Back in July I wrote about the impending "invasion" of Britain by the Bayeux Tapestry, in fact a loan by the French for the first time since it was created 900 years ago. It isn't actually a tapestry but a 70-metre length of intricate embroidery depicting the Battle of Hastings as the decisive conflict in the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. One theory is that it was commissioned by a French bishop and brought to life by nuns in Canterbury, England, then immediately transported across the Channel.
The exhibit at the British Museum has now been opened to great fanfare with re-enactors and line-ups for entry, although every ticket was sold within hours. There have been many articles, including one with the headline They were stitching for their lives’: why the Bayeux tapestry is a testament to terror. This piece suggests that some, perhaps many of the women who worked on the tapestry were women from Kent who fled the marauding invaders and took sanctuary in the convent, even as their families were being terrorized. Their survival was dependent on their ability to contribute to this depiction of Norman victory. If this theory is true, were these local women intermingled with the nuns, perhaps disguised in habits? Did they become part of the daily flow of worship which is part of monastic life and what might they have prayed when it seemed that God had forsaken them? How could they have focused on their intricate work in the midst of trauma?
In the end this is part of the speculation, scholarly or otherwise, about the Bayeux Tapestry. It is amazing that in this age of virtual everything, there can be so much excitement over a work of art created stitch by stitch.
President Emmanuel Macron of France, left, and King Charles III at a preview of the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition. Ludovic Marin/Agence France-Presse, via Pool/Afp Via Getty Images
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