The Bayeux Tapestry: Collected Papers [1 ed.] 1409446638, 9781409446637

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XXX

XXX ALro in the Vmiorttm Collected Studies Serie.r:

WENDY DAVIES Brittany in the Early Middle Ages Texts and Societies

WENDY DAVIES Welsh History in the Early Middle Ages Texts and Societies

PAUL MEYVAERT The Art of Words: Bede and Theodulf JANET L. NELSON Courts, Elites, and Gendered Power in the Early Middle Ages Charlemagne and Others

ANNEJ. DUGGAN Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult

SIMON COUPLAND Carolingian Coinage and the Vikings Studies on Power and Trade in the 9th Century

PAULINE STAFFORD Gender, Family and the Legitimation of Power England from the Ninth to Early Twelfth Century

MADELINE H. CAVINESS Art in the Medieval West and its Audience

MARJORIE CHIBNALL Piety, Power and History in Medieval England and Normandy

JANET L. NELSON Rulers and Ruling Families in Early Medieval Europe Alfred, Charles the Bald and Others

BRIGITTE BEDOS-REZAK Form and Order in Medieval France Studies in Social and Quantitative Sigillography

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VARIORUM COLLECTED STUDIES SERIES

The Bayeux Tapestry

XXX

XXX

GaleR. Owen-Crocker

The Bayeux Tapestry

Collected Papers

~ l Routledge ~~

Taylor & Francis Group

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2012 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint ofthe Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition© 2012 by GaleR. Owen-Crocker Gale R. Owen-Crocker has asserted her moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Owen-Crocker, Gale R. The Bayeux tapestry : collected papers. -(Variorum collected studies series; CS1016) 1. Bayeux tapestry - Themes, motives. 2. Hastings, Batde of, England, 1066, in art. 3. Great Britain- History- William I, 1066-1087- Historiography. 4. Clothing and dress in art. I. Tide II. Series 746.3'944-dc23 ISBN 9781409446637 (hbk) Library of Congress Control Number: 2012941375 ISBN 13: 978-1-4094-4663-7 (hbk)

VARIORUM COLLECTED STUDIES SERIES CS1016

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This book is dedicated to

Peter Edmund Owen Crocker and

Laura Isobel Veronica Crocker married 17 September 2011

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CONTENTS

xi

Preface by Shirley Ann Brown Introduction

Xlll

Acknowledgements

XXll

TEXTILE

I

The Bqyeux Tapestry: nnv interpretations, eds M.K. Fqys, K.E and D. Terkla. Woodbridge: Bqydell, 2009

II

119-129

Behind the Bayeux Tapestry Overbl!)~

The Bayeux 'Tapestry': invisible seams and visible boundaries

1-20

Ant,lo-Saxon bngland 31, 2002, pp. 257-73

III

Fur, feathers, skin, fibre, wood: representational techniques in the Bayeux Tapestry

1-6

Previousfy unpublished. A n earlier version was read as a paper at the lvfedieval Congress in Kalamazoo, Mqy 2009

SouRCES

IV

Reading the Bayeux Tapestry through Canterbury eyes

243-265

Anglo-Saxons. Studies Presented to Cyril Rtzy Hart, eds S. Keynes and A. P. Smyth. Dublin: hour Courtr, 2006

v

Stylistic variation and Roman influence in the Bayeux Tapestry

1-35

The Bqyeux TapesfrJ' revisited, ed. M. Crafton (Peregrinations 2, issue 4), 2009 (Online journal http://peregrinations.ketryon. edu/vo/2_3/current/fb4p4f ),pp. 51- 96 NARRATIVE DEVICES

VI

The embroidered word: text in the Bayeux Tapestry Medieval Clothing and Textiles 2, 2006

35-59

XXX CONTENTS

viii

VII

Telling a tale: narrative techniques in the Bayeux Tapestry and the Old English epic Beowu!f

40-59

kiedieval Art: recent perspectives, eds G.R 01ven-Crocker and T Graham. Manchester: lvlanchester University Press, 1998

VIII Brothers, rivals and the geometry of the Bayeux Tapestry

109-132

King Harold II and the Bqyeux Tapestry, ed G. R. 01ven-Crocker. Woodbridge: Boydef~ 2005 B oRDERS

IX

Squawk talk: commentary by birds in the Bayeux Tapestry?

237-256

Anglo-Saxon L-ing/and 34, 2005

X

The Bayeux Tapestry: the voice from the border

235- 258

Signs on the E dge. Space, Text and lviargin in ]\Jedieval Manuscripts, eds 5'.L Keefer and RH. Bremmer ]r (Medievalia Groningana). Leuven: Peeters, 2007 DRESS

XI

The Bayeux 'Tapestry': culottes, tunics and garters, and the making of the hanging

1-10

Costume 28, 1994, pp. 1-9

XII

Dress and authority in the Bayeux Tapestry

1-18

Aspects of Power and Authorz!J' in the Middle Ages (International Jv[edieval Research Series 14), eds B. Bolton and C. M eek. Turnhout: Brepols, 2007, pp. 53- 12 with some re1vriting as required ~y the originalpublisher DETAIL

XIII Embroidered wood: animal-headed posts in the Bayeux 'Tapestry' Aedificia nova: studies in honor of Rosemary Cramp, eds C.E. Karkov and

106-138

H. Damico. Kalamazoo, M J: Medieval Jn.rtitute Pubfication.r, 2008

XIV The interpretation of gesture in the Bayeux Tapestry Anglo-Norman Studies 29 (Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 2006), 2007

145-178

XXX CONTENTS

XV

Hawks and horse-trappings: the insignia of rank The Battle of Maldon AD 991, ed. D. Scragg. Oxford:

ix

220-237

Blackwell, 1991

1-14

Index I This volume contains xxii + 350 pages I

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

The articles in this volume, as in all others in the Variorum Collected Studies Series, have not been given a new, continuous pagination. In order to at;oid confusion, and to facilitate their use where these same studies have been referred to elsewhere, the original pagination has been maintained wherever possible. Each article has been given a Roman number in order of appearance, as lzsted in the Contents. This number is repeated on each page and is quoted in the index entries. Articles V, XI, and XII have necessari!J been reset, and git;en a new pagination. The originalpage numbers are shown in square brackets within the text 1vhere relevant.

n

XXX

Publications by Gale R. Owen-Crocker on the Bayeux Tapestry not included in the collected papers Books:

2007 Elizabeth Coatsworth and GaleR. Owen-Crocker, Medieval Textiles of the British Isles AD 450-JIOO: an Annotated Bibliography, British Archaeological Reports, British Series 445. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2007, p. 18. 2004 Dress in Anglo-Saxon England: revised and enlarged edition. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, pp. 8, 20, 33, 184,204,209-11,214-15,220,232,234,238,241-3,245, 247-8,251-2,254-5,257-8,260-61,263,265,268-70,291,293,301,307-11,314, 316, 326-31, 342 and Figs 5-6, 161, 163, 189-93, 206-7, 220, 238. Articles:

ln preparation 'Fools in the Bayeux Tapestry', in The Bayeux Tapestry: papers in memory ofDavid Hill, eds Shirley Ann Brown and Gale R. Owen-Crocker. Oxford: Oxbow. Forthcoming 2014, 'Silver and Gold had they None (so we have to use our imagination)', in Making Sense of the Bayeux Tapestry, eds Anna Henderson and Gale R. OwenCrocker. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. Forthcoming 2013, ' .. .Velis vento plenis .... Sea crossings in the Bayeux Tapestry', in The Maritime World of the Anglo-Saxons, eds William Schipper, Stacy S. Klein, and Shannon Lewis-Simpson, Essays in Anglo-Saxon Studies 4, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, xxx. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 2012 'Hunger for England: ambition and appetite in the Bayeux Tapestry', in Holy and Unholy Appetites in Anglo-Saxon England: a Collection ofStudies in Honour ofHugh Magennis, a special edition of English Studies 93.5, pp. 540-49. 2012 'Bayeux Tapestry' in Encyclopaedia of Dress and Textiles in the British Isles c. 450-I450, eds Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth Coatsworth and Maria Hayward. Leiden and Boston: Brill, pp. 57-61. 2011 'The Bayeux Tapestry: faces and places', in New Research on the Bayeux Tapestry: proceedings o{ a con{erence at the British Museum, eds Michael Lewis, Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Dan Terkla. Oxford: Oxbow, pp. 96- 104. 2010 'L'altra Conquista Normanna e L' Arazzo di Bayeux' ('The Other Norman Conquest and the Bayeux Tapestry'), in I 087: costumi della traslazione; ebrei, turchi ed armeni, ed. Luigi Spezzacatene. Bari: Edizione di pagina, pp. 53- 5. 2009 'Les animaux decoratifs de la Tapisserie de Bayeux: sources et fonction', in La Tapisserie de Bayeux: une chronique des temps Vikings? ed. Sylvette Lemagnen. Bonsecours: Point de Vues, pp. 129- 41.

XXX

PREFACE

In its current truncated state, the eleventh-century embroidery popularly called the Bayeux Tapestry contains 626 people, 202 horses or mules, 55 hounds, 505 other animals, 37 buildings, 41 vessels, and 49 trees, stitched in place along its 224 foot length. It comprises nine joined panels of linen of various lengths upon which wool thread in ten different shades was hand-stitched sometime in the twenty years following the Battle of Hastings in October 1066. It is to a close reading of these flora, fauna, characters, and built structures, combined with a detailed study of the fabric itself, that Gale Owen-Crocker has dedicated a good part of her scholarly attention over the past thirty-five years. The results have been an impressive collection of publications which have presented new and original interpretations of several of the puzzling aspects of this venerable cloth, questions which have occupied scholars and non-academics alike for the past two and a half centuries since its rediscovery in the 1730s. Prof. Owen-Crocker has cast new light on the question of how the Tapestry was actually fabricated. By noticing seam placement, differences in stitching hands, relationship of text and image, she has been able to deduce that the Embroidery was designed by a master artist probably in conjunction with secondary artists, and then stitched and assembled by a number of embroidery teams. Her comparison of the Tapestry's images with visual sources available at the time have led her to contribute to the evidence for placing the design milieu in Canterbury with its rich manuscript resources, and to point out the similarities with images found on the triumphal columns in Rome. She also points out the long tradition of textile design which leads to the animals, birds, and mythical creatures in the borders, thereby recalling the reality of travel and trade as among the means of transmitting artistic influence. The nature of the borders of the Tapestry and their relationship to the main narrative have long been vexing questions, leading to contradictory conclusions. Believing that there is a deliberate and significant interweaving of meaning in all parts of the design, Dr Owen-Crocker has brought a new focus to our understanding and appreciation of the 'subordinate' upper and lower image friezes. She was the first to reveal how the animals which are not part of the fable sequence are not merely decorative, but in many cases mirror the emotions and actions of the main narrative at the point at which they appear. The birds in particular become 'the most immediate audience' of the story being woven together, expressing the same emotions that run through today's visitors as they observe the story of human ambition and folly, and the glory and horror of battle. Her close look at the animal-headed posts on ships,

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PREFACE

buildings, and furniture, details which are generally overlooked, suggests that these too, often reflect the emotional states of the actors in the drama. She points out that wit, irony, and sarcasm are all apparent. Prof. Owen-Crocker was among the first to carefully consider that the Tapestry may have been designed in such a way that the placement of certain privileged images was determined by a geometric template related to the method of exhibition in a specific physical space. Her close observations of the opposition of feast scenes, the Odo-Harold alignments, the linking of Harold's sea journey to Ponthieu and William's cross-channel sailing all lead her to the suggestion that the Tapestry had been designed to a square template. This offers an alternative scenario for most scholars who sec the Tapestry hung in a rectangular great hall or church's nave. Foraying into the question of narrative techniques, this collection leads us into an investigation of the body language and gestures employed by the designers to give life and meaning to the protagonists and their story. To one of her earlier studies she compares structural devices shared by the Tapestry's narrative and the Old English Beowulf poem. J.iterary connections are observed once again in a discussion of how hawks and elaborate horse-trappings are used as insignia of rank in both the poetic Battle of J\Jaldon and the images of the Bayeux Tapestry. Further observations of class structure reflected in the Tapestry's images are based on the investigation of different modes of dress which separate the aristocracy from the lower ranks, while at the same time, the common mail negates rank in the anonymity of combat. This collection of essays brings into easy access the observations of a scholar who is much concerned with what can be gleaned from close and considered scrutiny of the Bayeux Tapestry as a physical object. These writings look at the how of the Tapestry's making and the models it evokes, and introduce the reader to the humanity behind its images. This volume is a welcome complement to the studies of the ultimately unanswerable questions of dating, patronage, and purpose. It reminds scholars that in order for a masterpiece of visual art, such as the Bayeux Tapestry, to be fully understood, it must be closely observed. Only then can we get a glimpse into the mind of the people and the era that created it, bringing us closer to a comprehension and appreciation of what this embroidery has to say to us, offering a unique interaction between the medieval and modern worlds. SHIRLEY ANN BROWN

I

INTRODUCTION

The papers in this collection date to the last twenty years, and testify to my growing awareness of the sophistication of the Bayeux Tapestry; but this famous embroidery had been within my range of perception long before. When I was researching evidence of Anglo-Saxon dress for my doctoral thesis in the late 1960s and early 70s 1 I did not initially question what seemed to be a general assumption, that the clothing depicted on the Tapestry was an authentic depiction of what was actually worn in England and Normandy in the second half of the eleventh century. Since the Tapestry depicted events of the recent past and historical figures were named in its caption, it was, reasonably enough p erhaps, thought to represent 'real life'. Indeed in some details of clothing, such as the collars and belts of tunics, and the culottes of the Normans, the Tapestry differs from Anglo-Saxon manuscript depictions of secular dress, so is something of an independent witness (Chapter XI). However, Prancis Wormald had led the way in relating the art style of the Tapestry to that of Canterbury manuscript illuminators2 and Cyril H art continued to find manuscript models for details in the Bayeux Tapestry.' Close comparison with the O ld E ngli sh illustrated H exateuch, British Library MS Cotton Claudius B iv, led m e to find additional parallels (IV), and so to dismiss certain features of the Tapestry's dress as derivative. The long gowns of Duke William and Bishop Odo,

Gale R. Owen, 'Anglo-Saxon Costum e', 3 vols, unpublished PhD thesis, University of N ewcastle upon Tyne, 1976; later developed into Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Dress in All!(lo-Saxon .bngland, Manchester, University Press, 1986. T he revised edition of this m onograph took into account later archaeological and textual research to suggest a new interpretation of King Edward's dress in the opening scene of the Tapestry; GaleR. O wen-Crocker, Dress in Anglo-Saxon England: revised and enlarged edition, Woodbridge, Boydell and Brewer, 2004. I'rancis Wormald, 'Style and Design', in I'rank Stenton, ed. The Bayeux Tape.rtry, Londo n, Phaidon, 1965, pp. 25- 36. C. H art, 'The Canterbury contribution to the Bayeux Tapestry', in G. de Boe and F Verhaege, ed., Art and Symbolism in Medieval.burope - Papers of the Medieval.bttrope Bmgge 1997 Conference, V, Zellik, Belgium, Instituut voor het Archeologisch Patrimonium, 1997, 7-1 5; Cyril Hart, 'The Bayeux Tapestry and schools of illumination at Canterbury', A nglo-Norman Studies, 22, 1999, pp. 117-67; C.R.I-Iart, 'Carolingian Motifs from the School of Ivory Carving at Canterbury', in Guido Helmig, Barbara Scholkmann and Matthias Untermann, ed., Centre, Region, Periphery. Papers of the Third International Conference of Medieval and Later Archaeology. Medieval Europe Basel2002 1, Basel, Switzerland, 1\BBS, 2002, pp. 302- 6 revised and reprinted in C.R. H art, Learning and Culture in Late Anglo-Saxon England and the Influence of Ramsry Abbey on the M ajor Monastic Schools, 2 vols, Lewiston, ;-..JY, Ed\\cin Mellon Press, 2003 1. pp. 563- 76; C.R. H art, 'The Cicero-Aratea and the Bayeux Tapestry' in GaleR. Owen-Crocker, ed., Kitzl!, TTarold TT and the Bayeux Tape.rtry, Woodbridge, Boydell, 2005, pp. 161- 78.

