Note 498 — Chapter XII · THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY.[159] 1051–1066. (continued 2)

Wace alone (Roman de Rou, 10319 et al.) speaks, throughout his narrative, of a bridge. All the other writers (Will. Pict. 101; Will. Gem. vii. 28; Will. Malms. iii. 234; Benoît, 35899) speak only of a ford—“vadum Divæ”—or, as Benoît calls it,

“As guez où la grant mer parfonde

C’estent e espant e sorunde.”

This is plainly one of Benoît’s exaggerations. The spot is perfectly well marked by the causeway mentioned by Wace (10351), which is still in use, and leads to the present bridge over the tidal stream. The two accounts may be easily reconciled, if we suppose that a bridge was first thrown across between the time of the battle and the time of Wace, and that Wace naturally described the place as it was in his own time. Benoît is therefore, for once, more accurate in his narrative than Wace; but his accuracy is quite accidental; Benoît simply dressed up the tale as he found it in the Latin writers; Wace, as ever, used his own powers of local observation.