A Partial History of Bury St Edmunds and its Abbey

                                            

Engraving of the view from the east, of Bury St Edmunds in 1726-42.
Buck's engravings of castles and townscapes were famous and fashionable. Made by
the brothers Samuel and Nathanial Buck, leading topographical draughtsmen
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"A city more neatly seated the Sun never saw, so curiously doth it hang up a gentle descent, with a little river on the east side; nor a monastery more noble, whether one considers the endowments, largeness or unparalleled magnificence. One might think even the monastery alone, a city: so many gates it has, so many towers, and a church, than which nothing can be more magnificent; as appendages to which, there are three more, of admirable beauty and workmanship, in the same churchyard." 

 John Leland, describing Bury St Edmunds Abbey in 1539, shortly before it was destroyed. 

 Before England was unified under one king, Bury St Edmunds (then known as Beodricsworth) was in the kingdom of East Anglia. East Anglia was converted to Christianity in the reign of Sigeberht (c.630–40), who was said to have retired to a monastery. Not long afterwards he was killed when his kingdom was attacked by Penda, King of Mercia. Later generations believed that the monastery he retired to was at Beodricsworth. 

Hellesdon Parish Church
Built in the 15th century.

 Edmund was a Christian king of the East Angles who reigned from about 855 to 869. Little is known of his life, other than that Danes invaded his kingdom in 869 and killed him. Within a generation of his death, he was revered as a martyr. Around 985–8 a French monk, Abbo of Fleury, wrote an idealised life of St Edmund, portraying him as a saintly ruler who died for his faith. Abbo describes how Edmund was tied to a tree, shot full of arrows and then beheaded. When supporters went looking for his body, they found a wolf guarding the head at a place called Haegelidun and recent research has identified its possible location as a field formerly called Hellesden Ley, about 6 miles from Bury. Edmund’s remains were moved from their original burial place to a new church at Bury at some point between about 889 and 945. A large wooden church was built to house his remains, and Edmund, King of England gave it large estates ostensibly ensuring its long and wealthy life. However, in 1020 King Cnut (1016–35) sponsored a rebuilding of the church which he felt was necessary! A stone rotunda, which stood until the late 13th century, was added to the wooden church to house the shrine of the saint. A community of Benedictine monks replaced the priests who had served the old church and the first abbot, Ulvius, was consecrated.

Artist's impression of Bury St Edmunds's Abbey in 12th/13th centuries.

King Edward the Confessor (r.1042–66) visited Bury in 1044. He greatly increased the abbey’s privileges, giving it jurisdiction over about a third of the county of Suffolk. This area became known as the Liberty of St Edmund, and within it, the abbot of Bury exercised complete civil authority. The abbey also owned most of the churches in the area. These sources generated large revenues, which made the abbey one of the wealthiest monastic communities in England.

Town map of Bury St Edmunds in the time of 
Abbott Baldwin. 11th century.

In 1065 the monks elected Edward the Confessor’s French-born doctor, Baldwin, as Abbot. He proved an energetic leader, who raised the number of monks from 20 to 80. Baldwin resisted attempts by the Bishop of East Anglia to move his see (the seat of his bishopric) from Thetford to Bury, which would have given the Bishop control over the abbey. In 1071 Baldwin travelled to Rome and won the support of Pope Alexander II for Bury’s independence, which William the Conqueror also supported. The bishops of East Anglia moved to Norwich instead, but the rivalry between them and the abbots of Bury persisted
.

The Abbey's wealth and newly acquired status inspired Abbot Baldwin to begin rebuilding the church around 1080, on a scale worthy of St Edmund's shrine using fine quality building stone which was brought especially from Barnack in Northamptonshire. In 1095 the first stage, the Eastern arm of the huge new Abbey church, was finished and St Edmund's remains were ceremonially transferred from the old rotunda to a shrine there.

