Note 26 — PART II HISTORICAL STUDIES

Had the tapestry been a work of later date, it is hardly possible that it could have given the simple and truthful account of these matters which it does give. A work of the twelfth or thirteenth century26 would have brought in, as even honest Wace does in some degree, the notions of the twelfth or thirteenth century. One cannot conceive an artist of the time of Henry II, still less an artist later than the French conquest of Normandy, agreeing so remarkably with the authentic writings of the eleventh century (iii. 573).