Galets paints en or, 4m x 1m
Rocks painted in gold
Festival Root 1066
Pevensey Castle
Performance : Harold song, composition : Norman Yamada, chanté par la chorale de Hastings The Shady Pines

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/185920604/3e73e48dd1


L’histoire raconte, dans sa dernière version, qu’à la mort du roi Harold durant la bataille de Hastings, William le conquérant demanda à son compagnon Guillaume Malet (ancêtre de l’artiste et cousin d'Harold) de l'enterrer sur la plage.
La mère d’Harold Gytha, réclama le corps de son fils et proposa en échange son poids en or. Ce qui lui fut refusé.
William le conquérant prétendait qu'Harold lui avait menti au sujet de l’accession au trone et pour cela, ne méritait pas un enterrement religieux. Un témoignage de Guillaume de Poitiers relate que certains soldats normands avaient dit “ Celui qui a défendu avec tant de zèle la côte anglaise devrait y être enterré.
Le corps fut donc enterré sous un cairn de galets sur la plage, probablement à Pevensey, qui en 1066 correspondait probablement à l’endroit des murs du château. Il fut plus tard déplacé à l’abbaye de Waltham dans l'Essex.
L’installation évoque cette tombe “païenne” et temporarire sur la plage, la relation anglo normande, et le symbole de l’or, la “valeur” d’un corps associée à son poids en or.


As the story goes, at least one version of the story, after King Harold fell at the Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror told one of his close companions William Malet (the artist’s ancestor) to take the body and bury it. Harold’s mother, Gytha, had begged for the body to be returned to her and proposed to give in exchange the weight of the body in gold. This was refused to her. William claimed Harold had lied to him about supporting his claim to the English throne therefore he did not deserve a proper religious burial. An account by William of Poitiers relates that some Norman soldiers remarked ‘in jest’ that “he who guarded the coast with such insensate zeal should be buried by the sea shore”. The body was therefore buried under a cairn of stones on the beach, possibly at Pevensey, which in 1066 would have come almost up to the Castle walls. It was later moved to Waltham Abbey in Essex. This installation evokes this “pagan” temporary grave on the beach, the Anglo-Norman relationship (William Malet was both working for William and a cousin of Harold), and the symbolism of gold for the body; the ‘value’of death, the ‘weight’ of the body.

Remerciements/special thanks to Polly Gifford, Jon Tyrrell, Thomas Daldry, Stella Landau, Julie Flavell, Michael Hambridge, Champion, Nik Barrie Dawn, Heidi Hampson, and the differents schools of Hastings involved, the choir directed by Heidi Berry