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By Root 611 0

Wulfnoth remained a hostage even when the tapestry was made, indeed he was never freed, and the woollen Harold would thus still be pleading for his brother's release long after Harold himself had died. Since William and Harold are not yet at war the hostage has evidently been allowed a measure of freedom and serves as a soldier in the Norman army. The implication of the tapestry's imagery is profound. At the first opportunity, Harold is portrayed seeking Wulfnoth's and Hakon's release, not conveying any supposed message about the English succession at all. Edward, it seems, had not sent Harold to Normandy as his ambassador; and he had changed his mind about William succeeding him. If this mysterious Englishman is Wulfnoth, he is not the only brother of Harold to be seen in the Tapestry. Later we will see his named brothers Gyrth and Leofwine fighting loyally by his side at Hastings. Harold's sister Queen Edith, though unnamed, also appears in the work.

This deftly drawn, wordless meeting of William and Harold is usually passed over with little comment, and the bearded Englishman is unnoticed or forgotten, but the silent allusion in these threads to the Canterbury tale later told by Eadmer, far from supporting the Norman case, substantially undermines it. It is an allusion which the artist must have made at considerable risk to himself, perhaps to his life, certainly to his career, and we should pause and listen to his brave witness, at a time when all others were drowned out by the noise of Norman propaganda.

Immediately after this meeting, there occurs an even more intriguing scene, one of the most curious in the whole tapestry, for it seems to bear no relation to what comes before or after. There is this mysterious lady called ÆLFGYVA, which is an aristocratic Anglo-Saxon name; she is the only named woman in the whole work [scene 17; plate 3]. Æfgyva is standing in an ornate wooden doorway, elaborately carved in apparently Norse style; the doorposts are topped by dragons' heads that sprout long, flicking tongues. Into this scene intrudes a tonsured priest wearing a green cloak; he leans across from an adjacent tower, thrusts his hand into the doorway and touches or caresses Ælfgyva on the cheek. The meaning of this gesture is obscure. It is certainly not elucidated by the inscription, which is teasingly short, omits any verb and leaves us still wondering exactly what the lady and the priest are up to. UBI UNUS CLERICUS ET AELFGYVA (Where a priest and Ælfgyva) is all that it says. Many have read a hint of sexual scandal into the mock coyness of this brief and abruptly curtailed sentence. The tower and the doorway are themselves erotically suggestive, at least in our post-Freudian age. So, too, is the appearance of the naked man in the lower border; he seems lewdly to be mimicking the priest and gesturing up Æfgyva's skirt. Was there, perhaps, a scandalous liaison between a lady and a priest, well known at the time, and that had some bearing on what we see in the tapestry? Does this scene reflect an aspect of William and Harold's discussions at Rouen? Like Turold the dwarf, the Lady Ælfgyva is one of the four mysterious figures named in the Bayeux Tapestry. We must return later to the enigma of Ælfgyva.

Harold's attempt to secure the release of his kinsmen is not going well. This is hardly surprising for in truth the whole idea had been unwise from the start. King Edward, in his dotage, had much the clearer picture of William. Cunning, implacable, supremely ambitious, with a cruel edge, he was the last person to bow down and release such valuable hostages without gaining something extraordinarily important in return. William knows that Earl Harold holds the keys to England; he can hardly believe how foolish the Earl of Wessex has been in allowing himself to fall uninvited into his grasp. For the moment, however, the Duke of Normandy is keeping his plans to himself. According to the written sources, he received Harold in Normandy as an honoured guest.14 The English party were fed and clothed and given every Norman hospitality;