The Bayeux Tapestry

 

The Battle of Hastings 1066
English foot soldiers in defence, pictured in the 
Bayeux Tapestry c1070.

Sutton Hoo treasure:
the golden helmet

This week, during Macron’s State Visit to Britain, he and Keir Starmer signed a landmark loan agreement, in which the Bayeux Tapestry will travel to the British Museum next year for public display, in temporary exchange for the Anglo-Saxon treasures of the Sutton Hoo burial ship plus the Lewis Chess men. This was a great surprise given that prolonged loan exchange negotiations in 2018, again initiated by Macron, ended in failure when the historic embroidered cloth was deemed by Frederic Boura, a Normandy cultural official, to be “too tired, worn and fragile to be moved”, with transportation judged to be quite out of the question.          

Loic Jamin, deputy mayor of Bayeux, said recently, “In 2018 we just did not know enough about protecting the physical condition of the work, which is why the loan had to wait, even though we have always believed that it would be possible.” The Bayeux Museum said that it had carried out tests, including a dress rehearsal with a model, which persuaded its experts that the tapestry could be sent to the U.K. without excessive damage. A spokesman commented that all the expertise developed during the research over the intervening eight years by the Museum, and shared with the French Ministry of Culture, had made a major contribution to making the loan a reality.         
                

One is spoiled for choice among
the five examples of
male genitalia. Further equine
information below.

The Tapestry, [not a woven tapestry at all, but a hand-embroidered narrative wall hanging] is considered French though a most important part of our cultural heritage too over centuries, and known to practically every schoolchild, is 70 metres long (230 feet) and almost 50 centimetres in depth, (just under 20 inches) a not insignificant size for it needs space to incorporate representations of a plethora of historical figures and important events. It pictures William, Duke of Normandy, and his army trouncing Harold the Second, the Anglo-Saxon King, and his forces at the Battle of Hastings in 58 scenes illustrated in four different embroidery stitches and thread, in 10 naturally dyed colours. The numbers are thrillingly detailed! There are 623 figures, 994 animals, 37 buildings, and 41 ships and other vessels, plus, astonishingly to the slightly more delicate modern taste, 94 representations of human and horse male genitalia! These are generally of robust size, perhaps to underline the machismo of the Battle of Hastings and the feud between the two men.

Harold, taken by William to Bayeux, swears fealty on holy
relics, to his overlord. He is pictured between two altars,
while William observes from his throne. 
UBI HAROLD SACRAMENTUM FECIT
WILLELMO DUCI

The entire panel is now displayed, hanging on rails, behind glass in a climate-controlled atmosphere. To send it off on its journey to Britain will mean slightly extending the rails before placing the entire tapestry in a special container designed to fold, with no stress on the precious contents, as it journeys from Bayeux to the British Museum.          

The Bayeux Museum in Northern France is set to close for around two years at the end of August, hence the availability of the tapestry; the museum will close completely to enable a £38million renovation during which time the Tapestry must be moved anyway to a safe place. The long-mooted long-term loan to the UK means moving it a little further than first envisaged and seems the logical destination, given aborted earlier attempts to loan it to the U.K. Indeed, half of the tapestry narrative is showing Britain’s share in the Battle of Hastings and there is the recurrent opinion, based on the type of stitches used, that the women who created the embroidery, came from the Canterbury area.  A spokesman for the Museum said, “Bayeux has always had close links with the UK and we’re very happy that the tapestry we have taken care of for almost 10000 years is returning for a few months to where it was created at the end of the eleventh century. It’s a momentous occasion on both sides of the Channel but it’s perfectly reasonable for us to loan the tapestry to the British Museum because of our shared heritage and history. It wouldn’t happen with any other country.”  It goes without saying [almost!] that this iconic work of art has, in fact, never been to England in the almost 1000 years since it was created, [in England]

The detail on the tapestry is an archive in itself.
Here are the Norman boats, bearing
men and horses, crossing the Channel.

The magnificent tapestry was subjected to prolonged expert scrutiny in 2020, when conservators found it had almost 24,200 stains and 10,000 tiny holes. After the tapestry’s display in Britain next year, the Bayeux Museum intends to carry out a complete renovation at an estimated cost of £1.7m and it has also designed a structure like a folded screen that can be closed and packed while the tilted panels supporting the tapestry are designed to relieve any stress on the frail fabric. The Bayeux Tapestry will then be ready for exhibition when the Bayeux Museum re-opens in 2027 where the famous archive will continue to display both its intrinsic artistic merit and its major historical importance.                                                                                 

Bishop Odo, shown on the left of William
Norman sources depict him as a man of peace and justice.
Anglo-Saxon records paint him as rapacious and mutinous.

Intriguingly, the tapestry’s provenance is unknown. It is believed to have been commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, William the Conqueror’s half-brother, in the 1070s to decorate the newly built Notre Dame de Bayeux Cathedral, consecrated on 14 July 1077. The instigator would have to have been a powerful figure in the Church at the time to explain the subject, sheer size and cost of the enterprise. The tapestry was probably an extravagant gift to William from Odo, to commemorate his success at the Battle of Hastings as its entire narrative is told from the victorious Norman point of view.  Research has recently accepted that the whole creation was probably undertaken by the nuns of Barking Abbey which rather challenges the Canterbury myth as it is some 60 miles distant! However there seems no doubt about the fact that the Bayeux Tapestry was made in Britain and will temporarily return next year.                                                                     

88 of the penises shown on the Tapestry belong to horses.
The largest belongs to William's horse; the second in size,
to Harold and the third, to Odo. A device to underline
both the status of the owners and the inherent machismo perhaps.