Of course, once upon a time, the Tapestry had a suitable conclusion, a tailpiece, but why is it missing today and what did it show and say? How much is missing? Everyone assumes it would have been King William enthroned. If Queen Mathilde had embroidered it, that is what you would expect, but she did not. Neither was it commissioned by William and it is very doubtful it was presented to him. The missing portion is, therefore, a matter for speculation and we need to ask ourselves, what would Odo of Bayeux have wanted to see? I think there is a distinct possibility that the missing tail-piece was not lost in the French Revolution, the only part of the whole Tapestry to suffer any significant damage, but that instead it was destroyed in antiquity (like the blank above Eustace), possibly even amputated, taken and presented as evidence to show King William the allegories it contained. Even the earliest record we have of the Tapestry notes this missing tail-piece1 Using the evidence now before us there can be no doubt that Bishop Odo was arrested and incarcerated for high treason in 1082 and I suggest that the Tapestry may have been one element in this picture of treachery and ambition. The beginning of the Tapestry’s story is there so why not the end? There would have been no reason to remove it at a later date when the story it told was largely unknown and ignored. The amputation itself indicates a hasty job with a knife, perhaps while it was hanging. There is also the mystery of Eustace of Boulogne’s poor reward and his rapid withdrawal from England, followed by an abortive invasion the following year, to add to this strange picture. Were Odo and Eustace in league at some point? Let us consider the range of possibilities before moving on to speculate on the content of the missing portion.
It has been suggested that Eustace commissioned the Tapestry as a gift to Odo,2 though Odo remains the favourite commissioner with most historians. Two things stand out beyond the rest to me. In the first place Eustace was descended from the line of Charlemagne, though the Carolingian kingship had passed to the Capetians with the death of Louis V in 987. He was noble beyond his contemporaries and undoubtedly proud of it. In the second place the wealth of England and especially her land-tax (geld) was the envy of Europe and Scandinavia. Eustace had inherited his title from his father in 1047, the Count of Boulogne and Therouanne and, after 1054, also of Lens. Though a smaller territory (in truth a kingdom) than Normandy this was a very prosperous one due to ancient cross-Channel links and trade. Such links might, indeed, suggest to us that the source of information concerning Pevensey was possibly Eustace himself, hence his inclusion in the picture of the invasion fleet, maybe boasting about his assistance. In c.1036, Eustace married Godgifu, sister of both Edward the Confessor and the Aetheling Alfred, so it was a Boulonnais escort to Alfred who was slaughtered and enslaved by Harold Harefoot and/or Godwin in 1036 in a treacherous attack on Alfred.3 It follows that Edward, who became King of England, was Eustace’s brother-in-law. Eustace visited him in 1051, possibly concerned by the threat to Boulogne posed by the marriage of William of Normandy to Mathilde of Flanders, and there is no reason why Edward should not have tempted Eustace with the possibility of another kingdom, as he is later said to have tempted William. It was one way to make allies after all. All-in-all Eustace was a proud and probably discontented, but rich, man and maybe dreaming of reviving family glories.
Now I will throw another pebble into the pond, one I hinted at earlier on. Consider the route taken by Harold’s ships in 1064, not directly south but changing to north and east. Just supposing Harold was not on his way to William but instead seeking Eustace? This would explain his failure to sail south and so, for some reason, he just missed his landfall, fell short and fell into Guy’s hands by landing in Ponthieu. The coastline from Boulogne to St Valery is often of a standard aspect from the sea and must then have been devoid of major seamarks. It is, however, a dangerous coast for sailing craft from Cap Gris Nez down to the mouth of the Canche at Etaples. It is always possible that Harold mistook the mouth of the Somme for that of the Liane at Boulogne but it seems far more likely that if he was sailing before a southerly then the wind veering to a westerly gale might well have driven him short and into the Embouchure de la Somme, unable to beat to windward for fear of swamping in a beam sea and at the mercy of notorious tides, obliged to take shelter in this extensive estuary controlled by Guy. Harold might equally have been sent by Edward to offer the throne to his brother-in-law Eustace who, after all, was the best claimant, and it was William’s good fortune that instead of delivering the message to Eustace the English envoy was detained and obliged to communicate his message to Guy. Harold, seeing his chance to free the hostages by professing good faith and at the same time serving his own secret interests (no doubt he desired the throne), might then have sought to impress William. If he was ambitious for the throne, he needed to remove one candidate and ally himself with the other: divide and rule. Did it matter which one? The idea that the hostages had been delivered to William as a surety for the throne may not itself be accurate. It is also possible that these were hostages taken from the Godwin family by King Edward as surety for good behaviour and then sent, as he had once been, to Normandy for safe-keeping. They would certainly be in danger if William became vengeful. But what was that to Edward, they were Harold’s relatives?
