English Bayeux Tapestry theory unravels – the French were right
The debate over the true intent of the Bayeux Tapestry has been so divisive among historians that it has been compared to the battle depicted by the embroidery.
On one side are the Englishspeaking academics, convinced that the pictorial account of William the Conqueror’s victory was to hang in the house of a Norman nobleman. Most French historians prefer the notion that it was always destined for Bayeux Cathedral, built by William’s half-brother Odo and where the work has hung since the 15th century.
A British academic, however, claims to have found the exact hanging space for which the embroidery was designed, putting all argument to rest. His ‘‘unambiguous conclusion’’ may feel to his British peers like an arrow in the eye.
Christopher Norton, a professor of history of art at York University, matched the embroidery’s measurements to a spot in the cathedral as it stood in the 11th century when it was established by Odo of Bayeux.
Professor Norton hopes that his research paper will influence how curators hang the tapestry when it comes on loan to Britain in 2023 in a gesture of Anglo-French unity announced by President Emmanuel Macron last year.
His research suggests that the 68-metre length of linen was designed to fit in the nave on three sides of the rectangle.
As viewers approached it, they would see on the southern side of the cathedral the first scene of Edward the Confessor being crowned in 1042.
The embroidery would have stretched to the end of the nave, where people would see Harold ‘‘teetering on the throne’’, before it continued at right angles across a choir screen.
The 9.25m width of the screen was the same dimension as the naval part of the story, beginning with William ordering ships to be built. The preparations would have continued until the centre of the choir screen, when the story turns to William setting sail.
The third section would have run along the northern side of the cathedral, beginning with the arrival at Hastings and ending with the English defeated and in flight. The final section has gone missing but historians believe that it showed William’s coronation. It would have hung opposite the opening scene of Edward’s crowning. Professor Norton acknowledged that he was entering a fraught arena that has been pored over for 300 years.
‘‘I mentioned to a friend that I was planning to write an article about the Bayeux Tapestry,’’ he said.
‘‘He replied that thinking one had anything new to say on the subject was the first sign of senility.’’ His paper, published in the Journal of the British Archaeological Association, suggests that the conclusion will rattle fellow historians. ‘‘[Some historians] are of the view that the tapestry was not appropriate for an ecclesiastical context but was instead destined for display in one of the great halls belonging to one of the leading Norman magnates or prelates, whether in Normandy or in England,’’ he writes. ‘‘The secular hypothesis has found considerable favour in recent decades, particularly in the English-language literature, to the extent that it has sometimes assumed the status of dogma.’’
Tom Nickson, the journal editor and senior lecturer in medieval art and architecture at the Courtauld Institute, said the match with cathedral dimensions implied that it was made locally.
‘‘It’s hard to see how it could have been made a significant distance from the cathedral,’’ Dr Nickson said. Professor Norton wrote that the evidence debunked arguments that the tapestry had ‘‘subversive’’ scenes to appeal to Anglo-Saxons because ‘‘very few would have seen it’’.
He suggested that a digital facsimile of the work would allow viewers to see it as intended. At present the embroidery is shown in a U-shaped tunnel that prevents it being viewed as a whole.
Professor Norton said: ‘‘Viewed from the middle, it would enable the spectator for the first time in centuries to experience an approximation of the original spatial arrangement and appreciate anew the subtlety and inventiveness of this endlessly fascinating work of art.’’