THE SCENE: When the King of France is overthrown from his horse in the midst of battle between Franks and Normans, the whole kingdom seems to hang in the balance as the scene unfolds in the thick scrum of the battlefield.
THE TEXT: Against the King of France and the Frenchmen came up the body of the Costentinese; each party closing with the other, and clashing with levelled lances. When the lances broke and failed, then they assailed each other with swords. Hand to hand they fight, as champions in the lists, when two knights are matched; striking and beating each other down in many ways; wrestling and pushing and triumphing whenever any one yields. Each would be ashamed to flee, each tries to keep the field, each one boasts of his prowess with his fellow; Costentinese and French thus contending with each other.
Great is the clamour and hard the strife; the swords are drawn, the lances clash. Many were the vassals to be seen there fighting, serjeants and knights overthrowing one another. The king himself was struck and beat down off his horse. A Norman whom no one knew had come up among them; he thought that if the king should fall, his army would soon be dispersed; so he struck at him ‘de travers,’ and overthrew him, and if his hauberk had not been very good, in my opinion he would have been killed. On this account the men of that country said, and yet say, jeering: “From Costentin came the lance / That struck down the King of France.”
And if their knight had got clear away, they might well pass with their jeer. But when he tried to go off, and his horse had begun its course, a knight came pricking, and hit him, striking him with such violence as to stretch him out at full length. And he soon fared still worse than even that; for as he recovered himself, and would have mounted his horse, and had laid his hand on the saddle bow, the throng increased around, and bore him from the saddle, throwing him down; and the horses trod him underfoot, so that they left him there for dead.
There was great press to raise the king up, and they soon remounted him. He had fallen among his men, and was no way hurt nor injured: so he arose up nimbly and boldly; never more so. As soon as he was on horseback, many were the vassals who were again to be seen striking with lance and sword; Frenchmen assaulting Normans, and Normans turning, dispersing, and moving off the field: and the king shewed himself every where in order to encourage his men, as he had been seen to fall.
– Roman de Rou, Master Wace, 12th Century AD