In 1053, Eustace had been at war with Duke William and in 1063 William was responsible for the death of Walter of Maine, Eustace’s stepson, so there was no love lost there and it is all the more surprising to see him join William’s enterprise in 1066. More than this, he did so in a big way for Flemish knights also joined under his banner – he was a very large stockholder in this enterprise. Maybe Harold sought to engage or befriend William so that Eustace could be sidelined, or at least rivalled, in favour of William when Edward died. Eustace, once aware of this, would need to consider his political position very carefully. I think we can have little doubt that he saw himself as more rightfully the successor to Edward than the illegitimate son of an upstart Viking. We have only the panegyrist’s words that William was the sole and principal leader, even that the Normans were pre-eminent. Perhaps Eustace had hoped to be nominated king by the invasion force. He must at least have hoped to secure control of the coast from Pevensey to Dover, the shortest sea crossing for traders. In the event he secured neither of these things. Eustace’s settlement after 1066 does not appear to have satisfied him and although he then went back to Boulogne he quickly returned to England in 1067 with personal ambition in mind, attempting a coupe-de-main himself. To do this he must have used his mercantile contacts to gain local support. Though Dover had had a bloody dispute with him in 10514 when he had visited Edward, the Normans under Odo had made themselves so hated within a few months that in 1067 the men of Dover and its surrounding district were prepared to offer Eustace a considerable force,5 which also tells us that English warriors were alive and kicking somewhere in spite of their defeat at Battle and in spite of William’s accession. Eustace next sailed across in the night with a small Boulonnais fleet when, quite coincidentally, Odo of Bayeux and Hugh de Montfort were absent and at some distance from their Dover caput. Eustace obviously anticipated local support. From Odo’s viewpoint it would be circumspect to choose the winning side for he wished to retain his brother’s favour and though not there when it happened he could always support the winner. Well, if there was collusion, no one had told the small Norman-French garrison of Dover Castle and they put up a stout defence and then sallied-forth to put Eustace’s men to flight, so they must have had considerable help from someone. My guess is that the locals were actually backing both sides in order to weaken the foreign cause. Though Eustace escaped and thereupon sailed home to safety, his men were not so lucky. Not knowing the terrain at night, many were slaughtered, and his losses were heavy. His English estates were then forfeited by William. Moreover, he lost a young relative who may have had a claim on the English throne. Captured by Odo’s men this hopeful is never heard of again.6
By 1071, King Phillip I of France was an adult and being, nominally, the overlord of both William and Eustace (entitled to their allegiance) he joined forces with Count Robert of Flanders against William of Normandy though not, apparently, against Eustace. I suppose Eustace could represent his failed expedition in any way he chose. William, no doubt insecure after his experience in the north of England, needed all the allies he could obtain in France and so he now granted extensive estates in Essex, Hertfordshire and elsewhere in England to Eustace. If Eustace had failed to become a king in 1067 there was no reason for him to suppose that he might fail next time and eliminating King Phillip in France, with the help of King William and his geld, on home ground would be a bonus offering real possibilities of clearing the field before turning on William and then reinstating his own lineage in his native land and maybe becoming King of England as well. Why not? He accepted the bribe.
It is, therefore, quite feasible that Eustace commissioned the Tapestry as a gift for Odo, giving himself prominence of course and also flattering the man whose revenues were second only to King William’s own.7 If so it must have been completed by 1067 and probably showed Eustace enthroned with Odo’s assistance. This conclusion to the Tapestry would certainly be treasonable to both William and Philip after 1067 and so Odo himself could have had it removed, for safety. It is equally likely that Odo commissioned the Tapestry, hence the prominent role he plays in it, but with two highly flattering inclusions of Eustace, the man of lineage who would like to be king. For whether Eustace became king in one kingdom or in both at some point, the Bishop of Bayeux would need his goodwill and if, instead, Phillip won the contest there would be no harm done. Either way, William would be second-fiddle in the schema of the Tapestry because he was an obstacle to Odo, and this tells us a great deal about the structural state of Norman/French polity during the 1070s. Given Bridgeford’s research into Wadard and Vital,8 my election is for Odo as the patron of a hanging designed for his private and personal amusement, but we cannot be certain. There is no reason why the Tapestry could not be associated with St Augustine’s, Canterbury, the current and forcefully presented academic argument, but it needs to be said that the details conclusively suggest a secular rather than a religious designer and a secular and, at the very least, part-male team of embroiderers. I will return to this subject later.