I XlV

INTRODUCTION

seated at conference, when recognised as being derived from illustrations of biblical narrative, were no longer firm evidence that kings and their circle were wearing long garments in eleventh-century England and Normandy (though they may have done); within the context of the Tapestry, however, they are to be read as emblematic of power (XII). Mary Carruthers's work on medieval methods of study and visual memorisation has demonstrated how thoroughly a student would have 'learned' a manuscript in his library. 4 Therefore where images in the Tapestry were recognised as being taken from manuscript models, it seemed to me that they would not have been borrowed at random or in isolation. It was a natural step to read the surrounding text of the manuscripts in an attempt to follow the Tapestry designer's train of thought in borrowing a particular image. The exercise revealed potential subtext and ironies. For example, that the Norman brothers' two appearances in long gowns derive, respectively, from the Hexateuch's depiction of Lot's potential sons-in-law, inhabitants of Sodom, and of Pharaoh and his councillors sitting in judgement, and indeed passing the death sentence, suggests a subversive and condemnatory view of the new Norman masters on the part of the Tapestry's designer. The association of picture with text would be enough to damn the Normans, thus depicted, by any member of the St Augustine's, Canterbury, house who 'knew' the Hexateuch. Probably Norman newcomers and visitors would not be interested in the manuscript since it was written in English, a language which immediately lost prestige at the Conquest, in favour of written Latin and spoken French, therefore the designer's boldness would probably not be found out by the patron or recipient of the Tapestry, who was almost certainly Norman (IV). This method of 'reading' the Tapestry designer's intention through his employment of models did not stop at costume. Reproduction of attitudes and gestures by the actors in the Tapestry (XIV), copying of different styles of architecture, and the borrowing of whole scenes along with their associated action and properties seemed to me not merely a m echanical re-use of models by a lazy or respectful artist. The choice, and the juxtaposition of items, seemed to open up the possibility of getting into the mind of the eleventh-century designer. Commentators on the Tapestry have in the past assumed, and continue to assume, that there was one Tapestry 'artist' who had laid out the cartoon that the embroiderers followed faithfully. Close study of the Tapestry's costumes, however, soon convinced me that not only had the embroiderers sometimes misunderstood the guidelines, creating anomalous features such as an archer's quiver slung between his legs; but that there was more than one artist at work. There was certainly an overriding 'House Style'; and it was style similar to that found in illustrated

MaryJ. Carruthers, The Book rf A1emory: a study rfmemory in medieval culture, Cambridge, University Press, 1990.

I INTRODUCTION

XV

manuscripts originating at St Augustine's, Canterbury, particularly Cotton Claudius B iv (the Hexateuch) and Cotton Tiberius B v (which includes an illustrated Calendar with active human figures), and probably other manuscripts from the nearby Christ Church Cathedral, Canterbury; but close scrutiny suggested different hands creating different parts of the cartoon. One particular subordinate hand had drawn angularlooking costumes, experimented with perspective, not quite successfully, and manifested a clownish sense of humour. This artist evidently had some freedom to expand the narrative content, and in doing so evidently had access to different source material from that generally utilised in the Tapestry. Building on the work of Otto-Karl Werkmeister, 5 I became convinced that this artist was employing a Roman model, probably indirectly; and seemingly from the sketches of someone who had not copied his sources very skilfully. The chief of these sources was clearly Trajan's Column in Rome, and I found more borrowings from it than had been previously noted, both by studying photographs and by peering at the bottom of the frieze on the surviving monument from the Via dei Fori Imperiali which is about the level of the top of the plinth (V). Subordinate artist or artists apart, I am convinced that the Bayeux Tapestry has an overriding and meaningful design, the product of a single designer or a closely integrated team. There has been an assumption that the Tapestry was a sort of organic entity, the narrative of which progressed erratically and digressively to the culmination that was Duke William's victory over King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings. If, as once romantically imagined, it was the product of the court of the Duchess Matilda, engaged, Penelope-like, in textile work until her man came home, it might have been understandable that scenes were added at whim to prolong the task. However, with a background in medieval literature, I was aware that the Old English poem Reowuffhad once been condemned as digressive and unsteady, but had come through this critical wilderness to be revealed as a masterpiece of p rolepsis and echo, of ring structures both micro and macro, its digressions no longer condemned as interruptions but re-interpreted as semiosis. 6 The Bayeux Tapestry had been compared to literature before, specifically to French chansons de geste/ but, with the dating of Beowuif thrown wide open in recent debate, and my

O.K. Werkmeister, 'The political ideology of the Bayeux Tapestry', Stttdi lvfedievali, 3rd series, XVII, 1976, pp. 535-95 plus plates esp. 554-63. See GaleR. Owen-Crocker, The Four Funerals in Bemvulf and the Structure rrf the Poem, Manchester, University Press, 2000, paperback 2009. C.R. Dodwell, 'The Bayeux Tapestry and the Prench secular epic', The Burlin,p,tonlVft{~azine, 108, 1966, 549-60; llichard Brilliant, 'The Bayeux Tapestry; a stripped narrative for their eyes and ears', Word and Image 7, 1991, pp. 93- 125, reprinted in llichard Gameson, ed., The Stuc!J rrf the Bqyettx Tapestry, Boydell, Woodbridge, 1997, pp. 111- 37. For the suggestion that a specific image in the Bayeux Tapestry references The Sortg of Roland, see Shirley Ann Brown, 'Cognate Imagery: the Bear, Harold and the Bayeux Tapestry', in Owen-Crocker, King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry, pp. 149- 60.

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INTRODUCTION

own op11110n favouring a late (eleventh-century) date for the compilation of the poem as we have it today, it seemed likely that the composition of the great Old English poem and the great masterpiece of Anglo-Norman art might not be so far apart as art historians had supposed. A comparison of the narrative structure of the two proved profitable. The apparently wandering narrative and repetitive images of the Tapestry can be interpreted in terms of rhetorical techniques associated with story telling (VII) and individual details, and inversions or repetitions of them, may be seen as significant (XIII, XV). I became convinced, initially by the relative positions of the feasting scenes, that the Tapestry, like the great pages of AngloSaxon illuminated manuscripts, was a geometric composition. Laying out a pull-out facsimile in a square, with the feast scenes opposite one another and Harold's oath in Odo's church opposite Odo's gallop onto the battlefield in Harold's kingdom making the other two arms of a central cross, I saw a series of interrelationships across the composition (VIII). The most important perhaps, was that Harold's arrival in Prance lay opposite William's invasion of England, turning the puzzling, digressive opening of Harold's adventures in France and N ormandy into a prolepsis for the N orman invasion of England. 8 This exercise produced the confirmatory result of the first seam occurring at the first corner, an effect I had not contrived. It also produced the apparent oddity that the opening scene lay part way along one wall, rather than at a corner. My design diagram, when displayed at the Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, produced a supportive response that I had not anticipated: architectural historians in the audience assured me that what I had drawn corresponded to a square Norman keep, with a corner staircase. Chris Henige later developed the idea into a concrete proposal that the Tapestry was made for Dover Castle. 9 I make no claims about how the Tapestry was displayed, but I remain convinced that it was designed in a square, and probably measured to fit a specific location, though, given that textile hangings were easily moved, it was probably always intended to be peripatetic along with its owner's household. The establishment of a Project to document all surviving medieval textiles of the British Isles up to 1450, a joint venture between Dr Elizabeth Coatsworth of Manchester Metropolitan University and myself, led me to think about the Tapestry specifically as a textile. The evidence of borrowing from images in Canterbury manuscripts made it fairly certain that the design was English, and Old English

Developed in a keynote lecture at the conference of the International Society of AngloSaxonists in 2009. Publication forthco ming as Gale R. Owen-Crocker, ' ... Veli.r tJettto pletti.r .... Sea crossings in the Bayeux Tapestry', in The 1vfaritime World of the Attglo-Saxotts, ed. William Schipper, Stacy S. K1ein, and Shannon Lewis-Simpson, Essays in Anglo-Saxon Studies 4, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, xxx. Tempe, AZ: }crizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2013. Chris Henige, 'Putting the Bayeux Tapestry in its place', in Owen-Crocker, King H arold 11 attd the Bayeux TapeshJ', pp. 125- 37.

I INTRODUCTION

xvii

letters in the Latin inscription indicate that it was an English-trained scribe who wrote it (VI). 10 Unless and until scientific tests prove otherwise, it seems reasonable to suppose that the base cloth, embroidery threads and needlework were also made in England and the Tapestry was therefore included in our corpus. 11 As such it was of major importance, since many of the pre-11 00 textiles to survive were mere fragments. The Bayeux Tapestry is not only the largest surviving textile, it is also the largest non-architectural medieval artefact of any kind. Its survival is remarkable given the inherent fragility of cloth and the general practice of recycling it. The Tapestry is not made of the kind of precious materials - silk and gold thread which caused early medieval textiles to be recorded in inventories of gifts. Its more mundane materials- linen and wool- may partially account for its survival, when more obviously 'precious' textiles were burned to recover the gold when they became outdated or shabby. It is probably a rare survivor of a type of soft furnishing that was relatively common in upper class dwellings, but its proportions can never have been usual. Its sheer length (68.38m in its present, incomplete state) demanded a room of great size, and therefore an owner of great status. It was indeed the proportions of the hanging that were emphasised by the author of the 1476 Inventory of Bayeux Cathedral which is our earliest definite reference to the Bayeux Tapestry's existence: 'une tente tres longue & estroit ... '. 12 My own interest in textile led me to examine the relationship between the Tapestry's nearly invisible seams and the graphic scenes which were laid out on it, and to identify what seemed to be a development in technique in concealing the seams, as the work progressed. This in turn revealed apparent collaboration between workshops, in which one workshop left another to complete border work (II). It was also an interest in transmission of textile techniques and designs that contributed to my interest in the borders of the Tapestry (X). These narrow strips, above and below the narrative register, largely consist of animals, birds and imaginary creatures, normally arranged in pairs alternating with vegetal ornament, a pattern often interrupted by fables and other miniature 'scenes'. As regards these border 'scenes', borrowing from manuscript models, a practice well-attested for the main register, seems also to have occurred here, both manifestly and arguably: the 'bird-scaring' episode is certainly borrowed from the Old English illustrated Hexateuch; whereas depictions of Aesop's fables and certain border creatures, such as the amphisboena, are likely to have been borrowed from manuscript illustrations

10 Some spellings in the inscription suggest that the person who dictated the Latin may have had a :'\lorman vocabulary and pronunciation. 11 See Elizabeth Coatsworth and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Medieval Textiles of the Briti.rh J.rles A D 450-1100: att Annotated Flibliograpf?y, British Archaeological Reports, British Series 445, Oxford, Archaeopress, 2007, p. 18. 12 Simone Bertrand, La Tapi.r.rerie de Ba_yeux et fa maniere de vivre au onzieme siec!e, Glossaire Bayeux; introductions a Ia nuit de temps, 2, La Pierre-qui-Vire, Z odiac, 1966, p. 19, n.S.

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INTRODUCTION

which are now lost to us. Tapestry scholars have disagreed over whether the borders are merely decorative or whether they reflect, even comment upon, the narrative in the main register. In investigating them I became aware that there was an apparent desire to make each border creature different in colour and attitude, rather than to produce a mechanical repetition (III). It seemed to me that not only were border 'scenes' potentially commenting on the action in the main register, but that some of the border animals and birds might also be seen as commentators, and that they were sometimes subversive and occasionally witty creations (IX). 13 Comments on the Tapestry as textile were confined to what could be observed from the front, since the back was concealed by a lining and backing cloth, 14 until the reverse of the embroidered panel was exposed and examined in the winter of 1982-83, after which it was re-mounted and the back concealed again. The results of the 1982 investigation took a very long time to reach the general public and were frustratingly economical when they did so. The findings were revealed to a conference audience only in 1999 and were not published until 2004, when they appeared in a major boo k, in which 'The Artefact as Textile' was only one o f five sections, alongside historiography and the historical and artistic importance of the Tapestry. 15 Major new points about the textile published at this time included precise measurements;16 the identification of nine pieces of linen (rather than eight, as previously thought), though the position of the newly-found eighth seam was not directly stated and has to be worked out from the measurements of separate lengths. (It is only by careful observation of photographs of the back of the Tapestry that the exact position and the fact this final seam is not a straight line like the others, but a 'dog-leg', become apparent.) 17 It was noted that the linen is SOcm wide, with selvedge at the bottom edge of five pieces, and suggested that the linen strip was

l.l See also GaleR. Owen-Crocker, 'Les animaux dccoratifs de la Tapisserie de Bayeux: sources et fonction' in La Tapisserie de Bqyeux: une chronique des temps Vikit\gs? ed. Sylvette Lemagnen, Bonsecours, Point de Vues, 2009, pp. 129- 41. 14 Observations were largely confined to the fact that the Tapestry is wool embroidery on linen, and that the stitching is stem and laid-and-couched work, facts stated in many publications. The most detailed work on the Tapestry as textiles appeared in Bertrand, La Tapisserie de Bayeux et Ia maniere de z!fvre au onziiime siiicie. 15 See especially I sabelle Bedat and Beatrice Girault-Kurtzeman, 'The Technical Study of the Bayeux Tapestry', in Pierre Bouet, Brian Levy and Fran0

VI

27

26

25

24

VBI

23

.,.

LES:-

INLECTO: ALLOQVIT:FIDE

hiC eADVVARDVS:REX

PETRI APd

REGIS:AD:eCCLeSIAM:SCI

TVR:CORPVS:EADWARDI:

hiC PORTA

ReGe M:-

ET VENIT:AD:eDVVARDV:-

ADANGLICAM:TERRAM :-

ReVERSUS: eST

hiChAROL D:DVX:-

VVILLeLMO DVCI :-

FECIT:-

hAROLD:SACRAMeNTVM:

hleVVILLEL M VeNIT:BAGIAS

ARMA

DeDIT: HA ROL DO:

hiC:WILLeLM:

22

21

Eadwardus Rex lee to fidele s

corpus Eadwardi Regis ecclesiam S[an]c[t]i Petri Ap[osto)li

Here the body of King Edward is carried to the church of St. Peter the Apostle.