After Baldwin's death in 1097, the Eastern arm of the church was extended, making it longer than that of Norwich Cathedral, suggesting that the extension was done in a spirit of competition. Certainly, it was gigantic as it towered over King Cnut's round church. Work on the church then continued from east to west with the nave of the church built as far as the West front under Abbot Anselm.(1121-48) The spectacular west front was finally completed around the turn of the 13th century under Abbot Samson (1182-1211) who added a great central tower and lower octagonal towers to either side. At just over 500 feet (152 metres) long the church was now the fourth longest in Christendom. Its huge scale testified to the Abbey's great wealth and proclaimed the abbots' pride and sense of independence. The cloisters and the buildings around it were completed in the 12th century and soon afterwards, the abbey precinct was greatly extended blocking one of the major streets of the Saxon town.

Abbot Baldwin had built a large parish church to the west of the abbey church which ultimately meant that the parish church had to be demolished to make way for the new west front! Extraordinarily, Abbot Anselm replaced the vanished parish church with two more churches on the edge of the enlarged precinct which were both rebuilt in the later Middle Ages and survive today; St James as the Cathedral Church of St Edmondsbury and St Mary's as the town's main parish church.

Current view of the Cathedral and the Abbey ruins.

 

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Reading Aloud To Children

 

It's all there!

An article in the current New Statesman on reading to children both caught my eye and triggered memories. Not that I had any such parental memories from childhood; I never experienced it nor did any of my friends, I think, though mature consideration tells me that indeed I did receive the pleasure of an adult reading aloud to me [and other children]. My parents certainly didn’t read to me and my sisters during our childhood, though I, as the eldest, often read to the other two, an activity which I greatly enjoyed. To be fair, I didn't know of any parents among my friends, who did  read to their kids. But I still do remember Miss Betts; she was the fearsome form teacher of the primary [St Edwards] Top Class and taught us all the subjects, in the manner then, of primary teaching. We pupils were all careful in our behaviour with Miss Betts, that is to say, we tiptoed along the continuum from being nervous, to terrified, of Miss Betts whose appearance might have been unconsciously calculated to intimidate! She  dressed, chiefly in black, in long concealing clothes which reached to her ankles. Her hair was disciplined into a tight grey 'bun' at the back of her head and I only seem to recall her frowns  not her smiles. In other words, to us, Miss Betts' appearance [and indeed, her personality] suggested that of a sniper, resting watchfully!

This image captures the experience for the audience
though not the visual image of the majestic Miss Betts.

In every Friday afternoon of my last year at Primary School, the last longed-for lesson of the week involved the teacher reading aloud the current book to us. HOW I loved it these sessions and waited for Friday afternoons to come round eagerly, whatever the book. One Friday, I had had to go home at lunchtime to see to my mother who was seriously ill in bed with pleurisy. 'Going home' meant quite a long walk at each end of the journey and I had done the first part of food to Mum but still have strong memories of the dash to catch the bus to get back to afternoon school. I was on tenterhooks with anxiety that I might get back and miss The Reading by Miss Betts.

 My memories are strongest of Miss B. reading The Cloister and The Hearth by Charles Reade, an historical novel published in 1861. I have absolutely no recollection of the text, but I discover now that it is set in 15^th century Europe and follows Gerard Eliassoen, a young scribe, as his journey takes him far away from his beloved Margaret. When false news of her death reaches him, Gerard’s path leads him towards the Church, setting up a profound conflict between earthly love and religious duty. The book explores the collision between family devotion and clerical obligation across a vividly rendered mediaeval landscape. My love of this book, because of Miss Betts' dramatic readings, caused my ever helpful mother to buy me a copy for my Christmas stocking and I have it still! It remains chiefly incomprehensible but I was thrilled to receive it at the time.

Engrossed!

