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By Root 605 0

the enemy ahead. The horses quicken pace. The knights are tilted forward in the saddle as they move steadily ahead of a body of archers who, just now, have launched a volley of arrows against the English position. Spurs have been kicked and muscles tensed, and now the knights are charging forward at full speed, hoof is thundering upon hoof in a magnificent, breathless attack across the wide open ground, up towards the distant wall of coloured shields behind which the English have made their stand. Some of the knights are holding their lances ready to be thrust or thrown; others tuck them underarm, to be used as a sharp battering weapon. Up on the ridge the English have ducked and caught the lethal rain of arrows on their wooden shields. Now they stand again, and the linen air is scored with spears, and some men lie already dead, as the first horseman arrives and thrusts his couched and bannered lance into the arrow-pierced shield of a standing Englishman [scene 49]. The Englishman stands firm. He is defending his land. He is rooted tree-like to the spot, at least for the embroidered moment, and he even retaliates with his own spear. Battle is truly joined.

The English repel the attack. They are clustered on foot in close, disciplined formation behind their tall, kite-shaped shields. Harold's elite troops, his housecarls, are wearing the same armour as the invaders; but their special weapon is the two-handed battleaxe, 'murderous axes' William of Poitiers calls them, which 'easily penetrated shields and other protections'.2 In the midst of the phalanx, a lone English archer, without armour, does his best to repel the invaders. Harold'sarmy seems to have had fewer archers than the Normans and his men fought on foot, without cavalry. Another attack is launched by the invading cavalry, apparently from the other flank [scene 50]. The charging knights must be losing momentum as they reach the top of the ridge. Their spears pour down on the English, but the English still stubbornly stand their ground. A moustachioed housecarl prepares to swing his great axe into a horse's neck but the rider plunges his lance into his attacker's chest before he is able to do so. 'The loud shouting, here Norman, here foreign, was drowned,' William of Poitiers writes, 'by the clash of weapons and the groans of the dying.'3 The tapestry illustrates the slaughter in all its terrible confusion. The lower border becomes a mass grave for the mute and mutilated bodies of the dead, bodies whose nationality, so important in life, is now appropriately indiscernible. One has died of arrow wounds in his mouth and leg; some have suffered lance blows to the back, throat, chest or shoulder;another's severed head, still wearing its protective helmet, lies some distance from the body to which it was formerly attached.

At some point during the day Harold's brothers, Earl Gyrth and Earl Leofwine, both perished while fighting loyally by his side. The death of both in close-quarter combat is remembered in the embroidery [scene 51]. HIC CECIDERUNT LEWINE ET GYRD FRATRES HAROLDI REGIS (Here died Leofwine and Gyrth, King Harold's brothers). Leofwine is stuck in the back by the lance of a mounted knight before he has a chance to swing his great axe at the attacker. Gyrth, holding a round shield, is felled by another laniferous lance plunged into his mouth. Many more men and horses are struck down in agony and tumble over and die and their bodies, broken swords and severed heads lie strewn across the lower border.

There are innumerable casualties. HIC CECIDERUNT SIMUL ANGLI ET FRANCI IN PRELIO (Here English and French fell together in the battle). In the midst of it all, a moustachioed English housecarl strikes his axe deep into a horse's head, the horse recoils in agony, but from behind another knight uses such venom with his sword that not only does he kill the Englishman but knocks the head off an axe of another surprised fighter as well. Many horses are now falling. They twist and turn and are upended on to the ground, as the riders lose their grip and tumble off.