Here King Edward in bed speaks to the faithful

Edwardu[m) Regem

and came to King Edward .

Harold Dux terram

Harold sacramentum Willelmo Duci

where Harold made an oath to Duke William.

Here Duke Harold returned to England

Wille 1m Bagias

Wille 1m Haroldo arm a

[Here) William came to Bayeux

Here William gave arms to Harold.

in

ad

ad

ad

Anglicam

alloquit[ur]

portatur

venit

hie

hie

et

hie

ubi

fecit

reversus est

hie (sic)

hie

venit

dedit

0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

-

0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

--

0 0

0 0

- -

-

. .: .. . .-

....... .... .

0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

.... ....

I

.....

..f::>.

VI

~-

36

35

hiC:NAVIS:ANGLI

34

- ---

RE:-

h!C TRAhVl'lf:NA VES:ADMA

NA V£S : EDI FICARE:

HIC:WILL£LM DVX:IVSSIT

WILL£LMI:DV CIS

CA:VENIT.INT£R RAM

hAROLD

33

Here ships are dragged to the sea.

Here Duke William commanded ships to be built.

Here an English ship came to the land of Duke William.

Harold

These [people] wonder at the star.

ISTIMIRANT STELLA

32

Here sits Harold, king of the English. Archbishop Stigand None

ARCh! EPS

STIGANT

R£X:AN GLORVM:

hiCR£ SIDET:hAROLD

Here they have given the king's crown to Harold.

and here he is dead.

Translation

31

30

CORONA: REGIS

.A.

hiC DEDERVNT:hAROLDO:

£ST

EThl C: DEFVNC TVS

28

29

Inscription

Sc

naves mare

Willelm Dux naves

navis terram Willelmi Due is

Harold

isti stella[m]

Harold Rex Anglorum Stigant Archiep[iscopu ]s

Haroldo corona[m] regis

Noun or Pronoun

ad

In

Prep

Anglica

defunctus

Adj

trahunt[ ur]

iussit edificare

venit

mirant

residet

dederunt

est

Verb

hie

hie

hie

hie

hie

et hie

Advor Conjun

.. . . .: . ...-

...... .. .

.. ... . .. .... ..

Symbol

1-J

..(::>.

VI

£ThiC:MI LITES: FESTINA VERY NT:h£STINGA:

40

hiC:COQVI TVR:CARO

42

hiCFECERVN':PRANDIVM: ET·hiC.EPISCOPVS:CIBV:ET:

POTV: BENE DICIT_:_ ___ _

43

_

MINISTRI

EThiC: MINISTRAV£RVN'

HIC:EST:VVAD AR D:

41

VTCIBVM.RAPER£NTVR:

hiC £X£VNT:CABALLI D£NAVIBVS·-

ADP£VEN SA::-

TRAN SIVIT ETVENIT

thJC:VVILL ELM: DVX INMAGN O:NAVIGIO: MAR£

CVMVINO:ETARM IS:-

eThiC TRAhVNT CARRV·M

ISTI PORTANT:ARMAS:ADNAV£S:

39

38

37

bishop blesses the _ ~ and drink.

Here they made a

~eal and here the

Here meat is cooked ~nd here they waited on. Waiters

Here is Wadard.

and here soldiers hast~ned to Hastmgs to plunder food.

Here horses get out of the ships

big ship and came to Pevensey.

c~osse? the sea in a

Here Duke William

These [people) carry arms to the ships and here drag a cart with wine and arms.

prandium episeopus Cibu[m) potu[m]

earo ministri

Wadard

cibum

~estinga

milites

caballi navibus

Pevensre

Willelm Du~ . navigiO mare

isti armas naves carrum vino armis

de

in

ad cum

magno

fecerunt benedieit

eoquitur ministraverunt

est

festinaverunt raperentur

exeunt

transivit venit

portent trahunt

hie et hie et

hie et hie

hie

et hie ut

hie

hie et

et hie et

• , •• , • • • • • • • • • •

••• • • •

, , ,

...

: : : : • ;

•• _ •

• • • • •

t , , , , ._

•••••• _ • • • • •

-1>VJ

VI

49

48

47

46

45

ODO:EPS: ROTBERT:-

44

HAROLD I

TV

DISSET EX£R CI

INTERROGAT:VITAL: SIVI

HIC:V VILL£LM :DVX

DVM·REGE :

ADPR£LIVM:CON TRA:hAROL

ET:VENE R VNT

EXI£RVNT:D£hEST£NGA:

hiC:MILI TE s:

CEN DITVR:

hiC DOMVS:IN

WILLELi{l! DEhARO LD:

HIC:NVN TIATVMES T:

AT·HESTENGA CEASTRA

DERETVR:CASTELLVM:

1ST£· IV SSIT:VTFO

WIL LELM:

Inscription

Sc

iste castell urn Hestenga ceastra

This [man] has commanded that a castle should be thrown up at Hastings. Castle

Here Duke William questions Vital if he has seen Harold's army.

Here soldiers left Hastings and came to the fight against King Harold.

Here a house is set on fire.

Wille 1m Dux Vital exereitu[m] Haroldi

milites Hestenga prelium Haroldum Rege

domus

Willelmo Harold

Odo ep[iseopu]s Rotbert Willelm

Bishop Odo, Robert, William

Here [information] is reported to William about Harold.

Noun or Pronoun

Translation

de ad contra

de

at

Prep

Adj

interrogat vidisset

exierunt venerunt

incenditur

nuntiatum est

iussit foderetur

Verb

hie si

hie est

hie

hie

Adv or Conjun

.... ....

.. .. ........ . . . . . . . .:

... ...

.: : : .

...- ..

Symbol

""" """

VI

54

53

52

51

50

ROS

PVE

TAT

TENENS: CONFOR:-

hi C-O DO EPS:BACVL y.

NCI:INPRELIO:-

SIMVL:ANGLI ET FRA

hiC CECI DERVN'

S:hARO L Dl REGIS:

LEVVINO ET:GYRD:FRATRE

hiC CECI DERVN T

TV

CON'RA:AN GLORVM EXER Cl

ETSAPIENTE R: ADPRE LIVM:

PREPARA REN'SE: VI RILl TER

TVR:SV IS:MILITI BVS:VT·

HIC WILL ELM:DVX ALLOQVI

DVCIS

VVILELMI

CITY

REGE DEEXER

ISTE NVNTIA T:HA RO LDVM

Here Bishop Odo, holding his staff, ' encourages' the boys.

Here English and French were killed at the same time in the fight.

Here Leofwine and Gyrth, brothers of King Harold, were killed.

Here Duke William exhorts his soldiers that they should prepare themselves manfully and wisely for the fight against the English army.

This [man] reports to King Harold about Duke William's army.

Odo Ep[iscopu ]s baculu[m] pueros

Angli Franci prelio

Lewine Gyro fratres Haroldi Regis

Willelm Dux se prelium Anglorum exercitu[m]

iste Haroldum rege[m] exercitu[ m] Wilelmi Ducis

in

ad contra

de

tenens confortat

ceciderunt

ceciderunt

alloquitur prepararent

nuntiat

hie

hie simul et

hie et

hie ut viriliter sapienter

. : . : :-

... ... -

.... ....

..... . . . . .: ... ...

..

I

..j:o. Vl

VI

58

57

56

hiCEST:- DVX

55

-- - --

ETFVGA:VE RTERVN' ANGLI

TYS:EST

INTERFEC

hiC hARO L D:-REX:-

hAROLDO:-

DE RVNT QYIERANT:CYM

hiC:FRAN Cl PVGNAN' ETCECI

ECIVS

VVILEb

Inscription

Sc

fuga Angli

Harold Rex

Here King Harold has been killed

and the English have turned to flight.

Franci qui Haroldo

Dux Wilel[m] E . .. cius

Here is Duke William [?] Eustace Here the French fight and have killed those who were with Harold.

Noun or Pronoun

Translation

cum

Prep

Adj

verterunt

interfeetus est

pugnant ceciderunt erant

est

Verb

et

hie

hie et

hie

Advor Conjun

.

..- ..- ..

.. .. -

..-

Symbol

+> a-.

VI

VI Text in the Bayeux Tapestry

47

ET hlC: TRANSIERVNT: FLVMEN: cosNONlS.: f~E:NER~

h IC hAROlD:DVX: TRAhEBAT~EOS.

··-----o-: =

DeARENA

)

Fig. 2.1: The Bayeux Tapestry, Scene 17: " ... and here they crossed the River Couesnon. Here Duke Harold pulled them from the sand." At the right edge is a portion of Scene 18, with caption beginning "And they came ... " Illustrations by GaleR. Owen-Crocker, after David M. Wilson, The Bayeux Tapestry (London: Thames and Hudson, 1985).

bars (fig. 2. 1). This might invite us to consider whether the two lower lines, in part smaller, and rather wobbly in arrangement, were an addition to fill the empty space in the graphics, and written by a different person. The absence of any remains of the original cartoon, replaced by embroidery which itself may have been executed by different hands, necessarily complicates the issue of distinguishing scribes, at this point and throughout the Tapestry. Nevertheless, occasional clues suggest that parts of the inscription were laid out by different people. For example, the tituJi at Scenes 12 and 38 each open with a cross. '4 It was quite normal practice for Anglo-Saxon inscriptions to begin with a cross,rs but crosses part way through an inscription are not usual. The cross and Scene 38 immediately follow the third seam (Wilson, plate 39); the insertion of a cross suggests that someone began his task at this point and that the workshop producing the fourth section was different from that working on the third. It may be significant that the inscription to Scene 37, which concludes the third piece oflinen, is neatly but tightly spaced into three tiers which finish in line with the last figure in the graphics, just before the end ofthe piece oflinen. The inscription concludes with the two-dots-and-a-dash punctuation mark which is sometimes used elsewhere in the Tapestry to indicate that there is more to come (see fig. 2.2). The inscription following the cross is more spread out. 14 The scenes are numbered in an early modern hand on the linen backcloth of the Tapestty and

may be found in the folding reproductions published by the Ville de Bayeux titled La Tapisserie de Bayeux, which present the Tapestry as a continuous frieze. Plate numbers cited in this article are from the colour facsimile, Wilson, The Bayeux Tapestry. I 5 There is no cross at the opening of the Tapestry. However, the beginning is heavily restored and some details may have been lost.

VI

·IV =

Fig. 2.2: The Bayeux Tapestry, Scene 44 and the beginning of Scene 45: "Bishop Odo, Robert, William. This man ... "The two-dots-and-a-dash sign indicates that the caption to Scene 44 is continued on the line below and distinguishes it from the start of the caption of the next scene.

Scene 12 (Wilson, plate 12) is more complicated: The cross opens the penultimate section of the inscription on the first piece oflinen, preceding the first seam by some distance. It seems that a different writer took over the inscription at this point and saw himself as beginning here; or that the same scribe began a new stint of work here. The upper border has dipped at this point and the birds and beasts depicted in it are large. The inscription is accordingly forced into smaller letters and is vety intermittent, being fitted in round a tree, a sword, hands, spears, and birds' heads. It seems likely that the first workshop completed the main register and the upper border, leaving the inscription (and possibly the lower border) incomplete.'6 The inscription may have been filled in by the scribe of the second workshop, which was responsible for the second section oflinen and for joining it to the first; but without seeing the back of the Tapestty, one cannot ascertain if the inscription at this point was stitched independently of the main register, which would support my point ' 7 16 Gale R. Owen-Crocker, "The Bayeux 'Tapestry': Invisible Seams and Visible Boundaries," Anglo-Saxon England 31 (2002): 257-73, at 262-63. 17 The back of the Tapestry is covered by a lining, and the whole object is enclosed in a climatecontrolled display case at all times. The back was photographed in 1982-83, but only a few of the photographs have been published. Bedat and Girault-Kurtzeman ("Technical Study," 97) assert "the entire embroidered strip (upper and lower borders, inscriptions and central scenes) was embroidered at the same time," but on the evidence of published images I remain unconvinced about the borders and open-minded about the consistency of method throughout the Tapestry.

VI Text in the Bayeux Tapestry

49

There is a major change in the embroidery at Scene 43 (Wilson, plate 48), soon after the fourth seam, when the lettering starts to be written in alternate red and black, an innovation which suggests a new workshop. Scene 43, though it does not advance the narrative, is important structurally, as I have demonstrated elsewhere.'8 Its inscription, ETHIC EPISCOPVS CIBV[M] ET POTV[M] BENEDICIT, "and here the bishop blesses the food and drink," is very upright and large. This contrasts with the smaller, sloping letters of HIC FECERVNT PRANDIVM, "Here they made a meal," which precedes it. The difference indicates the adjacent tituli were the work ofdifferent hands. '9 I have suggested elsewhere 20 that the scenes of pillage and food preparation were not original to the Tapestry design but were inserted to make the feast appear at a specific, measured point. This part of the inscription, then, may also have been an afterthought. The contrasting colours continue, sometimes in blocks of alternating letters, sometimes with a word or two in each colour. At Scene 52 (Wilson, plate 63), the first new titulus after the sixth seam,>' the colours change to black and yellow with intermittent red letters. They continue, mostly in letters of alternating colour, until Scene 57, Harold's death (Wilson, plate 71). At this point green is introduced to the inscription and there are some words in black, some in the lighter greenish shade, to the present limit of the Tapestry. (The end is missing.) The change of colour at Scene 57 may, again, relate to a different production team: The episode of Harold's death also contains a seam, the eighth, although it is invisible from the front ofthe Tapestry. 22

LETIERING, lAYOUT, AND PUNCTUATION: CONTRASTS, PARALLELS, AND INDIVIDUALITY The demonstrable relationship between the Tapestry's images and illuminated manuscripts naturally invites comparison between the Tapestry inscription and manuscript writing. However, the inscription omits some features found in manuscript text The Tapestry does not use litterae notabiliores (larger or decorated letters) 2 3 to I8 Gale R. Owen-Crocker, "Telling a Tale: Narrative Techniques in the Bayeux Tapestry and the Old English Epic Beowulf," in Medieval Art: Recent Perspectives: A Memorial Tribute to C. R. Dodwell, ed. Owen-Crocker and Timothy Graham (Manchester: Manchester University Press, I998), 40-59, at 52-54; Owen-Crocker, "Brothers, Rivals and the Geometry of the Bayeux Tapestry," in Owen-Crocker, King Harold II, I09-I23, at I I 5-I6. 19 An alternative possibility is that the inscription of Hie fecervnt prandivm was set out using a template (perhaps leather) which had got pulled out of shape. 20 Owen-Crocker, "Brothers, Rivals," I 20. 2 I f.xercitv[m], the last word of the preceding titulus, is embroidered in black, after the seam. 22 The eighth seam is said to be 2.43 metres (8 feet) from the end; Bedat and Girault-Kurtzeman, "Technical Study," 86, diagram 1. This is based on an overall measurement of 68.38 metres (224 feet 4 inches). However, other published measurements and the measurements of the facsimiles from which scholars are obliged to work vary considerably, according to the tension of the Tapestry in different situations, and the exact position of this seam is not clear to me. 23 M. B. Parkes, Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West (Aldershot Scolar, I 992), 305.

