Bayeux Tapestry

 The Bayeux Tapestry is one of our best sources of information about what the 1066 Norman Conquest looked like, that is, what kind of weapons, what kind of ships, what kind of clothes were considered normal in the eleventh century.  It's not really a tapestry, but rather a series of seventy embroidered linen squares, sewn together in a long series, some 230 feet long and not quite 2 feet tall.  It is probably missing a square or two at the end.  (Officially a tapestry's design is woven in, rather than embroidered.)

The Tapestry (as we might as well call it anyway) is an unabashed effort to tell the history of how Duke William of Normandy conquered England, becoming king (he's now known as William the Conqueror), and how it was totally appropriate that Harold Godwinson, who had thought that he was rightful king of England, was killed in battle.

The story is told in a series of scenes, almost like a comic strip, where in each scene people are doing something.  A few words of Latin identify what they are doing or name the different figures.  Along the border are various small images like someone dismembered, someone pulling the armor off a dead person, a nude man flashing his stuff, and the like.  So although the Tapestry glorifies the Battle of Hastings that William won, it also is very aware of the brutal nature of war.

There are a lot of questions about the Tapestry that remain unanswered, starting with who made it.  For a long time the assumption was that Mathilda, William the Conqueror's wife, embroidered it with her ladies.  The French indeed call it la tapisserie de la reine Mathilde.  This seems based on nothing more than thinking embroidery is "women's work."

n fact it seems most likely that Odo, bishop of Bayeux (which is in Normandy), had it made.  The Tapestry has been in Bayeux almost its entire life.  Odo accompanied the Conquest, but because he was a bishop he did not shed blood, using a club rather than a sword.  "Internal injuries only."  Odo was probably hoping to be named archbishop of Canterbury (in England) after the Conquest, but if so he was bitterly disappointed, because William instead chose Anselm, abbot of the Norman monastery of Bec.  Given that Odo was William's half-brother, this must really have rankled.

Here's an image from the Tapestry.  It shows Bishop Odo, identified over his head as ODO EPS (the EPS standing for episcopus, bishop.)  You note that although he's wearing chain mail and a helmet, he has a club, not a sword.

The Tapestry is now in its own museum in Bayeux.  It is very nicely displayed, in a long glass case that snakes around the room so that you can follow it and see all the images (I recommend the headphones with a recording explaining what each scene shows, available in English or French).

 © C. Dale Brittain 2021

For more on medieval political and social history, see my ebook Positively Medieval, available on Amazon and other ebook platforms.  Also available in paperback.

Dukes and Counts

The most important medieval nobles were the dukes and counts, that is regional authorities.  Let's start with the counts (and no, in spite of what Sesame Street may have told you, a "count" is not someone who can count from 1 to 10).

A count is the head of a county (there, wasn't that easy?).  In the US we still have counties as the basic geographic and governing units; we got them from Europe.  The word "count" comes originally from comes, meaning "companion," because the first counts, back in the sixth century, were the companions of the kings who appointed them.  Originally kings were careful to move these officers around, to keep them from building up too much local power, but counts became hereditary during the ninth century, well before the monarchs did.

Counts did not "own" their counties anymore than the modern county commissioner owns an American county, but they were the chief administrative officers, especially responsible for giving justice in their courts.  They also collected revenue and taxes for the kings and raised armies if armies needed raising.

For those of you following Downton Abbey, in England a count is generally called an earl (from the Anglo-Saxon eorl).  He's still a count the whole time, and his wife is called a countess, not an earless (you can see why).

A duke was a sort of high-level version of a count.  He was head of a duchy, which generally meant a group of several counties.  Eleanor of Aquitaine, who married successively Louis VII of France and Henry II of England, was duchess of Aquitaine, basically the southwest quarter of France, which contained multiple counties.

An especially large and important county might also be called a duchy.  Normandy was sometimes called a county, sometimes a duchy, but the dukes, who became kings of England as well in 1066, preferred the title of duke to that of count.  (The image is the castle of Gisors, in Normandy, built by the dukes shortly after they became kings of England.  It is now a municipal park.  Schoolchildren are brought there to learn about their patrimony.)

Although dukes and counts were fairly independent of the kings in the ninth through eleventh centuries, in the twelfth century all western kings all persuaded these great lords that they held from them in fief.

© C. Dale Brittain 2014

For more on dukes and counts and so much more about life in the Middle Ages, see the ebook, Positively Medieval, available from Amazon.