In Eustace’s favour, as commissioner, we might add the inclusion of the dwarf-figure named on the Tapestry as Turold. Bridgeford9 has devoted some research to this figure and I certainly find his proposal convincing, his proposal that Turold was the personal jongleur (minstrel) of Eustace of Boulogne. He might have been included at this early point on the Tapestry because Guy and Harold were briefly negotiating with Eustace, a hint that there were more negotiations undertaken than the simple but conventional explanation that William simply commanded Guy to deliver his prisoner to him in 1064. We might be looking at a much more complex diplomatic situation with all three men in some sort of discussion over Harold’s destination for the winter. If so, Duke William’s military reputation seems to have decided the balance of power though his reputation as a general seems largely to have been accorded to him as a result of the invasion in 1066. Before that he had only met with limited success on the field of battle and might have owed his personal reputation as much to his skill as a negotiator. Nevertheless, we should note the inclusion in the Tapestry’s margin of two rams, for these are stubborn beasts and pugnacious, which are also destined for sacrifice. Would these be two out of three aspirants who will be disappointed in the end? Turold, Bridgeford further suggests, might well have been the author of the Chanson du Roland and this begs the question: Which came first? Was it our Tapestry or was it this poem. They are each of them so much the pattern of the other. Of course, if Odo commissioned the Tapestry then Turold was added as a sop to his fellow-conspirator Eustace of Boulogne. The idea that Harold was a pawn between Eustace and William while in Guy’s hands is amusing but he might equally have been trying to play both sides.
Leaving aside Odo’s over-weaning pride and insistence on, at the least, sharing in the glory (as well as the profits) of conquest, how much of the Tapestry is really missing? Of the surviving textile, the story up to Harold’s return to England actually represents thirty-five percent. So if we speculate that the whole narrative was once divided as, say, three chapters, or acts, into thirty-three percent plus sixty-six percent then we have a theoretical 6.8 percent missing from the last third. So, at 224 feet 4½ inches today we should have once had over 240 feet, which in Old French units would be 40 toise.10 So the sections are 80 + 89 + 55 feet, which last should be, perhaps, between 60 and 70 feet long. At 19 inches high (it actually varies from 18 to just over 21 inches, probably due to ‘waisting’ of the linen during weaving as it must have been woven in a narrow strip on a high warp loom and so subject to this problem), the Tapestry is slightly over ¼ of a toise high. It all depends on what the tail-piece depicted. Why, we might ask, is the Tapestry so lacking in height, only 19 inches high though so long? I will return to this.
In all it comprises eight sections sewn together. These are two at 44 feet and five at 22-28 feet, viz 7⅓ toise twice = 14⅔ toise, plus 22⅔ toise (in units of 3⅔ to 4⅔ toise), in all 37⅓ toise (224 feet), with perhaps another 2⅔ to 3 toise (16-18 feet) missing. Maybe more. A total length of 40 (French) toise (240 English feet) sounds convincing, but it could have been longer. The obvious answer is that it was not intended as mere wall decoration, unlike most of the tapestries we have from later periods, so it is continuous and not in sections capable of being moved to alternative locations. You see it was common for the rich to lead peripatetic lifestyles and favourite possessions were usually moved around with them. Such hangings therefore needed flexibility, as one might say, and this one was not moveable or flexible at all. If it was designed only for a single location then it must have been situated in an important room in that place, one fulfilling a given function. Presence chambers are not known from this early medieval period and instead great halls served general purposes and various functions, especially communal dining. I think we can imagine it as a great conversation piece at dinner and might have been intended for a special feast.
If we allow the Tapestry to have been designed to hang from a level at least 1 toise (6 feet) above the ground then it would remain visible above the heads of any assembled, but seated, company in such a hall. On the other hand, as it displays no remarkable local wear or discolouration, it must have been hung well clear of the tops of doorways or mural features such as fireplaces yet, presumably, below window level, for it formed a continuous feature. So, let us explore alternatives. Firstly, being continuous the hall involved would probably not be much more than 25-30 feet wide,11 so the hall would be about 95 feet long, On the other hand, if the service end of the hall was left uncovered, because of its multiple doorways, then the hall could have been about 108 feet long. In the latter case it would be reasonable to start with King Edward and Harold adjacent to the service end and then to finish with the, now missing, tail-piece, so the centre of the Tapestry, that portion enveloping the high end of the hall at the dais, would be the heart of it, showing the ordering and building of ships and the fleet setting out for England. Here, the superscript enters the upper margin, which seems emphatic. We should especially note the depiction here of flamingos, or phoenix-birds, possibly alluding to Odo as the ‘remarkable man’. Of course, it is just possible that the Tapestry once had a detached tail-piece which would have hung above the service doors, in which case the whole schema would have been longer and possibly even as much as 45 toise in length. This we will never know.