Frankly, this does not sound like a book for a ten-year-old, but I was bewitched by it and especially by Miss Betts’ reading of it. In retrospect, I think it was Miss Betts’ reading aloud more than the actual narrative, which captivated me. And now I recall that there were around 50 ten-year-olds in that class, all listening, spell-bound, to the story. Much later, when I taught secondary school English Language and Literature, I too read the class current novel to fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds and again, the magic of a story of being read aloud to the group always had a similar, almost magical, effect. Reluctant readers and skillful readers alike, among the pupils, were always, SO eager to have the story read aloud. AND a similar effect was always produced with my own young children when I read from their books of choice before bedtime every evening.

Frankly, on a daily basis, reading to my kids seemed a bit of a chore when preparing the evening meal for my husband and me loomed large! AND yet, I really enjoyed doing it each time. The quiet cadences caught and enchanted them as they quietened and listened and shuffled closer together, eyes fixed on me with minds on the narrative. I doubt that now, half a century later, that they can even recall those ‘close together’ times while listening to stories read aloud, forging instinctive memories and sensations of family closeness and magical stories. I did try several times, to persuade my husband to take my place but he always demurred. I think the idea of reading aloud to his children made him somehow uncomfortable, and he did not appreciate the value of doing so, to his relationship with them. A key disincentive for him, which I didn't consider at the time, was the mere fact that he didn't himself enjoy reading. He could do it but didn't choose to do it, for pleasure, for himself. 

Rural reading outdoors, together, enhances the story.

To him, it was a Mum chore; to me it was a wasted bonding opportunity for him. The NielsenIQ survey found that 40% of parents thought reading to their children was fun while 35% of parents said they didn't enjoy reading at all and never did it for pleasure.If parents find reading to their children is fun, then there is an increased chance of the children also loving it or finding it fun. Looking down from my present elderly heights, I can see that some work may be waiting to be done by parents!         

I discover that there are interesting supportive statistics to be had! A 2025 survey by the book data company, NielsenQ and publisher, HarperCollins, found that just 41% of children aged 0-4 are frequently read to. This is a sad statistic for it suggests that around 60% do not have the real bonding pleasure of being read to by an adult. Interestingly, a similar exercise in 2012 recorded 64%. Today, it must be increasingly difficult to entice children away from tablets, computers and phones to the apparently less dynamic, less seductive book. And yet …. And yet …..  While alternative temptations are legion, caring adults must keep reading to any available children!.       

Dolly Parton at 80, a few months before her death.
She created the Imagination Library

I do like the sound of the Imagination Library started by Dolly Parton in 1995 in memory of her father who could neither read nor write. The programme sends a free book each month to every child who signs up, until their fifth birthday.  It has delivered over 300 million books worldwide and on September 22nd of this year, [a month after Dolly Parton’s death] it was announced that the scheme would be expanding in the UK, widening access to books to 157,000 more children.  This is unbelievably brilliant both in concept and deed, especially so coming from such lowly beginnings.  A fine and imaginative use of fame and an impressive testament to Parton's life journey.                                                                                                                                                                                      

 Post Script

When I was a young teacher, school, even classroom, libraries were rare and so I started a class library for my form, donating my own books and occasionally buying one or two when I could afford to. I noticed that one particular book was loved by one boy and so, one day, I told him that it was my own book and he was welcome to have it for himself.  I remember still how shocked I was by his answer.

"I'd love it Miss, but no thanks. I daren't take it home 'cos my Dad burns books."

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Proposed Technical Education Reforms.

 

The academic path of GCSEs, A Levels and undergraduate degree courses is generally well understood by the general public, but the technical education system is less familiar and can seem complex to newly-engaged students, parents and employers. It is intended that employers should be at the heart of the national technical education system and the Government is working closely with businesses to ensure that, with the current reforms, technical education will meet the needs of both employers and individuals, to fill the skills gaps faced by our economy.

Andy Burnham whose government is seeking
to revive and embellish the concept of
technical education.

