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By Root 647 0

do a bit of embroidering of their own? In the earliest known drawing of this scene, rendered by Antoine Benoît in 1729, the figure standing under the word HAROLD is apparently not wrenching an arrow from his face but appears possibly to be holding up his own English spear which he is about to throw. Certainly the weapon has no arrow flights on it, whereas arrows in the tapestry are invariably depicted with flights. It is, therefore, suggested that the arrow-in-the-eye, complete with little flights, was a nineteenth-century 'restoration' by persons who thought that they could 'improve' upon the original. The force of this argument is undermined by the fact that the eighteenth-century artists were not infallible; nor can Baudri's evidence - that the embroidered Harold is pierced by a shaft - easily be dismissed; and if Benoît's drawing shows no flights on the 'arrow', equally it shows no point on the 'spear'. If the nature, path and length of the weapon in Harold's hand really were drastically altered in the nineteenth century, evidence of the original stitch holes should presumably still be discernible through a close forensic examination of the fabric itself. The generally accepted view is that Harold is shown twice, first hit by an arrow and then struck down by a sword. It may be that the arrow-in-the-eye interpretation of the embroidery will one day have to be jettisoned, but until forensic evidence proves otherwise beyond doubt, the current view will probably continue to prevail.

This is not to say that the Tapestry, or any other source, is necessarily giving a true account of Harold's death. Battles are confused; stories differ. The most that can be said is that there is nothing inherently implausible about the notion that an arrow hit him around the eye and that he was then struck down by advancing knights. An arrow-wound in the face, leaving him bloodied and maimed, would have allowed the interpretation that the shaft had struck him specifically in the eye, whether or not this was actually the point of impact. It has been argued by an American historian, David Bernstein, that blinding would have had symbolic value in contemporary thought: the perjurer had received an arrow in his eye, his eye had been put out as God's punishment.17 Such a story would have quickly spread and the tapestry's artist may be following it on account of its resonant symbolic overtones. This may be so; but the tapestry does not actually show the arrow in Harold's eye, rather it enters his head at some undisclosed point on the other side of his helmet. Strictly speaking, the belief that it has hit him specifically in the eye is merely a matter of surmise on the part of the observer. Had the artist wished to show the arrow entering Harold's eye, he could no doubt have done so more explicitly.

Are we being teased again with double meaning? Is the artist hinting at another version of Harold's death? The story of the arrow was not the only early story. In the Carmen de Hastingae Proelio, the very earliest account of the battle, the description of Harold's death is quite distinct from any Norman or Anglo-Norman source and it makes no mention of any arrow. Instead Harold is killed by four aristocrats, or rather the poem singles out the four aristocrats who led a melee that descended upon Harold all at once: 'Others indeed were there,' the poet admits, 'but [these four] were better than the rest.'18 The Carmen is quite clear about the identity of one of the four: it is none other than Count Eustace II of Boulogne, who apparently arrives first at the scene. As to the other three, the passage is unfortunately ambiguous but they are probably Duke William himself, Hugh of Ponthieu (Count Guy's younger brother) and Robert Gilfard (another French baron). Of these four persons only one, the duke, is Norman; the rest are French in the narrow non-Norman sense.19 Curiously William of Poitiers is silent on the manner of Harold's death, although in other respects he set about correcting the French bias of the Carmen.Was this because the thrust of the Carmen's