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If 1066 is popularly held to be ‘the most-famous date in English history’, then the Bayeux Tapestry – which depicts the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest – must be one of the most celebrated and immediately recognisable representations of the medieval world, offering a vibrantly colourful and dramatic window into specific and highly significant events that took place centuries ago.
The Tapestry (actually an embroidery; its English name is a literal translation of the French word tapisserie, which simply means a textile wall-hanging) is formed from plant-dyed woollen threads stitched on to a linen base. Its colours are still wonderfully bright, despite their age; ironically, faded patches within the design tend to reflect modern repairs using less-durable synthetic dyes.
While debate has long raged about which side of the Channel the Tapestry was made on, today the prevailing view is that it was stitched by English women, who were renowned in the 11th century for their skill in such arts. Even William the Conqueror’s chaplain and staunch supporter William of Poitiers acknowledged that ‘England’s women are highly distinguished in needlework and embroidering’. The beautifully illustrated book about the Tapestry, edited by British Museum curators Sue Brunning, Lloyd de Beer, Michael Lewis, and Naomi Speakman – one of a suite of publications released by the museum to accompany their exhibition (see ‘Further information’ below and here) – offers further evidence of English inspiration. Many of the Tapestry’s scenes are clearly influenced by illuminated manuscripts housed in Canterbury’s monastic libraries, suggesting that the embroidery was done in or near this Kentish city. The rather laconic Latin captions (tituli) above each scene hint at an English hand in their creation, too, as the text often uses Old English spellings such as ‘Bagias’ for Bayeux, as well as retaining letters like the æsc at the start of the name Ælfygyva and the eth at the end of Gyrð.
If the Tapestry was an English creation, though, it was probably commissioned by a Norman patron – possibly William the Conqueror’s half-brother Odo, who was Earl of Kent and Bishop of Bayeux, and appears prominently within its imagery, though other influences on its design have also been put forward (see this month’s ‘Sherds’ column). Its narrative definitely presents a Norman perspective, portraying Harold Godwinson as an oath-breaking usurper and emphasising the legitimacy and inevitability of William’s rise to the throne – though it is more nuanced than simple propaganda. While Harold is singled out as William’s implacable rival for the crown (the Tapestry ignores the other claimants: Harald Hardrada and Edgar Ætheling), some scenes show him in a positive light, piously attending church and heroically rescuing Norman soldiers from quicksand.
World-building
The Tapestry’s appeal as a potential source of historical information is easy to understand. Richly illustrated and probably created within living memory of the Conquest, its imagery combines epic scale and intimate detail. Still-famous places like Westminster Abbey (labelled using its formal name: the Church of St Peter the Apostle) and Mont Saint-Michel provide familiar touchstones among more obscure scenes, while the skilful execution of other sections bring their subjects to vivid life. When the Norman fleet is shown crossing the Channel (Scene 38), the vessels’ masts invade the upper border (previously filled with animals and mythical beasts) as if dominating the horizon, while smaller ships depicted behind them give a striking sense of perspective. The battle scenes, meanwhile, have a real feeling of momentum and drama, as groups of Norman horses gradually separate, their lines elongating as they charge the English shield wall, and tiny figures of archers race through the lower margins.
Aside political wranglings, though, what can the Tapestry add to our understanding of the 11th-century world that it depicts? Its imagery adds flesh (or wool) to the bones of 1,000-year-old archaeological remains. Excavations have investigated the location of the Battle of Hastings (CA 286 and 318), which is shown in vivid, if stylised, scenes – as is the invaders’ landing-spot at Pevensey. The Tapestry also documents Harold’s death (although the exact cause remains contentious thanks to an unhelpfully positioned Latin caption), and historical tradition links his burial place to Waltham Abbey in Essex (CA 125). Meanwhile, recent research led by Dr Duncan Wright, Senior Lecturer in Medieval Archaeology at Newcastle, and Professor Oliver Creighton, Co-Investigator in the University of Exeter’s Department of Archaeology and History, has explored traces of his stronghold at Bosham in West Sussex (CA 421); its church and aristocratic hall appear in Scene 3.