The current proposed technical education reforms aim to provide young people with access to technical education pathways from the age of 14. Announced last week by Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister, the reforms are seeking to create clearer routes into employment, apprenticeships or further study. The new pathways will allow students to combine core academic subjects with high-quality technical education linked to jobs available in their area. This approach will involve collaborations between schools, colleges, regional mayors, local leaders and employers to shape education around local industries and growth sectors.These new technical education programmes and routes are set to be rolled out from September 2028, with Ofsted inspections of vocational offerings planned. The Government's plan reflects a commitment to recognising the value of technical education and ensuring that it is universally respected by students, parents and employers. Thus the overall aims of the proposed reforms in technical education are: 

a) to ensure that academic and technical pathways are held in equal esteem. 

 b) to reduce the complexity of the system.

 c) to ensure it meets the needs of industry.

Pathways provide clear choices.

Pathways to Reform.

The 16-19 pathways to reforms are focussed on three key principles:

a) ensuring that students progress to positive outcomes

b) qualifications gained are high quality and will adapt to future skills needs.

c) pathways provide clear choices.

The Government's ambition is that, when all reform qualifications are introduced, every student entering post 16 education will have a clear choice of high quality pathways..At Level 2 for instance, this means either a Foundation Certificate or an Occupational Certificate and at Level 3, the choice is between A Levels, V Levels and T Levels.It is the central ambition of this reform  programme to ensure that the reformed landscape meets the aspirations of all students for whatever they want to go on to do. This includes the option of apprenticeships for those young people who prefer to gain skills  and knowledge while in the workplace.

Career opportunities open up with technical education.

If these current reforms to technical education are successful, it will be the first major success in linking the world of work and of education for post 16 year olds. There have been a number of attempts to introduce Technical Education which have been partially useful to the young people involved but, when I was involved in the 1960s with TVEI or TVET, despite good intentions and sound educational programmes, there was a degree of ignorance both in industry and education of what 'the other' intended to achieve and might be able to achieve. Some form of training or mutual co-introduction for representatives of both worlds might well be useful. Have the young people involved in this vital bridge between the worlds of work and study been involved in any way? Perhaps the most urgent need is to publicise the concept of the necessity of technical education in an attempt to raise its universal value for all students across the                                                                                        ability range and their families.

Reaching 90 is A Big Deal.

 

Old Friends for decades.  

 

As I have reached 90 plus, I have decided to check out the normal symptoms of what I think of as ‘upper ageing’ to reassure myself that I am On the Right Path. I do the tick-box exercise online with confidence as I assume I must be doing something right even though most aspects of my way of life are not consciously planned or considered or engineered. I tend to live as I always have, putting one foot in front of the other, thinking often of that day’s timetable; staying active by maximising my walking [at least 30 minutes plus each day]; playing Mah Jong twice a week because I not only enjoy it but also because I believe the ageing mind needs exercise too! I also enjoy the supervision and help of a Personal Trainer for a 40 minute weekly session which forces me to do a concentrated exercise slot I would otherwise not think of. I don't exactly enjoy it but finish thankfully exhausted and slightly smug!

Mah Jong

I believe I am lucky in that I do not have what is conventionally called ‘a sweet tooth’ so I don’t even contemplate buying cakes or biscuits or pies though if the occasion occurs when I am offered a small piece of apple pie, then I always gratefully accept the treat as a lifelong and devoted apple pie lover! This does not occur often enough, but when it does, eating the a/m apple pie simply allows me to happily confirm one aspect of my life and is at least delicious! And being able to accept presents/tributes/gifts is to acknowledge how lucky and grateful I am in later life to have others kind enough to think of indulging me on occasion. I admit that I find it much more difficult to refuse savoury snacks like peanuts [love ‘em] or cheesy nibbles et al where more robust tactics of denial are called for.But to return specifically to the nineties.According to that modern God, the Internet, the following conditions routinely occur in the nineties:

         Mild memory loss. Correct. Maddening and slightly shaming to the person experiencing it, when confronted with a dear friend of several years’ standing whose name has mysteriously gone AWOL.

Vi  Vision decline. Accounts for my developing habit of  processing speed. Glad to learn that this is normal as it makes the sufferer feel particularly       

4.      Hearing loss.                                                      peering and frowning at objects, Slower

Grand-daughter explains .....

