Most of the narrative of the Bayeux Tapestry does not deal with the events of the conquest, but commences with the journey of Earl Harold of Wessex to northern France, probably in 1064. In some ways Harold is the central figure of the Tapestry, albeit that William is the victor at Hastings. The authority of the Tapestry as a near contemporary source for the Conquest relies in part on consideration of its making. Most historians accept an origin in England, possibly at Canterbury and under the patronage of Odo of Bayeux, but there are alternative theories, notably connected to the abbey of St Florent in Saumur. The Tapestry is more than simple political narrative, but contains a complex allegorical structure which sets it apart from other contemporary sources.
Most written sources have Norman origins. English sources belong to a slightly later context, the result, it is argued, of a kind of trauma which inhibited immediate reactions to the Conquest. We must consider the writings of William of Jumièges, Guy of Amiens and William of Poitiers, as well as the terse entries in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the later accounts of, amongst others, William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon and John of Worcester. These last belong to a new context in which the conquerors had made themselves English.
Both the Conquest and the Tapestry have become iconic symbols of a kind of Englishness which has a long post-medieval history, and for historians the study of both cannot be divorced from its later contexts. If we seek to understand the Conquest and the Tapestry in their own terms, we must also understand what attracted others, from Napoleon to Himmler, to its study.
Learning outcomes
- The ability to read literary and visual sources;
- Critical engagement with historiography and context in history;
- An appreciation of 11th-century Britain.
