О.М.Елина, Н.С.Маринчук - Методическая разработка к фильму The History of Britain - Part 2 (1098533), страница 4
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Who else would have made such a glamorous hero?Something seems to have gone wrong in the Channel, perhaps a storm. Landing in the territoryof Guy of Ponthieu, they were arrested and handed over to Guy's liege lord, William ofNormandy.The embroiderers make it dramatically clear that Harold and his men now find themselves in analien world. The Saxons are moustachioed at this stage of the story, rather fine-looking, with acertain air about them, despite their predicament.
The Normans, by contrast, shave the backs oftheir heads. They're the scary half-skinheads of the early feudal world.Realising his lucky number has come up, William can afford to be all charm and generosity tohis prisoner, cleverly bringing him into his military entourage. William took Harold on campaignwith him in Brittany, where Harold returns the favour by rescuing two of William's soldiers fromthe quicksands of Mont Saint Michel, one on his left arm, one on his back.But William’s hospitality is steel-tipped.
He makes Harold one of his knights, a solemnceremonious business involving a two-way obligation. William, now his liege lord, would beobliged to protect Harold, his new knight. Harold would have had to make his own promises, andthere seems no doubt he did swear some sort of oath to the Duke.To the medieval mind, there was nothing more serious than an oath, and the tapestry makermakes it clear that this was a religious act by having a witness point to the word "Sacramentum".His oath was a kind of sacrament as it went to the heart of the matter.What would happen to England after Edward died?Now the English said that Harold agreed to be William's man only in Normandy and that it hadno bearing on the English succession.
The Norman chroniclers, though, said Harold had sworn tohelp William take the throne of England.The oath became even more binding when in a cheap theatrical trick the cloth was whipped fromthe table over which Harold had sworn. Underneath was revealed a reliquary containing thebones of a saint. Well, how much trouble was he in now? Had Harold promised something hecouldn't deliver, or had he made no promises at all about the English crown? Norman chroniclerslike to imagine the returning Harold haunted by guilt, saying one thing but doing another.In England, there was no sign of a queasy conscience at all.
To get his hands on the crown,Harold now did something inconceivable for a Godwine, something which one day would havedisastrous consequences. He sold his own brother, Tostig, down the river.Tostig was the Earl of Northumbria and also the family hothead, and had managed to provoke anorthern rebellion against him. He'd been fleecing abbeys and monasteries, creating his own5private arm and acting like a greedy tyrannical brat. Inevitably, the local nobles rose against him,declared him outlaw and put in their own man to be the new earl.Harold was sent by King Edward to sort out the mess and was immediately faced with two toughchoices.
He could back his younger brother Tostig against the rebels, but that might create a civilwar. Or he could forget about blood ties and support Tostig's enemies. In return, they might feelgrateful enough to offer him their crucial support when the time came for him to make his bid forthe English throne.In the end, Harold put ambition before brotherly love. He threw out Tostig and replaced himwith the Earl Morcar. Harold had broken Godwine clan solidarity and turned his own brotherinto a mortal enemy.It was this merciless war of brothers which in the end cost Harold his throne and his life.
Morethan anything else, it was the cause of death of Anglo-Saxon England.6EPISODE 2.Segment 1.00:20:54,830 -->The winter of 1065 was marked by tremendous gales which destroyed churches and uprootedgreat trees.As King Edward the Confessor lay on his deathbed, he was visited by a strange and terribledream which he insisted on relating to all who gathered around him.“Two monks came to my deathbed and told me that because of the sins of its people God hadgiven England to evil spirits. I said, "Will God not have mercy?" And they replied, "Not until agrowing tree, cleft in two by a lightning storm should come together of its own accord and growgreen again.” Only then will there be pardon."But no one paid much attention to the ravings of an old man.