I have worn hearing aids resentfully for months, perhaps a year, and continue to find them
irritating but necessary. They also cause me as the wearer, to touch, fiddle with, adjust them in a bid to improve the received sound while observers like family members wonder why the old girl is always messing with her hearing aids which seem to be pretty useless anyway.

TTThere are other social, emotional, and daily living adjustments to make too as one embarks on the nineties. To reduce these important areas to a little list seems almost disrespectful to the nonagenarian, but                                                                                   here goes:

a)                                Changes in appetite and digestion. b)  Reduced energy levels. c)  Shifts in social                                   engagement.  d) Increased need for assistance. 

      These changes may be considerable or silently gradual, but the key to success lies, as ever, in the willingness of the individual to persevere, adjust and adapt. Per ardua ad astra as the old RAF motto had it and in the successful adjustment to age-change and its potential demands, lies elderly contentment and good health.

I haven’t yet mentioned the necessity of a good diet, [Mediterranean? Italian? Avoiding processed foods?], and the profound importance of keeping active, not necessarily with working out in the gym, but certainly in walking every day or perhaps cycling or gardening, if either is a familiar habit. The real temptation of sitting comfortably at the laptop for hours and writing/typing is seductive but needs to be resisted in excess! Perhaps the most important factor in the continuum from useful to essential, is social

I discover this display can be described as
Pescatarian; a great diet.

It is imperative to cultivate and maintain social connections. In fact, at any age, staying connected with others is the single most important contribution to leading a good and happy life and is also, sadly, the hardest to achieve for many elderly people, many of whom have seen friends and close family members die or move far away. Joining a local group, perhaps a U3A group, or starting a group, is a way in to feeling connected and finding potential friends with similar interests but this entails making the effort in the first place. Soon after I arrived in Bury,  I put a local advertisement suggesting people might be interested in joining me to start a Mah Jong group or to learn how to play Mah Jong from an admitted amateur, and received eight replies. Thus, almost immediately, I found enough interest to start two Mah Jong tables-worth of games and the beginnings of a social circle.

 

90 year old Iris Apfel, a model known for her bold but impeccable style
Lived to age 102.

Unknown 90 year old with a zest for life!

Two 90+ friends enjoying a quiet walk.

A rather idealised view of old folks
sitting on a bench in harmonious colour!

Pressure

 I have just seen the highly dramatic WW2 film Pressure, a rich drama re-telling the narrative of the D-Day landings in June 1944. D-Day was pivotal to the Allies' war effort and involved legions of UK and US forces mustering for a secret seaborne invasion of Nazi-occupied France. The actual date for the assault was naturally Top Secret and the choice of when exactly to go, rested on the shoulders of General    Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander. He in turn needed a favourable weather forecast before proceeding, and looked to Churchill’s chief army meteorologist, James Stagg, for detailed favourable climate information. Any miscalculation could result in tens of thousands of sailors, soldiers and airmen; a heavy burden on everyone involved but especially so on Stagg, as Operation Overlord was launched.

Landing craft,Omaha Beach, June 6th 1944.

James Stagg, as played superble by Andrew Scott, is shown to be clearly under pressure as he arrives at Southwick House, the Hampshire manor house serving as Operation Overlord's bustling command   centre. When the film begins, there are only three days to go before the projected attack begins and Stagg seems rather late in the day in arriving where the action is. His support staff of weather analysts 

Irving Krick in 1935.

has already been charmed by his handsome U.S. counterpart, Irving Krick, (Chris Messina), an ebullient extrovert who entertains everyone with his carefree boogie-woogie piano playing and his sunny tales of Hollywood. Krick’s casual, attractive confidence contrasts strongly with Stagg’s meticulous, cautious, data-driven approach.

