Guide to the Bayeux tapestry

by Francis Birrell

Fig. 2. Ploughing (see [p. 27]).

There are several interesting features to be observed in connection with the Tapestry besides that of its evident bias. There runs throughout the assumption that the story will be familiar not only in outline, but also in detail to the examiners of the Tapestry—a fact which is in itself strong evidence of a contemporary date.

For instance, in 17 occurs the mysterious subject “UBI UNUS CLERICUS ET ÆLFGYVA” (“where a certain clerk and Ælfgyva”). Who Ælfgyva was permits of the widest conjecture; who a certain clerk may have been no one even pretends to know. But it is evident that the subject was sufficiently well known at the time to be inserted quite naturally and without any further explanation. At this distance of time it is impossible to explain the allusion. Again, who were Turold (12), Wadard (49), Vital (62)? They are honoured in the Tapestry with their names above them, and so were evidently thought to be persons of importance. But few can have heard of them to-day. The archæologist Amyot, indeed, discovered that there were three vassals of Bishop Odo called by these names. If these are the people shown in the Tapestry, their appearance would be a compliment to the Bishop as well as themselves. In fact, throughout the story Bishop Odo appears with a prominence that can hardly have been attractive to his illustrious brother. Not only do his three servants appear in this way, but in 54 he is seated in state with the Conqueror and the Conqueror’s eldest son, Count Robert, while in the crisis of the battle it was Odo, not William, who rallied the troops and turned into victory what had seemed certain defeat. Again, when William was giving his orders for the preparation of the Expedition (41) Odo stood by his side ever ready with advice. It may be remembered what William thought later of the ambition of his brother, and how some time after the Conquest was over he sent him packing back to his Bishopric. Odo was certainly a great benefactor to his Cathedral of Bayeux, and the prominence given to him has been used as an argument that the Tapestry was ordered by him and the design made by an artist intent on the gratification of his lord.

III—HISTORY OF THE TAPESTRY.

THE “Bayeux Tapestry” has had an adventurous career since its first mention in the Inventory of Bayeux Cathedral in 1476, when it was hung round the nave during the season of the Feast of Relics. It is even possible that its adventures may have begun before this, if the assumption of an early date be correct, for the cathedral was burnt to the ground in 1106.

However that may be, in 1562 the town was sacked by Calvinists: but, fortunately, the Tapestry was handed over to the civil authority to guard, and it escaped destruction, though a tapestry “de grande valeur” that used to hang in the choir perished during the troubles. When these disturbances were over, it was once more in the hands of the ecclesiastical authorities, hung in the nave on appointed days, and forgotten for close on 200 years.

In the year 1724 an archæologist, M. Launcelot, read a paper before the French Academy on this subject. He had, however, only seen a drawing of a portion of the whole, and was only able to conjecture that the original was a fresco or an embroidery. He was strongly of the opinion that the original was made in the time of the Conqueror or his immediate successors. Better results, however, attended the efforts of Père Montfaucon, a Benedictine of St. Maur, who ran the original to earth after much search. It was published in engraving on a reduced scale in his second volume of “Monuments de la Monarchie Française (1730).” Kept in the repositories of the cathedral and only exhibited on feast days, the Tapestry survived in peace the early days of the Revolution, but when the Revolutionaries were going out to scatter their foreign enemies it was turned to account and made to cover an army waggon. It had been laid in position and was on the point of being taken off to the front, when M. le Forestier, the Commissioner of Police, seized on it and hid it in his study. In 1794 it was again about to be cut to pieces, when it was rescued by a self-appointed committee for guarding works of art in the neighbourhood.

The Tapestry was not unknown to Napoleon, and in 1803 it was sent to Paris and exhibited in the Musée Napoléon, doubtless with the intention of stirring the enthusiasm of the French into emulating the illustrious deeds portrayed. It was, however, returned to Bayeux in 1804 and deposited in the Library, with permission to be hung in the cathedral, fifteen days a year, a concession to the Church party that was never put into effect. It was exhibited in the Hôtel de Ville in 1830, and is now to be seen in a room built for it in the Public Library in 1842.

In 1871 on the near approach of the Prussians, the Tapestry was hastily taken down and hidden secretly away. When danger was passed it was returned to its former position. The Bayeux authorities, however, refuse to divulge the secret of its hiding-place, feeling that should adverse circumstances again arise it would be advisable that there should again be this secret spot in which to stow away the Tapestry.