What the Bayeux Tapestry Really Tells Us About Medieval Warfare

The Bayeux Tapestry offers one of the most vivid depictions of warfare from the Middle Ages, but how accurately does it reflect the realities of war? John France examines what this famous medieval masterpiece can—and cannot—tell us about the Battle of Hastings, military equipment, cavalry, tactics and the practical business of warfare.

By John France

The Bayeux Tapestry owes much of its prominence in medieval military history to the laziness of military historians, a laziness, I have to say, which is no more and no less endemic to them than to other historians and indeed other professions. But the fact is that, from time to time, we need to take a fresh look at this, as at every monumental source, not to disparage or debunk, but to consider again its real importance. This is the particular value of a volume such as this, which brings together specialists from all fields, and the new bibliographical survey by Shirley Ann Brown has certainly reminded us of the extent and depth of interest in our subject.

I say that the Tapestry owes its importance to laziness because military historians have come to regard it, in some respects, as a compendium of our military knowledge of the art of war in the mid-eleventh century. It is cited with gay abandon, and its depictions of cavalrymen, in particular, adorn more books than can reasonably be counted. The tapestry is vivid and its appeal is enhanced by the apparently simple way in which the story seems to unfold, reaching a great climax in the scenes of conflict and carnage at Hastings. The splendour of the battle-scenes imposes itself upon any viewer of this remarkable Tapestry, and the power of the image tends to eclipse the simple fact that battle was actually a rarity in contemporary warfare.

In fact the first scenes of war in the tapestry do not concern battle, but the far more mundane and much more frequent business of raid and siege. The attack on Brittany is, however, only sketched in. The sieges of Dol and Dinan are represented in a symbolic way: the besiegers set fire to Dinan, but this would not have happened in the manner depicted. The whole episode is interesting, but there is none of the vivid detail which characterises events in England. The main focus is on the relationship between William and Harold and, apart from this, the whole lacks impact. Despite this clear indication that the designer/executor was well acquainted with the realities of contemporary war, it is the image of war as battle, derived from the depiction of Hastings, which imposes itself.

Rethinking the Bayeux Tapestry as a Source for Medieval Warfare

This image of war as battle has been amplified because the portrayal of battle chimed with a very familiar trend in European, and most especially, British military history. Sir Edward Creasy’s Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World created a whole genre of writing, the results of which, often in debased form, can be seen on the military history shelves in any bookstore. But the focus on battle was not simply a characteristic of English historiography: Delbrück has much the same emphasis, though here the primary influence was probably Clausewitz. Oman was deeply influenced by the theory of decisive battle. He undoubtedly knew of the long controversy over the significance of the Norman Conquest in English history and accepted Hastings as having changed England radically. But his special contribution was to give the battle a parallel importance in military history, for he entitled the chapter in which he described it “Last struggles of Infantry”. It is no accident that Oman was a great champion of the Tapestry. For Ferdinand Lot,

l’étude des batailles … est le comportement obligé de toute recherche sur les armées du passé.

Verbruggen had a much more subtle perception of medieval warfare, but his comments on Hastings tended to reinforce Oman’s view of the supremacy of cavalry because he enormously deepened our knowledge of how medieval cavalry worked. The Tapestry, or at least perceptions of the Tapestry, is at the heart of this view, popular until very recently, that medieval warfare can best be seen as a series of battles, and that battle was dominated by cavalry, and in particular by heavily armoured horsemen who we often call knights.

Moreover, the tapestry was much adduced as evidence for the development of heavy cavalry dependent on “shock” for their effect. Now clearly a whole range of evidence supports the “shock-cavalry” view of medieval warfare, but sheer vividness of the Bayeux Tapestry with its striking concentration of images of battle, and especially mounted battle, has had a very profound effect. And not without reason, because the Tapestry’s images of mounted warfare are enormously powerful. However, they have been magnified by the preconceptions and interests of military historians who have paid insufficient attention to its nature.

The Tapestry is not an objective account of the circumstances of the Norman Conquest of England. It is a propaganda work, drawing upon a number of contemporary literary genres, and notably biased towards Odo of Bayeux who was probably its originator. Moreover, its influence has been magnified because the Tapestry clearly does provide us with accurate images of certain aspects of military affairs. Thus the distortions of the account have been ignored. This has been made easy because certain representations clearly are remarkably accurate. This undoubted value of certain aspects of the tapestry has, in effect, validated general interpretations of the kind I have described here.

