The Bayeux Tapestry[a] is an embroidered cloth nearly 70 metres (230 feet) long and 50 centimetres (20 inches) tall[1] that depicts the events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, led by William, Duke of Normandy challenging Harold II, King of England, and culminating in the Battle of Hastings. It is thought to date to the 11th century, within a few years of the battle. Now widely accepted to have been made in England, perhaps as a gift for William, it tells the story from the point of view of the conquering Normans and for centuries has been preserved in Normandy.
According to Sylvette Lemagnen, conservator of the tapestry, in her 2005 book La Tapisserie de Bayeux:
The Bayeux tapestry is one of the supreme achievements of the Norman Romanesque .... Its survival almost intact over nine centuries is little short of miraculous ... Its exceptional length, the harmony and freshness of its colours, its exquisite workmanship, and the genius of its guiding spirit combine to make it endlessly fascinating.[2]
The cloth consists of 58 scenes,[note 1] many with Latin tituli, embroidered on linen with coloured woollen yarns. It is likely that it was commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, William's maternal half-brother, and made for him in England in the 1070s. In 1729, the hanging was rediscovered by scholars at a time when it was being displayed annually in Bayeux Cathedral. The tapestry is now exhibited at the Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux in Bayeux, Normandy, France (49°16′28″N 0°42′01″W / 49.2744°N 0.7003°W / 49.2744; -0.7003).
The designs on the Bayeux Tapestry are embroidered rather than in a tapestry weave, so it does not meet narrower definitions of a tapestry.[5] Nevertheless, it has always been referred to as a tapestry until recent years when the name "Bayeux Embroidery" has gained ground among certain art historians. It can be seen as a rare example of secular Romanesque art. Tapestries adorned both churches and wealthy houses in Medieval Western Europe, though at 0.5 by 68.38 m (1 ft 8 in by 224 ft 4 in), the Bayeux Tapestry is exceptionally large. Only the figures and decoration are embroidered, on a background left plain, which shows the subject very clearly and was necessary to cover large areas.
The earliest known written reference to the tapestry is a 1476 inventory of Bayeux Cathedral,[6] but its origins have been the subject of much speculation and controversy.
French legend maintained the tapestry was commissioned and created by Queen Matilda, William the Conqueror's wife, and her ladies-in-waiting. Indeed, in France, it is occasionally known as La Tapisserie de la Reine Mathilde ("The Tapestry of Queen Matilda"). However, scholarly analysis in the 20th century concluded it was probably commissioned by William's half-brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeux,[7] who, after the Conquest, also became Earl of Kent and, when William was absent in Normandy, regent of England.
The reasons for the Odo commission theory include:
Assuming Odo commissioned the tapestry, it was probably designed and constructed in England by Anglo-Saxon artists (Odo's main power base being by then in Kent); the Latin text contains hints of Anglo-Saxon; other embroideries originate from England at this time; and the vegetable dyes can be found in cloth traditionally woven there.[8][9][10] Howard B. Clarke has proposed that the designer of the tapestry (i.e. the individual responsible for its overall narrative and political argument) was Scolland, the abbot of St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury, because of his previous position as head of the scriptorium at Mont Saint-Michel (famed for its illumination), his travels to Trajan's Column, and his connections to Wadard and Vital, two individuals identified in the tapestry.[11][12] Alternatively, Christine Grainge has argued that the designer may have been Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury 1070–1089.[13] The actual physical work of stitching was most probably undertaken by female needleworkers. Anglo-Saxon needlework of the more detailed type known as Opus Anglicanum was famous across Europe. It was perhaps commissioned for display in the hall of Odo's palace in Bayeux, and then bequeathed to the cathedral he had built, following the precedent of the documented but lost hanging of the Anglo-Saxon warrior Byrhtnoth, bequeathed by his widow to Ely Abbey.[14]
Other theories exist. Carola Hicks has suggested the tapestry could possibly have been commissioned by Edith of Wessex, widow of Edward the Confessor and sister of Harold.[15] Wolfgang Grape has challenged the consensus that the embroidery is Anglo-Saxon, distinguishing between Anglo-Saxon and other Northern European techniques;[16] Medieval material authority Elizabeth Coatsworth[17] contradicted this: "The attempt to distinguish Anglo-Saxon from other Northern European embroideries before 1100 on the grounds of technique cannot be upheld on the basis of present knowledge."[10] George Beech suggests the tapestry was executed at the Abbey of Saint-Florent de Saumur in the Loire Valley and says the detailed depiction of the Breton campaign argues for additional sources in France.[18] Andrew Bridgeford has suggested that the tapestry was actually of English design and encoded with secret messages meant to undermine Norman rule.[19]
The first reference to the tapestry is from 1476 when it was listed in an inventory of the treasures of Bayeux Cathedral. It survived the sack of Bayeux by the Huguenots in 1562; and the next certain reference is from 1724.[20] Antoine Lancelot sent a report to the Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres concerning a sketch he had received about a work concerning William the Conqueror. He had no idea where or what the original was, although he suggested it could have been a tapestry.[21] Despite further enquiries he discovered no more.
