Editing Bayeux Tapestry (section)

== History ==

=== Origins ===
[[File:Odo of Bayeux.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Odo of Bayeux|Bishop Odo]] of Bayeux]]

The earliest known written reference to the tapestry is a 1476 inventory of [[Bayeux Cathedral]],<ref>Fowke, Frank Rede. ''The Bayeux Tapestry&nbsp;– A History and Description'', London: G. Bell & Sons, 1913.</ref> but its origins have been the subject of much speculation and controversy.

French legend maintained the tapestry was commissioned and created by [[Matilda of Flanders|Queen Matilda]], [[William the Conqueror]]'s wife, and her [[lady-in-waiting|ladies-in-waiting]]. Indeed, in France, it is occasionally known as {{lang|fr|La Tapisserie de la Reine Mathilde}} ("The Tapestry of Queen Matilda"). However, scholarly analysis in the 20th century concluded it was probably commissioned by William's half-brother, Bishop [[Odo of Bayeux]],<ref>Sir Frank Stenton (ed) et al., ''The Bayeux Tapestry. A comprehensive survey'' London: Phaidon, 1957 revised 1965.</ref> who, after the Conquest, also became [[Earl of Kent]] and, when William was absent in Normandy, [[regent]] of England.

The reasons for the Odo commission theory include:
#three of the bishop's followers mentioned in the [[Domesday Book]] appear on the tapestry;
#it was found in Bayeux Cathedral, built by Odo; 
#it may have been commissioned at the same time as the cathedral's construction in the 1070s, possibly completed by 1077 in time for display on the cathedral's dedication.

Assuming Odo commissioned the tapestry, it was probably designed and constructed in England by [[Anglo-Saxon art]]ists (Odo's main power base being by then in [[Kent]]); the Latin text contains hints of Anglo-Saxon; other embroideries originate from England at this time; and the vegetable dyes can be found in cloth traditionally woven there.<ref>[https://archive.today/20120712134414/http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=22472&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html UNESCO World Heritage nomination form], in English and French. Word document. Published 9 May 2006.</ref><ref name="Wilson">Wilson, David M.: ''The Bayeux Tapestry'', Thames and Hudson, 1985, pp.&nbsp;201–27</ref><ref name="Coatsworth">{{cite book |last1=Coatsworth |first1=Elizabeth |chapter=Stitches in Time: Establishing a History of Anglo-Saxon Embroidery |pages=1–27 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_YYqcas7hD4C&pg=PA1 |editor1-last=Netherton |editor1-first=Robin |editor2-last=Owen-Crocker |editor2-first=Gale R. |title=Medieval Clothing and Textiles |date=2005 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer |isbn=978-1-84383-123-5 }}</ref> Howard B. Clarke has proposed that the designer of the tapestry (i.e., the individual responsible for its overall narrative and political argument) was [[Scolland]], the abbot of [[St Augustine's Abbey]] in [[Canterbury]], because of his previous position as head of the [[scriptorium]] at [[Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey|Mont-Saint-Michel]] (famed for its illumination), his travels to [[Trajan's Column]], and his connections to [[Wadard]] and Vital, two individuals identified in the tapestry.<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1017/9781782041085.009 |chapter=The Identity of the Designer of the Bayeux Tapestry |title=Anglo-Norman Studies 35 |year=2013 |last1=Clarke |first1=Howard B. |pages=119–140 |isbn=978-1-78204-108-5 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Designer of the Bayeux Tapestry identified|date=30 October 2013 |url=http://www.medievalists.net/2013/10/29/designer-of-the-bayeux-tapestry-identified/|publisher=Medievalists.net|access-date=30 October 2013}}</ref> Alternatively, Christine Grainge has argued that the designer may have been [[Lanfranc]], [[Archbishop of Canterbury]] 1070–1089.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Christine |last=Grainge |title=The identity of the designer of the Bayeux Tapestry |journal=Archaeologia Cantiana |volume=144 |year=2023 |pages=253–264 }}</ref> The actual physical work of stitching was most probably undertaken by women needleworkers. Anglo-Saxon needlework of the more detailed type known as [[Opus Anglicanum]] was famous across Europe.  It was perhaps commissioned for display in the hall of Odo's palace in Bayeux, and then bequeathed to the cathedral he had built, following the precedent of the documented but lost hanging of the Anglo-Saxon warrior [[Byrhtnoth]], bequeathed by his widow to [[Ely Cathedral|Ely Abbey]].<ref>{{cite book |first=C. R. |last=Dodwell |author-link=Charles Reginald Dodwell |title=Anglo-Saxon Art, a New Perspective |year=1982 |publisher=Manchester UP |location=Manchester |pages=134–36 |isbn=0-7190-0926-X }}</ref>

