The Death of Harold
The death of Harold has perhaps caused one of the greatest controversies over the Bayeux Tapestry. A scene shows two figures, one holding an arrow shaft which has either struck in or near his eye and, to his right, a second figure falling under the sword of a Norman horseman. An inscription running above both figures reads: ‘Here King Harold has been killed’.
It was assumed that, since the name ‘Harold’ appeared over the left-hand figure, this was the king being mortally wounded before being cut down. Then in 1960 C. Gibbs-Smith maintained that conventions of style meant the same person was never shown twice in the same scene, and that violent death is always represented by a falling figure. Therefore only the warrior being cut down could be Harold, and the arrow- in-the-eye story was born from a misreading of the Tapestry by Baudri of Bourgeuil, who describes a similar hanging in a 12th-century poem (1099-1102). However, in 1978, Brooks and Walker pointed out that conventions in fact showed that both figures could be Harold (note the dragon banner is shown twice in the scene, fallen and erect) and that Baudri, if indeed he did see the Tapestry, probably knew far more about conventions of style than do historians today.
William of Malmesbury (writing c.1125) says the arrow pierced Harold’s brain and he was then gashed by a sword as he lay prostrate, for which insult the knight responsible was dismissed from the army by William. It is worth noticing that the rider attacking the second figure has a sword close to his thigh. Malmesbury almost certainly knew the Tapestry and, if he did not, then the story of Harold being struck by the arrow and then cut down was current in England by 1125. Wace (c.1150-75) gives much detail, saying that the arrow struck Harold below the right eye, and that in his agony he broke the shaft before being hacked down. Much of this scene was damaged, but study of Stothard’s illustrations, made in 1819 before restoration, shows an arrow and moustache on the falling figure; close inspection of the linen itself also reveals a row of stitch holes by the eye of the falling figure, reinforcing this argument.
Exactly who killed the king is less certain. The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio, whose 11th-century date is by no means wholly accepted, names William himself as having broken in and killed the king. If this were true, it would have been well publicised, yet the Duke’s own panegyrist, William of Poitiers, is silent on the matter, saying only that Harold was killed. So is the Tapestry, which surely would have trumpeted this news.
In the lower border, men strip the dead of their mail. The latter appear naked, but other figures demonstrate that clothes are obviously worn beneath, and their appearance is almost certainly the result of restoration.