Talk:The "Bayeux Tapestry"/@comment-4820455-20140105181427/@comment-5580075-20140107222031

I also found something interesting about the Bayeux tapestry. In the scene where the text says "Where the messengers of Duke William came to Wido" there is a picture of a dwarf holding the reins of the horses used by the messengers. There is a text above the dwarf that simply says "Turold". According to QI, Turold was hired as a clown for the Duke of Normandy and before the Battle of Hastings. Turold seeing how demoralized the Norman army was, he went to the middle of the field and start juggling with his swords. then an English soldier dropped his weapons and came near him to laugh at him where then turold with his sword chopped of the soldiers head which encourages the Norman Army and that is why he got a mention in the bayeux tapestry.

speaking about the Norman conquest of England there are also interesting things that happened in the reign of William I, During his coronation the newly conquered english citizens cheered outside westminster abbey to show their support. but the Norman soldiers mistakes this as a rebbellion and accidentaly massacared several people and set several buildings on fire. There was also another curious incident during his death. The noblemens, the clergy and the physicians were at his side at his deathbed when he dies most of the people anxious to protect their property, quickly went and those who stayed were in the words of Orderic "seized the arms, vessels, clothing, linen, and all the royal furnishings, and hurried away leaving the king's body almost naked on the floor of the house". the body was taken to Caen to be burried, as most of the nobility are gone, only common knights were left to arange the funeral. When the monks came to recieve the body a fire broke in the town and most left to take care of the fire, after the fire destroyed a large part of the town. the monks preformed the service and asked that he was to be forgiven, suddenly a man forbid the body to be burried in the church as he claimed that William build the church on land unjustly taken from his father. the man was paid six schillings for the burial plot. when the body was lowered down to the stone sarchophagus, it was discovered that the sarchophagus was too short to fit the body and then they tried to force the body in then in the words of Orderic "the swollen bowels burst, and an intolerable stench assailed the nostrils of the by-standers and the whole crowd" and they hurried with the service and hastily closed the tomb. four centuries later  the tomb was desecrated by calvinist iconolasts during the French war of Religion with only a thigh bone to be reburried and the tomb again was desecrated during the French Revolution. What a sad tale for a King.