The Vikings — the scourge of Europe.
The West lived in terror of these men who came down from the
Scandinavian north in their dragon-like ships. Their geographical location
gave rise to another naine, the "Nor(th)mans". From the eighth century
they attacked the coasts of Great Britain and France and sailed up the
great rivers right into the heart of Europe, arriving without warning at
the gates of Cologne and Paris. Normandy, the first Viking kingdom in
Western Europe, was founded at the mouth of the Seine in 911. The Vikings
also persisted in their attempts to establish a strong foothold in
England.
William the Conqueror (c. 1028—1087), Duke of
Normandy, finally secured Norman rule in England in 1066. On 27 September
of that year, he sailed from the Norman coast under the cover of darkness.
His ships carried 7,000 men, horses, weapons, provisions and even a
dismantled wooden fortress which could be reassembled. Landing in the
early morning, William rallied his troups and marched to Hastings. There,
the decisive battle of the compaign was fought on 14 October 1066. The
Anglo-Saxon forces, led by King Harold II, had been weakened by their
hard-won victory over the Norwegian Vikings some days before as well as
the subsequent march to Hastings. They were defeated and Harold was
killed by a Norman arrow. With Harold dead and his army routed, the
fortified Normans were at leisure to hunt down the hapless Anglo-Saxon
soldiers. A few weeks later, on Christmas Day 1066, William had himself
crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey. For his victory, history has
given him the epithet "The Conqueror".
The Bayeux Tapestry preserves the memory of his
victorious campaign which linked England more closely to Latin culture and
the West. The tapestry is seventy-three metres long and one of the most
important pictorial records of medieval history. Rich in detail and exquisitely made, it portrays clothing, armour, weapons,
vehicles, ships and even banquets and celebrations from the eleventh
century. Legend has it that the tapestry was woven by Matilda, the wife of
William the Conqueror, but it is more likely that it was made by nuns. In
any case, it is a masterpiece presumed to have been created by women in
southern England, and was probably commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux
(1036?—1097), the half-brother of William the Conqueror. This particular
detail of the tapestry shows the Anglo-Saxon soldiers fleeing and,
presumably, King Harold being struck by an arrow in the head.
