Sacred Threads: The Bayeux Tapestry as a Religious Object
By Richard M. Koch
Peregrinations: International Society for the Study of Pilgrimage Art, Vol.2:4 (2009)
Introduction: There is a duality to the Bayeux Tapestry. The first half is seemingly sympathetic towards Harold Godwin (c.1022-1066), with the second part strikingly pro-Norman. There is a double narrative, one running through the frieze itself and another among the animals and creatures in the borders. We see clerics and knights, churches and palaces, with the sacred blending in with the secular. The interpretation of the Tapestry’s narrative has leaned heavily towards the secular nature of the narrative. With its vivid depiction of aristocratic life, of hunting and war, it has been argued that the Tapestry was originally meant to hang along the wall of a castle or a manor house, its embroidered tale of war and conquest depicting in wool and linen the songs and stories of knightly deeds. Attractive and ingenious as some of theories suggesting a secular venue for the Tapestry are, no evidence exists to prove or substantiate any of them. If an embroidery as long and as costly as the Bayeux Tapestry had been displayed as a background to feasting and storytelling in one of the great halls of England, then surely one of the monastic chroniclers would have heard about it and made reference to it. To display a “monument to a Norman triumph” in an English hall would surely have aroused comment, and the monastic chroniclers adept at collecting gossip would surely have made mention of it.
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