The Battle of Hastings Through Norman Eyes

It is extraordinary that the battle-scenes in the Tapestry have been treated as generic, whereas it is becoming clearer and clearer that virtually every episode in the story it tells is particular, even though we may not always understand its meaning fully. Moreover it is evident that the Tapestry expresses a very particular view of the events it describes. It is self-evidently a Norman view of the conquest. More particularly it magnifies the role of Odo of Bayeux and his circle. It is almost certain that it was produced at Odo’s command. In addition, however, the Tapestry is a kind of illustrated Chanson de Geste.

My own view, first expressed some time ago, is that we ought to regard the Tapestry as a kind of medieval strip-cartoon, a Guillaume chez les Anglais, though one with a rather different script and purpose from Astérix chez les Bretons. The script was evidently founded upon the Norman view of the conquest and its righteousness, but this was modified by the need to entertain and inspire, and to do this the designer/executor drew upon the contemporary chanson tradition and, in this case, the evidence, as reviewed by Cowdrey, would suggest versions of chansons current in the household of Odo of Bayeux.

Since the Tapestry seems to have been produced very soon after the Conquest—perhaps as early as 1075—it has seemed to many that this would be too early for a chanson tradition to have arisen. However, one of the great lessons of crusading historiography is that chansons de geste sprang into being with extraordinary speed after what were regarded as great and worthy events. The anonymous Gesta Francorum was the work of a participant in the First Crusade, and it seems to have been completed by 1101/1102. However, the Gesta relates much clearly fabulous material which is directly comparable to that found in the chansons between Kerbogah of Mosul and his mother whose purpose is to portray a peculiarly Muslim arrogance and pride appropriate to one who was riding for a fall – his defeat before Antioch on 28 June 1098.

A clerical chronicler who went on the First Crusade, Raymond of Aguilers, perhaps drawing on camp gossip, inserted a passage of imaginary dialogue into his account of the battle against Kerbogah featuring an Emir called Mirdalin who quickly came to enjoy a great career in crusader chansons. Some of the corpus of fabulous material generated by the First Crusade was incorporated by Albert of Aachen writing c. 1106, though its fullest development came in the Chanson d’Antioche. It is not at all unlikely, therefore, that there were a series of heroic stories about Hastings in circulation very soon after the battle of Hastings, and that some of these, with a bias to Odo and his friends, were incorporated. As Cowdrey has remarked, it was designed to raise morale and promote loyalty among, as well as simply to entertain, a broad spectrum of Anglo-Norman society. To this should be added a very evident purpose to magnify Odo’s personal role.

This has very clear implications for its value as a source. Those whom Odo wished to please, his household and his fellow barons, were presented with the battle as a triumph for “their people”, the nobles and their followers who were mounted; the role of others is downplayed. The famous falling horse wrestled with by an armoured man, and the knight slipped onto the neck of his mount in his eagerness to slash a Saxon warrior, all presumably represent actual events.

There has been much effort to fit the battle into the story as told by chroniclers, and the prime reason this has been so difficult is the episodic nature of the illustrations. Clearly some of the episodes correspond to events in the written narratives of the battle, but others do not. The very vivid picture of William rallying his troops seems to occur at a much later stage in the battle than indicated in the written sources.

So what the Tapestry contributes is a vivid picture of combat, which confirms the literary accounts in general shape, and in some particulars some episodes. But it gives a special prominence to the role of the cavalry because it was from that kind of people that its audience was drawn. This is not to say that cavalry did not play an important role in the battle—as a plenitude of sources testify. Rather, this “strip cartoon” plays up their role at Hastings and marginalizes that of others.

Of course, it may be objected, the Tapestry portrays the archers. I would suggest that there is a very special reason for this. The Tapestry is the first source to record the death of Harold by an arrow through the eye: this may well be what happened, but it has to be noted that the best of the written sources do not record it. Moreover, while the Tapestry certainly pictures Harold as a formidable warrior, its wider theme is divine retribution for his perjury and pride, and the ignominy of being struck down by an arrow provides a suitable fate. Either because Harold was struck down by an arrow, or because this story seemed so appropriate, or for both reasons, archers are given a role: in the lower margin they appear in quite a large group towards the end of the battle (Plate 3). However, even amongst the archers one group is totally missing—the crossbowmen. Moreover, William brought with him a very large heavily armed infantry contingent of whose role there are only the barest of hints in the Tapestry; in the scene in which Leofwine and Gyrth fall, one is killed by a Norman footsoldier.

