Bayeux Tapestry

1
Bayeux Tapestry

• What it Is and a Brief History of Its Reception

2
What is it?

• One of the masterpieces of medieval art
• And a miracle of survival

3
Medieval Art
4
Romanesque Durham
5
Gothic Notre Dame de Paris
6
Tapestries Cluny in Paris
7
Unicorn in NYC

• Cloisters Museum
• NYC

8
Before 1066 Not As Much
9
Basic Description

• 230 x 20-18
• 8 or ten colors of dyed wool on bleached linen
• Three panels of images or one main panel with an
  upper and a lower border
• One crawling script in Latin

10
Provenance and Date

• Winchester or Canterbury
• Normandy or Loire Valley or Boulogne
• 1070s
• 1077 Dedication of Bayeux Cathedral
• 1082 Odo is in prison
• 1086 Williams Death
• 1097 Odos Death
• 1106 fire in Bayeux Cathedral

11
BT Grammar

• Sometimes the borders and script interact with
  the major panel
• The nature of the interaction varies

12
Sometimes image points to script
13
Sometimes script touches panel
14
Borders

• The borders interact in several ways
• Fables are used to comment on a scene
• Ornamental animals and shapes change to register
  something in the main panel

15
Fable or Image
16
Ornamental Register
17
The Story Part 1

• Harolds Leaving
• Landing in Ponthieu
• Rescue by William
• Brittany Adventure
• Harolds Return

18
The Story Part 2

• Edwards Death and Harolds Coronation
• News Gets Back to William
• Building of Fleet
• Crossing the Channel

19
The Story Part 3

• Landing in Pevensey
• Gathering Provisions and Eating
• Building Fort
• Burning Homes
• Battle of Hastings
• Harolds Death
• Missing Ending

20
Map
21
Proposed Ending
22
History of the Tapestry
23
History

• 1476 Item, a very long and narrow hanging,
  embroidered with images and writing depicting the
  conquest of England, which is hung around the
  nave of the Church on the day and through the
  octaves of the relics. June 24-July 1
• item une tente très longue et estroicte de telle
  à broderie de ymages et escripteaulx, faisans
  representation du Conquest dAngleterre, laquelle
  est tendue environ la nef de léglise le jour et
  part les octabes des reliques.

24
History

• Baudri of Bourgeuil Adelae Comitissae (1100
  approx)
• Perhaps Wace reflects the Tapestry in his Roman
  de Rou (c. 1160)
• Inventory of 1420 of Court of Burgundy records a
  large tapestry whose subject is the Conquest

25
History

• 1476 However, the "very narrow strip of linen,
  embroidered with figures and inscriptions
  representing the Conquest of England" mentioned
  in the 1476 inventory of the Treasury of Bayeux
  Cathedral is usually understood to be the Bayeux
  Tapestry (Foys).

26
History

• As the inventory also describes the tradition of
  hanging the textile around the nave of the
  cathedral during the Feast of the Relics, a
  practice still in operation when the Tapestry was
  rediscovered in the 1730s, it is safe to surmise
  that this was a regular use of the Tapestry for
  at least 250 years. In 1563, a royal report
  mentions the loss of some valuable wall hangings,
  and the preservation of some others, during the
  course of the pillaging of Bayeux by Calvinists
  (Foys).

27
History

• 1724 M. Lancelot, paper Explication dun
  monument de Guillaume le Conquérant a sketch
  which Lancelot received from a friend of the
  Tapestry, but Lancelot admits in the paper that
  he is not sure if it is a fresco or stained glass
  or a tapestry.
• 1728 Dom Bernard de Montfaucon followed up on
  this work. Guessed that the sketches were by one
  N.J. Foucault. He was correct, but the sketches
  were only of the first part.

28
History

• 1729 Montfaucon hired a draftsman Antoine
  Benoît to finish the sketch and they were
  published. Vol 1. Monuments de la Monarchie
  française in 1729.
• 1730 Vol. 2 appeared.

29
History

• 1792 During the French Revolution and upon a
  moment of city panic, the Tapestry was almost
  used as a covering of a goods wagon.
• 1794 Again the Tapestry almost cut up to be
  used as a decoration of a float for a parade. By
  the end of this year, the Tapestry was moved to
  city storage.

30
History

• 1803 Napoleon summoned the Tapestry to Paris to
  the Musée Napoleon. Supposedly Napoleon himself
  studied the Tapestry as he was contemplating an
  invasion of England he was, however, very
  concerned about the comet scene because a comet
  appeared over France that year. By the end of
  the year, the Tapestry was returned to Bayeux.

31
History

• 1812 Tapestry studied by Abbé de la Rue and
  moved to Hôtel de Ville.

32
History

• 1818-1819 Charles Stothard, widely respected
  draftsman of England, was commissioned by the
  Society of Antiquarians of London to make a
  complete color copy. Somehow in the process of
  making this copy a small portion of the Tapestry
  was cut off and secreted to the Albert and
  Victoria Museum in London. Upon discovery of the
  deception, the museum returned the piece.

33
History

• 1835 A. Hugo in his book La France Pittoresque
  mentions in a section about Normandy that the
  Hôtel de Ville at Bayeux deserves special
  attention, because they keep there the finest
  relic of the Middle Ages, the famous Tapestry of
  Queen Matilda. The Muncipal Council of Bayeux
  realized that if they did not take special care
  the Tapestry would be destroyed, so they decided
  a permanent structure should be build to house it.

34
History

• 1842 Tapestry moved to a special room in the
  Bibliothèque Publique, Place due Château, shown
  at eye level and behind glass.

35
History

• 1885 Elizabeth Wardle and the Leek Society of
  Embroiders decided that England should have its
  own Tapestry, so they made a complete
  reproduction. They finished it in 1886, and it
  now hangs in the city museum of Reading in
  England.

36
History

• 1913 The Tapestry was moved to the Old
  Episcopal Palace on the first floor given over to
  just the Tapestry.
• 1939 Tapestry taken down and stored for this
  year.

37
History

• 1940 German occupation forces demanded to see
  the Tapestry on several occasion.
• 1941 To protect the Tapestry the French
  authorities moved the Tapestry to the Châteu des
  Sources near Le Mans, where it was studied and
  photographed by the Germans for about a month.
  Some of the documents of that study are just now
  coming to light.

38
History

• 1944 After the Normandy landings the Tapestry
  was transferred to Paris and kept in storage
  until after the liberation of Paris when it was
  put on display in the Louvre.
• 1945 Tapestry returned to Bayeux where it has
  remained ever since. It was put back on
  permanent display on the first floor of the
  Bishops Palace across the street from the Bayeux
  Cathedral.

39
History

• 1982 The Tapestry remained in the Episcopal
  Palace until 1982, when, because of its
  increasing cache as a tourist attraction, it was
  moved into its own facility, converted from the
  Grand Seminary, where it remains today. Le Centre
  Guillaume Conquérant exhibits the Tapestry in a
  narrow U-shaped hallway viewers enter on one
  side and always view the Tapestry on their left
  side only.

40
History

• Such a mode of display allows the Tapestry to be
  easily maintained and secured -- it allows for
  centralized air conditioning, and in case of
  emergency, the work can be rolled up and removed
  from the building in a matter of minutes.

41
History

• Unfortunately, however, the current mode of
  display denies audiences what was most certainly
  the original spatial context of the Tapestry,
  where viewers would have been surrounded on all
  sides by the work -- a context that emphasizes
  both the monumental impact of the work and
  William's achievement, as well as the Tapestry's
  own prototypical hypertextual format which allows
  thematic connections to be made simultaneously
  across the space of display (Foys).