The riddle of a knight from an ancient tapestry

a reply to: daskakik
It's all in the focus of the eyes. It was the focal-point that got close.

P.S. Another intresting example of censorship, in two historical stages,
There is a scene at one point, with a man and a woman, labelled in the text as "Where a priest and Aelfgivu [did something which the text leaves unspecified]"
When my family visited Bayeux and saw the tapestry, the French and English text supplied by the museum for this scene was "William's daughter is promised to Harold".

a reply to: daskakik

I've decided it's probably Odin and that horse actually had 8 legs.

The voice over did it for me though, I concede. Honestly the picture has a lot of irregularities. The spurs alone are debatable.

Interesting

a reply to: RussianTroll

Hmm, maybe the giant axe was used to hit the legs of charging horses, and the chaotic way the scene is depicted is because of the fast paced situation, charging mounted knight-downed horse-knight is getting back up to fight the axe wielder.

a reply to: RussianTroll

The naked man probably represents Anglo Saxon king Harold being castrated as they cut his penis off and desecrated his body after his death as a warning to any other claimants to the throne.

Many of the Norman nights also have a broken cross a little like a swastika (on there shields) which has been associated with Lucifer by some scholars and not Christ.

Over the century's the tapestry may have been repaired and even altered several times but the bulk of it remains as it was.

For over two tears the Body's of the Saxon English were left to rot as a warning, after the battle Edith Swan Neck the Queen could only recognize her husbands mutilated body by a birth mark and she vanishes from history at that point.

Like many invading army's the Normans were bloodthirst and evil, raped, pillaged and basically tore the nation up and on his death bed William of Normandy AKA William the Conqueror confessed to the evil he had done and that he had no claim upon the English throne.
historytavern.blogspot.com...

For over four hundred years the English whom mostly spoke proto Dane, Saxon and other Scandinavian variants upon a language called Old Norse with some Celtic words mixed in and regarded as Old English and they were then were forced to speak Norman French, at least the ruling class were while under Norman rule the free people of the Saxon and Dane Kingdoms of England became Serf's or Slaves owned by whichever Norman was given there land, these Normans were then the new Free men of the nation.

This oppression of the native languages of the isles (Admittedly Old Norse was actually northern European rather than native Celt but you catch my meaning) was continued over into the conquest of Wales and later the inclusion of Scotland were the then standard English was regarded as the more civilized language and the native languages were seen and discriminated against as backward.

Now you know why Harold lost to William, he was actually winning but the battle had gone on so long that when a Norman attack on a flank of Harold's forces made up of young untried and unseasoned soldiers broke they then pursued the retreating Norman soldiers which opened up his line and allowed William to quickly launch and opportunist attack with is cavalry breaking the Saxon shield wall, up to that point the battle looked as if Harold was going to win and indeed he probably would have.

Also Harold had lost many of his best solders not long before the forced march to meet William at another battle with another king Harold and his army at a place called today Stamford Bridge.

In that other battle the Norwegian King (who also lay claim to the English throne) had retreated and one of his greatest warriors and unnamed warrior stood alone on the bridge keeping the English (Saxon) army at bay, he should not have died as he fought with with honour against the Saxon soldiers and held back the Saxon Army giving the Norwegians time to escape to there ship's with what was left of there army but some Saxon soldiers snuck under the bridge and assassinated him from beneath impaling him through the gaps in the bridge planks with a spear, perhaps the dishonourable action that brought the Saxons so much ill fortune in there next and final battle.
en.wikipedia.org...

If Godwinson's army had won the battle at Hastings the world would look and sound very different today, the English would probably speak much more similarly to the Nordic country's for example, the Normans having been beaten would then have been driven out of France or been conquered by Galic Lords and the entire history of the past thousand years would be altered perhaps with no industrial revolution and who knows how it may have played out with the wars against Islam as without Norman privateers and robber barons invading and periodically conquering lands held by the Ottoman and other Islamic forces the Islamic world would have been mostly unhindered in it's long term plans and invasions of Europe.

Perhaps another group would have saved the day or perhaps not?.

While no one in there right mind can call the Normans good they served there purpose and helped to stem the tide of Islam in the coming century's with many of the Crusader Lords driving a deep sword into the Islamic world and wounding it so that it hampered Islamic expansionism at that time.

We see the board late in the game, we see the crimes of the Normans and non suffered more than the English under there tyranny but you must also see the part they played in history not only of western Europe but the greater world around them including Sicily, Italy and the Holy Land and how they helped to weaken the Islamic world by there actions there so lifting the heat off of southern, eastern and central Europe for a while.

The man with the Axe would be a Housecarl these were the Knights of William's Kingdom.
There great two handed axe were said to be able to cleave a horse in two.
www.historyanswers.co.uk...

