The Bayeux Tapestry: Woven by the Victors

(historytoday.com)

36 points | by prismatic 1 day ago

6 comments

  • anitil 6 hours ago
    If you're interested to see some high resolution images of the tapestry there's one here [0] and Stefan Milo recently did a tour [1] which I really enjoyed - it captures a bit of the wonder that I imagine seeing it in person must evoke

    [0] https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/discover...

    [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIh5pjzonGg

    • 220hertz 37 minutes ago
      I was there last year. It's outstanding. It's also a nice little town.
  • scoot 28 minutes ago
    Strange article to make the front page - only two paragraphs long, and no images of the tapestry that it barely talks about.

    Not to mention the title - the tapestry was embroidered, not woven (if you exclude the ground fabric, which by itself is just a piece of cloth).

  • Wildgoose 3 hours ago
    It was woven by English embroiderers, so it was woven by the victims of the Norman Conquest.
    • kitd 1 hour ago
      Reading articles in advance of commenting usually helps
  • lll-o-lll 8 hours ago
    Paywalled
    • anitil 6 hours ago
      I tried archive.org but the captures I found were all paywalled as well
  • expedition32 6 hours ago
    I never really understood why the tapestry is considered French. The Norman aristocracy at the time did not take orders from the French crown.
    • makeitdouble 4 hours ago
      We have a very loose notion of what's "French".

      In particular anything that happened in the vicinity of the current territory will fall into that, even if at that time it was different, or the people ruling over it where under a different crown.

      Frontiers always moved a lot, and we came to accept them as pretty vague and sometimes not really relevant.

    • hn_submit 1 hour ago
      The Normans accepted the French king as their ruler, even though their lands were ruled separately.

      I've always admired the French kings playing the long-game in this. Step by step, over centuries, the French kings took back more and more land from the Normans until it became completely French and the Normans were absorbed into the French kingdom.

      • hgomersall 11 minutes ago
        Then got their heads chopped off. Arguably the failure of the British monarchs to become absolute monarchs was what saved them from the same fate (Charles I notwithstanding, him being the vent).
    • Mainan_Tagonist 5 hours ago
      Humm, honest question, why did the royals from the Norman conquest on start speaking french?

      I guess the Normans while not being "ethnically" Frank or Gallic at the time, had already been absorbed into "Frank Culture". They were also loose vassals to the king of France at the time as I recollect.

      "Ah, l'Angleterre, cette colonie française qui a mal tourné." - G. Clémenceau

      --Edited for clarity

    • skew-aberration 5 hours ago
      I think calling the Norman invasion French was a simplification for children which outgrew its intended audience. They did absorb some of the French (Flemish) aristocracy by marriage and alliance though, and the Flemish played a large part of the colonization of Britain. I've also heard people refer to the subsequent invasions of Ireland and Wales as 'English'.
      • nephihaha 1 hour ago
        They had a substantial Breton component too. Neither Norse nor Flemish nor French.
        • bcjdjsndon 1 hour ago
          They left french words in the English vocabulary though I thought?
    • dfdydx 3 hours ago
      I am not sure that is the relevant criterion. The French king as a primus inter pares noble had initially very limited authority over a very limited area. Basically nothing in France was French then, even though they shared State structure and culture, if not strong, direct, central government power.
    • JodieBenitez 4 hours ago
    • gerikson 5 hours ago
      Would you consider Burgundy at the time part of France?
      • nephihaha 1 hour ago
        That depends whether you have watched "Passport to Pimlico".
    • biorach 4 hours ago
      The tapestry is not considered French
  • ZeroDayDreamer 3 hours ago
    [dead]