The definitive and fully illustrated guide to the Bayeux Tapestry. The full history of the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings and the story of the tapestry itself. Most people know that the Bayeux Tapestry depicts the moment when the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, Harold Godwinson, was defeated at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 by his Norman adversary William the Conqueror. However, there is much more to this historic treasure than merely illustrating the outcome of this famous battle. Full of intrigue and violence, the tapestry depicts everything from eleventh-century political and social life—including the political machinations on both sides of the English Channel in the years leading up to the Norman Conquest—to the clash of swords and stamp of hooves on the battle field. Drawing on the latest historical and scientific research, authors David Musgrove and Michael Lewis have written the definitive book on the Bayeux Tapestry, taking readers through its narrative, detailing the life of the tapestry in the centuries that followed its creation, explaining how it got its name, and even offering a new possibility that neither Harold nor William were the true intended king of England. Featuring stunning, full- color photographs throughout, The Story of the Bayeux Tapestry explores the complete tale behind this medieval treasure that continues to amaze nearly one thousand years after its creation.

For more than 900 years the Bayeux Tapestry has preserved one of history's greatest dramas: the Norman Conquest of England, culminating in the death of King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Historians have held for centuries that the majestic tapestry trumpets the glory of William the Conqueror and the victorious Normans. But is this true? In 1066, a brilliant piece of historical detective work, Andrew Bridgeford reveals a very different story that reinterprets and recasts the most decisive year in English history. Reading the tapestry as if it were a written text, Bridgeford discovers a wealth of new information subversively and ingeniously encoded in the threads, which appears to undermine the Norman point of view while presenting a secret tale undetected for centuries-an account of the final years of Anglo-Saxon England quite different from the Norman version. Bridgeford brings alive the turbulent 11th century in western Europe, a world of ambitious warrior bishops, court dwarfs, ruthless knights, and powerful women. 1066 offers readers a rare surprise-a book that reconsiders a long-accepted masterpiece, and sheds new light on a pivotal chapter of English history.

One of the most unique objects in the world, the Bayeux Tapestry, which depicts the invasion of England by William the Conqueror on a single length of linen, is reproduced here in full color, with annotations explaining the incredible details it contains.

The story of the Bayeux Tapestry, an embroidered strip of linen telling the story of the events starting in 1064 that led up to the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest of England in 1066

"In the past two decades, scholarly assessment of the Bayeux Tapestry has begun to consider issues beyond its sources and analogues, dating, origin and purpose, and site of display." "This volume demonstrates the utility of more recent interpretive approaches to this famous artefact, especially with regard to newer concepts of gender, materiality, reception theory, cultural criticism, performativity, spatial narrative, New Historicism, and post-structuralism." "The essays frame vital issues for the future of Tapestry scholarship: they provide original perspectives, and engage with myriad critical concerns: the (New-) historical layering of meaning, representational systems of gender difference, visuality, memory and architecture, modern obsessions with author-like patronage, post-colonial notions of territory and saintly relics, and the function of historiography and media." "A bibliography of three centuries of critical writings completes the work." --Book Jacket.

"The Bayeux Tapestry is unique both as a historical document and as a work of art. It was made soon after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and it tells the story of the events that led up to William the Conqueror's invasion of England and the battle itself."--Amazon.

The term 'Bayeux stitch' often describes the laid and couched work that was used across Europe in the middle ages. This practical book of techniques and projects demonstrates the simple style of the Bayeux tapestry, before showing variations based on both surviving examples and adaptations of medieval manuscripts. It explains the narrow range of stitches used in laid and couched work and introduces the limited colour palette in medieval embroidery and the rhythmic use of colour. There are twelve projects with step-by-step sequences that illustrate how to stitch subjects ranging from knights to trees, and from dragons to bishops. By introducing subtle variations of techniques and materials, Tanya Bentham illustrates the endless potential of this beautiful embroidery, and brings it alive for today's embroiderers.

A full and provocative reappraisal of the Bayeux "Tapestry", its origins, design and patronage. Aspects of the Bayeux Tapestry (in fact an embroidered hanging) have always remained mysterious, despite much scholarly investigation, not least its design and patron. Here, in the first full-length interdisciplinary approach to the subject, the authors (an art historian and a historian) consider these and other issues. Rejecting the prevalent view that it was commissioned by Odo, the bishop of Bayeux and half-brother of William the Conqueror, or by some other comparable patron, they bring new evidence to bear on the question of its relationship to the abbey of St Augustine's, Canterbury. From the study of art-historical, archeological, literary, historical and documentary materials, they conclude that the monks of St Augustine's designed the hanging for display in their abbey church to tell their own story of how England was invaded and conquered in 1066. Elizabeth Carson Pastan is a Professor of Art History at Emory University; Stephen D. White is Asa G. Candler Professor of Medieval History (emeritus), Emory University, and an Honorary Professor of Mediaeval History at the University of St Andrews.

Commanding its own museum and over 200 years of examination, observation and scholarship, the monumental embroidery, known popularly as the Bayeux Tapestry and documenting William the Conqueror’s invasion of England in October 1066, is perhaps the most important surviving artifact of the Middle Ages. This magnificent textile, both celebrated and panned, is both enigmatic artwork and confounding historical record. With over 1780 entries, Szabo and Kuefler offer the largest and most heavily annotated bibliography on the Tapestry ever written. Notably, the Bayeux Tapestry has produced some of the most compelling questions of the medieval period: Who commissioned it and for what purpose? What was the intended venue for its display? Who was the designer and who executed the enormous task of its manufacture? How does it inform our understanding of eleventh-century life? And who was the mysterious Aelfgyva, depicted in the Tapestry’s main register? This book is an effort to capture and describe the scholarship that attempts to answer these questions. But the bibliography also reflects the popularity of the Tapestry in literature covering a surprisingly broad array of subjects. The inclusion of this material will assist future scholars who may study references to the work in contemporary non-fiction and popular works as well as use of the Bayeux Tapestry as a primary and secondary source in the classroom. The monographs, articles and other works cited in this bibliography reflect dozens of research areas. Major themes are: the Tapestry as a source of information for eleventh-century material culture, its role in telling the story of the Battle of Hastings and events leading up to the invasion, patronage of the Tapestry, biographical detail on known historical figures in the Tapestry, arms and armor, medieval warfare strategy and techniques, opus anglicanum (the Anglo-Saxon needlework tradition), preservation and display of the artifact, the Tapestry’s place in medieval art, the embroidery’s depiction of medieval and Romanesque architecture, and the life of the Bayeux Tapestry itself.