As well as the deeds of ‘great men’, the Tapestry is full of scenes of everyday life, with images of sailing, farming, cooking, hunting, and carpentry scattered through its main frieze and margins. While it is tempting to use these as a treasure-trove of information about long-vanished architecture, furnishing, clothing, and objects, though, the embroidered images should not be taken literally. As mentioned above, the Tapestry is a sometimes unreliable narrator, presenting a selective story and occasionally ordering events for dramatic effect rather than chronological reality – for example, Edward the Confessor’s funeral is shown before his deathbed scene. The presence of blue-green horses also highlights that not all artistic choices aimed for naturalistic accuracy, and models for many scenes can be found in Canterbury manuscripts and Roman monuments: they are essentially ‘stock images’ rather than authentic representations of the past. There are some elements, though, that do appear to reflect contemporary experiences, offering intriguing insights into the lives of the more-than 600 anonymous ordinary individuals who stand alongside the few named figures (mainly kings, dukes, and bishops).
A stitch in time
Clothing is a case in point. Due to the nature of the Tapestry’s narrative, we mainly see male garb in its scenes, and, while some elements again reflect broader artistic traditions of the time (William’s clothing sometimes echoes portraits of Byzantine emperors, the exhibition book notes, while elsewhere men of rank are shown in Classical robes), there are garments with parallels in archaeology. Men are often shown dressed in tunics with distinctive collars: rounded, with a notch at the throat. These are not commonly seen in manuscript art, but examples of the same design, dating to c.1050-1150, have been found preserved in Danish bogs.
Some of the images of weapons and armour can find equivalents, too, in the material record. Visitors to the exhibition are greeted by a selection of armaments of the same type as would have been used at Hastings, including swords, spearheads, axes, and stirrups excavated in London. They are displayed alongside a conical helmet with a nose-guard – a design inseparably associated with Norman soldiers, with numerous examples depicted in the Tapestry, though such headgear was worn across Europe: the one on show in the exhibition is a loan from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
Scenes of construction and carpentry undoubtedly depict activities that took place in the 11th century, though again there are caveats. Images of ships and shipbuilding draw on manuscript illustrations of Noah’s Ark, we are told – but agricultural vignettes in the margins, showing the work of ploughing and sowing, seem more plausibly true to life. The diverse tools that are seen in the main frieze, meanwhile – including axes, adzes, hammers, and chisels – do have archaeological parallels, and the spades seen in a castle-building sequence (Scene 45) are particularly striking. They are made from a single piece of wood with a distinctively lopsided blade – a design known from excavated examples particularly associated with early medieval Britain and Ireland.
Capturing conflict
So far, we have described mainly male pursuits, and for good reason: while women are thought to have been responsible for creating the Tapestry, among the 627 people that they carefully embroidered, only three in the main frieze are female, with three more in the margins. The ‘main’ female figures include Queen Edith, wife of Edward the Confessor, whose childless union sparked the succession crisis that William and Harold both exploited to their own ends. She is not named in the Latin captions, but her identity can be inferred from her depiction weeping at her husband’s deathbed in Scene 27. There is also an enigmatic character shown consorting with or being assaulted by an anonymous cleric (Scene 15). This woman is labelled as Ælfgyva, a very common name in Anglo-Saxon England, and while contemporary viewers will have probably recognised the story represented here, today numerous interpretations abound (this scene is shown and discussed in more detail in this month’s ‘Sherds’ column). Finally, in Scene 47 we find a woman clutching the hand of a child as they flee a building that Norman soldiers have set ablaze. While its details are thought to stem from the Column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome, the universality of this representation of terrified refugees remains powerfully resonant.