The battle as presented by the Tapestry is primarily an affair of Norman-French cavalry pitted against a stubborn and brave English army on foot, but in the English force it is the thegns, the honourable and worthy warriors, who are stressed, and the rest of the force are only hinted at. The tapestry was never intended to be a picture of contemporary warfare. It presents a very partial and particular view of a long and desperate battle from which we cannot draw general conclusions about contemporary warfare. It is clearly not fabulous in the sense that much of the Chanson de Roland is, but then it was composed much closer to events. Because it owes so much to the literary tradition, the rhetoric of the account profoundly influenced the substance and style of what was portrayed in the Tapestry. This rhetoric was especially directed at the knights and nobles and the result is, in part, a kind of illustrated chanson, a bande dessinée out of which many elements in the Norman army have been carefully written, or at least seen their role reduced. The rhetoric of panegyric also has its influence.

The scenes of ship-building are given enormous prominence, and this may be because they suitably dramatise the extent of William’s preparations, and perhaps also because they were later much remembered. It is hard to think that William was so foolish as to rely on large numbers of ships built of unseasoned timber. Whatever may be the truth of the scale of the activity, authorities on medieval shipbuilding stress the accuracy of the technical processes recorded. This leads me to accept the accuracy of the ships as pictured, and to doubt the suggestion that specialised horse-transports based on Byzantine models were ever used.

The military history of the Norman Conquest, as narrated in the Tapestry shows some very notable omissions because the realities of the medium dictated that much detail has to be sacrificed and, far more importantly, what does not fit into the designer/executor’s priorities is ruthlessly sacrificed. It is, in a qualified sense, a panegyric of Duke William, but the whole work had to have appeal to its intended audience, the political class of the Anglo-Norman realm. Because of this it draws upon the convention of the chansons de geste that William, as a great leader, had to seek counsel. But as the Tapestry was produced at the order of Odo of Bayeux, that counsel is very confined, at best to Odo and other members of the family. Moreover, the need to keep the narrative crisp combines with the needs of heroic portraiture to gloss over much gritty military reality. When William is told of the coronation of Harold he speaks only to Odo, and immediately orders the building of ships. There is no hint here of the painstaking campaign of persuasion, involving three major conferences at Lillebonne, Bonneville-sur-Touques and Caen, upon which William had to embark in order to gain the support of the Norman nobility.

Medieval rulers did not control monolithic command structures, and an essential aspect of every campaign was the business of persuasion: the process of military decision-making is presented in the Tapestry in a very particular way, to the glory of Odo of Bayeux and his associates. On the other hand some trouble is taken to show William at the forefront of battle.

Weapons, Armour and the Realities of Medieval War

Now in one particular area the habit of military historians of treating the Tapestry as a useful compendium is entirely appropriate. It is undoubtedly an extremely valuable source for the military equipment of the age. It has to be said that in some areas it is notably lacking: there is nothing much on siege-equipment, but to make up for that there is a great interest in logistics and the business of castle-building. But the illustration of personal military equipment, armour and weapons of offence, is supremely important. The Tapestry provides us with depictions of 79 figures in body armour, an unprecedented and highly convenient concentration of information.

It is certainly not mere laziness that prompts so many historians discussing armour and equipment to cite it because the general picture it provides of the military equipment of the knights, thegns and nobility is substantiated by virtually every other source – primarily, of course, manuscript drawings and illuminations.. This is actually rather surprising, given the limitations of the medium, and it must be said that this does make for some difficulties. Most of the spears are spindly, except for a few, and it is not possible to suggest why they are exceptions. Attempts at general comments on spearhead types seem to me to be doomed, simply because such detail is often unclear. There is a whole debate about mail trousers which is a tribute to the limitations of the medium, because I am satisfied that they never existed and what we see are actually flaps of mail which were fastened to the legs like cowboy “chaps”. Manuscript drawings offer a medium more suited to precision, though it has to be said that we are often disappointed even there.

The similarity of equipment between the Norman and Anglo-Saxon élites has been much commented upon, and tends to support modern thinking that the contrast in styles of war was not the consequence of Anglo-Saxon England’s technical inferiority. The English, on the whole, preferred to fight as infantry and the narrowness of the Hastings victory indicated that they were highly effective.