James Stagg

Eisenhower, too, is unimpressed with Stagg and his theories, as is Monty [UK Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery.]  They, together with the various military heads who are all fixated on a June 5th launch date, see the blue skies and sunshine overhead as positive signals and are disinterested in, indeed, dismissive of, Stagg’s reservations over the two threatening storm fronts hovering over the Channel.  Stagg’s reserved, almost dour, personality does not help his case, though one person, Captain Kay Summerby, an Irish nurse and Eisenhower’s newly promoted aide-de-camp, is a potential ally. Persuading the UK war machine to hold fire and, crucially, risk losing the element of surprise, is a lonely and unpopular task for Stagg and the film underlines his uncertainty and anxiety, amplified by his worries over his pregnant wife in London whom he cannot contact owing to a communications blackout. This contributes to the claustrophobic atmosphere already in place in the cramped rooms of Southwick House where almost all of the action takes place, though this is widened from time to time with historic footage showing the immense scale of Operation Overlord.

Kay Summersby 1944

                                                                           

         Footnote

Maureen Flavin Sweeney

Planners of the Normandy landings in June 1944 focussed on the specific overlap of the tides, the time of day and the phase of the moon, all joint conditions satisfactory for just a few days each month. A full moon would provide the best illumination for pilots and paratroopers, as well as the highest tides. Military planners placed the landings before dawn, mid-way between the tides with the tide coming in, as this would improve visibility of obstacles on the beach while minimising the time the men would spend exposed in the open.

Eisenhower tentatively selected 5th June as the day for the assault. However, at 13.00 hours on 3rd June, 21 year old Maureen Flavin Sweeney [Irish postmistress also responsible for recording weather observations] became the first to observe the severe storm approaching Europe across the Atlantic. Despite Ireland's official neutrality during WW2, the Irish Meteorological Service shared their information with the Allies and Mrs Sweeney received a phone call from Stagg's office asking for the readings to be checked again. She re-ran the tests and confirmed the results.

British forces landing on Normandy 
beach, early June, !944.
Operation Overlord begins.

Stagg met Eisenhower on the evening of 4th June and using Sweeney's observational data, he and his team predicted that the weather would improve enough for the invasion to proceed on 6th June. The next available dates with the required tidal conditions would not be until two weeks later from 18-20th June. Such delay would have meant recalling men and ships already in position and would have increased the chance that Axis intelligence [the Nazis] could detect the invasion plans. After much discussion with other senior commanders, Eisenhower decided that the invasion, Operation Overlord, should go ahead on the 6th June. Subsequently, a major storm battered the Normandy coast from 19th-22nd June which would have made the putative delayed beach landings impossible.

The title, Pressure refers to both the psychological and the meteorological!.

Ike and Monty. 1944.

The Embroidery of Terror

 

Norman soldiers, depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry

A most interesting take on the Bayeux Tapestry as it arrives in the UK for the first time in over 950 years, in The Observer New Review, 30/08/2026. The article claims that experts now realise that it should be seen as a testament to terror and acknowledge that the women who created it, did so in order to survive. Interestingly, I happen to be writing on September 3rd, the anniversary of the beginning of WW2.

The Normans landing in Pevensey.

The band of Norman raiders who landed on the Kent marshes near Romney, in October 1066, was intent on avenging the town’s brutal treatment of French sailors a month earlier. The French sailors had been blown off course by fierce winds and driven on to the Romney coast, miles from the main invading forces of William the Conqueror at Pevensey. What followed during the October 1066 invasion was barbaric; Anglo-Saxon men, women and children were slaughtered by the avenging Normans; limbs were severed, children beheaded. Many of the women who fled for their lives, found sanctuary in the convents of East London, living there with other refugees fleeing the violence. Perhaps in Canterbury, or East London, in several other safe nunneries, many of these women resumed their former industrious lives as the country’s most talented weavers and embroiderers, making garments and creating artistic and ceremonial works for the clergy and the new regime. The Bayeux Tapestry itself represents evidence of the highest skill in portraying detailed narrative scenes pictorially, through needle and wool.

Death of Harold.

