Week 3 – Friday 19th July – The Tapestry, and the Battle of Normandy Memorial Museum

We’ve been staying in a campground 7ks outside of Bayeux for the past 5 days, and although we’ve been into, through or around Bayeux everyday since we’ve been here, we haven’t as yet managed to see the Bayeux Tapestry – The medieval story of how William the Conqueror took over the throne of England.  Now, I have to confess that I was on a bit of a hiding to nothing here, because Anne had rolled her eyes around in her head whenever I’d mentioned that we’d go and see the Tapestry, and I must confess that other than “we’re in the hood”, I didn’t really have a compelling reason to go and see it.  Sure I’d studied it a bit when I was trying to learn Latin at High School, and Mum had talked a lot about it at the same time, but beyond that, my only knowledge of it came when Stephen Fry did one of his Qi programs on it, about a week before we left.  That increased my knowledge of it vastly to the point that I now knew that it wasn’t a tapestry, and it probably wasn’t produced in Bayeux.

So, off we went into Bayeux to visit its famous tapestry.  Surprise number 1 – it is popular.  There was a queue of people waiting to see it, and we had to wait for other people while they followed the story on the tapestry.  Surprise number 2 – it was really interesting – Anne had to concede that it was well worth the trip and we learnt an awful lot about the tapestry, the characters in it, who made it, and a bunch of other really useful information. 

The story so far:

The year is 1064, Edward the Confessor was the King of England, who had no successors.  He wanted William the Bastard, (a nephew I think) to succeed him, so he sent Harold off to France (Where William was the Duke of Normandy) to let William Know.  Harold got blown off course, and ended  up in the hands of some bad asses, and William had to negotiate his release (Remember that – William negotiated Harold’s release).  William and Harold then seemed to hit it off, and went off to do some conquesting in Brittany.  William Knighted Harold (Does him another good turn).  William makes Harold swear that he will honour Edward’s dying wishes and make William the king of England.  Harold returns to England, Edward dies, Harold takes over the throne (I think we all know who the bastard is now then).  William builds boats, provisions his army, sets sail for England, sets up camp just out of Hastings, and waits for Harold to show up (he’d been up in York seeing off another potential pretender to his throne).  The battle occurs, goes on for most of the day, ebbs and flows a bit, finally Williams men seize the initiative, kill Harold through the eye, William wins the battle, and is crowned a somewhat unpopular King of England, and becomes William the Conqueror from that day forward.  There endeth the Tapestry.

Anyway, that is the fairly irreverent 21^st century male version.  In the 11^th Century, the story was told to some woman, who were so consumed with the story, that they started sewing it into their tea towels.  “oooh, what did he do then?  No!” stitch, stitch, stich, stich, stich.  By the time they had finished, these distinguished craftswoman had created a 70m work of art, that through the centuries has been coveted, abused, hidden from invaders, displayed in cathedrals, confiscated by dictators, restored and now presented for all the public to see in a tightly environment controlled atmosphere.

The tapestry was apparently commissioned by Bishop Odo, William’s half brother, and the Bishop of Bayeux.  He was part of the conquering party, but being a Bishop, he couldn’t draw blood, he was however allowed to use a mace to knock people senseless, so I took a bit of a liking to him – seemed a bit of a conflicted character – religious, but violent – but ultimately had his heart in the right place when you look at the story from the side of the winner.  The Tapestry (embroidery) is on 70 “screens”, although it is hard to tell where one stops and starts, and you only get a bit of an indication by the numbering at the top of the sheet.

As well as the tapestry, there was also some very interesting exhibitions, which taught us that William struggled to take control of England, and had to introduce the Feudal system into England to keep the peasants under control.  They also did some really amazing stuff – built heaps of buildings that stand to this day (if not somewhat altered) – the Tower of London, Winchester Abbey, loads of other Cathedrals and things.  Also created the Doomsday book, which despite its sinister sounding name, is a record of land ownership in England from the time – a most rare and precious book for historians. Anyway, a great exhibition, well worth a look if you get the chance.

After that, we visited the Battle of Normandy Memorial Museum.  This was another fascinating depiction.  Each place puts a slightly different perspective on part of the conflict, and this Museum focused on the roles and attitudes of the Generals on both sides of the conflict.  It also had a really interesting section of General De Gaulle, what a visionary he was, how he took the lead of the French fight from London, even though he was sentenced to death for treason by the “official French Government”, how he gathered together a fighting force for France the fought in Africa, Italy, and the Finally in France for the liberation of their country.  Tying together the whole Bayeux theme, was the a film which ended with a quote from the Bayeux Memorial in British Cemetery just over the road from the Museum.  It is written in Latin along the top of the Memorial, and the translation reads, “We, once conquered by William, have now set free the Conqueror’s native land”