It is striking that most of the female figures on the Tapestry are shown in distress or danger; there are no women in the grand scenes at court, coronations, funeral processions, or feasts – instead, they illustrate moments of loss, grief, and displacement. This was the reality of the Norman Conquest for the inhabitants of Anglo-Saxon England, and it adds a poignant note to our reading of the Tapestry, to think that English women had been commissioned (compelled?) to immortalise the defeat of their own people and the upheaval that they had endured.
The events of 1066 had devastating consequences for ordinary men, too, whether they were peasants whose lands were pillaged and livestock stolen (as is shown in Scene 40), or the warriors who were drawn into a conflict sparked by the ambitions of elites far removed from their lives. The later portion of the Tapestry does not shy away from the slaughter that ensued: below Scene 51 the lower margin is crowded with images of the dead – crumpled bodies, broken swords, severed heads – as battle rages in the main frieze above. Meanwhile, the border of Scene 57 shows the callous aftermath of war, with armour being stripped from bodies, leaving the dead naked and abandoned on the battlefield, as the surviving English troops flee. How many of these figures stand for now-anonymous but then sorely grieved men who were known to the embroiderers?
Consequences of conquest
The narrative has an abrupt ending, with the English retreating off the edge of the Tapestry. We never see William in triumph at his coronation, leading some to suggest a missing final section, but archaeological remains and surviving documents help to illuminate what came next. Complementing the main Tapestry display, the exhibition also includes a small number of contemporary objects and manuscripts, including a charter issued by William in 1067. Its text (in Old English) greets ‘all the citizens in London, French and English, in friendly fashion’ and informs them of William’s ‘will that [their] laws and customs be preserved as they were in King Edward’s day’. Despite this conciliatory tone, though, the violence was far from over. Rebellions against Norman rule broke out across England between 1066 and 1072, and all were brutally suppressed – including, most notoriously, a literal scorched earth campaign enacted by William in Yorkshire, which today is known as the Harrying of the North.
The impact of these events is spelled out in the Domesday Book survey that William commissioned 20 years after the Conquest. Its entries highlight how complete the transfer of land and property to a mainly Norman elite had been over the intervening years – while large areas of Yorkshire are described as ‘waste’, having still not recovered from Norman reprisals a generation earlier. As well as political changes, the inhabitants of this new Anglo-Norman England would have seen their physical surroundings irrevocably altered. The construction of Norman castles and cathedrals did not only herald novel architectural styles – they represented indelible stamps of authority and ownership across the landscape. A castle is shown under construction in Scene 45 of the Tapestry – just one of many such fortifications that would soon rise.
This period of upheaval probably prompted the burial of the Chew Valley Hoard, which is thought to have been committed to the Somerset soil, presumably for safekeeping, c.1066-1068. Some 450 of its 2,584 silver pennies are displayed at the end of the exhibition, highlighting the turbulence of this time but also elements of continuity, at least in administrative infrastructure. Its contents combine coins issued during Harold’s brief reign and the first coin-type that William produced after his coronation, demonstrating how quickly English mints were able to switch to fulfilling the new ruler’s orders – and they also confirm that at least some Anglo-Saxon moneyers were still operating after the Conquest. Even after these earth-shattering events, life had to go on – as the Tapestry’s images remind us, fields still needed to be ploughed, livestock had to be tended, and craftspeople were still plying their skills whoever occupied the throne.
• The Bayeux Tapestry will be at the British Museum until 11 July 2027. The next tranche of tickets will be released to the general public on 21 October (6 October for British Museum members); see http://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/bayeux-tapestry for more details.
• A series of books has been produced to accompany the exhibition, including a full-colour representation of the Tapestry, accompanied by illuminating chapters exploring its patronage, design, themes, and key characters. There is also a paperback fold-out edition, offering a 12m-long (40ft) concertina reproduction of the Tapestry; and a large-format collectors’ edition reproducing every stitch in intricate detail, accompanied by expert commentary. See http://www.britishmuseumshoponline.org/exhibitions/the-bayeux-tapestry/books-the-bayeux-tapestry.html for more information.
Images: © La Fabrique de Patrimoines en Normandie – Antoine Cazin.