Within five or six years of the invasion, the Normans had conquered 95% of Anglo-Saxon land and almost entirely removed the Anglo-Saxon nobility from power. The displaced women, often high-born and safe enough in their convents, could only continue their earlier lives, using their accomplished sewing skills and the exquisite Bayeux Tapestry was the eventual result. Later ages have thought of the Tapestry, in its nearly 70 metres length, as a unique victory banner, but if considered in the context of the contemporary violent times, it is also a document of trauma and survival. Four thousand Anglo-Saxons are estimated to have died in the Battle of Hastings and in the following decade of Norman occupation, a policy of starvation and destruction known as the Harrying of The North, [which was particularly rebellious], was pursued by the victors relentlessly, resulting in at least 100,000 deaths, a huge proportion of the population.

Harold wounded on the battlefield

According to London University mediaeval art specialist, Professor Janina Ramirez, the Norman occupation amounted to genocide. The Normans set out to annihilate Anglo-Saxon society, culture and population. After the 1066 initial flight of women to convents, the escape continued as the numbers of women without husbands increased and they sought sanctuary in religious communities to avoid violence and forced marriage to Norman overlords with the consequent loss of home and land. Few women are depicted in the pictorial narrative but one sections shows an unknown woman fleeing with her child from her home which is being set on fire by invading Norman soldiers. This scene in particular, catches the fear of war and reminds viewers of the Tapestry that women and children are the helpless victims of any war.

Battle scene.

The tapestry was intended to last; it is made from high-quality linen with the pictorial storyline outlined through superb quality wool threaded through the finest linen fibres. Needlework would have been carried out in broad daylight outside, with a linen panel stretched on a frame ready for the incredibly time-consuming and labour-intensive preparatory process of ‘pricking and pouncing’ before perforating the pattern on the cloth and then marking the holes with powder before stitching using bone needles.  From the back of the Tapestry, one can see where the different embroiderers’ hands met and the direction changed. 

However, it seems a miracle that as an artefact, this is a rare surviving piece of Romanesque needlework. It could have been stolen, lost or degraded by natural decline such as fading or being eaten by moths. One major contribution to its longevity is that, as shown in the inventory of 1476, the Tapestry was hung annually in Bayeux Cathedral for the Feast of St John the Baptist and was still being similarly hung in 1728 after removal from storage in a chest where it had lain, neatly folded, out of reach of dust and sunlight, for centuries. While other contemporary cloth hangings were embellished with costly gold thread, the Bayeux Tapestry was too big for such expense and thus avoided the likely fate of being unpicked for the retrieval of the gold thread and then discarded.

During WW2, the Tapestry was moved to Paris for safety but almost became Nazi loot when Himmler, who believed that the Normans were a Germanic people, pursued it for his own castle. A decoded message via Bletchley Park, warning that it was about to be taken from the Louvre, alerted the French Resistance in time for its urgent removal to a secret location elsewhere in France where it stayed for the duration of WW2.      

The Bayeux Tapestry on view in France.
This photo gives some idea of the size of the Tapestry.

Dialogue in Harold's encampment. Harold is shown wearing his crown.

Bishop  Odo urging on the Norman troops.

There is a strong research opinion that the Tapestry was probably commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux [who is pictured on the Tapestry] for the Romanesque cathedral there but little proof. It was recorded in Church chronicles as present in Bayeux at the end of the fifteenth century but there are gaps in its history.  A letter sent by the powerful Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury to the anonymous ‘Bishop G’ in the late 1070s refers to the women who, “fled to a monastery not for love of  the religious life but  out of fear 

                                                                      of the French, “while the monk and chronicler, Orderic Vitalis, also wrote of Anglo-Saxons seeking protection within convent walls.