I wonder if the final scene included William paying homage to his French overlord, the young (or even a new) King of France, or maybe some critical allusion that he had not. There would have been space enough for a coronation in which Odo participated. Wace12 suggested that Odo made discreet enquiries about the precedent for a bishop becoming a king, so was there some hint of this? The amputation of the final chapter, scene or tableaux, is clean cut, snagged near the top, a vertical line as though sliced while the Tapestry was hanging. That is why I speculate that it might have been used as evidence, shown to King William, the origin of Odo’s downfall in 1082, and also the metaphorical preface to Domesday Book. Eustace, if he had been involved in any plot, could withdraw to his own sovereign territory, Odo could not, for his territory was in Normandy. To question what would have given offence to King William is also to question why it was ever shown, both the time-frame involved and also the events involved. Let us look at the immediate aftermath of the battle and the coronation.
‘When it comes to slaughter you will do your work on water,’ said Kipling, and by the end of that long day in October 1066 every water-course leading from the battlefield was running filth. But in the darkness and among the shrieks and groans, the exhausted men who threw themselves upon that field would have been foolish indeed to wander abroad. Watchfires were probably few, and desperate men had to make the best of things until blessed daylight allowed groups to forage safely afield. The duke ordered a strategic withdrawal to Hastings, or at least some more salubrious spot, while he waited for the English to make their next move. After five days he thought it prudent to move on Dover and then Canterbury, making an example of Romney on the way for their resistance. For a month the duke and his army were stricken with dysentery here and while the earliest cases might have been removed to Pevensey, by the time they reached Canterbury they must have just let the contagion burn itself out. There was nothing glorious to record about these deaths, so they would not have figured on the Tapestry, but I think they can be attributed to the battle.
Nevertheless, the deaths arising from combat and disease were quickly and apparently amply compensated by the influx of wolves, pards, kites and vultures, who acquired whatever boats they could in order to join-in the spoils before winter closed the Channel ports, and victors and recruits alike were anticipating a pleasant season ahead together with a swift and profitable conclusion. Yet if winter was rolling in, the news of the battle was spreading abroad and by the end of November, Winchester had capitulated and no dangerous resistance had emerged. London was apparently filled with military and other refugees, yet the English leaders had no strategic vision. Canterbury and Winchester were certainly worthy of record on the Tapestry. Taking London was an ambitious project for a small field-force, yet its sack would be counter-productive. William tested its defences by attacking south of the bridge and, meeting fierce resistance, he fired Southwark and moved off westwards. To the Londoners that must have seemed ominous.
William crossed the Thames at Wallingford with fire and sword, and Archbishop Stigand hastened to make his peace with the duke. At Berkhampstead, the site of the later castle, the Aetheling Edgar and his advisors submitted ‘after most damage had been done’, said the Chronicles, though with the ‘City’, the commercial heart, intact. We do not know of any further resistance by Londoners, but it seems that agreement to William being crowned was not necessarily immediate on the part of his own Norman-French nobles. Nevertheless, at Christmas William was crowned in Westminster Abbey, an event celebrated by his wolves and pards with arson and murder. During the ceremony, we are told, William wore his helmet, so he may have felt unsafe even amongst his coterie. Nevertheless, by March he felt secure enough to leave for Normandy accompanied by a vast treasure, leaving England to the tender mercies of Odo of Bayeux and William fitzOsborn. King William left from Pevensey for an extended triumphal tour of his territories in Normandy. In what was now a lawless England, without a king, a brigand began to ravage the Welsh border, Exeter seceded from the new regime, and Eustace of Boulogne made his gamble for power at Dover.
