THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY
- alvaroacp83
- Feb 17, 2022
- 4 min read
A very important event in British History took place in 1066: the Battle of Hastings. The phases of the battle are recorded in the Bayeux Tapestry, an exceptional rich source of information, as well as remarkable work of art. The embroidered chronicle begins with a description of what happened before the battle. It is a quite complicated story.
The Bayeux Tapestry is a woollen embroidered linen canvas, made up of many panels. It was made in about 1077. The tapestry was originally 70 meters long, but unfortunately part of it has been lost.
It was a pictorial story for a public who could not read. It tells the story from the Norman point of view. William is shown as a hero, while Harold is a traitor who deserves his death.
In this close-up you can clearly see the technique used to make the tapestry. Notice that the threads have different dimensions according to their function. For instance, the black thread that gives the contour to the eyes and the nose is bigger than the others.
A detail from the Bayeux Tapestry
William the Conqueror
Edward the Confessor, the king of England, was half Norman and half Anglo-Saxon. He left no sons of his own. In 1051 he promised his throne to the Duke William of Normandy, who was his cousin on his mother’s side.
Edward sent Harold Godwinsson, who was the son of one of the most powerful Anglo-Saxon noblemen, the Earl of Wessex, to swear allegiance to William. However, in 1066, when the king Edward died, Harold took the crown of England with the support of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy.
Harold Godwinsson takes the Crown of England
Workers cutting trees to make ships
Men carrying the mail hauberks and other pulling arms and armour
When William of Normandy heard this he was very angry and he decided to invade England with an army of 7,000 men. However, his greatest problem was to assemble a big enough fleet. The Bayeux Tapestry shows people cutting trees, building ships and launching them into the sea.
When the fleet was ready, the Normans embarked their weapons. The mail hauberks were so heavy that two people had to carry them. The Normans also took horses, food, wine and other supplies. The Norman ships, called drakkars, crossed the English Channel and landed on the Sussex coast.
The Norman ships crossing the English Channel
On 14 October 1066 the Normans fought the Anglo-Saxons in Hastings. It was a long, difficult battle. Although the Anglo-Saxons fought bravely, they were few in number. They were also very tired because they defeated Norwegian invaders in the north before they marched to Hastings.
After eight hours of battle Harold Godwinsson was killed when an arrow struck him in the eye. After this, the Saxons were defeated, and after his victory William was called the Conqueror. He became king of England on Christmas Day 1066. The Normans had the advantage because some of them fought on horseback while the Anglo-Saxons fought on foot. Also, the Normans had better weapons than the Anglo-Saxons.
The Norman Cavalry charging the Anglo-Saxons
Bishop Odo in the Bayeux Tapestry
The Bayeux Tapestry was made for William’s half-brother, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux in Normandy, who used to adorn the choir of the cathedral of his city. Bishop Odo is depicted here, on the right, blessing the food and drink before a meal.
In its illustration of the themes of betrayal and punishment, the tapestry is very similar to the epic of the Knights of the Round Table. The precision and realism of the details represented give us a huge amount of first-hand information about how people lived and fought at the time of the Norman conquest of England.
After the conquest
A work of art as rich in detail as the Bayeux Tapestry is rare. We do not have any comparable works of art to give us information for the years that followed and shaped English medieval society.
William the Conqueror brought the feudal system to England. Under this system the land in England was owned by the king. The king permitted barons to use his land in return for military services. The barons live in manor houses and built castles for defence. These barons had private armies, which were commanded by knights. When the king called them, they went to fight for him.
The barons permitted their knights to use the king’s land, which the knights divided among the farmers, who were free men. The peasants or serfs were at the lowest level of the feudal system – they were the property of the barons.
When William the Conqueror became king, he also became the direct owner of the land which before the Battle of Hastings belonged to Harold, his family and his Anglo-Saxons allies. The king wanted to carry out a survey to find out exactly what he and the other landlords owned: how much land, how many animals, how many manors, how many castles, how many churches and how many people there were.
In 1086 all this information was written in the Domesday Book. The result was a unique picture of English society, where almost of the population worked in agriculture, with little or no industry and commerce. The survey showed that one fifth of the land in England belonged to William, a quarter to the Church and the rest to Norman noblemen. The population of England in 1086 was about one and half million.
The Normans built forts and castles on hills, near rivers or roads, in order to control the territory. The most famous castle was the White Tower in London, today a part of the Tower of London complex.
From the 10th to the 12th century western European architecture was Romanesque. Norman architects from France designed beautiful Romanesque churches and cathedrals in England.
After William
William the Conqueror was king until his death in 1087. Then his sons became kings and his great-grandsons was Henry II, the first Plantagenet king of England. The period from the 10th to the 15th century is called the Middle Ages. During this period religion was very important in everyday life. The Christian Church was rich and powerful, and abbeys and monasteries were important centres of learning. Bishops were very powerful and they often quarrelled with the king. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas à Becket, did not agree with the king Henry II. They had a violent quarrel and in 1170 four of the king’s knights killed Thomas à Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.
LINK EXPLORE THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY ONLINE
Comments