Category: History

The Bayeux Tapestry, as convention requires we call the embroidery currently on show at the British Museum, is a familiar thing.

It is so familiar that it is difficult to look at it and and think about it afresh.

It is the stuff of a thousand book plate illustrations.

Indeed, it is almost impossible to buy a book about Norman history without those figures on the cover.

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The Tapestry dominates our visual imagining of the conquest of 1066.

Yet for a long time – centuries – the Tapestry was essentially unknown. There is no doubt that it was created quite soon after the events it depicts (the various details of the weapons and ships depicted tell us this) but its existence was only recorded centuries later. And it was not really known about in England until the 1700s.

This lateness means two things.

First, the Tapestry was a late addition to our understanding of what happened in 1066. For hundreds of years the conquest and its effects was understood without these helpful illustrations: the pictures came later, so to speak. In this way, the Tapestry joins (say) Beowulf and Sutton Hoo as latter-day aids to our understanding of the medieval period.

Second, the Tapestry was hardly a successful work of propaganda. One of things which ‘everyone knows’ about the work is that it is – it must be – Norman propaganda.

But is it?

Although the historians’ consensus is that the Tapestry was made in Kent, there is no evidence that it was shown in England and there is also no evidence that it was intended as propaganda for the consumption of the English.

Not everything was – or is – about us.

The evidence is that it was shown in, and intended for, the audience in Bayeux. And that audience hardly needed convincing of the merits of the Normans and their overseas activities.

If the Tapestry was intended to be propaganda then it was rather unsuccessful propaganda.

It does not seem to have been shown in England, and the English did not even know about it for centuries.

The purpose(s) of the Tapestry is(are) likely to be otherwise.

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Let us approach it from a different direction.

Certain works of art perhaps need to be seen in their intended context to be properly appreciated.

A great movie, for example, maybe should be seen on the big screen, and not on a television, and still less on a handheld device.

Having gone to see the Tapestry at the British Museum on a relatively uncrowded press viewing, one thing became obvious – indeed it was a revelation.

The Tapestry seemed best appreciated at slow walking speed.

(You can also do this with the close replica of the Tapestry at Reading town museum, which is warmly recommended to those who do not want to join the crowds in London.)

At slow walking speed the story unfolds, almost like a work of animation.

Historians do not think the Tapestry was ever put on, say, a couple of spindles and watched like a modern cartoon film, but if it was you really would not be surprised.

And at slow walking speed one realises another thing.

The Tapestry tells a story.

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“Yes – oh dear yes – the novel tells a story.”

E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel

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But what story does the Tapestry tell?

One story it does not tell is of a long-prepared conquest.

Duke William does not start getting together his invasion force until after Harold breaks his oath and becomes king of England. The invasion fleet is then depicted as being put together rapidly, almost like the A-Team television show loving it when a plan suddenly gets together.

The point conveyed by the Tapestry is that the invasion was a reaction to the Harold reneging on his promise. The necessary implication is that had Harold not reneged on his promise then there would not have been a military conquest. There would not have need to been any military exercise.

Nor does the Tapestry really tell the story of that conquest being successful – at least not in what seems to be the slightly truncated version which has survived. The work cuts off at the point the English are fleeing from the battle and it does not tell us what happens next. Historians tell is that a missing final section is likely to have William on the throne of England (neatly bookending Edward being on the throne at the beginning and calling back to Harold being on the throne halfway through).

But even with that happy (at least for William) ending, the Tapestry tells us nothing about how William then imposed and consolidated his power.

Indeed those devising and compiling the work in the late 1000s had no idea that the conquest of 1066 would last. Another invasion of England in 1016 had come and gone, and England in the eleventh and twelfth centuries was not notable for its stability.

We know that 1066 and all that happened to be the last military conquest of England, but the embroiderers did not, could not know this. The year 1066 could have ended up as half-forgotten as 1016. Those who devised and compiled the Tapestry were not intended to show something they thought would last a thousand years.

Again, the Tapestry was not – is not – all about us.

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The Tapestry is a work of sequential art.

(Here I must credit Scott McCloud and his brilliant work on understanding comic art.)

The Tapestry is intended to tell a story – or stories.

Leafing through the plates in an expensively illustrated book, or clicking through frames and captions on a computer screen, does not convey the same flow as following the story (stories) in person.

