Ten months ago I wrote a while ago about the plan to loan the Bayeux Tapestry, a 900-year-old embroidered cloth depicting the Battle of Hastings leading to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 to the British. It was created by nuns in Canterbury, England, but never displayed there and has its own museum in France. The survival of this 70-metre long work of art is something of a miracle.
In anticipation of the public display beginning in September at the British Museum there was a cloak and dagger transfer across the English Channel this past week, an act of great secrecy to ensure its safety. Who would want to do harm to such a treasure?
There is great public excitement and even though tickets are about 60 dollars Canadian the first release of 65,000 sold immediately. What will be unique about this exhibition is that the entire length will be displayed at once.
Last October I mused about the nuns:
Within the cloister, in a time when accurate news was scarce anywhere, did they have much of a sense of the broader drama they were depicting? We see photos of the smitey bits of the tapestry, so what were they imagining as they worked on these scenes of battle? Did they whisper their speculation to one another, with needles in hand, and were these considered "signs and portents" of biblical significance? God bless those anonymous nuns for such a remarkable achievement.
Because it's Creation Time in the liturgical calendar I'll add that the sisters also included a vast menagerie of creatures, real and imaginary, on the margins of the embroidery. All God's creatures got a place on the battlefield...
There are 762 beasts of various kinds.
It has been suggested, rightly so I think, that the Bayeaux Tapestry should be celebrated as an accomplishment of considerable imagination by women artists. I am interested to discover that there is a woman artist. Mia Hansson, who has spent the past decade creating a full-scale replica of the Bayeaux Tapestry. Amazing.
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