be carried further still, and that I can even trace to its origin the confused statement in his 'disputed passage' which is said to describe a palisade or defence of some sort or other.
In studying the authorities for the Battle of Hastings, I was led to a conclusion which, so far as I know, had never occurred to any one. It is that William of Malmesbury's 'Gesta Regum' was among the sources used by Wace. Neither in Korting's elaborate treatise, 'Ueber die Quellen des Roman de Rou', nor in Andresen's notes to his well-known edition of the 'Roman' (ii. 708), can I find any suggestion to this effect. Dr Stubbs, in his edition of the 'Gesta Regum', dwells on the popularity of the work both at home and abroad, but does not include Wace among the writers who availed themselves of it; and the late Mr Freeman, though frequently compelled to notice the agreement between Wace and William, never thought, it appears, of suggesting the theory of derivation; indeed, he speaks of the two writers as independent witnesses, when dealing with one of these coincidences.40 The more one studies Wace, the more evident it becomes that the 'Roman' requires to be used with the greatest caution. Based on a congeries of authorities, on tradition, and occasionally of course, on the poetic invention of the trouveur it presents a whole in which it is almost impossible to disentangle the various sources of the narrative. Before dealing with the passage which led me to believe that the 'Gesta Regum' must have been known to Wace, I will glance at some other coincidences. We have first the alleged landing of William at Hastings instead of Pevensey. On this Mr Freeman observed:
Venit ad Pevenesæ, says the Tapestry. So William of Poitiers and William of Jumièges. William of Malmesbury says carelessly, Placido cursu Hastingas appulerunt. So Wace, who altogether reverses the geography, making the army land at Hastings and go to Pevensey afterwards.41
Here William of Malmesbury, who was probably using 'Hastingas' as loosely as when he applied that term to Battle, appears to be responsible for the mistake of Wace, who may have tried to harmonize him with William of Jumièges by making the Normans proceed to Pevensey after having landed. Take again the hotly disputed burial of Harold at Waltham. On this question Mr Freeman writes:
William of Malmesbury, after saying that the body was given to Gytha, adds acceptum itaque apud Waltham sepelivit.... Wace had evidently heard two or three stories, and, with his usual discretion, he avoided committing himself, but he distinctly asserts a burial at Waltham.42
This, then, is another coincidence between the two writers, while, as before, Wace found himself in the presence of a conflict of authorities. On yet another difficult point, the accession of Harold, I see a marked agreement, though Mr Freeman did not. Harold, according to William of Malmesbury, extorta a principibus fide, arripuit diadema, and diademate fastigiatus, nihil de pactis inter se et Willelmum cogitabat. Wace's version runs: