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After mentioning the Bayeux Tapestry to my father, he stated that it appears at the beginning of the film Bed knobs and Broomsticks (known in Spanish as La Bruja Novata). Later I found an image of the film and at last I remembered: the opening titles have a design which is quite similar to that of the Tapestry. This is because the film is about another invasion of England, but in this case prompted by the Nazis.
The Bayeux Tapestry is 70 metre long and half a metre wide. In fact it is not a tapestry at all! Actually, it is an embroidered cloth depicting the incidents that led to the Norman invasion of England, as well as the invasion itself. They call it “tapestry” because it is embroidered, and because it is designed to hang on the wall, like other medieval works. Another interesting fact is that the Tapestry contains annotations in Latin. Nowadays it is exhibited in a special museum in Bayeux (France), the Centre Guillaume le Conquérant. We may conclude that one of the greatest historical records of the Middle Ages in Britain is not preserved in Britain, but in France.
Scholars think that it was Bishop Odo (William the Conqueror’s half brother) who commissioned the Tapestry, with the intention of exhibiting it at Bayeux Cathedral. If we assume this to be true, then the Tapestry may have been designed and constructed by English artists, since Odo’s central base was in Kent and because in the Tapestry many connections have been found with Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, clothes and language.
Continuation: THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY (II)