The Benedictine scholar Bernard de Montfaucon made more successful investigations and found that the sketch was of a small portion of a tapestry preserved at Bayeux Cathedral. In 1729 and 1730 he published drawings and a detailed description of the complete work in the first two volumes of his Les Monuments de la Monarchie française. The drawings were by Antoine Benoît, one of the ablest draughtsmen of that time.[21]
The tapestry was first briefly noted in English in 1746 by William Stukeley, in his Palaeographia Britannica.[22] The first detailed account in English was written by Smart Lethieullier, who was living in Paris in 1732–3, and was acquainted with Lancelot and de Montfaucon: it was not published, however, until 1767, as an appendix to Andrew Ducarel's Anglo-Norman Antiquities.[21][23][24]
During the French Revolution, in 1792, the tapestry was confiscated as public property to be used for covering military wagons.[20] It was rescued from a wagon by a local lawyer who stored it in his house until the troubles were over, whereupon he sent it to the city administrators for safekeeping.[21] After the Reign of Terror, the Fine Arts Commission, set up to safeguard national treasures in 1803, required it to be removed to Paris for display at the Musée Napoléon.[21] When Napoleon abandoned his planned invasion of Britain the tapestry's propaganda value was lost and it was returned to Bayeux where the council displayed it on a winding apparatus of two cylinders.[21] Despite scholars' concern that the tapestry was becoming damaged the council refused to return it to the cathedral.[21]
In 1816 the Society of Antiquaries of London commissioned its historical draughtsman, Charles Stothard, to visit Bayeux to make an accurate hand-coloured facsimile of the tapestry. His drawings were subsequently engraved by James Basire jr. and published by the Society in 1819–23.[25] Stothard's images are still of value as a record of the tapestry as it was before 19th-century restoration.
By 1842 the tapestry was displayed in a special-purpose room in the Bibliothèque Publique. It required special storage in 1870 with the threatened invasion of Normandy in the Franco-Prussian War and again in 1939–1944 by the Ahnenerbe during the German occupation of France and the Normandy landings. On 27 June 1944 the Gestapo took the tapestry to the Louvre and on 18 August, three days before the Wehrmacht withdrew from Paris, Himmler sent a message (intercepted by Bletchley Park) ordering it to be taken to "a place of safety", thought to be Berlin.[26] It was only on 22 August that the SS attempted to take possession of the tapestry, by which time the Louvre was again in French hands.[26] After the liberation of Paris, on 25 August, the tapestry was again put on public display in the Louvre, and in 1945 it was returned to Bayeux,[21] where it is exhibited at the Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux.