What was much more importantwas that Edward had touched Harold's hand.The king had fallen short of actually declaring him his heir but it was enough of a sign forHarold and the northern earls who supported him.On January 6th 1066, Westminster saw the funeral of one king in the morning and the coronationof another in the afternoon.There are two Harolds depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, but which was the real one - theconfident king who now issued coins bearing the optimistic slogan "Pax", the Latin for peace, orthe guilty, twisted usurper, stricken by omens, haunted by a vision of ships?The phantom fleet which the embroiderers set in a border of the tapestry suggests Harold couldall too well imagine the reaction across the Channel to his coronation.A Norman historian has William hearing the news while out hunting.“When the Duke heard the news, he became as a man outraged.
Oft he tied his mantle, oft heuntied it and spoke to no man. Neither dared any man speak to him.”Segment 2.(HOWLING)00:23:31,870 -->For ten years, William had confidently let it be known throughout Europe that he'd soon addEngland to his territories. He was now in a lethally dangerous position of looking ridiculous. Heconsulted his feudal magnates in a series of assemblies and by no means all of them wereparticularly thrilled with the idea of an invasion of England.7The risks seemed a lot more daunting than the enticement of new lands and wealth. So the Dukewent to strategy number two, turning the matter into an international crusade.Couldn't the Pope see that his cause was just, that Harold was an infamous oath breaker, adespoiler of churches? William on the other hand was a builder of abbeys, a protector of bishopsagainst bullying barons.
It was completely absurd and it worked like a dream. The Pope was wonover, gave William his Papal blessing and invested him with his ring and banner.It was now much more than a dynastic feud. William used the consecration of his wife's abbey,here at La Trinite in Caen, to proclaim a crusade against the infidel Harold.
The barons who'dfought shy of risking their necks on the Duke's personal vendetta now flocked to join the legionsof the blessed.The Bayeux Tapestry shows work immediately got under way to build an awe-inspiringexpeditionary force. Rows of Normandy trees went down to the axe to emerge as 400 dragonheaded ships.Loaded onto the ships were coats of mail, bows, arrows, spears and the most indispensable itemof all, vast casks of wine.
Packed so tightly into the boats they supported each other, wereperhaps 6,000 horses, three for each knight.Across the Channel, Harold responded by proving that he too was a phenomenal militaryorganiser. As the crack troops of his army, Harold could call on the elite of perhaps 3,000"huscarls", professional soldiers trained to handle a two-handed axe that, if swung right, couldslice through a horse and its rider at one blow.The core of the army was 5,000 Thanes - or noblemen - of England. In addition there were the13,000 part-time soldiers, the "fyrd", mobilised by their lords, obliged to give the king twomonths service each year.With amazing speed, this army was stationed along the south coast.
By August 10th, Williamhad his army in place along the Normandy coast. Two great fighting forces bent on each other'sannihilation faced each other across a little strip of water to determine the destiny of England.And there they sat, William waiting for a southerly wind that never came, and Harold waiting forWilliam, who never came.This waiting was particularly serious for Harold. By the first week in September he'd kept thefyrd in battle position for at least two weeks longer than their two-month obligation.What's more, it was now harvest time.
So, with who knows what misgivings and uneasiness, onSeptember the 8th Harold demobilised the fyrd and sent the soldiers home.He was right to feel uneasy. Just eleven days later Harold had a very nasty shock - his youngerbrother was back.Tostig, together with the Norwegian king, Harold Hardrada, had landed in Northumbria with asmany as 12,000 men. Tostig had spent his time in exile looking for allies to pursue his vendettaagainst Harold.8It was a coup for him that he'd enlisted the support of the awesome King of Norway.
Hardradawas quite simply the most feared warrior of the age. Built like a Norwegian cliff face, he had thereputation for super-human strength and elaborately creative cruelty. Hardrada also had a flimsyclaim to the English throne that went back to Canute, and he wasn't one to flinch at a militarychallenge that could win him the disputed crown.Harold Hardrada sailed southwest from Norway on August the 12th.
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