Godard is Placed on a Mare With All Warranted Dignity

A charming scene, showing all the courtesies offered to an old enemy captured in flight after all his men have been slain:

But dunten him so man doth bere,
And keste him on a scabbed mere,
Hise nese went un-to þe crice:

(ll. 2448-50).  Apparently, it was not unusual for folks to be tied on ignomoniously (head at the tail end of the beast) on their way to execution.  The note for 2450 says:

2450. Cf. ll. 2505 and 2822. This appears to have been a common, but barbarous, method in former times of leading traitors or malefactors to execution. Thus in the Romance of Kyng Alisaunder, the treatment of the murderers of Darius is described:
He dude quyk harnesche hors,
And sette theron heore cors,
Hyndeforth they seten, saun faile;
In heore hand they hulden theo tailes.
—l. 4708.

Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32049/32049-h/32049-h.htm#textnote2450