The inventory listing of 1476 shows that the tapestry was being hung annually in Bayeux Cathedral for the week of the Feast of St John the Baptist; this was still the case in 1728, although by that time the purpose was merely to air the hanging, which was otherwise stored in a chest.[26] Clearly, the work was being well cared for. In the eighteenth century, the artistry was regarded as crude or even barbarous—red and yellow multi-coloured horses upset some critics. It was thought to be unfinished because the linen was not covered with embroidery.[26] However, its exhibition in the Louvre in 1797 caused a sensation, with Le Moniteur, which normally dealt with foreign affairs, reporting on it on its first two pages.[26] It inspired a popular musical, La Tapisserie de la Reine Mathilde.[citation needed] It was because the tapestry was regarded as an antiquity rather than a work of art that in 1804 it was returned to Bayeux, wherein 1823 one commentator, A. L. Léchaudé d'Anisy, reported that "there is a sort of purity in its primitive forms, especially considering the state of the arts in the eleventh century".[26]
The tapestry was becoming a tourist attraction, with Robert Southey complaining of the need to queue to see the work. In the 1843 Hand-book for Travellers in France by John Murray III, a visit was included on "Recommended Route 26 (Caen to Cherbourg via Bayeux)", and this guidebook led John Ruskin to go there; he would describe the tapestry as "the most interesting thing in its way conceivable". Charles Dickens, however, was not impressed: "It is certainly the work of amateurs; very feeble amateurs at the beginning and very heedless some of them too."[26]
During the Second World War Heinrich Himmler coveted the work, regarding it as "important for our glorious and cultured Germanic history".[26]
In 2018 French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the Bayeux Tapestry would be loaned to Britain for public display.[27] It had been expected to be exhibited at the British Museum in London in 2022, but strong objections were raised on conservation grounds.[citation needed] It would be the first time in 950 years that the tapesty had left France, although evidence suggests that the tapestry was made in Canterbury.[28] As of April 2024, however, a date for the loan had not yet been finalised.
In common with other embroidered hangings of the early medieval period, this piece is conventionally referred to as a "tapestry", although it is not a "true" tapestry in which the design is woven into the cloth in tapestry weave; it is technically an embroidery, although it meets the traditional broader definition of "tapestry" as: "A textile fabric decorated with designs of ornament or pictorial subjects, painted, embroidered, or woven in colours, used for wall hangings, curtains, covers for seats, ..."[29]
The Bayeux tapestry is embroidered in crewel (wool yarn) on a tabby-woven linen ground 68.38 metres long and 0.5 metres wide (224.3 ft × 1.6 ft) and using two methods of stitching: outline or stem stitch for lettering and the outlines of figures, and couching or laid work for filling in figures.[9][10] Nine linen panels, between fourteen and three metres in length, were sewn together after each was embroidered and the joins were disguised with subsequent embroidery.[26] At the first join (start of scene 14) the borders do not line up properly but the technique was improved so that the later joins are practically invisible.[26] The design involved a broad central zone with narrow decorative borders top and bottom.[26] By inspecting the woollen threads behind the linen it is apparent all these aspects were embroidered together at a session and the awkward placing of the tituli is not due to them being added later.[26] Later generations have patched the hanging in numerous places and some of the embroidery (especially in the final scene) has been reworked.[26] The tapestry may well have maintained much of its original appearance—it now compares closely with a careful drawing made in 1730.[26]
The end of the tapestry has been missing from time immemorial and the final titulus "Et fuga verterunt Angli" ("and the English left fleeing") is said to be "entirely spurious", added shortly before 1814 at a time of anti-English sentiment.[20] Musset speculates the hanging was originally about 1.5 metres longer.[20] At the last section still remaining the embroidery has been almost completely restored but this seems to have been done with at least some regard to the original stitching.[20] The stylised tree is quite unlike any other tree in the tapestry.[20] The start of the tapestry has also been restored but to a much lesser extent.[20]
Norton[note 2] has reviewed the various measurements of the length of the tapestry itself and of its nine individual linen panels. He has also attempted to estimate the size and architectural design of the 11th-century Bayeux Cathedral. He considers the tapestry would have fitted well if it had been hung along the south, west, and north arcades of the nave and that the scenes it depicts can be correlated with positions of the arcade bays in a way that would have been dramatically satisfying. He agrees with earlier speculation that a final panel is missing—one that shows William's coronation and which he thinks was some three metres long. Norton concludes that the tapestry was definitely designed to be hung in Bayeux Cathedral specifically; that it was designed to appeal to a Norman audience; and that it was probably designed for Bishop Odo so as to be displayed at the dedication of the cathedral in 1077 in the presence of William, Matilda, their sons, and Odo.[31]
The main yarn colours are terracotta or russet, blue-green, dull gold, olive green, and blue, with small amounts of dark blue or black and sage green. Later repairs are worked in light yellow, orange, and light greens.[9] Laid yarns are couched in place with yarn of the same or contrasting colour.
