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However, William of Poitiers (Gesta Guillelmi, pp. 21, 121) states that the hostages were specifically sent to Normandy as security for the supposed designation of Duke William as heir to the throne and that they were brought over by Robert of Jumieges, the Norman Archbishop of Canterbury. This latter contention suggests that they were taken to Normandy in the spring of 1051, when Robert passed through Normandy on his way to Rome, although in the autumn of 1052 he also returned from England to Normandy, in haste and never to return, when the Godwins were restored. The whole matter is rendered uncertain by these conflicting accounts but the evidence of Eadmer, both as to the purpose and date of Wulfnoth and Hakon's detention, tends to be overlooked by modern historians. For general commentary see Barlow, Edward the Confessor, pp. 107-9; Barlow, The Godwins, p. 48; Walker, Harold, chapter 3.

14 Eadmer, History, p. 6. Wace, Roman de Rou, Part III, lines 5585 ff., repeats both stories and confesses he does not know which to prefer. Of the other twelfth-century writers, William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, p. 417, reports that Harold was simply on a fishing trip that went wrong. This cannot be the tapestry's view for the party departs with hawks and hounds. Later Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, p. 381, baldly states that Harold was on his way to Flanders, not Normandy, and was driven by a storm southwards to Ponthieu.

15 The insight that the artist of the tapestry is telling a smilar story to Eadmer is made by Wissolik, 'Saxon Statement: Code in the Bayeux Tapestry', and by Bernstein, Mystery of the Bayeux Tapestry, especially pp. 115-17.

16 Barlow, The Godwins, p. 54.

17 Jenkins, England's Thousand Best Churches, pp. 685-6.

18 Musset, La Tapisserie de Bayeux, pp. 92-3; Taylor, 'Belrem'.

19 The story of Canute and the tide first appears in Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum (first half of twelfth century), p. 367.

20 Marwood, The Stone Coffins of Bosham Church. The story of Canute's daughter is, however, doubted by D. W. Peckham in 'The Bosham Myth of Canute's Daughter'.

21 The place where Harold landed is identified as the River Maye by Eadmer, History, p. 6. The Maye is a tiny river that flows into the sea on the north side of the Somme estuary.

22 Wace, Roman de Rou, Part III, lines 5623ff.

23 Morton and Muntz, Carmen, p. 5n.

24 William of Poitiers Gesta Guillelmi, p. 69.

25 On Harold's gifts to Waltham Holy Cross, see Barlow, The Godwins, pp. 78-9.

6 The Fox and the Crow

1 See Bernstein, Mystery of the Bayeux Tapestry, chapter 9 and in particular as regards the ambiguous import of the fox and the crow pp. 133-5. The relevance of the border imagery to the main drama is one of the most difficult and controversial aspects of the tapestry. See also Grape, Bayeux Tapestry; Albu, The Normans in their Histories.

2 The interpretation here follows Taylor, 'Belrem'. For alternative views, see the commentary in Foys, Bayeux Tapestry Digital Edition.

3 Hariulf, Chronique de Saint-Riquier, p. 250.

4 William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, p. 419.

5 Grierson, 'A Visit of Earl Harold to Flanders'.

6 The memory, much garbled, of resistance against pagan incursions into Ponthieu in the ninth century was preserved through the heroic poem, Gormont et Isembart, of which unfortunately only part survives. See Hariulf, p. 149. Gormont et Isembart is quite possibly the very earliest surviving, albeit fragmentary, chanson de geste.

7 The 'Frenchness' of Ponthieu and Boulogne in implicit in the Carmen. See also Keats-Rohan, Domesday People, p. 14.

8 Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, IV, p. 89.

9 William of Poitiers, Gesta Guillelmi, p. 71, states that William gave Guy lands and other gifts. The later twelfth-century source, Wace, Roman de Rou, Part III, line 5664, specifies that William gave Guy land on the River Aulne.

10 Bates, William the Conqueror, p. 115.

11 Eadmer, History, pp. 6-7.

12 In the tapestry's present condition this man has a beard. However, in the eighteenth-century reproduction