One important consequence of the concentration of armoured figures in the Tapestry is that it provides us with the opportunity to compare individuals. In an age when men equipped themselves for war, differences in equipment are indicative of differences in wealth and status. The hauberks worn in the tapestry were split at the thigh, and their skirts protected only as far as the knee. However, a few figures are shown wearing mail leggings to protect the lower leg: one of these is Duke William but unknown figures are also shown with this form of protection. The famous chest reinforcement (if that is what it was) is shown as worn by Harold and William but it appears on others too. Most revealingly, not all the armoured cavalrymen have swords: these were the most expensive and prestigious of weapons. These variations were not, I suspect, random, for the designer/executor had a good eye for detail. What it points to is the very wide range of people who called themselves miles or eques. At this date miles was a functional description, though one with social overtones, and the plural milites could be conveniently used simply to designate cavalry.

But the designer/executor of the Tapestry obviously had a delight in detail, and particularly in military detail and this extended far beyond personal weapons. The study of medieval logistics has, until recently, been somewhat neglected. This has been a serious omission, and it is a very curious one for the Tapestry very clearly signals to us the importance of this aspect of military affairs. William’s preparations for the attack on England are very vividly portrayed. Ship-building was, of course, the most spectacular, but the whole tiresome business of collecting and transporting food, drink and equipment is depicted with marvellous economy. Equally remarkable is the depiction of ravaging in Sussex after the landing in England, and the building of a fortification at Hastings. This kind of sharp eye, it seems to me, could only have been possessed by one who was involved in warfare and who perhaps fought at Hastings. There are details in the Tapestry which seem to reflect the reality of the great battle. It is interesting that it clearly shows that there was some kind of fortification around the Anglo-Saxon position on Senlac Hill. It also shows us very vividly the problem of a horseman attacking up such a steep hill against even poorly-armed infantry.

Horses, Cavalry and the Battle of Hastings

The horses in the Bayeux Tapestry have attracted much attention. The main interest of the military historians is in their size. All the warhorses are very obviously male, as has been much remarked. All the riders are shown “riding long”, that is with the stirrups extended, a configuration which gives stability. In virtually all cases the stirrup seems to hang very low to the ground: this is very clearly illustrated by the scene in which William prepares to mount on his way to battle. This suggests relatively small horses and accords with the general impression we have from manuscript illustrations and other material. We need only recall Richard, son of Asclettin of Aversa who liked to ride horses so small that his feet almost touched the ground.

The usual conclusion is that these animals were something between a large pony and a small hunter, say 12–15 hands. The riders of these horses use their lances in a variety of ways – stabbing, throwing and couched. There is no hint here of the massed charge of armoured men, lances couched, so beloved of the “shock” school of military history. In fact the formation adopted by William at Hastings did not lend itself to such a mass charge. The sources make it clear that he divided his army into three divisions, Norman, Franco-Flemish and Breton, each of which was made up of archers at the front followed by heavy foot, then cavalry. His purpose was probably for the heavy foot to break into the Saxon line after it had been peppered with arrows, opening the way for the cavalry in support to ride down the broken enemy infantry.

This was not quite what happened because Anglo-Saxon resistance was very strong, but there was no general mass cavalry charge. Indeed, with the exception of Aspeit in 1128, where numbers were small I can find no example of commanders launching their cavalry en masse before the thirteenth century. This was because armies were incoherent ad hoc bodies. It would have been very difficult to assemble and control a mass charge, and this only happened in Outremer where conditions were very different. Really the tapestry gives very little hint of tactics, beyond the obvious fact that the Saxons were all infantry and that some of the Normans were cavalrymen. The battle is sketched by reference to particular episodes, which show it as a hard-fought and savage hacking-match.

I think that the chief value of the Bayeux Tapestry for the military historian is that it tells us a lot of detail about war, and most particularly about military equipment. So much of its detail chimes with what other sources have to tell us that I am always inclined to take it seriously on matters of detail. It is very odd that Harold is shown wearing a sword underneath his hauberk, with its hilt projecting through a slit at his hip, but this is not so improbable if we think of the flap of the hauberk loosely tied over the thigh. The selection of events during the battle is skilful and calculated to give a real impression of the horrors of war, and these are carefully elaborated in the lower margin, though there the figures are often squat and compressed to fit into the space. It seems to me that the designer/executor was somebody who had experience of war, possibly even a good knowledge of events at Hastings, and that where his skill was not subjected to overall political direction or tempered by obvious poetic convention, he is to be trusted.

John France is Professor Emeritus at Swansea University in Wales and one of the leading historians of medieval warfare. This article was originally published as “The Importance of the Bayeux Tapestry for the History of War” in The Bayeux Tapestry: Embroidering the Facts of History, edited by Pierre Bouet, Brian Levy and François Neveux (Presses universitaires de Caen, 2004).

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