Some academic researchers believe that it was not Odo who commissioned the Tapestry but that it may well have been by a powerful English woman, Edith of Wessex, sister of the aristocratic Harold Godwinson, and widow of Edward the Confessor, as a grand gesture of diplomacy. Bishop Odo however, had impeccable connections to be the prime contender; he was half-brother to William the Conqueror and as the Earl of Kent, would undoubtedly have known of the skills of the Kentish embroiderers through his involvement in the building of England’s first Norman church in the familiar Kentish marsh area of Romney. It is also likely that the Tapestry could  well have been made in Canterbury by nuns there, though Barking Abbey in East London also has strong claims for authorship. Barking Abbey was an extremely high-status site strongly connected to both Church and State and  perfectly placed for locally sourcing the materials needed for the compilation of the important banner.

In Bayeux, ongoing repairs to the precious tapestry.
In England, the Bayeux Tapestry is displayed lying down.

There are several inconsistencies between what we know about the Bayeux Tapestry and the facts:

1.It is not a tapestry but rather an embroidered wall hanging though the French term 'une bande dessinee' is often used. This is normally the name for a comic strip which does underline the linear narrative of the tapestry. In an eighteenth century antiquarian account it was misnamed a 'tapisserie', a wall hanging, rather than explicitly a tapestry, and this may account for its misnomer.

2.It was not made in Bayeux but it was hung there.

3.It was not Harold with the arrow in his eye, as depicted in the embroidery; he is the man nearby, lying wounded on the ground as he dies. The man with the arrow was probably a random, though unfortunate, wounded soldier serving in the narration, as a representative of the countless wounded in the story but misidentified as Harold.

4. The Bayeux Tapestry which could have been equally called the Barking Embroidery or the Canterbury Mural, shows the horrors of war and enemy occupation but, importantly and unusually, the story is told by the vanquished, not the victors. The victors must have considered the Bayeux Tapestry a
a chronicle of power and glory but the women, the embroiderers, were sewing for their lives.

5. The Bayeux Tapestry resides in France, in Normandy, but its narrative lies chiefly in Kent with its storied roots in Normandy. Thus, the current exhibition at the British Museum, is an Anglo-French collaboration, strongly led by President Macron, telling an Anglo-French hybrid story which covers the past 1000 years.

Death of Harold in 1066.
Harold Rex Interfectus Est.

6. The story the Tapestry tells is incomplete. Thanks to the pulley system that was used to display it in the early 19th century, the end sections were damaged and subsequently removed and lost. The original did not end with the death of Harold but continued for perhaps seven more scenes, culminating in the coronation of William at Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, 1066.

7. What did the Bayeux Tapestry actually show? It begins with King Edward in conversation with Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex, and shows that the King and his wife, Queen Edith, were childless. Consequently, around 1051, Edward names William of Normandy as his successor because he was a close relation with Norman blood through his mother, Emma. In the Tapestry, Harold travels to Normandy where he swears an oath promising to support William's claim to the English throne and it was the breaking of this oath by Harold when he seized  the Crown for himself, that provides the excuse for William's attack. The Tapestry narrates the preparations for war, the enormous undertaking of thousands of men and an estimated 2000 horses being shipped across the Channel before landing at Pevensey. The Battle itself on October 14th is shown in detail over many scenes, culminating in the death of Harold, and with it, effectively, the end of Anglo-Saxon England.

Preparing for Anglo-Saxon/Norman dialogue.

Bishop Odo of Bayeux
His title provided the name for
The Bayeux Tapestry.

   

Aelfgyva,
the mysterious woman depicted on the Tapestry.
Above the image is written:
"Ubi unus clericus et Aelfgyva."
'Here a certain clerk and Aelfgyva.'
This is the only depiction of a woman as the
focal point in a scene on the Tapestry.

An interesting postscript, spotted in the New Statesman, 11-17 September, 2026.

"The final battle scene is frankly horrific. Only when you walk along the full length of the artwork do you feel the forward propulsion of the Norman cavalry, crashing into the English shield wall, with effects bloodier than most Hollywood films of ancient conflict; poled bodies, severed arms and heads, armour swiftly stripped off corpses, horrible wounds. It may have been stitched by English women as Norman propaganda, but it's one of the most eloquent anti-war pieces I've ever seen."