Willy, Tilly and the Bayeux embroidery

Willy and Tilly co-star in the Bayeux Embroidery (yeah, you needle-workers, I've done my research.) In the world's first embroidered comic-strip, Norman-Man does battle with evil mastermind Harold Godwinson. You can tell the good guys from the bad guys because the Saxons all have droopy moustaches, while the Normans shaved the back of their heads. Mmm sexy.

How Harold actually met his end is the subject of some debate. The Latin text "Ladies and gentlemen, we got him!" appears over three mortally-wounded Saxons: one (as you know) with an arrow in his eye, one with a spear through his chest, and one with his legs chopped off. One modern theory is that they're all Harold, which suggests that the Norman army was nothing if not thorough.

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Auntumn leaves...

Yves Montand - Les Feuilles Mortes (1951)

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Willy's left leg

Willy (the Conqueror) and Tilly (Queen Matilda) were cousins, and the Pope was not at all happy about their normal-for-Norfolk union. Will soon smoothed matters over by building the Pope the Abbey of Saint Étienne at Caen. Everyone has a price, even the Pope.

Will was buried at Saint Étienne, but his bones were scattered twice, once during the Wars of Religion and again, just for good measure, during the Revolution (see our Ile-de-France blog). Despite all this upheaval, the Abbey custodians are pretty sure they still have his left leg.


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William the Bastard

Lower Normandy is France's leading producer of turnips, and breeds more horses than any other region. They must like the turnips. The region also leads in the production of butter, apples, leeks and flax, but has yet to combine these into a successful regional dish.

William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy and was also known as William the Bastard. William's dad was Robert the Magnificent, so Will's nickname must have come as a disappointment to him. Will's missus, Matilda, was only 4'2" tall and in 1066 she became England's smallest Queen. Matilda was famous for her long pig-tails. (Though, Matilda being vertically-challenged, they may in fact have been normal-length pig-tails). Legend has it, that Will courted Tilly by dragging her off her horse by her pig-tails. It must have been the turnips.

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Aaahh...

 ... a heartwarming illustration of porcine parenting from our favourite cartoonist Perry Taylor

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The Illuninati in East Oxford

By 1307, the Templars had invented modern banking, and effectively controlled the financial infrastructure of Europe. Many people, including Philip IV of France owed them an awful lot of money. Philip's solution to his personal credit crunch was to order the destruction of the entire order, and thousands of Templars perished (as you'll know if you've seen the film The Da Vinci Code) in a series of horrifying flashbacks. The overnight disappearance of Europe's entire fiscal infrastructure (and the ensuing chaos) have been put forward as an explanation for the extraordinary mystique which has since grown up around the Knights Templar.

Conspiracy theorists maintain that the architecture of present-day Cowley is rich in Templar-and-Masonic symbolism (let's not quibble.) The outlines of many of Cowley's rooftops closely resemble the Masons' pyramid-with-its-top-cut-off, and apparently, the entrances to Templar's Square shopping centre were covered, until a few years ago, by parapets that incorporated not only the truncated pyramid but also the all-seeing eye. You can find this symbol on the reverse of a one-dollar bill, where the unfinished pyramid symbolises the fact that the USA is a nation still in the process of being built. (Maybe when they've finally finished building it, they'll have time to turn their minds to human rights and the Geneva Convention? That would be nice.)

Meanwhile, back in Cowley, it seems that all this Masonic/Templar symbolism has been left by the Illuminati, the ultra-secret society intent on establishing a New World Order. Now, you may well ask, "If the Illuminati are so secretive, why would they leave big eye-catching symbols all over Cowley?" You might also ask, "If the Illuminati are intent on imposing a New World Order, haven't they got more pressing matters to address than decorating shopping centres in East Oxford?" And you may have a point. What is beyond doubt is that Templar's Square is Oxford's largest shopping centre and is probably the best place for all your shopping needs.

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Ye Trucke Festyval

The Domesday Book records the population of Cowley in 1086 as only 47. This surprisingly low figure may simply have been a careless monk's mis-scribe. Alternatively, it has been pointed out that the Domesday survey was carried out in July, when many Cowley inhabitants would have been away on holiday or possibly attending the Trucke Festyval in nearby Steventon.

Next up were the Knights Templar, who gave their name to Temple Cowley and Templar's Square shopping centre. The Knights Templar, you'll recall, were a twelfth century travel-courier-and-private-security outfit. Think Group Four meets Thomas Cook, or Securicor meets Saga. The First Crusade in 1096 had opened up the Holy Land to tourism, but many of the early sightseers failed to read the small print: "Pilgryms maye in facte be massacred by heathen before they reach their holidaye destination." The Knights Templar quickly spotted a market opportunity, and set up shop in Jerusalem in 1129, offering "Bespoke Pilgramage Solutions for the Discerning Penitent." By the end of the twelfth century, they had grown the Templar © brand to an impressive degree and had branches all over Europe, including at Temple Cowley.

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