Nearly 1,000 years ago, a group of needleworkers in the south of England began embroidering on a band of linen 19 inches wide. They had a story to stitch, a story of strong, chivalric warriors, of dukes, kings and a bishop, of battles, blessings and banquets.
Working with yarns of eight mellow medieval colors, they stitched scenes of calvary fighting, fleets under sail, an oath of allegiance and the sudden appearance of a mysterious comet-surely an ominous sign.
They stitched and they stitched. Theirs was an epic story.
For 10 years they labored on their pictorial narrative in greens, yellows, blues and rust. At last the women knotted the final thread. The monumental tale of the Duke of Normandy’s conquest of England in 1066 was told.
Their historical “novel” of 1 trillion stitches had 58 “chapters” and hundreds of characters. The story now stretched an astonishing 230 feet, nearly the length of a football field.
Today, their masterpiece, known as the Bayeux Tapestry, is displayed in its own museum in the town of Bayeux (BY-you), 165 miles northwest of Paris and 5 miles from the English Channel.
This pretty Normandy community of cobbled streets and old stone buildings is famous for more than its incomparable tapestry: On June 7, 1944, Bayeux became the first French city to be liberated during the Allied landings.
Europeans grow up hearing plaudits for the Bayeux Tapestry. But for the most part, across the Atlantic, people are unaware of this incredible work of art, although hardly a child in North America escapes a world-history class without having heard that significant date-1066.
The tapestry is housed in an old seminary not far from the town’s 11th Century cathedral. Officially called the “Tapestry of Queen Matilda,” it was shown for the first time in 1077 during the cathedral’s consecration ceremonies. However, it was not Queen Matilda, but the Bishop of Bayeux, who commissioned it. And its Anglo-Saxon designers and executors lived not in Bayeux but across the channel.
William conquers Harold
Each day, busloads of French and boatloads of English come to “read” the great tapestry showing the Norman ruler, William the Conqueror, destroying King Harold’s forces in the Battle of Hastings. One after another, visitors inch along the winding rope railing that follows the “stitched frescos” mounted behind glass on black walls.
Many press a rented portable tape recorder against their ears as they listen to the tale of the Norman invasion of Britain while they see it unfold, scene after scene. No one counts, but there are 626 characters, 202 horses, 41 ships and 37 buildings stitched into the tapestry..
The story’s protagonists are the Duke of Normandy (William) and the King of England (Harold). Other leading characters are those of Harold’s father-in-law (Edward the Confessor) and William’s half-brother, Odo, the bishop who ordered the tapestry for his new Bayeux Cathedral.
The cast is mostly male, except for three women (heavily clothed and veiled). And, curiously, although the band of linen was embroidered by Anglo-Saxons, the thrust is pro-Norman. William and his army (the guys with the short, cropped hair) look robust. But toward the final scenes, Harold and his men (the ones with mustaches) are a miserable-looking lot.
The conflict between William and Harold was over the crown of England. Key to the argument was an oath of allegiance Harold swore to William-that when Edward the Confessor died and the throne fell vacant, he, the Duke of Normandy, would be king. Instead, Harold now sat on the throne.
So William, in a swivet, built a fleet of more than 100 vessels, loaded them with soldiers and horses, sailed to England and attacked.
The Norman duke had the advantage. His half-brother, Bishop Odo, was a genius at strategy. And many of his warriors were descended from the notorious Vikings, who in the 9th and 10th Centuries had invaded the rivers of France in their longboats.
However, there was the matter of that streaking star in the sky around the time the royal crown went to Harold. (Nowadays it’s known as Halley’s comet.) Nine centuries ago everyone agreed: This strange celestial body with the long curved tail foreshadowed doom.
Fatal arrow hits home
The bad news in 1066, however, was not for William but for Harold. On Saturday, Oct. 14, toward dusk, one of William’s bowmen scored the fatal blow. As the tapestry graphically depicts in its final scenes, Harold was struck with a single arrow to his eye. He died, slumping over the neck of his horse. Seventy-two days later, on Christmas Day, 1066, William was crowned king of England at Westminster Abbey.
