1066 - Andrew Bridgeford [37]
In the upper border adjacent to Mont-Saint-Michel there appears quite unexpectedly, out of thin air as it were, a small, seated man pointing at the abbey. Over the years many guesses have been made as to who he is, this mysterious 'Norman'gesturing at the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel. The visionary Aubert, perhaps, Duke Richard I, Duke Richard II, Abbot Ranulphe from Bayeux, or Abbot Scollandus, a former monk here, promoted by William to be the head of St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury after the Conquest.16 None of these guesses has found universal favour. There is another more intriguing possibility; and it is one which accentuates the growing sense of Englishness about the tapestry. As we have seen, the seated position always represents high rank and authority;thus far, the seats in the tapestry have been reserved for a king, a count and a duke. Clearly observable, too, though rarely noticed, is the fact that the seated figure has long hair at the back of his neck, a hallmark of the English. Evidently, this is a high-ranking Englishman, not a Frenchman. From the picture he is not an old man; he is probably an adult in the prime of his life. Equally it should not be overlooked how cleverly (and uniquely) the abbey is drawn. It is both a picture in the main frieze and simultaneously a device in the upper border; the floor of the church is identical to the line which separates the main frieze from the border. Moreover, the seated figure's connection with Mont-Saint-Michel must truly be a remarkable one for he has the privilege of sharing the same border compartment as the fabulous abbey itself.
It so happens that one man, a secular figure, fits all these clues rather well. In the early 1030s Edward the Confessor, while still exiled in Normandy, appears to have made a formal gift of certain English lands to Mont-Saint-Michel.17 The gift included the eerily similar island off the Cornish coast known as St Michael's Mount where Edward hoped would be established a subordinate house of Benedictine monks. Intriguingly, Prince Edward describes himself in this charter as 'I, Edward, by the grace of God King of the English . . .' King he was not;it was the best part of another ten years before the exiled prince returned to England and became king. The gift was made more in hope than reality; but it shows that, even then, at the height of Canute's power, Edward's hopes of returning to rule over his native land had not entirely died - and neither were they discouraged by his Norman hosts. In due course (by the grace of God and St Michael, it would have seemed) he did return and peaceably ascend the English throne. Could it be that his munificence towards the abbey of Mont-Saint Michel was now being remembered by the artist of the tapestry?
Suddenly two men, their backs turned to the distant abbey, have become mired in quicksand and they are in danger of sinking within minutes to a wet death [scene 18; plate 4]. A horse has also stumbled into a gully. Did they not tell Harold that this is a dangerous place? The exposed bay is awash with hidden pools of quicksand, quicksand that will open up like a toothless mouth and suck a man up with pursed lips into a terrible, slippery grave. What is more, when the tide rises it bears down on the unwary (so men say) with all the speed and venom of a charging horse. Cries of alarm must have shot into the air. Arms must have waved in panic and fear. Harold has leant down and grabbed one of the men by the wrist; the second has managed to climb on to his back. The first is Norman, the