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across his saddle bows which may be to secure an oyerblanket. Notice also the Sgure a t lower right who wears a coif and tunic as well as a long underskirt. (Pierpont Morgan Library M. yjó fyy.)

and went on a pilgrimage or crusade. Others entered monasteries so they would die in monkish robes, for nearly all believed ultimately in God’s power.

It is obvious from the many speeches madę by commanders before battle that their soldiers needed enouragement and that they were often nervous of the outcome and feared death. This was used to advantage in the Crusades by the reassurance that those who died would go straight to heaven. Men also feared defeat, which prevented many battles from developing in the first place. Older and wiser minds often tried to persuade younger commanders against making a stand, because of the dangers inherent in losing a pitched battle, often with good reason. It was safer to destroy villages and crops, to show up an enemy’s failure as a protective lord, and to threaten war, than to actually engage in it. Some men avoided becoming knights by paying scutage instead. Origin-ally this was a money payment raised on those too young, sick or old to become knights and probably used in England during the reign of Rufus. However, already in Henry I’s time the sheer cost of becoming a knight caused some to pay scutage. Finance out-weighed ideas of chivalry.

BOHEMOND

Tali, broad-shouldered, muscular, slim-hipped but slightly stooping, white-skinned with a clean-shaven face where the white mingled with red, blue-grey eyes and blond hair cut to the ears; this portrait of Bohemond of Taranto comes down to us from the Byzantine princess, Anna Comnena, who saw him when a young girl. Despite a certain charm, she recalls how forbidding and savage he seemed, how untrustworthy he was and how ąuickly he changed his mood to suit the moment.

Bohemond was the son of Robert Guiscard, the tough Norman adventurer who had arrived in Italy in

St Edmund routs the Danes, a manuscript of 1125-1150. Here the lances are shown couched in the preyalent I2th-century fashion, though one rider useshis to stab a fal len warrior. The rider at lower left has horizontal ties

1041 and carved himself a large slice of Southern Italy. Bohemond was born to Aubree and christened Mark but because of his size in his mother’s womb received the nickname of Bohemond after a giant of that name.

The boy soon took after his father and joined him on his aggressive sojourns. In 1080 Guiscard, under a papai banner and probably with an eye on the imperial throne, set sail from Otranto with Bohemond. Having captured Corfu they advanced on Durazzo. Although Guiscard had to return to Italy to help the Pope and ąuell a revolt, Bohemond was left to press the attack. So adroit was he that he almost reached Constantinople itself before being rebuffed at Larissa in 1083, when the Byzantines themselves are said to have used a feigned flight. The Normans were now steadily pushed back and the Balkans lost.

When Guiscard died in 1085 his son, Roger ‘Borsa’, was designated his successor. Angry at being

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