Other theories exist. [[Carola Hicks]] has suggested the tapestry could possibly have been commissioned by [[Edith of Wessex]], widow of [[Edward the Confessor]] and sister of Harold.<ref>[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/04/2006_21_mon.shtml "New Contender for The Bayeux Tapestry?"], from the BBC, 22 May 2006. ''The Bayeux Tapestry: The Life Story of a Masterpiece'', by [[Carola Hicks]] (2006). {{ISBN|0-7011-7463-3}}</ref> Wolfgang Grape has challenged the consensus that the embroidery is Anglo-Saxon, distinguishing between Anglo-Saxon and other Northern European techniques;<ref>See Grape, Wolfgang, ''The Bayeux Tapestry: Monument to a Norman Triumph'', Prestel Publishing, 3791313657</ref> Medieval material authority [[Elizabeth Coatsworth]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/ViewContributor/document/obo-9780195396584/obo-9780195396584-0133.xml?id=con2432 |title=Oxford Bibliographies Online&nbsp;– Author (Contributor: Elizabeth Coatsworth) |publisher=Oxford University Press |access-date=4 August 2013}}</ref> contradicted this: "The attempt to distinguish Anglo-Saxon from other Northern European embroideries before 1100 on the grounds of technique cannot be upheld on the basis of present knowledge."<ref name="Coatsworth"/> George Beech suggests the tapestry was executed at the [[Abbey of Saint-Florent de Saumur]] in the Loire Valley and says the detailed depiction of the Breton campaign argues for additional sources in France.<ref>Beech, George: ''Was the Bayeux Tapestry Made in France?: The Case for St. Florent of Saumur''. (The New Middle Ages), New York, Palgrave Macmillan 1995; reviewed in Robin Netherton and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, editors, ''Medieval Clothing and Textiles'', Volume 2, Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK, and Rochester, New York, the Boydell Press, 2006, {{ISBN|1-84383-203-8}}</ref> Andrew Bridgeford has suggested that the tapestry was actually of English design and encoded with secret messages meant to undermine Norman rule.<ref name="Bridgeford">Bridgeford, Andrew, ''1066: The Hidden History in the Bayeux Tapestry'', Walker & Company, 2005. {{ISBN|1-84115-040-1}}</ref>

=== Recorded history ===
The first reference to the tapestry is from 1476 when it was listed in an inventory of the treasures of Bayeux Cathedral. It survived the sack of Bayeux by the [[Huguenots]] in 1562; and the next certain reference is from 1724.<ref name="musset">{{cite book|last=Musset|first=Lucien|title=The Bayeux Tapestry|publisher=Boydell Press|year=2005|isbn=1-84383-163-5}}</ref> Antoine Lancelot sent a report to the ''Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres'' concerning a sketch he had received about a work concerning William the Conqueror. He had no idea where or what the original was, although he suggested it could have been a tapestry.<ref name="stenton">{{cite book|last=Bertrand|first=Simone|title=The Bayeux Tapestry|publisher=Phaidon Press|year=1965|editor-last=Stenton|editor-first=Frank|editor-link=Frank Stenton|edition=revised|location=London|pages=88–97|chapter=The History of the Tapestry|orig-date=1957}}</ref> Despite further enquiries he discovered no more.

[[File:MontfauconHaroldEye.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|[[Bernard de Montfaucon|Montfaucon]] / Benoît drawing showing King Harold's death]]

The Benedictine scholar [[Bernard de Montfaucon]] made more successful investigations and found that the sketch was of a small portion of a tapestry preserved at Bayeux Cathedral. In 1729 and 1730, he published drawings and a detailed description of the complete work in the first two volumes of his ''Les Monuments de la Monarchie française''. The drawings were by Antoine Benoît, one of the ablest draughtsmen of that time.<ref name="stenton" />

The tapestry was first briefly noted in English in 1746 by [[William Stukeley]], in his ''Palaeographia Britannica''.<ref>Brown 1988, p. 47.</ref> The first detailed account in English was written by [[Smart Lethieullier]], who was living in Paris in 1732–3, and was acquainted with Lancelot and de Montfaucon: it was not published, however, until 1767, as an appendix to [[Andrew Ducarel]]'s ''Anglo-Norman Antiquities''.<ref name="stenton" /><ref>Brown 1988, p. 48.</ref><ref>Hicks 2006, pp. 82–84.</ref>

During the [[French Revolution]], in 1792, the tapestry was confiscated as public property to be used for covering military wagons.<ref name="musset" /> It was rescued from a wagon by a local lawyer who stored it in his house until the troubles were over, whereupon he sent it to the city administrators for safekeeping.<ref name="stenton" /> After the [[Reign of Terror]], the Fine Arts Commission, set up to safeguard national treasures in 1803, required it to be removed to Paris for display at the [[Musée Napoléon]].<ref name="stenton" /> When [[Napoleon]] abandoned his planned invasion of Britain the tapestry's propaganda value was lost and it was returned to Bayeux where the council displayed it on a winding apparatus of two cylinders.<ref name="stenton" /> Despite scholars' concern that the tapestry was becoming damaged the council refused to return it to the cathedral.<ref name="stenton" />