At quick glance maybe it could be a phallic reference. As in, the man has a very large member and is hung like a horse or perhaps was very brave. It would explain the odd positioning. As LabTech pointed out there could be a lot more subtext to it adding to the story then just that. It may be a tongue in cheek joke/compliment/insult and not a mistake.

originally posted by: RAY1990
people were tiny in comparison height wise, ask to visit the catacombs next time yo visit an old church and you'll see what I mean. Or better yet check the demographics of the fallen in war, it's all well documented.

Absolutely horses could take the weight the people were much smaller as a species in them days

originally posted by: vonclod

originally posted by: F2d5thCavv2
Not really clear as to what his position reference the horse (and what a small head the horse has!).

Look at his legs. It looks like he is standing beside the horse and his right leg is placed between the front legs of the horse. Or is the small head of the horse meant to show some distance, as in the horse has fallen and is on its side?

Cheers

Looks like his feet are on the ground too.

I believe they used small ponies back in the day. Strong but short by comparison to today's thoroughbreds.

a reply to: Soloprotocol

Absolutely correct.

At that time the horses they used were mostly smaller, later by the medieval period though horses especially for armoured knights had to become ever stronger and larger to cope with the increasing weight of the knights armour as it slowly morphed into full plate armour.

It got ridiculous at the end with knights having to be lifted into the saddles of there ever larger horses by winch and pulley type cranes and often being so heavy that they were almost unable to move so that if they fell in many cases the knight could not get back up unassisted.

These Horse are the same breed the Vikings actually used and are descended from the same horses they probably used in England and Normandy as well.


It is also worth noting that the Mongol's horses were also not large but actually rugged pony's with great stamina and if you look at those they look pretty much the same as those painted by people hunting them in the Neolithic period on cave wall's.


There have been many breeds of huge horses bred for war and other purposes and often relegated to the plough once there war days were over sometimes as a way of retaining the breed, such breeds include the famous Shire horses of England whose ancestors once carried heavily armoured knights into battle and of course there very close cousins the Clydesdales.

Most horses found in the States however have Arabic and Egyptian ancestry, there build is much more slender and taller as well as being the ancestors of race horses most of there ancestors were taken first by the Spaniards whom had inherited them from there long war with the Moors to take back the Iberian peninsular though other breeds of hardy norther European variety's were also introduced to by the English, French and other settlers.

But as the old saying goes, horses for courses, pit ponies were bred to be small as they went down coal mines that were often too short for a man to stand upright in and pulled the carts of coal and ore out of the mines and so variety's or horse, pony, ass and donkey have always existed, some huge and others tiny.



One of the quirks of history can be found at the time of the Roman coming into conflict with the Hun's.

The Hun's had a small invention that came from Eurasia that enabled them to stay in the saddle far longer than other people called the Stirrup, before they introduced it to the west it was not known and though Romans had saddles etc they did not have a Stirrup on there horses, it was important for a number of reasons such as a trained rider archer being able to stand on his stirrups and compensate for his horses motion so as to fire his arrows with deadly accuracy a feat that was previously almost impossible and one that gave them a distinct advantage as they swept westward from eastern china on there long migration.

Of course by the time of the battle of Hastings the ideas was well and truly known but it is still an interesting bit of trivia.

It is of course possible it had once been known then forgotten in the west but likely it was an invention of the Chinese (or retained knowledge) or some other now lost people.

a reply to: RussianTroll

I'm more interested in why they are wearing bubble wrap for armor than why there's either a midget horse or two 8 ft tall dudes sparring.

a reply to: jjkenobi

Haha, yeah it does look like bubble wrap (Edit I thought that it looked more like Scale Mail which was another type of armour made of overlapping small plates but apparently they really did have mail - which of course is even harder to make - so it was supposed to be mail) but remember they had not even invented the concept of perspective at that time and were trying to paint with yarn while not having actually seen the battle themselves, it was made by nuns if I remember.

originally posted by: vonclod
Is it possible that he is dismounted, and beside the horse? As for his weight, anyones guess, armour, or mail adds 60lbs, could be a bit less with mail. So, could a 220lb man break a horses neck if he sat that far up, maybe he sacrificed the horse?

You can see the knight's right leg is on the other side of the horse's front legs, so he is on the horse.

a reply to: Alien Abduct

Good point, it could be an attempt to depict a soldier on horseback riding low on one side of his saddle to avoid the axe swing while stabbing at the axe man and him being on the horses neck could be suggestive of him standing in the saddle before doing this.

If I spent so much time making an elaborate saddle on a tapestry I wouldn't cover it up with some lousy frenchman.