VI

so mark the opening of the inscription or any of its parts, 2 4 and although the text is expressed in short statements, the layout does not reflect that structure as it would in a liturgical text, 2 5 since the long narrow shape of the frieze demands that in all but a few cases the text be written in a continuous line. Rather, the Tapestry writing resembles inscriptions on stone sculptures. There is a particularly close parallel in the text on an eleventh-century grave-cover found at St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, where the Tapestry itself was probably designed. 26 The incised letters on the grave-cover, predominantly Roman capitals "made up of slender, even strokes which terminate in small serifs," 27 would have appeared very similar to those of the Tapestry especially if the writing was picked out in colour, a possibility strongly suggested from the evidence of paint remaining on more than a third of Anglo-Saxon sculptures in southeast England. 28 Like the Tapestry, the St Augustine's carving includes uncial lettering. 2 9 The Tapestry uses some marks of punctuation which are found in manuscripts, especially the punctus (a single point), the double punctus (colon), and variants ofthe two-dots-and-a-dash ( :-) or two-dots-and-a-tilde (:-) combination. The latter sometimes functions as a symbol ofcontinuation, especially where the text follows on beneath, which is unusual in the Tapestry as a whole (see fig. 2.2, also Scene Is; Wilson, plate I 7 ), and sometimes where there is continuous action over several graphic images, as at Scenes 24-25 (Wilson, plates 26-28). In other places, such as at the end of Scene 25 (Wilson, plate 29), the symbol seems to be used simply as an alternative to the double punctus, discussed below. In general, the symbols are not used syntactically as in literary or liturgical manuscripts. Instead the text is laid out in continuous script3° with a double punctus often used to mark word division. In this respect the Tapestry 24 Clemoes, "Language in Context," 35 n. 28, notes that in the successive instances of Her in the Parker Chronicle, "each initial H was made prominent by size, shape, and spacing," whereas there is no such treatment of the successive Hie in the Tapestcy. 2 5 Liturgical text is arranged per cola et commata, a format by which "at the beginning of each breath group a new line was started, new lines not corresponding to such a beginning being indented." Peter Clemoes, Liturgical Influence on Punctuation in Late Old English and Early Middle English Manuscripts, Old English Newsletter Subsidia 4 ( 1 952; reprinted and corrected, Binghamton, NY: CEMERS SUNY-Binghamton, 1980), 10. 26 St. Augustine's 2; Dominic Tweddle, Martin Biddle, and Birthe Kjolbye-Biddle, Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, vol. 4, South-East England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 128-31, ills. 24-28. 27 John Higgitt, "The Inscriptions in Latin Lettering," in Tweddle, Biddle, and Kj0lbye-Biddle, Corpus, 108-113, at 113. 28 Ibid. 29 The e of the last word, fecit, is uncial; Tweddle, Biddle, and Kj0lbye-Biddle, Corpus, ill. 28. Mixed lettering appears to be typical of sculpture at this period in southeast England: an eleventh-century carving in Old English from London (All Hallows 1) includes a half-uncial letter and the runic "wynn" among its Roman capitals; and a Latin inscription on an AngloNorman grave-cover from Stratfield Mortimer, Berkshire, uses Old English "ash" and "wynn" (219, 336). 30 This scriptio continua, in which words were divided by points known as "interpuncts," had been used in older Latin manuscripts but is not characteristic of early medieval manuscript writing. Parkes, Pause and Effect, 10.

VI Text in the Bayeux Tapestry again used a technique found in contemporary sculptured inscriptions, rather than contemporary manuscript writingY The Tapestry scribe, or the embroiderers, did however use certain individual symbols in a way which, I suggest, reflects the emphasis the makers placed on persons and events. Three times the early appearance of Harold, the future English king, is marked by a symbol consisting of three dots in a triangular shape (Scenes 4 and 6; Wilson, plates 4, 6). A triple punctus (three dots arranged vertically), which is not in the usual scribal repertoire, marks the journey of Harold three times at Scene 2 (Wilson, plate 2) and occurs at other points, with slight variations, marking out William, the death of King Edward, the order to build ships, the capture of food supplies, and the opening ofWilliam's viriliter et sapienter speech (Scenes 14, 27, 3 5, 40, 5 r; Wilson, plates r 5-16, 30, 34, 45, 58). Most are significant occasions: William and Harold, the major protagonists of the narrative, are here depicted riding in some splendour, while the deathbed of King Edward, the decision to invade England, and the invasion's culmination in the Battle of Hastings were major events in recent history. Only the capture of food supplies is mundane; but if we recall that the Norman pillage was at the expense of the English, the matter was not unimportant to them, and the triple mark may have given it an ironic emphasis. The embroiderers also evidently expressed themselves by utilising a greater variety of embroidery stitches than has been hitherto appreciated. Until very recently, it was assumed that embroidery in chain stitch and split stitch was not original to the Tapestry, and that any work in these stitches should be identified as repair and reconstruction. A technical study of the Tapestry published in 2004 provides evidence to the contraryY The study includes an analysis of the stitching employed on the inscription HIC DEDERVNT HAROLDO CORONA[M] REGIS, "Here they have given Harold the king's crown" (Scene 29, fig. 2.3). While most of the Tapestry's inscription is worked in a single row of stem stitch, this statement that Harold was given the crown shows some special effect in almost every letter, variously double stem stitch, chain stitch, double chain stitch, and split stitch. Only the g and s of REGIS are simple stem stitch.33 Furthermore, uniquely in the Tapestry, this titulus uses a "suspension" to indicate abbreviation over the A of CORONA. Elsewhere the Tapestry uses a straight horizontal bar to indicate the nasal inflexion (M), but this sign, which resembles a little crown, may be a deliberate witticism or emphasis. Not only was Harold's reception of the crown the climax of the career of the last English king, it was an important issue politically that Harold did not seize the crown but was offered it by the councillors of the land. Immediately after Harold's coronation, the threatening appearance of Halley's comet in the upper border is explained by ISTE MIRA NT STELLA[M], also placed in 31 The continuous script divided by colons is found, for example, on the St. Augustine's gravecover (see note 26) and also on a roughly contemporary runic inscription on a grave-marker from St Paul's Cathedral, London. Tweddle, Biddle, and Kj0lbye-Biddle, Corpus, 226, ill. 350. 32 Bedat and Girault-Kurtzeman, "Technical Study," 93· 33 Bedat and Girault-Kurtzeman, "Technical Study," 96, diagram 4·

VI

Fig. 2.3: The Bayeux Tapestcy, Scene 29: "Here they have given Harold the king's crown."

the border. Here the lettering, which has been monochrome black up to this point, becomes two-tone, yellow and a dark colour (possibly green), with only the two Ls of STELLA[M] monochrome; however, the Ls are not black, but yellow, like the tail of the adjacent comet. The two-tone effect is continued in the first three letters of HAROLD, the name above the heads of the distressed king and the man who speaks to him urgently, no doubt interpreting the celestial occurrence in pessimistic terms. It seems that the embroiderers appreciated the importance of these scenes and enhanced them with their own sign language. This differed from the way manuscript scribes typically enhanced their writing (with attention to initial letters or special decoration appended to the letters), and included a wider range of"special effects" than was available to the sculptor in stone. It is now clear that experiment and creativity played a larger part in the embroidery work than was previously believed. Examination of facsimiles shows that, as with Scene 29, some letters elsewhere in the inscription are clearly not in single stem stitch (for example, in fig. 2 . 1, the thick letters of COSNONIS and the diagonal of the first N in VENERVNT); these effects may or may not reflect thematic significance. There is clearly research to be done on

VI Text in the Bayeux Tapestry

53

this matter, but until the photographs of the back of the Tapestry are made available, observations can only be tentative.

FUNCTION AND POSITION OF THE TEXT Much ofthe text consists of sentences characterised by the use ofwords local ising the narrative in time or place: hie ("here") and ubi ("where").34 Alternatively the inscription is used for labelling, mostly giving names. In the usual titulus position there is EDWARD REX at the start and an isolated HAROLD as the Englishman stands in his ship, and again as the comet threatens his reign. What may be the torn remains of the name Eustacius ( E CIVS) is in the upper border of Scene 55 (Wilson, plate 68).35 William's messengers are labelled, NVNTII WlLLELMl, at Scene II. The three seated figures ofWilliam and his brothers are named, ODO EP[ISCOPU]S ROTBERT WILLELM, at Scene 44 (fig. 2.2). The roof of the building allows little space here, and the scribe is forced to write William's name beneath it, on either side of his head. We read the scene left to right: Odo, William, and Robert; but the scribe obviously laid out the inscription in the sequence Odo, Robert, William, since he placed the two-dotsand-a-dash symbol after the name of Robert as a mark of continuation to show that there was more to come of this inscription below, distinguishing it from the titulus of the next scene, which is uncomfortably close. Other names are inserted into the main register alongside figures. The naming of Stigand, archbishop of Canterbury, at Harold's coronation (Scene 30; Wilson, plate 3I) may be deliberate anti-English propaganda. Stigand's appointment was uncanonical and he was excommunicate. Norman writers claim that Stigand crowned Harold, and hence that the coronation was invalid; but English sources suggest that Harold was well aware of Stigand's position, asserting that the archbishop ofYork officiated at the coronation, as he had done for other consecrations during Harold's reign.36 The name TVROLD, a man who was probably a vassal of Odo and later one of his tenants in Kent,37 is also inserted into the main register (Scene 10; Wilson, plate II), as is the place-name REDNES, "Rennes" (Scene I8; Wilson, plates 2I-22). ECCLES lA, "church," is rather unnecessarily written above the church at Bosham (Scene 3; Wilson, plate 3), and MlNISTRl, "waiters," next to the servants delivering the Hastings feast (Scene 42; Wilson, plate 47). The latter inscription is tautologous and somewhatclumsysincethetextabove reads ETHIC MINISTRAVERVNT, "and 34 Ubi is used in the first and second sections of linen only. Its last appearance is at Scene 23, Harold's oath, as recognised in Short, "Bayeux Tapestry Inscription," 271. 35 This interpretation is particularly advocated in Bridgeford, 1066, especially 191-93. 36 Barbara English, "The Coronation of Harold in the Bayeux Tapestry," in Bouet, Levy, and Neveux, The Bayeux Tapestry, 347-81, at 377-78. 37 Charles Prentout, "An Attempt to Identiiy Some Unknown Characters in the Bayeux Tapestry," in Gameson, Study, 21-30 (first published in 1935 as "Essai d'identification des personnages inconnus de Ia Tapisserie de Bayeux," Revue Historique 176:14-23).

VI 54 here they waited on." MINISTRI was perhaps an addition to fill space. Like the inscription following it, HIC FECERVNT PRANDIVM, "Here they made a meal," MINISTRI is in smaller letters with a pronounced slope and so may have been inscribed by a different hand. It was probably embroidered later too: It is in red, a colour which only begins to feature in the tituli (on alternate letters) above the feast itsel£38

VOCABUlARY, SYNTAX, RHETORIC Despite its length, the inscription is remarkable for the poverty of its vocabulaty and syntax. As is apparent from table 2. I, the majority ofthe words are proper nouns and titles. Adjectives are confined to the necessaty "English" (twice), "dead," some possessives meaning "his," the numeral unus, perhaps reflecting the Old English an or Old French un, both of which can mean "a certain" as well as "one"-this is at Scene I 5 where a cleric and JEifgyva stand to vex posterity39-and the sole gratuitous example, magna, recording that William crossed the Channel in a big ship. In contrast the verbs are varied and precise, unlike the allusive, flowety style of contemporaty literature: They include equitant, "they rode"; incenditur, "they set fire to"; and festinaverunt, "they hastened." Only two sections of the inscription have any rhetorical character. The first (fig. 2.4) comes as Harold crosses the sea: ET VELIS VENTO PLENIS VENIT IN TERRA WIDONIS COMITIS," and with the wind full in his sails came to the land of Count Guy."4o Not surprisingly, wind and sail are often found associated together in literature, both in Old English4' and in Latin, where the words have a pleasing alliteration (ventus and velum, respectively), which was exploited particularly in poetty4' but also in prose.43 In isolation the graphics of this scene would seem to 38 A photograph of the back of the embroidery at this point demonstrates that the stitching of MINISTRI is not connected to anything else in the scene. Bedat and Girault·Kurtzeman, "Technical Study," 97, plate 20. 39 For an up-to-date resume of theories as to the identity of IEifgyva, see Catherine E. Karkov, "Gendering the Battle? Male and Female in the Bayeux Tapestry," in Owen-Crocker, King Harold II, 139-47, at 142 n. 13. 40 Uniquely in the Tapestry, the writer inserts a double hyphen, twice (VE= =NID, to ensure that the necessary splitting of venit over two lines does not interfere with the continuity of his rhetorical burst. 41 Beowulf, lines 1905-8. F. Klaeber, ed., Beowulf and the Fight at Finnesburg, 3rd ed. (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1950), 71. 42 It can be found in Horace, Lucan, Lucretius, Ovid, and Vergil. The closest parallel to the Bayeux Tapestry text is Ovid, Metamorphoses: "Et quoniam magno feror aequore plenaque ventis I vela dedit: nihil est toto, quod perstet, in orbe" (And since I am embarked on the boundless sea and have spread my full sails to the winds, there is nothing in all the world that keeps its form). Ovid, Metamorphoses, with an English translation by Frank Justus Miller, 3rd ed., vol. 2, Loeb Classical Library, Ovid in Six Volumes 4 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press: 1984), 366-67. 43 An example is by the Anglo-Saxon scholar Bede: "uentorum furores uela non sustinent" (the sails could not resist the fury of the winds). Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, eds., Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 54-55 (!.17).

VI Text in the Bayeu.x Tapestry

55

Fig. 2+ The Bayeux Tapestl)', Scene 5: " ... and, with the wind full in his sails, came to the land of Count Guy."

suggest the English sailors were in full control, handling the anchor and posting a lookout as if they knew where they were going. The appearance of a hostile Guy of Pontieu is a complete surprise. Nothing supports William of Malmesbury's explanation that this was a fishing trip that went wrong.44 Only the caption with its reference to the wind opens the possibility that the English were blown off course. 45 The second rhetorical titulus comes at Scene 5 I (Wilson, plates 57-6 I). It paraphrases William's rallying speech immediately before the battle: HIC WILLELM DVX ALLOQYIIVR SVIS MILITIBVS VT PREPARARENT SE VIR/LITER ET SAPI ENTER AD PRELIVM CONTRA ANGLORVM EXERCI1V[M], "Here Duke William exhorts

his soldiers that they should prepare themselves manfully and wisely for the fight against the English army." This is the longest "statement" in the Tapestry and the only one to use the conjunction ut and a subordinate clause. Other captions are made continuous by the use of et ("and"), but they link parallel main clauses and bridge separate graphic scenes. Although the graphic situation is improbable-William 44 William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Ang/orum: The History of the English Kings, ed. and trans. R. A. B. Mynors, Rodney M. Thomson, and Michael Winterbottom, vol. 2, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999), 416-17 (228, 3- 4). 45 I have considered the possibility that a reference to wind in the sails could alone imply a sudden storm, since velis and ventus are often used together in this context (see the Bede quotation above, also, for example, Ovid, Metamorphoses, 154-55); but I concluded that it could not, since the formula is frequently used descriptively, and metaphorically, as in the Ovid quotation at note 42. Lucretius even uses similes of wind in the sails to explain the human body, and magnetism! See Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, with an English translation by W. H. D. Rouse, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 436-37 (Book 4, lines 896--97) and 568--v, no source has been identified for the shipwrights, but o ne might speculate that the artist could have copied a depiction of Noah and one of his sons. Noah in BL MS Cotton Claudius B iv, fol. 13', resembles Fig. 7c in posture and in being bearded, but differs in several important respects.

XI 10

Culottes, Tunics and Garters, and the Making of the Hanging

Pig. 8. The Bayeux 'Tapestry' By special permission of the town of Bayeux.

a group of Norman archers (Fig. 8, left; 60, Scene 51) demonstrates the variations an embroidress might produce. The upper, right-hand figure wears a quiver attached to a strap which passes round his waist, and, colour contrast suggests, between his legs. The figure below appears to wear the strap only round the waist. The area which in the upper figure [p. 9] represents a strap between the legs, is here part of the culottes. Yet the stem-stitched lines of the two costumes are very similar. One wonders to what extent the unique protective clothing of the archer at the top left and the armour of the bowman beneath him are the creation[s] of an embroidress working with a minimal sketch and no knowledge of what Norman archers really wore.

VII

XII

Dress and Authority in the Bayeux Tapestry*

The Bayeux Tapestry is all about a struggle for power, culminating in violence of the most grotesque kind, in the depiction of the Battle of Hastings. Before that event, however, authority, relative lack of authority, and changing states of authority are signified graphically. In the years immediately preceding the Norman Conquest, Earl Harold Godwinesson was the most powerful man in England after the king. The oldest surviving son of the immensely rich and ambitious Earl Godwin, Harold had inherited his father's earldom in 1053 and by 1059 was the premier earl of England, 1 heading a dynasty which included three other earls -his younger brothers - and his sister Edith, the king's wife. 2 He established his reputation as a commander, both of fleet and army, in his campaigns against the Welsh, defeating King Gruffydd of Wales in 1063 and condoning, if not actually arranging, his assassination. 3 He himself married Gruffydd's widow, Ealdgyth, soon after, an alliance which secured him the support of her birth family, England's other leading dynasty, which controlled Mercia, East Anglia, and ultimately Northumbria. 4 Harold's only surviving rival among his own kin, his [p. 54] brother Tostig, was disgraced and exiled in 1065. Harold's pre-eminence and authority in England during the closing years of Edward the Confessor's reign are therefore undeniable. Yet in the Bayeux Tapestry," which records selected events in English and Norman history from 1064 to 1066, Harold is initially depicted in a series of encounters that demonstrate the power and authority of others. He is briefly elevated to kingship, but his reign is overshadowed by the threat of Norman invasion, which eventually culminates in the Battle of Hastings, Harold's death, the victory of Duke William, and the conquest of England. The * This paper was written for a J ,eeds Congress on the theme of 'Power and Authority' and was presented in a session specialising in Dress and Textiles. It was published in Aspects of Power and Authority in the Middle Ages, eds B. Bolton and C. Meek, Turnbout: Brepols, 2007, and has been rewritten for the present book, at the request of the original publishers. The original page numbers are given in square brackets within the text. Evidenced from his attestation of charters; N.J. Higham, 'Harold Godwinesson: The Construction of Kingship', in King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestr,y, cd. by Gale R. Owen-Crocker (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005), pp. 19-34 (p. 29). See Frank Barlow, Tbe God1vim: Tbe Rise and Fall of a Noble D_ynasty (Harlow: Longman, 2002). Ian w Walker, Harold: Tbe rAJt /ln..Rlo-Saxon Kint, (Stroud: Sutton, 1997), p. 89. After the exile of Tostig, see below. I retain the conventional name. The frieze is technically an embroidery, not a tapestry.

XII 2

Dress and Authority in the BayetJx ] 'apestry

frieze has a Latin commentary, but this is succinct, rarely descriptive; 6 and the subtleties of the narrative are not expressed verbally but demonstrated graphically. Authority is shown by the position, attributes, and, most obviously, the dress of the protagonists. The iconography of power in the Canterbury manuscripts familiar to the designer of the Bayeux Tapestry 7 is often manifested by a seated figure within a structure- a mandorla for the divinity, otherwise a roofed building. In the I-Iarl~y Psalter (London, BL MS Harley 603, c. 1000), itself derived from the ninth-century Carolingian Utrecht P.ralter (Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, 32, Script Eccl. 484 antea 280a), although male figures, including kings, going about their business on foot usually wear short tunics, authority figures seated on raised benches wear long garments the classically inspired tunica and pallium for biblical religious figures, vestments for bishops and archbishops and a long robe usually accompanied by a cloak fastened by a circular brooch for seculars. The Bayeux Tapestry designer adopts the convention of the high seat and long garments to convey authority, though as we shall see, the garments of seated figures are varied, reflecting the degree of power the wearer is able, or willing, to exert in a given situation. The [p. 55] following discussion considers the manifestations of authority through dress in order of appearance. The most elaborate costume in the Tapestry is that worn by King Edward the Confessor in the opening scene (Scene 1; Wilson, 1;8 Fig. 1). The whole image - a magnificent building framing a richly dressed king with gold crown and sceptre seated on a cushioned, lion-headed bench9 - creates an initial impression of the utmost importance with regard to the whole of the almost 70 metre frieze. It indicates that Sec GaleR. Owen-Crocker, 'The Embroidered \'{ford: Text in the Bayeux Tapestry', Medieval Clothing and Textiles, 2 (2002), 35-59 (pp. 54-6). Reprinted as Chapter VI in this volume. The relationship of the Tapestry to manuscripts known to have been owned by and illuminated at St Augustine's, Canterbury, was established by Francis Wormald, 'Style and Design', in The Bqyeux Tapestry, ed. by Frank Stenton (London: Pbaedon, 1st edn 1957; 2nd edn 1965), pp. 25-36, and developed since by several scholars, most notably Cyril Hart, 'The Canterbury Contribution to the Bayeux Tapestry', in Att and SymbolistN in Medieval Europe, ed. by Guy de Boe and Frans Verhaege, Papers of the 'Medieval Europe Bruggc 1997' Conference, 5 (Zellik: lnstituut voor hct Arcbeologiscb Patrimonium, 1977), pp. 7-15 (pp. 13-14). For my own analysis of the thematic significance of the Tapestry's debt to Canterbury manuscripts, see Gale R. Owen-Crocker, 'Reading the Bayeux Tapestry through Canterbury Eyes', in Anglo-Saxons: StudieJ Presented to Cyril Rqy .Hart, ed. by Simon Keynes and Alfred P. Smyth (Dublin: Four Courts, 2005), pp. 243-65. Reprinted as Chapter IV in this volume. Reference is made to the scene numbers written on the sixteenth-century backing cloth which arc reproduced in the fold-out versions on the Tapestry, La Tapisserie de Bqyeux, Dcssin de Roland Lefranc (Ville de Bayeux, undated) and La Tapisserie de BCI)'eux, Realisation Edition Artaud Freres (Ville de Bayeux, undated); and to the plate numbers of the colour facsimile, David M. Wilson, The Bayeux Tape.rtry (f ,ondon: Thames and Hudson, 1985). For a discussion of the relative status implied by different beast-beaded seats in the Tapestry, see Gale R. Owen-Crocker, 'Embroidered Wood: Animal-Headed Posts in the Bayeux Tapestry', in Aediftcia nova: Studie.r in .Honor of Rosemary Cramp, ed. by Catherine Karkov and Helen Damico (Kalamazoo: Medievallnstitute, 2008). Reprinted as Chapter Xlll in this volume.

XII Dre.r.r and Authority in the Bqyeux Tape.rtry

3

Fig. 1: King Edward, Bayeux Tapestry, Scene 1. Late eleventh century. Drawn by Gale Owen-Crocker.

England is a rich, important, and desirable kingdom, and thoro ughly justifies the struggle to possess it, which the embroidery narrates. As I have suggested elsewhere, the designer has probably taken as his model for this scene a meeting between I? and robes augmented by what look like short aprons in contrasting colours, apparently an adaptation of the tiered costume worn by Pharaoh and his council in the Hexateuch (fol. 59r). The figure of Robert, seated, but in a shorter garment, appears to have been modified from the image of a corrupt king in a different manuscript, the H arlry Psalter (fol. 7v); the p ositions of the feet, the shorter robe, and the horizontal sword crossing at [p. 71J right angles the pillar which supports the roof of the building all resemble this illustration, though the king in Harlr:y has a cloak and Robert does not, leaving him looking less authoritative than his brothers. 40 The fact that this scene, and others in which authority figures are dressed in long robes, are dependent on models, suggests that the Bayeux designer was conscious of the associations o f the scenes from which he borrowed in various manuscripts well known to him and his immediate audience, but also that he was not confident about creating images of men in long robes. The long garments had an unmistakable association with authority, which the artist chose to exploit, but perhaps he was not accustomed to seeing them in real life. It is uncertain whether Anglo-Saxon nobility were actually wearing long garments at the time. The occurrence of robes in the H exateuch is the strongest indication we have that E nglish kings had adopted this costume, at least for ceremonial occasions, by the eleventh century since this manuscript evidently drew some of its inspiration from contemporary life as well as archaic modcls. 41 Yet many of the drawings in this manuscript are themselves awkward and improbable. It seems likely that E nglish monarchs h ad, by the eleventh century, come to recogni~e the grace and dignity o f longer gar ments, infl uenced in part by the 'kingly image' in Continental-influenced art, and partly by their foreign travels and the visitors who came to England, bearing gifts, and fashionable ideas, from Frankish

.1R

See Owen-Crocker, 'Through Canterbury Eyes', pp. 254-55. At the preceding banquet O do wears a centrally fastened cloak, usually a sign of prestige in English illumination and in the Tapestry, but as the rest of his costume is hidden by the table, I have not included it in the main discussio n. 40 I slightly modify this derivation in a forthcoming p aper, 'Fools in the Bayeux Tapestry' to be published in The Bayeux Tape.rf1y:paper.r in memory of DalJid Frill, ed. by Shirley Ann Brown and G aleR. Owen-Crocker (O xford: Oxbow). 41 See The Old Ft(fl,krh Il!u.rtrated Hexateuch, ed. by C.R. D odwell and P. Clemoes, Early English :'vfanuscripts in Facsimile, 18 (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1974), p. 66. l9

XII Dress and Authority in the Bqyeux 1apestry

Fig. 11: William and his brothers at Hastings, Bayeux Tapestry, Scene 44. Late eleventh century. Photo reproduced with special permission of the City of Bayeux.

17

XII 18

Dress and Authon!J in the Bqyeux Tapestry

and Ottonian courts. 42 By the end of the Anglo-Saxon period imported silks were available to the elite. Indeed Edward the Confessor was buried in a figured silk of Persian origin. 43 It is probable that specific garments, as well as the textiles themselves, were introduced. However, historical kings, Athelstan, Edgar, and Cnut, are all portrayed in the short tunic in tenth- and early-eleventh-century manuscripts. 44 Long robes were clearly not everyday wear, even for kings. The scene of William and his brothers in council at Hastings is the last appearance of long robes in the Tapestry as it remains today. There is one further [p. 72] instance of William on a raised seat as he receives a messenger (Scene 46, Wilson 50), but he is dressed in culottes and the artist has once more employed the device of placing the figure's knees sideways. The Duke's authority here is largely conveyed by his raised bench and the pennon he holds; however it is reinforced by the long cloak which sweeps around and under him. After this point, William, like Harold, disappears into the anonymity of helmet and mail. That this costume genuinely lacked individuality is attested by the fact that William was forced to tip back his helmet and show his face in the midst of the battle to demonstrate that, contrary to rumour,45 he was still alive (Scene 55, Wilson 68). The Tapestry breaks off at the fifty-eighth scene, which shows the English in retreat. The present end is much restored and clearly some of the frieze (an unknown quantity) has been lost. Many commentators suspect that the Tapestry originally ended with William crowned king of England, and if so, he very probably wore robes of authority to match or surpass those of Edward the Confessor at the opening of the Tapestry; but we will probably never know.

[Owen-Crocker, Dress, pp. 240-43] Hero Granger-Taylor, 'Silk from the Tomb of Edward the Confessor', in David Buckton, ~yzanlium: Treasures of ~yzanline Art and Culture (London: British Museum, 1994), no. 166, pp. 151-3. 44 Athelstan in Cambridge, Corpus Christ College MS 183, fol. 1' ; Edgar in BL MS Cotton Vespasian A VIII, fol. 2v; Cnut in BL MS Stowe 944, fol. 6'. Athelstan and Cnut, however, are standing, while Edgar is prostrate. \'Vhen Edgar is represented seated (in the eleventh-century manuscript BL Cotton Tiberius A Ill, fol. 2'), it is in long robes. 4s The rum our that William was dead is also recorded by William of Poi tiers, but in this version it was William's voice which rallied his troops; Cesta, ll, 17-18; Cesta Cvi!!e!mi, pp. 128-31; however, Baudri de Bourgueil's poem Ade!ae Comiti.rsae notes the removal of the helmet: 8t .rubito ga!eam submouet a capite; Ba!drictts Burgu!ianus Carmina, ed. by Kalheinz Hilbert, Editiones Heidelburgenses, 19 (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitatsverlag, 1979), no. 134, p. 160, line 432; translated as 'Taking his helmet off, quickly he shows his face', in Monika Otter, 'Baudri of Bourgueil "To Countess Adela"', Journal of Medieval Latin, 11 (2001), 60-141 (p. 76), line 432. 43

VIII

XIII

EMBROIDERED WooD: ANIMAL-HEADED PosTs IN THE BAYEux "TAPESTRY"

The Bayeux "Tapestry,"1 which has been kept at Bayeux, in Normandy, since at least the fifteenth century, is now generally accepted as being of English design and, probably, English workmanship, since it borrows images from manuscripts known to have been in the libraries of St. Augustine's monastery, Canterbury, and the nearby Christ Church CathedraP Its patron is likely to have been Odo, bishop of Bayeux and earl of Kent, and the embroidery was probably completed by the 1080s. The Tapestry is our largest surviving nonarchitectural medieval artifact and has generated an enormous range of studies, both academic and popular. 3 RegretIt is impossible to grow up in the northeast of England unaware of the region's heritage. The brooding presence of Hadrian's Wall and the towering domination of Durham Cathedral testify to the great civilizations of the past. The Anglo-Saxon and Viking presence is more subtly indicated yet more warmly remembered than the Roman and Norman. Every schoolchild of my own era came home with an essay to write "about the Venerable Bede," and many spoke with the same easy familiarity of "Saint Cuddie" as they did of the local folksongs, The Waters ofTyne a nd Bobbie Shaftoe. It is no longer fashionable to teach children through local culture; yet the Northeast remains proudly conscious of its place in English history. Rosemary Cramp has made an outstanding contribution to raising this awareness of our heritage, just as she has to the rediscovery of it, and I think of her with several different faces: as Professor at Durham University, elegant and authoritative, lecturing and chairing other distinguished speakers; as "archaeological expert" on local television, warmly wrapped up against the biting Northeast wind, bringing alive the medieval world she knows so well; and, my favorite personal memory, as the inspired and inspiring excavation director who could wield a pickaxe with far more dexterity than any of her volunteer diggers, to reveal, yes, the foundations of Bede's monastery wall exactly where she had predicted they would be! I am privileged to contribute to this volume in her honor. I. The work is technically an embroidery, not a tapestry, since the decoration is stitched, rather than woven. As Tapestry has become the established English name for the work, and since it has become conventional to refer to any wall hanging of cloth as a tapestry, I use this term here, but flag it at the beginning of the essay with quotation marks. 2. The Canterbury association is accepted by most recent scholars with the exception of Wolfgang Grape, Bayeux Tapestry; George Beech, Was the Bayeux Tapestry Made in France? For my own suggestion that the borrowings were not merely convenient but thematically significant, see Owen-Crocker, "Reading the Bayeux Tapestry through Canterbury Eyes." 3. M~or interdisciplinary books include Stenton, Bayeux Tapestry, and Bouet, Levy, and Neveux, Bayeux Tapestry. See also Owen-Crocker, King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry.