And the story is (or at least the main story is) that of the English nobleman Harold Godwinson: about how he came to freely make an oath on the relics of Bayeux, how he then reneged on that oath, and the consequences for him of doing so.

(Here I must credit a stimulating conversation with the great historian Marc Morris, whose books you must buy and read.)

The first part of the Tapestry – some fifteen or twenty steps – is about Harold and how he ended up at the court of Duke William.

It is pretty much a bromance.

William saves Harold from capture, Harold saves William’s men from quicksand, they hunt together, they battle together, and William presents Harold with a gift at court.

It is all very sweet.

More Brokeback, than Bayeux.

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And at the end of this (literal) courting, Harold makes an oath to William, presumably of fidelity to William and to the claim of William to the throne of England.

The oath is not at the cathedral of Bayeux, as historians tell us it was not yet consecrated, but it seems at least close by the town.

Relics (of it seems British saints) have been carried to the oath-making – they are depicted in portable reliquaries.

And having these relics at a central place of the story makes sense when you realise where the Tapestry was intended for.

The Bayeux Tapestry is, unsurprisingly, about something in Bayeux.

The Tapestry was not – is not – all about us.

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Oaths were important.

(Oaths are a reminder that binding legal obligations can be created in entirely oral cultures. Written instruments came far later.)

Oaths made over the relics of saints were important.

Oaths made over the relics of saints at Bayeux were important.

Oaths made over the relics of what was to become the cathedral of Bayeux were certainly not to be taken lightly.

The Tapestry may not have been intended as propaganda to the English, but it certainly had a powerful message for those who attended, and swore oaths and made other promises and commitments at, the cathedral in Bayeux.

Look at what happens when someone breaks such an oath.

Look at what happened to Harold Godwinson.

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That the Tapestry tells the story of the FAFO of Harold Godwinson makes sense.

The import of that story did not depend on what happened next in England after his defeat and death.

And the import of that story did not depend on Duke William’s claim to the English throne being based on a promise from King Edward, or by marriage and succession, or by conquest.

All that matters for the story is that Harold Godwinson freely made an oath and then broke it, and that in turn broke him.

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But for this story to work, the oath had to be voluntary.

An oath given under duress negates the binding nature of the oath.

And that is one reason why the first part of the Tapestry sets out in detail the bromance between William and Harold. You have to believe that it was a happy and essentially equal relationship.

Another reason is, if you think about it, Harold had absolutely no interest in making such an oath or giving such a promise.

He was in prime position for succession in England: why undermine his own self-interest by volunteering such an oath to a powerful rival?

But if he has a good relationship with William based on mutual respect – and William having saved him from captivity – one can just about imagine Harold giving his chum and saviour William such a valuable gift.

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Of course, it is unlikely that Harold Godwinson volunteered such an oath or promise.

If there ever was such an oath, then it was probably given under duress and thereby worthless.

Anyone who cared about such a thing in England would have probably known or realised this, thereby again discrediting the Tapestry as propaganda.

But if the Tapestry was not intended for English consumption, but for the edification of Bayeux worshippers, that pesky detail does not really matter.

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As well as telling a moral tale the Tapestry is interesting about constitutionalism and kingship.

As the historian Leonie V. Hicks avers, the notion of a ‘rightful’ king is misconceived at this time. There was no neat binary between competing claims, with one being legitimate and other other illegitimate.

Like a bouquet tossed at a wedding, a crown was very much up for grabs.

You could put together a plausible claim – succession, inheritance, marriage, invitation, oaths, conquest, whatever – but the king was whoever the king was. The pleasing affirming narrative came later.

In the Tapestry the legitimacy of the oath stands out.

The (literal) illegitimacy of William (‘the Bastard’) is not mentioned and is not relevant.

And when Harold takes the throne he is shown to be as much of a king as Edward was, and as William was to become.

The Tapestry does not show any indication that Harold is not a legitimate king.

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The Tapestry also shows that once one was a king – or a duke – then the powers were in place to exercise.

Duke William commands that Harold be released by Guy and then orders an invasion fleet to be quickly put together, and Harold commands his men. There is no question about what kingly – or ducal – power meant, once one had it.

What was fluid was how one obtained the position, rather then what the position then entailed.

And so the Tapestry tells a constitutional story as well as a moral tale.

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Go and see the Tapestry at the British Museum – or the excellent replica at Reading (close by the train station) – and see what story you think is being told, rather than projecting on to it the story told by others.

Make a promise to yourself to do so.

And don’t break it.