By my calculations today October 27th equals October 14th OS - ie in the Julian Calendar and is thus technically the actual anniversary of the battle of Hastings 956 anniversary of one of the two most important events in the history not only of England, or Britain, or the British Isles but of the English speaking world in the last thousand years. The other event of comparable import is the break with Rome in the sixteenth century.
The battle was over with the death of King Harold II. Setting aside later stories of him surviving and living out his later years in anonymity as a hermit his death is a given fact. However the story that it was caused by an arrow in his eye which has become part of the national consciousness is one which historians have for many years questioned, disputed and rejected that ‘fact’.
Recently the Medievalists.net website reposted an article by Michael Livingston from Medieval Warfare which looks at the evidence for King Harold’s death. The contemporary or near contemporary texts are set out clearly and cogently. So is the testimony of the Bayeux Tapestry, both as it is now and as it was recorded by eighteenth and early nineteenth century draughtsmen before it was restored. This lucid, well illustrated article, together with its bibliographic links, can be accessed at The Arrow in King Harold's Eye: The Legend That Just Won't Die
William of Malmrsbury’s account of King Harold’s wounding and death is interesting in that it is very circumstancial. Perhaps it is too much so in that doubtless most if not all of those around the King doubtless perished with humans did not survive to recount events. If Malmsbury had seen the designs for the Tapestry he could well, as a skilled writer, have constructed his narrative in a way often used by historians before the emergence of modern concerns with sources and fidelity to strict factuality. It remains noteworthy in that it does say that King Harold received a wound in the eye, although when William was writing the Tapestry would not have shown that.
One bit of trivia that the article brings out is that King Harold is depicted as left-handed. Is that a genuine fact otherwise unrecorded or was it shown to suggest his not being the rightful ruler?
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In that iconic scene from the Bayeux Tapestry it has been suggested that the figure standing towards the left with the arrow in his eye is the same as the prostrate one on the right, so the two are in effect multiple time frames of the same person, like a crude form of animation:
https://medievalists.gumlet.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/rsz_bayeux_tapestry_scene57_harold_death.jpg
But if one compares the bands on their armour and scabbard closely, and especially the colour of their leggings, it is clear they are meant to be different people and the prostrate figure on the right has far more gold braid.
So, unless darning and mending of the tapestry in later times were far more extensive than seems plausible, the guy on the right is undoubtedly Harald II, and the one on left someone else, perhaps one of his brothers.
Also, the guy on the right seems to be looking down in some distress at his body below the waist, and holding there both hands which appear to be bloody. This is consistent with one account in which a knight hacked off his "thigh", which is doubtless a euphemism for genitals or similar.
One of the accounts of the battle states that after it Duke William sent home four knights in disgrace for unchivalrous conduct in their combat with Harald, although I'm not sure (and perhaps the source doesn't make clear) whether that was pre or post mortem.
One way or another though, his body ended up so mauled that only his wife, Edith Swan Neck, was able to recognise it by certain tattoos or other markings familiar to her.
John R Ramsden
https://highranges.com
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