I wonder which among these events would seem noble enough to be worthy of inclusion on the Tapestry. I suppose the achievement of the invasion can be represented as political spin but even including William’s coronation would require the artist-designer to ignore the unfortunate consequences – arson and murder. Had Eustace succeeded in taking Dover Castle (shown, though not named, on our Tapestry) then I have no doubt that Odo would have surrendered the south-east to him, thus conclusively preventing William’s return. William, however, returned in December 1067 (a dangerous time of year for a sea crossing) without resistance to take on the West Country dissidents. That might have provided some distinction but did Odo also insist on claiming the credit for Eustace’s defeat? William’s swift return at this time of year sounds as though he was not entirely convinced of Odo’s loyalty. Alternatively, was the Tapestry completed in 1067 with allusions to Odo and Eustace as rulers, or as regents for the French king? By 1068 it would then be a grave embarrassment.
The survival of the Tapestry is itself miraculous. Once it had been recognised in France and in England as an antiquity it was not only recorded in 1816-1818 by Stothard but he cut a small souvenir from it, which he smuggled back to England, one his descendants gave to the Victoria and Albert Museum. He also made impressions in plaster of Paris of some details. These he coloured appropriately, and they found their way to the British Museum where I saw them and, I have heard, they were dropped and are now (some day) awaiting restoration. Nor was Stothard the only souvenir hunter. Yet for this textile to survive until the nineteenth century was unique. In part this seems to have been the result of stowing it in Bayeux Cathedral, in a cedar-wood box or chest, a natural moth-repellent, even though it was lost to sight until the mid-fifteenth century.
Surprisingly, it does not exhibit the sort of wear we would expect from mechanical abuse while a wall-hanging. There appear to be no local areas of abrasion or bleaching. I wonder, was it ever actually in use for long in a secular setting. If it was confiscated by the crown, how come it was forgotten? Did King William give it to Bayeux Cathedral for safekeeping after his brother had been incarcerated or did someone rescue it. I wonder, did Ranulph Flambard, once a vavassour of Odo’s and then subsequently a royal chaplain, the man who devised the Domesday surveys, acquire it as an insurance policy perhaps, against Odo’s eventual freedom and success. He, after all, was in a position to warn King William of his brother’s activities yet would be in fear of reprisals at a succession.
Might we also speculate as to Odo’s personal perception of the part he had played in this astonishing conquest of the richest and most cultured kingdom in Western Europe? He had been richly rewarded after 1066, but did he think it enough? Had it been Odo’s cunning that trapped Harold? For he now appears to have led the expedition against Conan that seized on Harold’s rescue of men just before the attack on Dol as subsequently meriting a grant of arms from William, a gift and honour that could not be refused yet one which, in Norman eyes, made Harold William’s man? Was this all contrived by Odo? Was it Odo who further suggested an oath on holy relics, to bind Harold in Norman eyes and so brand him as a stereotypical oath-breaker should he fail to support a Norman-French succession? Was William the military planner and Odo the schemer, the latter furnishing the political justification and the other the meticulous and calculated practical solutions? Would Odo have been so foolish as to create such evidence for the satisfaction of mere pride? He could never hope to display it once William had been established as king.
It has always been assumed that the subject of the whole presentation was King William. Instead we now need to be highly focused and analytical. There is no reason at all why King William’s coronation should have been shown if the embroidery was commissioned by or for Bishop Odo of Bayeux. We have seen that it contains three messages and by far the most economical is the Latin superscript. This restricts itself to important information and if we do not encounter something in the superscript we are justified in saying that the person who dictated the brief, and so the embroiderers, did not consider it worth mentioning. This is important because nowhere in the superscript does it say that Duke William will be, or should be, King of England. Nowhere does it say that King Edward promised the throne to him. Such claims were made later. Nowhere does it say that he invaded in order to secure such a claim, even though the whole artefact is entirely a victor’s history. Surely this would be the most important claim of all to make on an official history. The fact that the embroiderers had no knowledge of crossbows, though we accept that they were used, tells us that our Tapestry was created before any of its artists had had a chance to observe them and that surely must place its creation within the first year or so of the Conquest. Though William was crowned at Christmas 1066, he was absent from England during most of 1067 and his accession may not, therefore, have seemed so certain to anyone who resented this action.
The Tapestry’s brief seems to have consisted of no more than an outline of events, a direction often without details, certainly devoid of finely detailed descriptions of buildings, farm equipment or even creatures. Clearly much was left to the needleworkers and their director to infill. Nor can we expect state-secrets to have been revealed to the workers. So where emphasis is given it was presumably the substance of the brief and this tells us who directed the story-telling. So initially we have Harold the bon-viveur who sets out on a voyage, with heavy emphasis on his slyness and guile in the margins. Next, if we ignore the humdrum detail and confusion of his arrival, we are shown Harold the raconteur and good-companion, but with heavy hints that he has fallen among stronger characters than his own. He then becomes the soldier and hero, though maybe this has been partly contrived by his hosts. Sure enough, he is outsmarted, and the tale then moves on. Yet even here, as Harold sits enthroned, listening to a report from his own intelligence section, he is outsmarted by the emphasis on a ship of Fifth-Columnists, or agents, leaving for France to report, presumably, to William or Odo. Someone was very proud of the part they had played in this battle of wits.
