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racist and violent. But in truth he could not have been otherwise, given where and when he lived. The opposition he sets up between the two great companions-in-arms, the brave but reckless Roland and the wise and cautious Olivier, still succeeds in engaging the reader and in stimulating debate. The poet is also a master at milking the tension. He can dramatically hold up the action, describing the same knife-edge moment in succeeding stanzas with subtly different words. If he was a performer, it shows; he knew how to keep his audience on edge. The scene that recounts Roland's death, in particular, has been described as one of the greatest in world literature.

There are several intriguing parallels between the respective stories told by Chanson de Roland and the Bayeux Tapestry. Many historians have noted in passing that the artist of the tapestry may well have known the Chanson de Roland and that he was perhaps consciously echoing themes found in the poem.26 Harold, for example, reminds us of the traitor Ganelon: both are brothers-in-law of their sovereign; both undertake a dangerous mission in a foreign land; both are brave and noble opponents who are brought down as a result of breaking the bonds of feudal duty; and the penalty of death is the price of their sin, for them and their kinsmen.

Most impressive, however, is the parallel that can be drawn between the fighting Archbishop Turpin and Bishop Odo of Bayeux. Alone among contemporary accounts the tapestry places Odo in the thick of the fighting. It is true that the embroidered Odo carries a mace, not a lance or sword, apparently reflecting a prohibition against those in holy orders shedding blood. The legendary Turpin is a hardened warrior who has no such inhibition. Turpin also dies in battle, a fate certainly not shared by Odo. But the image of the swashbuckling cleric, bravely taking part in the midst of a 'holy' battle, is strikingly shared between the tapestry and the Chanson. There is a passage in the Chanson de Roland that may even have been the direct inspiration for what we see in the embroidery. Surrounded by the enemy, and in the thick of battle, Roland's knights begin to panic and they call upon Roland and Olivier to protect them. Turpin, riding amongst them, steels their resolve:

Lord barons, do not indulge in base thoughts;

In God's name I beg you not to flee,

So that no man of worth can sing a shameful song.

It is far better for us to die fighting.27

The designer of the tapestry sought to flatter Bishop Odo in a variety of ways and it is more than possible that he was here deliberately fawning to him by implying that he was a second Archbishop Turpin [scene 54; plate 10]. At the same time, however, he carefully avoided any implication that Odo was directly involved in the slaughter. The point of comparison was carefully chosen.

If Ganelon is Harold and Odo Turpin, who in the embroidered story is the Emperor Charlemagne and who is Roland?Here the messages seem to be mixed. The leader of the invasion is Duke William and it might seem that he should naturally have the starring role and enjoy the implication of being another Charlemagne. Yet the presence of Count Eustace, the emperor's noble descendant, suggests on the contrary that he is the one who stands for the Carolingian bloodline, perhaps Charlemagne and Roland all rolled into one. On this account, William's counterpart in the poem would be a merely secondary figure, the 'Norman' vassal of Charlemagne who is anachronistically identified in the poem as Duke Richard the Old (who was in reality Duke William's great-grandfather). If these parallels with the Chanson de Roland are really there, as they seem to be, we have further evidence that the artist of the tapestry, although working in England and in an English genre, was actually French-speaking.28More than that, we can now well understand that the artist might wish to reinforce the parallels with the story of Roland by a passing depiction of the author of the poem itself, in Ponthieu and in the presence of Count Guy, where he would normally