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I knew Harold, Harald, Tostig and William would be 'with me' for a couple of months so.....

Developing 'the look'

Although I studied several books depicting a variety of medieval monarchs, and their subjects, in order to try and arrive at a generic ‘look’ for that period – I found this particularly useful for deciding upon how best to coif the men’s hair, and how to dress noblemen/women/serfs – the appearances of King Harold Godwinson and Duke William of Normandy are based on their Bayeux-stitched visages (as far as I was able to identify, with the help of the folio-compiler’s annotations).

As evidence was so scarce, and I knew Harold (King of England and not to be confused with), King Harald (Hardrada) of Norway, Tostig and William would be 'with me' for a couple of months, I tried to bring something of their individual characters into their facial expressions.
‘Their characters’ were, of course, entirely derived from my own, very subjective speculations – based on the impression of their respective personas I got from reading Charles’ fascinating narrative – but it allowed me to develop a sense of them as individuals, and to identify with them whenever they featured in a drawing for a particular ‘scene’: Some of the many faces of King Harold
bulletSmug at his coronation
bulletPensive when working out what to do
bulletCunning when sneaking up at Stamford Bridge
bullet& sick just before Hastings - his mum told him not to go.

Interesting links

bullet Battle of Fulford
bullet Battle of Stamford Bridge
bullet Battle of Hastings
bullet English Heritage
bullet Battlefields Trust
bullet Young Archaeologists Club (CAB)
bullet York Archaeological Trust
bullet Regia re-enactors
bullet Viking re-enactors
bulletOnline documents

Events

bullet Riccall Rampage 24 July 2010
bullet Jorvik Festival (there will be another one in 2011!)
bullet Fulford Festival 2010
bullet Festival of archaeology 2010

 

 

 

 

An Illustrated History of 1066
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last updated 20 Julyy 2010