King Harald Sigurdson observed to his men, a little man, yet he sat firmly in his stirrups ". "That was but It is said that Harald made these verses at this time: Advance! advance! His coat of mail was called Emma; and it was so long that it reached almost to the middle of his leg, and so strong that no weapon ever pierced it. Then said King Harald Sigurdson, "These verses are but ill composed; I must try to make better"; and he composed the following: In battle storm we seek no lee, With skulking head, and bending knee, With eye and hand we fend the head; Courage and skill stand in the stead In Hild's bloody field. Thereupon Thiodolf sang : And should our king in battle fall,- Of the Beginning of the Battle. Now the battle began. The Englishmen made a hot assault upon the Northmen, who sustained it bravely. It was no easy matter for the English to ride against the Northmen on account of their spears; therefore they rode in a circle around them. And the fight at first was but loose and light, as long as the Northmen kept their order of battle; for although the English rode hard against the Northmen, they gave way again immediately, as they could do nothing against them. Now, when the Northmen thought they perceived that the enemy were making but weak assaults, they set after them, and would drive them into flight; but when they had broken their shield rampart the Englishmen rode up from all sides and threw arrows and spears on them. Now when King Harald Sigurdson saw this, he went into the fray where the greatest crash of weapons was; and there was a sharp conflict, in which many people fell on both sides. King Harald then was in a rage, and ran out in front of the array, and hewed down with both hands; so that neither helmet nor armour could withstand him, and all who were nearest gave way before him. It was then very near with the English that they had taken to flight. So says Arnor, the earl's skald : Where battle storm was ringing, Of armour bare, His deadly sword still swinging. With Harald there, Where steel on steel was ringing. Fall of King Harald. King Harald Sigurdson was hit by an arrow in the windpipe, and that was his death-wound. He fell, and all who had advanced with him, except those who retired with the banner. There was afterwards the warmest conflict, and Earl Toste had taken charge of the king's banner. They began on both sides to form their array again, and for a long time there was a pause in fighting. Then Thiodolf sang these verses :— The army stands in hushed dismay; But before the battle began again Harald God winson offered his brother Earl Toste peace, and also quarter to the Northmen who were still alive; but the Northmen called out all of them together that they would rather fall, one across the other, than accept of quarter from the Englishmen. Then each side set up a war-shout, and the battle began again. the earl's skald : So says Arnor, The king, whose name would ill-doers scare, The gallant men who saw him fall 13. SAXONS AND NORMANS (1066-1125). The medieval monk seldom had that faculty of comparing facts with one another and interpreting them which raises the historian to the level of the artist. We are content if he proves to have been a good observer or a diligent compiler. His comments we discard, and make others of our own. William of Malmesbury is an exception to the rule just stated. With him a sense of proportion and of values, an impartial tone and breadth of view are joined to superior methods of research. He was born not later than 1095, and lived till towards the close of Stephen's reign. His statement that he shared the blood of both races will account for the spirit of justice which appears in the following extract. At the end of the eleventh century the Normans were established along the lower course of the Seine, in southern Italy and in England, but they displayed the same qualities wherever their home might be. The Apulian 1 chronicler Malaterra has a paragraph about their traits which impressed Gibbon enough to receive a place in the Decline and Fall. It was also Gibbon's idea to connect William of Malmesbury with Malaterra. 1 SOURCE.-(4) Gesta Regum Anglorum. William of Malmesbury (1095 ?1142 ?). Trans. J. A. Giles. London, 1847. P. 278. This was a fatal day to England, a melancholy havoc of our dear country, through its change of masters. For it had long since adopted the manners of the Angles, which had been 1 Fl. circ. 1100. "Apulian" refers to his subject not to his birth. He was probably a Norman. See Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script., v., 540. C very various according to the times; for in the first years of their arrival, they were barbarians in their look and manners, warlike in their usages, heathens in their rites; but, after embracing the faith of Christ, by degrees and in process of time, from the peace they enjoyed, regarding arms only in a secondary light, they gave their whole attention to religion. I say nothing of the poor, the meanness of whose fortune often restrains them from overstepping the bounds of justice. I omit men of ecclesiastical rank, whom sometimes respect to their profession, and sometimes the fear of shame, suffer not to deviate from the truth. I speak of princes, who from the greatness of their power might have full liberty to indulge in pleasure; some of whom in their own country, and others at Rome, changing their habit, obtained a heavenly kingdom and a saintly intercourse. Many during their whole lives in outward appearance only embraced the present world, in order that they might exhaust their treasures on the poor, or divide them amongst monasteries. What shall I say of the multitudes of bishops, hermits, and abbots? Does not the whole island blaze with such numerous relics of its natives, that you can scarcely pass a village of any consequence but you hear the name of some new saint, besides the numbers of whom all notices have perished through the want of records? Nevertheless, in process of time, the desire after literature and religion had decayed, for several years before the arrival of the Normans. The clergy, contented with a very slight degree of learning, could scarcely stammer out the words of the sacraments, and a person who understood grammar was an object of wonder and astonishment. The monks mocked the rule of their order by fine vestments, and the use of every kind of food. The nobility, given up to luxury and wantonness, went not to church in the morning after the manner of Christians, but merely, in a careless manner, heard matins and masses from a hurrying priest in their chambers. . . . The commonalty, left unprotected, became a prey to the most powerful, who amassed fortunes by either seizing on their property, or by selling their persons into foreign countries; although it be an innate quality of this people to be more inclined to revelling, than to the accumulation of wealth. . . . Drinking in parties was a universal practice, in which occupation they passed entire nights as well as days. They consumed their whole substance in mean and despicable houses; unlike the Normans and French, who, in noble and splendid mansions, lived with frugality. The vices attendant on drunkenness, which enervate the human mind, followed; hence it arose that engaging William, more with rashness and precipitate fury than military skill, they doomed themselves and their country to slavery, by one, and that an easy, victory. "For nothing is less effective than rashness; and what begins with violence, quickly ceases or is repelled." In fine, the English at that time wore short garments reaching to the mid-knee; they had their hair cropped; their beards shaven; their arms laden with golden bracelets; their skin adorned with punctured designs. They were accustomed to eat till they became surfeited, and to drink till they were sick. These latter qualities they imparted to their conquerors; as to the rest, they adopted their manners. I would not, however, have these bad propensities universally ascribed to the English. I know that many of the clergy, at that day, trod the path of sanctity by a blameless life; I know that many of the laity, of all ranks and conditions, in this nation, were well-pleasing to God. Be injustice far from this account; the accusation does not involve the whole indiscriminately. "But, as in peace, the mercy of God often cherishes the bad and the good together; so, equally, does his severity sometimes include them both in captivity." Moreover, the Normans, that I may speak of them also, were at that time and are even now, proudly apparelled, delicate in their food, but not excessive. They are a race inured to war, and can hardly live without it; fierce in rushing against the enemy; and where strength fails of success, ready to use stratagem, or to corrupt by bribery. As I have related, they live in large edifices with economy; envy their equals; wish to excel their superiors; and plunder their subjects, though they defend them from others; they are faithful to their lords, though a slight offence renders them perfidious. They weigh treachery by its chance of success, and change their sentiments with money. They are, however, the kindest of nations, and they esteem strangers worthy of equal honour with themselves. They also intermarry with their vassals. They revived, by their arrival, the observances of religion, which were everywhere grown lifeless in England. You might see churches rise in every village, and monasteries in the towns and cities, built after a style unknown before; you might behold the country flourishing with renovated rites; so that each wealthy man accounted that day lost to him which he had neglected to signalise by some magnificent action. |