The tapestry's central zone contains most of the action, which sometimes overflows into the borders either for dramatic effect or because depictions would otherwise be very cramped (for example at Edward's death scene). Events take place in a long series of scenes which are generally separated by highly stylised trees. However, the trees are not placed consistently and the greatest scene shift, between Harold's audience with Edward after his return to England and Edward's burial scene, is not marked in any way at all.[20][note 1]
The tituli are normally in the central zone but occasionally use the top border. The borders are otherwise mostly purely decorative and only sometimes does the decoration complement the action in the central zone. The decoration consists of birds, beasts, fish and scenes from fables, agriculture, and hunting. There are frequent oblique bands separating the vignettes. There are nude figures, some of corpses from battle, others of a ribald nature.[20] A harrow, a newly invented implement, is depicted (scene 10) and this is the earliest known depiction. The picture of Halley's Comet, which appears in the upper border (scene 32), is the first known picture of this comet.[20]
In 1724 a linen backing cloth was sewn on comparatively crudely and, in around the year 1800, large ink numerals were written on the backing which broadly enumerate each scene and which are still commonly used for reference.[20]
In a series of pictures supported by a written commentary, the tapestry tells the story of the events of 1064–1066 culminating in the Battle of Hastings. The two main protagonists are Harold Godwinson, recently crowned King of England, leading the Anglo-Saxon English, and William, Duke of Normandy, leading a mainly Norman army, sometimes called the companions of William the Conqueror.[20]
William was the illegitimate son of Robert the Magnificent, Duke of Normandy, and Herleva (or Arlette), a tanner's daughter. William became Duke of Normandy at the age of seven and was in control of Normandy by the age of nineteen. His half-brother was Bishop Odo of Bayeux.
King Edward the Confessor, king of England and about sixty years old at the time the tapestry starts its narration, had no children or any clear successor. Edward's mother, Emma of Normandy, was William's great aunt. At that time succession to the English throne was not by primogeniture but was decided jointly by the king and by an assembly of nobility, the Witenagemot.
Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex and the most powerful noble in England, was Edward's brother-in-law. The Norman chronicler William of Poitiers[32] reported that Edward had previously determined that William would succeed him on the throne, and Harold had sworn to honour this, and yet later that Harold had claimed Edward, on his deathbed, had made him heir over William. However, other sources, such as Eadmer dispute this claim.
Tapestry fragments have been found in Scandinavia dating from the ninth century and it is thought that Norman and Anglo-Saxon embroidery developed from this sort of work. Examples are to be found in the grave goods of the Oseberg ship and the Överhogdal tapestries.[20]
A monastic text from Ely, the Liber Eliensis, mentions a woven narrative wall-hanging commemorating the deeds of Byrhtnoth, killed in 991. Wall-hangings were common by the tenth century with English and Norman texts particularly commending the skill of Anglo-Saxon seamstresses. Mural paintings imitating draperies still exist in France and Italy and there are twelfth-century mentions of other wall-hangings in Normandy and France. A poem by Baldric of Dol might even describe the Bayeux Tapestry itself.[20] The Bayeux Tapestry was therefore not unique at the time it was created: rather it is remarkable for being the sole surviving example of medieval narrative needlework.[33]
Very few hangings from the 11th century survive, but the Tapestry of Creation, or Girona Tapestry, is a large Romanesque panel of needlework, in the Museum of Girona Cathedral, Catalonia, Spain. The hanging depicts a series of figures from the Book of Genesis, and personifications of the month. The Cloth of Saint Gereon, in Germany, is the largest of a group of fragments from hangings based on decorative Byzantine silks, including animals, that are probably the earliest European survivals.[34]
The tapestry begins with a panel of Edward the Confessor sending Harold to Normandy.(scene 1) Later Norman sources say that the mission was for Harold to pledge loyalty to William but the tapestry does not suggest any specific purpose.[26] By mischance, Harold arrives at the wrong location in France and is taken prisoner by Guy, Count of Ponthieu.(scene 7) After exchanges of messages borne by moun