Though the stage is being set for a sort of record of events, on the Norman side there is still plenty of hum-drum detail within which emphasis is given to one man in particular: Bishop Odo. In the earlier campaign with Harold he was emphasised by direct indication and also by his distinctive armour. Now, as the invasion is prepared, he is the one directing the ship-building. The embroiderers could not have known that unless they had been directed to provide such emphasis. When the Normans land it is Odo who is given prominence and, once again, also direct indication. It is then Odo who leads the discussion among the three brothers. It even appears to be Odo who is favoured by the gift of a special warhorse from his brother. Now remember what I said about the lack of any sort of maps. Odo would not have known local names and their usage and neither would the embroiderers, who almost certainly lived and worked elsewhere. So the direction given was ‘we landed at Pevensey’, followed by ‘(my men) took supplies from (somewhere called) Hastings’, and who among any of them could tell place-name from locality name? The workers put down the script set before them. That was all they were required to do. It is also worth noting that at the beginning when Harold set out for France we saw the ship and its rigging in detail. We could see the sheets of a square-rigged sail, in spite of an attempt to show the sail billowing realistically, giving the misleading impression of a lateenrig. When we come to the Norman-French fleet, with so many ships to portray, note that the sheets have been ignored in spite of the variety of the shipping and the whole fleet now seems to be lateen-rigged. The embroiderers were not required to emphasise here, only to depict a general crossing. So they adopted a convenient convention.
Once battle is joined we appear to have Odo saving the day. William’s position is much more equivocal. How would the embroiderers have known such things unless directed to give emphasis of this sort? Note the special emphasis given to Eustace of Boulogne as well as to Odo’s men, Wadard and Vital. Note the general confusion of the battle and lack of clear incidents until we come to the attack on the English left when commander Odo, cavalry in difficulties, cavalry triumphant and the master-stroke of archery all follow in rapid succession. Who directed that such detail and emphasis should be included here? The recurring message seems to be that William depended heavily on his half-brother Odo. If so, the Tapestry was not directed at William or at his potential kingship, for he was not even the subject of the story.
We can never know, nor can we hope to find, any hard, scientific, supporting evidence for such suppositions, but the speculations afford new dimensions to this fascinating and pivotal play for political and physical power over England. Denial of lordship, ingratitude and personal pride, as well as the dire consequences to be expected for oath-breaking, were recurring contemporary themes in moral tales, the most heinous of crimes that any noble could commit. We should expect some such material reinforcement in the tail-piece. Yet if the Tapestry tells us anything, it tells us of Odo’s pride, ingratitude and oath-breaking, sins, crimes, treachery, later reinforced on the pages of Domesday Book. Maybe William could also be accused of as much by the King of France? In politics the justification depends on first obtaining an unequivocal victory, otherwise several possible justifications may need to be presented. Those who win are credible as well as brave and glorious. William triumphed over his own faction just before he died (though he never really knew it), a triumph made possible by Domesday Book and the oath-taking of Salisbury, neither of which would have been possible anywhere but in England. Together they set us on the road to Magna Carta13 a document that came in useful several centuries later. It was Domesday Book that audited and established our national taxation, even suggesting new and improved methodology to succeeding generations of royal servants, Domesday Book that created a well-founded property qualification for both tenure and service to the crown, and it was the oath-taking of Salisbury that cemented royal power at the centre of the property matrix by making fealty to the crown pre-eminent over fealty to one’s immediate lord. The emergence of Magna Carta was proof of the effectiveness of these earlier measures in the evolution of a feudal system, for Magna Carta was the magnate’s act of defiance against royal authority and title, though, of course, it was entirely selfish and self-interested, nothing to do with democracy or the rights of the commonality. These are modern constructs. The recognition of the ordinary individual as more than a chattel or beast of burden, at least by his social superiors, took several centuries more before it was achieved. Whether the creation of feudalism, in England, promoted or delayed that egalitarian process is a matter that might now be usefully debated, now that we have a more accurate assessment of those twin corner stones of Norman achievement – which are Domesday Book and the Bayeux Tapestry.