Reprinted by permission of Medieval Institute Publications.

XIII 107

EMBROIDERED WOOD

tably its importance as a textile has not yet been fully exploited due to its confinement in a protective case. 4 However, it has long been recognized as a major historical source for the end of the Anglo-Saxon period and the beginning of the Norman, and it has been regularly mined for sociohistorical information on late Anglo-Saxon culture. The Tapestry is also of unique significance as an artwork. It is a visual analysis of a specific graphic motif that is presented in the following essay. Since David Bernstein's publication of The Mystery of the Bayeux Tapestry we have been increasingly aware of the important suggestive power of detail. Bernstein demonstrated that the anecdotal scenes and the poses and actions of the animals depicted in the borders of the Tapestry are likely to have been intended as comments, often ironic, on the actions depicted in the central narrative. More recently, scholars have explored the ways in which weapons or horses contained within the main narrative panel might also be understood as commentary on the events depicted. 5 My own work has investigated the relationship of design, draftsmanship, and needlework and has convinced me that many small objects were included among the embroidered images not simply because they were facts of life, but because they had functional roles in the design of the Tapestry and acted as pointers to themes in the narrative. 6 A recurrent feature of the first half of the Tapestry7 is the addition of a zoomorphic or grotesque human head to a wooden post. There are thirtyeight such terminals: eighteen as parts of ships, 8 sixteen associated with furniture, 9 and four architectural details. 10 In the following study I will discuss the animal-headed terminals in each of these categories, estab-

Some "classic" articles are reprinted in Gameson, Study of the Bayeux Tapestry. For a full bibliography, see S. Brown, Bayeux Tapestry and "Bibliography of Bayeux Tapestry Studies 1985- 1999." For a digital facsimile see Fays, Bayeux Tapestry: Digital Edition. 4. The most recent and authoritative studies are the six articles in the section "The Artefact as Textile," in Bouet, Levy, and Neveux, Bayeux Tapestry, pp. 65-123, though analyses that form the basis of the papers date back to 1982-83. New information on dimensions, number of pieces, fibers, and stitches is contained in Bedat and Girault-Kurtzeman, "Technical Study of the Bayeux Tapestry," and on colorants in Oger, "Bayeux Tapestry." 5. See, for example, Lewis, Rhetoric of Power in the Bayeux Tapestry; Keefer, "Body Language." 6. I have previously discussed horns, walking sticks, swords, and shafts. See OwenCrocker, "Telling a Tale"; Owen-Crocker, "Bayeux 'Tapestry.'" 7. See note 85 below. 8. References are to plate numbers in the color facsimile, Wilson, Bayeux Tapestry. Ships' figureheads appear at 5-6, five; 26-27, one; 33-34, two; 37, two; 40-43, eight. 9. Wilson, Bayeux Tapestry, 1, one; 10, two; 13, two; 16, one; 19 (upper border), one; 25, one; 28, two; 30, one; 32-33, two; 34-35, three. 10. Wilson, Bayeux Tapestry, 17, two; 25, one; 27, one.

XIII 108

lishing the authenticity of each usage. I will suggest that the beast heads can be used by modern analysts as stylistic indicators, reflecting different hands at work within a single section of linen, and so, presumably, within the same workshop, and between the different sections, which may have had different draftsmen as well as different embroiderers. The discussion will demonstrate that, apart from its obvious decorative value, the animalheaded terminal may operate functionally at the graphic level, connecting scenes and filling spaces. More controversially I will argue that a wooden animal head sometimes reflects the situation or emotion of a human protagonist and thus functions as a subtle accessory to interpretation. SHIPS

The existence of zoomorphic figureheads on ships is well attested from archaeological and textual sources as well as from representations in art. However, many of the animal terminals on the Bayeux ships are quite large in proportion to the vessels they decorate. They look topheavy, lacking the aerodynamic efficiency of the ninth-century Oseberg (Norway) ship's sinuous prow11 or the compact neatness of the figurehead found in the River Scheidt near Appels, Belgium, 12 leading one to question their realism. Many of them are elaborately decorated with the curling tendrils characteristic of the Anglo-Scandinavian Ringerike style and its mainly Scandinavian relative, the Mammen style. One, as I will argue below, may be Urnes style. We might question whether these ships' figureheads, together with the trees and the buildings of the Tapestry, are almost totally stylized, while the human beings and their immediate trappings are more realistic. The Bayeux Tapestry is traditionally believed to have been produced near Canterbury because of its stylistic and ,iconographic similarities with Canterbury manuscripts, and a glance at some AngloSaxon drawings from Canterbury manuscripts will show that the stylistic disparity seen in the Tapestry is indeed normal in eleventh-century art. 13 We should note, however, that the apparent naturalism of the human figures is deceptive; they are also very stylized, and it is their medieval cloth11. Wilson, Vikings and Their Origins, p. 86, fig. 57. 12. Owen, Rites and Religions of the Anglo-Saxons, p. 111, fig. 20. 13. In the illustrated calendar in London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius B. v (see McGurk, Dumville, Godden, and Knock, Eleventh-Century Anglo-Saxon Illustrated Miscellany, fol. 6v), for example, trees interlace like the Tapestry trees, and in the Old English Hexateuch (London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius B. iv; see Dodwell and Clemoes, Old English Illustrated Hexateuch), though individual details of architecture may be authentic, the overall picture of any building is not because of the stylized ornamentation and lack of perspective.

XIII 109

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Wooo

ing and their animation that make them convincing. 14 On the other hand, though I know of no survival of such massive figureheads, spiral curls of ironwork found with Viking ship burials at Ladby, Denmark, and at lie de Groix, Brittany, France, may derive from Ringerike style tendrils. 15 The "great beast" of Ringerike art was certainly considered appropriate decoration for eleventh-century ships since it ornamented metal vanes, once carried on ships, of which we have examples from Heggen, Norway, and Soderala, Sweden, 16 that have survived because they were reused on churches. The greatest flowering of the Ringerike style in English and Scandinavian art was in the first part of the eleventh century, but it persisted beyond that. The Urnes style in Scandinavia lasted from about 1040 well into the twelfth century. Both decorative styles might well have appeared on ships of the 1060s, the years depicted in the Tapestry, or of the 1080s, when it was probably made. Animal-headed ships are particularly associated with the VikingsP Snorri Sturluson describes the ship that was built for Harald Hardrada, the eleventh-century king of Norway: "On the stem was a dragon-head and on the stern a dragon-tail, and the sides of the bows of the ship were gilt. The vessel had thirty-five rowers' benches and was large for that size." 18 Snorri later describes the vessel as "a great ship," and the dragon-stem is poetically called "serpent-head with golden mane." He compares it in size with another vessel, called Ormr, "Serpent" or "Dragon." This is the popular image of animal-headed ships that has survived to our own day. There is an assumption that the beast head always represented a dragon and that it was at the prow of a warship, which had a tail at the stern, effectively turning the vessel into a visual image of a ruthless, terrifying killer, which is the enduring impression of Viking fleets. Anglo-Saxon art, though, suggests that the head-and-tail arrangement was variable, and we find zoomorphic ships variously depicted with a head and tail, or with two heads, and we may find the heads facing outward or inward. Both the Tapestry and the Old English illustrated Hexateuch (London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius B. iv) show what is meant to 14. That is, they wear medieval secular clothing rather than the classical garments in which Christ, angels, and saints are depicted. The clothing might, of course, have appeared stylized to contemporaries, since manuscripts were based on older Continental models. 15. Roesdahl, Vikings, p . 87. 16. Graham-Campbell and Kidd, Vikings, p. 168. The Heggen vane is illustrated at plates 9 and 99. 17. The Normans of the Tapestry were, of course, of Scandinavian descent, and England was an Anglo-Scandinavian kingdom by the eleventh century. 18. Harald Hardradas Saga, chaps. 59, 60; quoted from S. Laing, Snorri Sturluson Heimskringla, Part Two, "Harold the Stern," p. 203. The Old Norse text can be found in Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ed. Finnur Jonsson, 3:155- 56.

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be the same ship consecutively with different arrangements of figureheads, in a discontinuity that is typical of the Anglo-Saxon artist in general and especially of the Bayeux designer. It is possible that heads might be turned round for convenience (they were certainly not integral to the construction of the vessel-Snorri's account of Harald's dragon-head prow includes the information that it was attached once the ship was in the river), but it seems improbable that they were moved or changed in the course of a journey. It seems, too, that animal heads on ships were not confined to dragons, St. Olaf, for instance, having a famous ship named "The Bison" (ON Visund) with a gilded head and taiJ.l 9 Nor, it would seem from representations in art, were zoomorphic terminals reserved for warships. In both the Junius Manuscript (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 11, pp. 67-68)20 and the Old English Hexateuch (London, BL, Cotton Claudius B. iv, fols. l4r-l5v), Noah's ark is represented as a grotesque beast, though it can do battle with no one and nothing but the surging water; and other seagoing vessels of no intrinsic significance are occasionally depicted with animal heads, for example in the Harley Psalter (London, British Library, MS Harley 603), folio 27v21 and folio Slv (fig. 1). 22 We should not, then, be surprised to find in the Bayeux Tapestry the ealdorman Harold, setting off on an apparently peaceable journey, 23 in a zooanthropomorphic ship (fig. 2). He has evidently embarked by means of a smaller boat, which lacks the distinctive terminals. His cross-channel transport, though, has a beast at one end and a man; identifiable by the human ear and eyebrow, at the other. The beast looks backward, connecting visually with the embarkation scene. The creature is, like all the Bayeux beast heads, stylized, but its interlaced execution is unique in the Tape.stry, and if we observe that the color is filled in with lines of stem stitch rather than the laid and couched work that is mostly used as a filler for even the smallest shapes, such as shoes, we have reason to question whether this beast is part of the original work. There is no obvious evi19. Magnus the Good 19; S. Laing, Snorri Sturluson Heimskringla, Part Two, p. 142. 20. Oh1gren, Anglo-Saxon Textual Illustration, pp. 563-64. The ark appears twice on p. 67 of the m a nuscript with slight differences to the animal head. 21. Oh1gren, Anglo-Saxon Textual Illustration, p. 193. 22. There is a nother example in the Bury Psalter (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS reg. lat. 12, fol. 108r), which like the Harley Psalter (London, British Library, MS Harley 603, fol. 51v) illustrates Psalm 103 (104):25-26, describing the sea and its contents as part of Creation; Ohlgren, Anglo-Saxon Textual Illustration, p. 290. 23. There are shields along the ship's sides and Harold carries a spear as the vessel approaches land, but there is no stowing of weapons and armor such as we find before William's invasion, or as described by the poet of the Old English Beowulf (Klaeber, Beowulfand the Fight at Finnsburg, lines 213-15). Since hounds and hawks are loaded on board, Harold's j ourney might be either a hunting trip or a diplomatic mission, in which case the animals could have been intended as gifts.

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dence of modern reconstruction, however, 24 and all the colors are found elsewhere in the scene. This beast head is the first in thre"; Dobbie, Exeter Book, p. 202, lines 70-71 (the snail is swifter, the earthworm quicker, and the fen-frog more rapid in its going than me). 63. F. Wormald identified specific instances in Canterbury manuscripts: "Style and Design," pp. 30-33. "Quotation" is discussed by Bernstein (Mystery of the Bayeux Tapestry, pp. 39-50) and by Dodwell in his introduction to Dodwell and Clemoes, Old English Illustrated Hexateuch. (See also below, note 79.) I have identified other possible examples (see notes 2, 76 and Lasko, "Bayeux Tapestry and the Representation of Space," p. 38 n. 5). 64. It may signal, for example, that emotions were heated over the matter depicted above. 65. Alfred 32; Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 1:66. 66. McNulty, Narrative Art of the Bayeux Tapestry Master, pp. 52- 58.

