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National Geographic : 1966 Aug
Contents
AND HIS SOLDIERS RIDE TO BOSHAM THE CHURCH King Edward the Confessor Orders Earl Harold to Normandy England's most powerful earl. The monarch orders: Go to Normandy! Confirm the pledge! With Harold leading, the knights set out. Falcon and hunting hounds signify that the party goes in peace. At the port of Bosham, Harold prays for a safe voyage. in a 1476 inventory of the Cathedral of Bayeux. In 1792 French revolutionaries used it as a wagon cover un til a local lawyer rescued it. Two years later it was al most cut up to decorate a holiday float. It spent a part of World War II in Paris, wound on a huge spool in a cellar of the Louvre. Today the former Bishop's Palace across from the Ca thedral of Bayeux displays the embroidery, protected by glass and special light ing to prevent the colors from fading. These visitors, listening to recorded com mentary, examine the scene of William's invasion fleet sailing for England. EKTACHROMEBY GEORGEF. MOBLEY © N.G.S . old _0 4 influence on England began to give way to the political and cultural ideas of the Latin world. Besides feudalism and a new aristocracy, the Normans im planted in England much of their language, law, architecture, and social customs. The island kingdom was thus brought into the mainstream of medieval civilization. Englishmen partici pated in the Crusades, the reform of church and monastery, and other movements of the time. After William's day the universities of Oxford and Cam bridge were founded, following the establishment of the first European universities at Bologna and Paris, for he had made it possible for England to share in the intellectual revival of the 12th century. Ultimately the effects of his conquest would be felt in the New World. Such terms as "justice," "liberty," and "sovereign" crossed the Channel with William. Indeed, the Norman Conquest has left its mark forever on the language you are now reading. Y wife Jay and I waded through meadows that once were part of the battlefield of 1066 and looked up toward the peaceful town of Battle. Maps in hand, we had to struggle against the pastoral calm of the summer morning and the laughter of children to look into the past and envision the momentous carnage that took place here. Like Battle, nearby Hastings showed us a pretty face. She was busy with colorful preparations for the summer-long cele bration of the 900th anniversary of the event that made her famous. The only armies we could imagine were those that would be assaulting a new domed exhibition hall complete with battlefield-a 288-square-foot model of the original. To relive the events of 1066, however, and to sense the thrust of their gore and glory, we had gone first to France-to Bayeux. Jay and I visited that city three times in the unforgettable weeks we followed the footsteps of William the Conqueror. We went there, of course, because the Normans immortalized their conquest in an incomparable work of 11th-century 209 ~-------1
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