The Bayeux Tapestry is considered to be a remarkably detailed account of military life in the 11th Century. Men are shown carrying suits of chain mail on portable hangers. Soldiers picnic off shields. Dukes dine at a table laden with roast chicken and shish kebab. And what an array of weapons: axes, lances, spears and bows, swords, arrows and wooden clubs. Not to mention the two-handed choppers, doubled-bladed broadswords and spiked maces.
There even is a commentary for scholars, be they 11th or 20th Century. Across the top of each scene are inscriptions in Latin.
To frame the saga, the needleworkers bordered it with a row of figures (many of them animals) unrelated to the main story. Edging the banquets, blessings and battles are lions with turned-up tails, griffins and other fanciful creatures straight out of Aesop’s fables.
In the hundreds of years the Bayeux masterpiece has existed, only twice has it been in danger of destruction. During the French Revolution in 1794 a local official rescued it, and in 1803, Napoleon ordered it sent to Paris for safekeeping. Then, during the 1944 Allied landings in Normandy, it was sent again to Paris and stored in the Louvre.
Fate smiled once more. In the nick of time, a French monk told British troops that the German forces had evacuated the city. The tapestry’s home, and the whole of Paris, escaped the bombings.
Bayeux’s other lures
Although viewing the tapestry is uppermost on many visitors’ agendas, Bayeux has other attractions: medieval buildings, the quiet Auray River, delightful art museums and World War II memorials. Looming over the town are the three soaring towers of Bishop Odo’s immense cathedral, now a combination of Romanesque and Gothic architecture. The elaborate filigree on its stone carvings appears almost as delicate as lace. Lace, too, is a pride of Bayeux.
Lacemaking peaked here in the 1800s, but the tradition lives on. Grandmothers demonstrate lacemaking in shops and museums. Daughters teach it at studios. Girls learn lace tatting after school. Lace is everywhere.
In one workshop, students also may learn another ancient craft: embroidering with yarn. Nowadays the technique is called the “Bayeux stitch.” Long ago, a group of needleworkers used this same stitch, over and over, year after year, to preserve a momentous story on a plain band of fine linen.
To see Bayeux’s sites
Bayeux, in Normandy, is about a 2 1/2-hour train ride northwest from Paris. The Bayeux Tapestry is housed in the William the Conqueror Centre (Rue de Nesmond), a few minutes walk from the cathedral. Before viewing this unparalleled work of art, spend some time at the preceding exhibits featuring the Vikings coming to France, scenes from the Bayeux Tapestry and life in Normandy in the 11th Century. Also, see the excellent film on the tapestry (shown in English several times a day).
Although the tapestry depicts events leading to the Norman conquest of Britain, its main intention was to illustrate a particular concept-that perjury following an oath taken over church relics has dire consequences. (King Harold originally had sworn fidelity to William, the Duke of Normandy.)
Other fine museums within a short walking distance of the Bayeux Tapestry are the Baron Gerard, which specializes in lace, porcelain and Flemish paintings (next to the cathedral at Place des Tribunaux), and the Museum of Sacred Art, which also houses a lacemaking school (opposite the cathedral in Hotel du Doyen).
On the outskirts of town across from the British Memorial and Cemetery is the 1944 Battle of Normandy Memorial Museum (Boulevard Fabian-Ware; about a 30-minute walk). To understand the enormity of the Normandy landing, one should visit the 60-mile stretch of beaches north of Bayeux, from Pointe du Hoc to Ouistreham.
In Bayeux, a few 14th Century half-timber homes remain. One of the finest contains Bayeux’s Tourist Information Office (intersection of Rue Saint-Martin and Rue des Cuisiniers), which offers a city map and brochures.
Those who would like to visit a workshop for lacemaking, weaving and embroidering may go to Ateliers de la Reine Mathilde (2, Rue de la Poissonnerie), close to the Aure River near an old mill. Someone may demonstrate how to do the “Bayeux stitch” or how to create a lace pattern with bobbins.
For information and accommodations in Bayeux contact the French Government Tourist Office at 645 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60611-2836. Or call 900-990-0040 at a cost of 50 cents a minute. Most tourist information calls average under two minutes and are answered by a real person, not a machine. Ask about the “France Discovery Kit.”