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being the only instance of these creatures in the upper border. 67 Instead of being placed in the mirror-image relationship that is usual for paired border creatures, the peacocks faintly mimic the positions of the men beneath them, also duplicating the colors of their costumes. 68 If the modern connotation of "proud as a peacock" was already attached to these birds, their presence may imply arrogance in the human protagonists. The tongue pulling of the beast heads above JElfgyva could be a reaction to that arrogance or, since the animals are back-to-hack, a comment on the men's intransigent attitude to one another. The beast heads are at the corners of a frame. Wilson compared this structure to the frames of the illuminations in Winchester School manuscripts and the placing of JElfgyva specifically to the representation of St. JEthelthryth in the Benedictional of St. JEthelwold (London, British Library, MS Additional 49598, fol. 90v), 69 but this is a misleading generalization because the Bayeux structure is neither arched like the characteristic architectural frames of illuminations nor covered in acanthus like the rectangular ones. Inhabited frames are relatively uncommon in surviving late Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, and I have found no close parallels.70 JElfgyva's structure is not a true frame; there are stepped pillars at the sides, and there is no base. The architecture suggests, rather, the posts and lintel of a doorframe. Doorframes are common in late AngloSaxon art, though they are usually associated with buildings.71They often have figures framed in them, usually seated. Beast heads, however, are not a regular feature of doorframes, and the animals above JElfgyva are probably the least authentic wooden zoomorphs in the Tapestry. They are perhaps inspired by the beast heads that decorated illuminated initials in late Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The closest parallel I have found is in the beasts whose tongues spew the letter B in the opening words (Beatus vir) of the Harley Psalter, folio 2r (fig. 20). 67. There is a less colorful pair in the lower border as the Normans advance, on horseback, "viriliter et sapienter," to battle (Wilson, Bayeux Tapestry, 58). Border birds are discussed in detail in Owen-Crocker, "Squawk Talk." 68. William and the left-hand bird are in navy blue, yellow, and pink; Harold and the right-hand bird in green, pink, a nd yellow. I am grateful to Richard Crocker for this observation. 69. Wilson, Bayeux Tapestry, pp. 178-79. 70. There are inhabited frames in the Galba Psalter (London, Br itish Library, MS Cotton Galba A. xviii), but they are dissimilar: at fol. 2v a beast bites at each of the four corners; at fol. lOv beasts project from the bottom corners; at fol. llv two beasts spring from the center top toward the corners (Ohlgren, Anglo-Saxon Textual Illustration, pp. 129, 137-38). In Bod!. Lib. Junius 11, p. 51, there are beast heads at the upper corners of the frame but they are full face and do not project (ibid., p. 551). 71 . The doors themselves a re sometimes included, but often omitted . Frequently there are curtains, which drape round the pillars. A simple lintel of the Bayeux kind is unusual, and there is usually a triangular architrave or an arch.

XIII 122 The Bayeux doorframe may simply be an indicator that the woman is either in another room in William's palace (that is, a different location from the scene ofWilliam's discussion with Harold) or in another building altogether, but the dislocation of .tElfgyva's frame from any other architecture, its unusual zoomorphic decoration, and the fact that she stands (rather than sits) within, or behind, it may be significant. Both the AngloSaxons and the Vikings seem to have used a freestanding framework of this kind as a symbolic portal into another dimension. The Arab observer Ibn Fadlan recorded that a construction "like a door-frame" was used in the sacrificial ritual associated with the funeral of a Viking chief. The slave girl about to be sacrificed first looked over the frame three times and claimed to see her parents and kinsmen and her dead master in Paradise, before being killed to join her master.72 There is a graphic use of such a frame, this time with a stout door attached, in Bodl. Lib. Junius 11, p. 46, as an angel ushers Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. The angel stands in the doorway; Adam and Eve are exiled and outside it (fig. 21). Perhaps .tElfgyva is depicted in a doorframe because at the time of the discussion she was in a different dimension in that she was no longer living; and if the lady under discussion was either .tElfgyva of Northampton, Cnut's mistress, or .tElfgyva-Emma, Cnut's queen, she was certainly dead by this time.73 The cupping gesture that the clericus makes toward her face74 may be seen as a metaphorical "raising up" of .tElfgyva: it resembles the gesture of a man (not Christ) who draws the risen Lazarus from his sepulcher in the St. Augustine Gospels (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 286, fol. 125r; fig. 22) and the cupping of God's hand round the face of a man in the Paris Psalter (Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France, MS lat. 8824, fol. 2v), where the Old English text reads "Drihten me awehte, and me upp arcerde" (the Lord awoke me and raised me up: Psalm 3:4).75 The unusual tower to the right of the .tElfgyva scene76 may contribute to this interpretation since it bears some resemblance to the

72. Quoted in translation in Owen, Rites and Religions ofthe Anglo-Saxons, pp. 99-100. 73. Either woman might have been mentioned in a dynastic discussion. Both were the mothers of Cnut's sons. Emma was also mother of .tEthelred's son , now King Edward the Confessor, as well as Duke William's aunt. 74. Some times interpreted as a sexual gesture relating the role of the clericus to the naked male figure in the bottom border (Bernstein, Mystery of the Bayeux Tapest1y, p. 19). For a contrasting view, that .tElfgyva is not only alive but the embodiment of virtue and that the clericus gestures toward a bridal veil, see D. Hill, "Bayeux Tapestry and Its Commentators." 75. Ohlgren, Anglo-Saxon Textual Illustration, pp. 50, 299. 76. The structure graphica lly balances the tower on which a watchman stands as the par ty of riders approaches William's palace. T he watchman's building is clearly intended as par t of the architecture of Rouen: windows, brickwork, staircase towers, a nd a door are

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aedicula of Lazarus77 in the St. Augustine Gospels (fig. 22) and to the sepulcher of Christ in the Harley Psalter (BL, Harley 603, fol. 8r; fig. 23).78 Both of these were Canterbury manuscripts the Tapestry designer almost certainly knew.79 There is, then, very probably some reference to resurrection iconography here, though !Elfgyva is dressed in clothes, as if alive, and not in a winding sheet. Developing David Hill's suggestion that the figure of !Elfgyva herself derives from one of the personified Virtues in a Canterbury manuscript of Prudentius's Psychomachia (London, British Library, MS Cotton Cleopatra C. viii), 80 we can find a close parallel in the depiction of Spes (Hope), on folio 17r (fig. 24). 81 As the Virtue Humilitas (Humility) shows the severed head of the defeated Vice Superbia (Pride) to Spes, Spes denounces pride, 82 making with her right hand what C. R. Dodwell has identified as a well-established variety of a traditional gesture of approval. 83 The embroidered right hand of!Elfgyva, unusually clumsylooking among the hands in the Tapestry, may be the result of an attempt to copy in needlework this gesture, in which the middle finger makes an incomplete circle with the thumb, leaving the index finger extended. The delineated. The building beside the JElfgyva scene is of similar, but not identical, shape, and it could, conceivably, also represent the entrance tower, perhaps a back view of it; but the subdivisions of the structure have been differently interpreted by the embroiderer and it seems to have a different kind of entrance, rectangular double doors like Lazarus's tomb in the St. Augustine Gospels (see fig. 22). 77. This small Roman sepulcher had been the conventional realization of Lazarus's tomb since the earliest-known (fourth-century) depictions of the scene, though the biblical account Qohn 11:38) specifies a cave. See Schiller, Iconography of Christian Art, 1:182. 78. The sepulcher of Christ is elsewhere shown as a single-story apse attached to a building or buildings with pitched roofs, as in BL, Harley 603, fol. 71v (Ohlgren, AngloSaxon Textual Illustration, p. 243) and the Sacramentary of Robert of Jumieges (Rouen, Bibliotheque Municipale, MS Y 6 [274], fol. 72v);]. Alexander, "Some Aesthetic Principles," plate VIII. 79. See note 63. The scene of William's feast at Hastings is copied from a depiction of The Last Supper, which is on the same folio as the Lazarus scene in the St. Augustine Gospels, a sixth-century, Late Antique manuscript believed to have come to Canterbury with the Roman mission at the end of the sixth century. A figure bringing in provisions for the feast at Hastings is copied from a personification of Labor in a Canterbury copy of Prudentius's allegorical poem Psychomachia, now London, British Library, MS Cotton Cleopatra C. viii. BL Harley 603 is a copy made about 1000, probably in Canterbury, of the *ninth-century, Carolingian Utrecht Psalter (Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, MS 32). 80. D. Hill, "Bayeux Tapestry and Its Commentators," p. 26. 81. The positions of the hands and feet are closer to JElfgyva's than those in Hill's drawing, which is taken from Patientia (Patience) on fol. 12r, reversed (pers. comm., David Hill). 82. "Desine grande loqui; frangit Deus omne superbum" (An end to thy big talk. God breaks down all arrogance); Prudentius, Prudentius, 1:298-99; see Ohlgren, Anglo-Saxon Textual Illustrations, p. 81. 83. Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Gestures and the Roman Stage, pp. 61- 65, 122-29, plates XLIIa- XLVb.

* See update to note 45.

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Figure 1. London, British Library, MS Harley 603, folio Slv, detail. Animal-headed ships confront a sea-bird. Drawn by the author.

Figure 2. Detail from the Bayeux Tapestry, eleventh century. Harold sets off in a ship with an interlaced beast head and a human head. By special permission of the City of Bayeux.

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Figure 3. Detail from the Bayeux Tapestry, eleventh century. Left, the second depiction of Harold's ship; right, Harold's landing craft, headed by a droop-eared animal with protruding tongue. By special permission of the City of Bayeux.

Figure 4. Detail from the Bayeux Tapestry, eleventh century. William's invasion fleet arrives. Eager horses disembark from a ship with an eager animal head. Lower border: dragons breathe flames like rays. By special permission of the City of Bayeux.

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Figure 5. The Bayeux Tapestry. A border dragon breathes forked flames. Drawn by the author after Wilson.

Figure 6. Detail from the Bayeux Tapestry, eleventh century. Arrival at Rouen, with hounds; discussion between William and Harold; JElfgyva. Upper border: peacocks and quarreling beasts; lower border: sexual innuendo and (right) dragons breathing triple flames. By special permission of the City of Bayeux.

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Figure 7. Beast on one of a set of eighth-century pins found in the River Witham. Drawn by the author.

Figure 8. Ringerike style beast on an eleventh-century stone carving from St. Paul's, London. Drawn by the author.

Figure 9. Detail from the Bayeux Tapestry, eleventh century. Harold's ship returns to England, tail first; a severelooking animal gazes out from the port. Lower border: beasts bite their tails, birds bite their wings. By special permission of the City of Bayeux.

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Figure 10. Detail from the Bayeux Tapestry, eleventh century. Harold returns, abject, to an aged King Edward on a wolf-headed seat. Lower border: birds bite their wings; animals stick out their tongues. By special permission of the City of Bayeux.

Figure 11. The Bayeux Tapestry. Eager beast heads on the messenger's ship. Drawn by the author after Wilson.

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Figure 12. Lichfield Cathedral, MS sine numero, p. 218. Animal finials from St. Luke's chair. Drawn by the author.

Figure 13. Fragment of stone carving from Old Malton, near York. Man's head and finials of a chair. Drawn by the author.

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Figure 14. Two sides of a wooden chair finial from Dublin. Drawn by the author.

Figure 15. Detail from the Bayeux Tapestry, eleventh century. King Edward on a lion-headed bench. Borders: lions and preening birds. By special permission of the City of Bayeux.

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Figure 16. Detail of Figure 6. The beast head on William's seat at Rouen.

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Figure 17. The Bayeux Tapestry. The beast head on William's seat at Bayeux. Drawn by the author after Wilson.

Figure 18. Detail from the Bayeux Tapestry, eleventh century. Disaster anticipated for King Harold, on a bird-headed throne. Upper border: Halley's comet and birds on the roof; lower border: the outlines of ships. By special permission of the City of Bayeux.

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Figure 19. Detail from the Bayeux Tapestry, eleventh century. King Edward's deathbed. By special permission of the City of Bayeux.

Figure 20. London, British Library, MS Harley 603, folio 2r. Illuminated initial. Drawn by the author.

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Figure 21. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 11, p. 46. Adam and Eve leave the Garden of Eden by a doorway. Drawn by the author.

Figure 22 . Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 286, folio 125r, detail. Lazarus is drawn from his sepulcher. Drawn by the author.

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Figure 23. London, British Library, MS Harley 603, folio Sr, detail. The sepulcher of Christ. Drawing by the author.

Figure 24. London, British Library, MS Cotton Cleopatra C. viii, folio 17r, detail. Spes (Hope) from Prudentius's Psychomachia. Drawn by the author.

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gesture, which is not used elsewhere in the Tapestry, may have been distorted in transmission. The interesting question is whether the designer took over anything of the significance of this scene as he may have done when he copied the figure personifying Labor on folio 30r of the same manuscript. 84 The context is that Spes and Humilitas have triumphed in a long struggle against Superbia, depicted in a series of eleven illustrations including the decapitation of the Vice by Humilitas wielding a sword of vengeance and culminating in the ascension of Spes to Heaven. If we add the context of the borrowed figure-drawing to Bayeux's border peacocks we can deduce that there has been a situation (in the debate between William and Harold) where pride was exhibited, but this has been defeated. Possibly the deceased JElfgyva has been vindicated. The situation is hopeful. In the immediate context of the Tapestry the sequel is indeed positive-William and Harold ride off to campaign as allies. My interpretation of the scene is that JElfgyva is being metaphorically resurrected in the conversation about her. The clericus is probably not a real actor in the drama, just a graphic convenience to draw JElfgyva forward. The writer of the caption was perhaps unable to describe this action (either because he did not understand the nonliteral nature of it, or because it was too complex for brevity) and resorted to merely naming the protagonist and unus clericus without a defining verb. The animals on JElfgyva's doorframe are not realistic architectural features, and the dislocated structure they decorate is symbolic not naturalistic. It is the function of the beast-heads, in conjunction with the border figures and animals, to indicate to us that the adjacent conversation was slanderous and quarrelsome and, possibly, that the humans were being slightly absurd. CONCLUSION: THE PLACE AND FUNCTION OF THE BEAST-HEAD TERMINALS

The animal-headed posts all occur in the first half of the Tapestry, up to the disembarkation of the Norman troops. 85 After this, there are no more depictions of ships. When William and his brothers appear seated later in the narrative they are at temporary encampments on their cam84. See note 63. Labor (Suffering) is ostensibly transformed into labor (hard work). However, the artist's derivation of the Bayeux figure from Labor, an associate of the Vice Avaritia (Avarice) expelled along with Metus (Fear), Vis (Violence), Scelus (Crime), and placitae fidei Fraus infitatrix (Fraud that denies accepted faith), and the fact that in the Psychomachia this follows a sermon by Operatio (Good Works) on Christ's theme of "Think not of the body" and injunctions against begging (Matthew 6:24-36; 10:9-10, 29; see Thomson, Prudentius, 1:320-23) reflects a perception of the Norman pillagers as greedy and sinful looters, an irony only apparent to those who knew the manuscript. 85. According to my analysis ofthe design ofthe "Tapestry," the original halfway point

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paign of conquest, and it may have been thought inappropriate to decorate their benches with zoomorphic terminals. There are occasional buildings, but the artist does not choose to ornament them this way. This may mark a change of artist and/or changes in approach to the subject matter. Many of the animal finials in the first part of the Tapestry, as I have demonstrated, offer, it seems to me, an ironic commentary on the human protagonists. They suggest underlying emotions and secret thoughts, and sometimes undercut the pomposity of the major actors. The wooden creatures, therefore, like certain of the border animals, provide a witty and potentially subversive sub text to the Tapestry's narrative. The second half of the embroidery is not without humor: border irony is still occasionally present, and the main register exhibits both esoteric wit86 and a new, somewhat clownish, comedy. 87 There are of course many more horses in the second part of the Tapestry than the first, and these to some extent occupy the functional, ornamental, and spatial roles of the wooden animals, but the artist does not choose to anthropomorphize the horses in the same way. Although they walk, trot, gallop, suffer injury, and fall horribly, they appear to be obedient beasts with expressionless faces·, which do not rear, roll their eyes, or show their teeth in fear. 88 The Tapestry is designed to suggest that, once the Norman army is mounted at Hastings, it sweeps to victory, 89 massed and largely anonymous; and though the horses support their riders to inexorable success they do not comment on the action in the way their wooden counterparts do. The animal-headed posts take part in the story at earlier points where the desires and expectations of individual men are pitted against one another; though events could have turned out very differently, both Harold of England and Guy of Pontieu find themselves outmaneuvered, and William of Normandy constantly takes the initiative. The wooden animals provide a commentary on the characters, aspirations, and disappointments of these individual protagonists. The "real" horses of the victorious battle are surprisingly "wooden" in contrast. was the Norman disembarkation; see Owen-Crocker, "Brothers, Rivals and the Geometry of the Bayeux Tapestry." 86. See note 84. 87. The blowing of the horn in a man's ear (Wilson, Bayeux Tapestry, 47); two men fighting with spades (ibid., 49). 88. This contrasts with the earlier depiction of the horses being transported across the Channel and splashing through the shallows where their open mouths, without bits, give them (perhaps entirely coincidental) expressions of pleasure (see, especially, Wilson, Bayeux Tapestry, 41 and 43-44). 89. See Owen-Crocker, "Brothers, Rivals and the Geometry of the Bayeux Tapestry," p. 121. Although the Normans did not have the battle entirely their own way (Wilson, Bayeux Tapestry, 65- 68), obviously the outcome was known to the artist and the intended audience of the Tapestry; the Normans are depicted as confident.

