and quoted by him in his able paper, pronounced by Sir F . PALGRAVE to be the only trustworthy and painstaking account of the battle.
"There lay between the hostile armies a certain dreadful precipice, (miserabile precipitium vaste patens,) caused either by a natural chasm of the earth , or by some convulsion of the elements. It was of considerable extent, and being overgrown with bushes or brambles, was not very easily seen , and great numbers of men were suffocated . For, ignorant of the danger, as they were running in a disorderly manner, they fell into the chasm , and were dashed to pieces and slain . And the pit of this deplorable accident is still called Malfosse." The Monk of Battle's Malfosse, then , was situated between the hostile armies, and its position , which was well known in his day, exactly accords with the ravine which I have pointed out; having William 's head-quarters at Telham and Hechland[1] on the one hand, and Battle Abbey, the head-quarters of Harold , on the other. But if we adopt Mr. LOWER's ingenious identification of Manfosse and Malfosse, the Monk's evidence seems to prove too much ; for it amounts to this : that Manfosse, (which Mr. LOWER shows corresponds to Winchester Croft,) though situated to the N . W . of Battle, was yet actually between the two armies. One writer, (William 's Chaplain,) termsit preruptum fossatum . It is interesting to notice how two such independent authorities as WACE and the Bayeux Tapestry corroborate one another. In the tapestry the
- ↑ We owe to Mr. Lower the identification of Hechland with Telham