[[File:Stothard Bayeux 41 42 Plate 10.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|right|[[Charles Alfred Stothard|Stothard]] / [[James Basire|Basire]] engravings: scenes showing the Norman troops crossing the Channel and landing in Sussex]]
In 1816, the [[Society of Antiquaries of London]] commissioned its historical draughtsman, [[Charles Alfred Stothard|Charles Stothard]], to visit Bayeux to make an accurate hand-coloured [[facsimile]] of the tapestry. His drawings were subsequently engraved by [[James Basire]] jr. and published by the Society in 1819–23.<ref>Brown 1988, p. 153.</ref> Stothard's images are still of value as a record of the tapestry as it was before 19th-century restoration.

By 1842, the tapestry was displayed in a special-purpose room in the Bibliothèque Publique. It required special storage in 1870, with the threatened invasion of Normandy in the [[Franco-Prussian War]], and again in 1939–1944 by the [[Ahnenerbe]] during the [[German occupation of France during World War II|German occupation of France]] and the [[Normandy landings]]. On 27 June 1944 the [[Gestapo]] took the tapestry to the [[Louvre]], and on 18 August, three days before the [[Wehrmacht]] withdrew from Paris, [[Heinrich Himmler|Himmler]] sent a message (intercepted by [[Government Code and Cypher School|Bletchley Park]]) ordering it to be taken to "a place of safety", thought to be Berlin.<ref name="hicks" /> It was only on 22 August that the [[SS]] attempted to take possession of the tapestry, by which time the Louvre was again in French hands.<ref name="hicks" /> After the [[liberation of Paris]], on 25 August, the tapestry was again put on public display in the Louvre, and in 1945 it was returned to Bayeux,<ref name="stenton" /> where it is exhibited at the Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux.

=== Later reputation and history===
The inventory listing of 1476 shows that the tapestry was being hung annually in Bayeux Cathedral for the week of the [[Nativity of Saint John the Baptist|Feast of St John the Baptist]];  this was still the case in 1728, although by that time the purpose was merely to air the hanging, which was otherwise stored in a chest.<ref name="hicks" /> Clearly, the work was being well cared for. In the eighteenth century, the artistry was regarded as crude or even barbarous—red and yellow multi-coloured horses upset some critics. It was thought to be unfinished because the linen was not covered with embroidery.<ref name="hicks" /> However, its exhibition in the Louvre in 1797 caused a sensation, with ''[[Le Moniteur Universel|Le Moniteur]]'', which normally dealt with foreign affairs, reporting on it on its first two pages.<ref name="hicks" /> It inspired a popular musical, ''La Tapisserie de la Reine Mathilde''. It was because the tapestry was regarded as an antiquity rather than a work of art that in 1804 it was returned to Bayeux, where in 1823 one commentator, A. L. Léchaudé d'Anisy, reported that "there is a sort of purity in its primitive forms, especially considering the state of the arts in the eleventh century".<ref name="hicks" />

The tapestry was becoming a tourist attraction, with [[Robert Southey]] complaining of the need to queue to see the work. In the 1843 ''Hand-book for Travellers in France'' by [[John Murray III]], a visit was included on "Recommended Route 26 (Caen to Cherbourg via Bayeux)", and this guidebook led [[John Ruskin]] to go there; he would describe the tapestry as "the most interesting thing in its way conceivable". [[Charles Dickens]], however, was not impressed: "It is certainly the work of amateurs; very feeble amateurs at the beginning and very heedless some of them too."<ref name="hicks" />

During the Second World War [[Heinrich Himmler]] coveted the work, regarding it as "important for our glorious and cultured Germanic history".<ref name="hicks" />

In 2018 [[President of France|French President]] [[Emmanuel Macron]] announced that the Bayeux Tapestry would be loaned to Britain for public display.<ref>{{Cite web|date=17 January 2018|title=Bayeux Tapestry to be displayed in Britain|url=https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/britain-to-get-bayeux-tapestry-as-macron-agrees-loan-n5brflnjx|access-date=19 January 2018|website=[[The Times]]}}</ref> It was expected to be exhibited at the [[British Museum]] in London in 2022, but strong objections were raised on conservation grounds.{{cn|date=April 2024}} It would have been the first time in 950 years that the tapestry had left France, although evidence suggests that the tapestry was made in Canterbury.<ref>For example, illustrations in the Bayeux Tapestry can be shown to have been copied from the [[Old English Hexateuch]], formerly held in Canterbury, and Canterbury was Bishop Odo's English power-base.{{cn|date=April 2024}}</ref> As of April 2024, however, a date for the loan had not yet been finalised.