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XIV

THE INTERPRETATION OF GESTURE IN THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY

Most of us have endured the embarrassment of sitting through badly acted amateur dramatics. 1 One of the distinguishing features of the ham actor is that he has nothing to do with his hands; they dangle unconvincingly, uselessly, heavily. Hollywood filled this void with conventions of handling cigarettes and drinks, actions which, ironically, were copied in the 1920s and became fashionable. However, the reality of human behaviour is indeed that our hands are usually busy. If they do not have anything immediately useful to do, we occupy our hands by fidgeting with hair, pen, or keys, wrapping ourselves round a bag or a clipboard, or texting on our mobile phone. The Bayeux Tapestry artist understood this human need to employ the hands and used a range of 'props' to satisfy it: spears, swords, shields, horse reins, sceptres, oars, drinking vessels, walking sticks; all of which are functional in their context, of course, and serve to dramatize the narrative. There is no 'backdrop' to most of the scenes in the Tapestry, and most of the artefacts depicted are attached in some way to the human figures, usually by their hands. 2 Most of the people depicted in the Tapestry have both hands occupied. Very occasionally an occupied hand will also carry out a gesture: a hand holding a weapon will also point, for example. Hands which are holding something are cupped or curled, and, just as in the Old English illustrated Hexateuch where the artist sometimes forgot to fill a cupped hand with the requisite drinking vessel or other artefact, 3 the hand in the Tapestry may not always actually clasp its designated object: reins may stop short of the hand or a spear may pass behind it rather than through its fingers; but because the hand is cupped we 'read' it as holding the object. Some figures have one hand free and the designer employs gestures to occupy those hands in a meaningful way. The range of gestures is quite small, so a few of the actions are repeated over and over again, enabling us to view them in a series of different contexts and so to deduce what they mean. A minority of the figures have both hands free and so are able to make double gestures. They, as we will see, are usually significant characters depicted at important occasions. The designer of the Bayeux Tapestry manifestly worked from models, copying widely from manuscripts known to have been in the library of St Augustine's, Canterbury, and so incorporating, for example, buildings which were not just earlier

I I am grateful to Elizabeth Coatsworth for comments on a draft and Hana Videen for library and editing assistance at the final stages of this paper. 2 Other relationships are those of the seated figure and his bench or throne; and the ships in which shipwrights work and sailors travel. The only disassociated objects in the Tapestry are (some) buildings and trees. 3 C. R. Dodwell and P Clemoes, The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile 18, Copenhagen 1974.

Images reprinted by kind permission of Thames and Hudson, Ltd, and Sir David Wilson.

XIV 146 medieval but ultimately Late Antique in style. 4 He also, it has been established, drew on eleventh-century life, incorporating artefacts currently in use. 5 In creating hand gestures for the figures, the designer had several potential sources on which he might have drawn. Firstly, there were a number of established gestures derived from theatrical poses originally utilized by masked actors on the Roman stage. Although many of these mimes probably grew out of the observation of real, instinctive movements, they became conventionalized and were captured graphically in a cycle of illustrations of the comedies ofTerence. They were transmitted through Carolingian art into the late Anglo-Saxon graphic repertoire. 6 These Roman theatrical gestures are particularly evident in manuscripts from St Augustine's, Canterbury, including the Old English Hexateuch and the Harley Psalter which contributed models to the images in the Bayeux Tapestry. 7 We might expect, therefore, to find theatrical gestures in the embroidery. In fact, though some are present, they are relatively rare and hence deserve special attention. Secondly, there were a number of ritual gestures associated with Christianity, many of which survive today. These appear in the Tapestry to reinforce the sanctity of certain situations, though in each case there are other indicators of religious context: a church building, church furniture, vestments, or an explicit caption. Thirdly, there was, by the tenth century, a codified system of miming movements by which silent monks might convey their everyday needs. One of the surviving texts of monastic sign language is a Canterbury product. 8 However, there is little correlation between the practical requirements of a monk - for specific books or items of clothing, for example - and the dramatic situations which are depicted in the Tapestry. Even when there is potential for use of an established monastic sign, for example the indication of a king, the Tapestry artist has no need to show someone miming a crown; he simply depicts the crown, along with other insignia of kingship.9 As far as I can see, the Tapestry designer does not make use of the monastic indicia.

Michael John Lewis, The Archaeological Authority of the Bayeux Tapestry, BAR British Series 404, 2005, 25- 7. 5 Michael Lewis, ' The Bayeux Tapestry and Eleventh-Century Material Culture' , in King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Woodbridge 2005, 179- 94. 6 C. R. Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Gestures and the Roman Stage, Cambridge 2000. The codified gestures may also have been transmitted through post-Conquest manuscripts of Terence to late medieval English drama; but a continuous tradition from the Roman theatre seems unlikely; see Clifford Davidson, 'Gesture in Medieval British Drama', in Gesture in Medieval Drama and Art, ed. idem, Kalamazoo Ml 2001 , 66--127 at 69-70. 7 Observed by several scholars. I discuss the present state of scholarship on this topic in Gale R. OwenCrocker, 'Reading the Bayeux Tapestry through Canterbury Eyes', in Anglo-Saxons: Studies Presented to Cyril Roy Hart, ed. S. Keynes and A. P. Smyth, Dublin 2006, 243--65. A facsimile of the Harley Psalter (BL Harley MS 603) may be found in Anglo-Saxon Textual Illustration, ed. Thomas H. Ohlgren, Kalamazoo MI 1992, 147-248. 8 Mid eleventh-century, in BL Cotton MS Tiberius A.iii, fols 97v.-101v.; David Sherlock, 'AngloSaxon Monastic Sign Language at Christ Church, Canterbury', Archaeologia Cantiana 107, 1989, 1- 27 at 2. 9 This, of course, may be equally symbolic. The offering of kingship to Harold by the witan may have been an entirely verbal exchange, but is represented in the Tapestry (Scene 29, Wilson 31) by a crown being held out to him. Reference is made to the scene numbers written on the sixteenth-century backing cloth (dated in Gabriel Vial, 'The Bayeux Tapestry Embroidery and its Backing Strip', in The Bayeux Tapestry: Embroidering the Facts of History, ed. Pierre Bouet, Brian Levy, and Fran~ois Neveux, Caen 2004, 111 - 16 at 115), which are reproduced in the fold-out versions of the Tapestry, La Tapisserie de Bayeux, Dessin de Roland Lefranc, Ville de Bayeux undated, and La Tapisserie de Bayeux, Realisation

4

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Fourthly, there was a monastic convention for indicating numbers, recorded by Bede at the opening of his work on computus, De temporum ratione, in which complicated positions of the two hands required different fingers to be curled, stretched, together, or apart. 10 Again, as far as I can observe, the designer does not make use of these number mimes. Fifthly, we have the possibility that the artist copied the spontaneous gestures of everyday life, and that is the hardest to test for. My suggestions that most of the gestures in the Bayeux Tapestry are in this category, but that they are used selectively and deliberately, will be discussed below. We do not have any textbook of gestures from the relevant period, and we are in the position of using context within the Tapestry narrative to 'read' the gestures while hoping to use the gestures to explain the context. We do have studies of codified gestures in later manuscripts, sculptures, and stained glass windows and in texts of later medieval drama, 11 and it is worth comparing these with the Tapestry to see if they can elucidate it; but we must never forget that they are later. I intend to discuss the gestures in order of frequency, beginning with the very common pointing finger and open hand, continuing through rarer movements, including theatrical and religious gestures, and to conclude by looking at the way in which reading gestures may help us to resolve some ambiguities, or to complicate matters.

Pointing finger Pointing is probably a natural human instinct to designate a person, object, place, or direction, especially pointing with the forefinger which is accordingly named 'the index finger'. That the gesture is rarely seen publicly in England and America today is probably the result of deliberate choice: people have been taught as children that 'it's rude to point'. However, even if the gesture is an instinctive one, the Bayeux Tapestry designer does not use it artlessly. Characters in the embroidery who point do not do so for their own or their companions' benefit, but for us, the audience; and just as buildings or trees may frame a scene, forcing the eye on the interior composition, so gesturing hands may cause the viewer to slide his gaze from marginal pointing figures to focus on a central person or encounter. At times pointing fingers toss the viewer's gaze from figure to figure, or lead us out from the graphics to the explanatory text.

Pointing to the inscription Close to the beginning of the Tapestry (Scene 2, Wilson 2) 12 one of the supporting cast points to the inscription which identifies Dux Harold. As far as I know this method of conveying information is innovative, in that it involves interaction Edition Artaud Freres, Ville de Bayeux undated; and to the plate numbers of the colour facsimile, D. M. Wilson, The Bayeux Tapestry, London 1985. IO The numbers could also be used as letters, 'one' representing the first letter of the alphabet and so on. See Bede, The Reckoning ofTime, trans. Faith Wallis, Liverpool 1999, corrected reprint 2004, 9- 13 and commentary 254-63, which includes an illustration 'based on' Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Urb. lat. 290, fol. 31 r. I am grateful to Patricia Cooper for drawing my attention to this sign system. II Fran9ois Garnier, Le Langage de / 'image au Moyen Age, 2 vols, Paris 1982- 9; Jean-Claude Schmitt, La Raison des gestes dans /'Occident medieval, Paris 1990; Davidson, ' Gesture'. 12 It is not known how much, if any, of the opening is missing. The left hand border is reconstruction.

XIV 148

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d) Figure 1 Recurrent hand gestures in the Bayeux Tapestry: (a) Pointing to the caption (Scene 2, Wilson 2); (b) Nautical gesture (Scene 24, Wilson 26); (c) Dead hands (Scene 56, Wilson 70); (d) Lookout (Scene 24, Wilson 27)

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between graphically depicted dramatis personae and a written text which is not present in their world. The St Augustine's monastery had a tradition of illustrating manuscripts with a series of pictures demonstrating the written material, especially narrative; but the usual production technique seems to have been that the text was written first, leaving gaps for drawings at agreed points. Sometimes these drawings were placed in frames, separating them out from the text; sometimes, as in the Prudentius Psychomachia manuscripts, the framed drawings were captioned but the explanatory text was outside the frame, separating word from image. Certain formal illuminations from other scriptoria contain text which is decorative and instructive but not illustrative: in such cases the words are placed on, or adjacent to, the image, so we may find, for example, a biblical quotation, or the identification of a significant saint within the picture; but the figures in the image do not show awareness of the presence of these explanatory words. Tapestry figures who point unambiguously to inscriptions are most often anonymous supporting actors who thus identify the chief protagonists and their rank: they include the rider at the opening of the Tapestry (Scene 2, Wilson 2) who points directly upwards to Harold Dux Anglorum, our introduction to the future king of England; and the feaster at Hastings (Scene 43, Wilson 48) who leans out from his own picture, across to the caption over the adjacent image, to clarify that the tonsured, central figure blessing the bread at the Hastings feast is Bishop Odo and not any other 'Episcopus' .13 The most emphatic use of bystanders pointing to the titulus is at Harold's oath (Scene 23, Wilson 25-6), where three attendants point to the fact that 'here Harold made an oath to Duke William' and the confirmation of his rank and identity 'here Duke Harold ... '. 14 Chief protagonists may sometimes appear to point at the caption, but this is never unambiguous. When Harold, standing high in the prow of his ship, points upwards, he could be indicating the caption that states he was arrested by Guy, but more likely he is pointing over the graphic depiction of the arrest, which is low down - the men have their feet on the beach - to the approaching Guy, high on his horse. Guy, in turn, points to the scene of the arrest, where one Englishman points to Guy with his right hand while restraining Harold (who has drawn his knife) by placing his left hand on his chest (Scenes 6-7, Wilson 6-7). As William addresses his troops, he may be identifying himself by means of the words Willelm Dux embroidered above him, but he may be pointing towards the army which he is rallying, or he may be gesturing them onward (Scene 51, Wilson 57- 9). There is perhaps a sentimental pointing to the titulus by Harold15 as he returns to England after his French adventure (Scene 24, Wilson 27): it says anglicam terram. He might be celebrating his own homecoming and that of his companion (possibly his nephew Hakon, freed by Harold's intervention from William who had held him hostage); or Harold might be pointing onward, to the location of the king and on to the following scene where he has to face the music for his misadventure. 13 The bishop of Coutances, another rich and influential churchman, was also in the invasion party. He was chaplain in chief to the Norman army. William of Poitiers and William of Malmesbury describe his energetic organization of prayer: John Le Patourel, 'Geoffrey of Montbray, Bishop of Coutances, 1049- 1093' EHR 59, 1944, 129- 61 at 150. 14 This is the beginning of the caption to Scene 24 (Wilson 26-7) which is split first by the yard and sail of a boat, then by a figure and the building on which he stands. In full it reads, hie Harold dux reversus est ad anglicam terram. 15 Harold is identifiable by his cloak (cf. Michael Lewis, in this volume) and by the placing of his * horse to the foreground of the other rider's. Foregrounding is a usual indicator of the major figure in the Tapestry's scenes.

* Michael J. Lewis, 'Identity and Status in the Bayeux Tapestry: the Iconographic and Artefactual Evidence', Anglo-Norman Studies 29, 2007, 100- 120.

XIV 150

(a)

:SACRAMENNM:FfCIT:~

vVJ LLEL MO DVCI :~

t=;le: hAJ~olfD :D\0 ,

:

(b) Figure 2 Complex gestures (1): (a) Discussion between William and Harold at Rauen (Scene 14, Wilson 16--17); (b) Harold swears an oath, watched by William (Scene 23, Wilson 25-6)

Pointing to indicate significant subtext

At both feast scenes, at Bosham (Scene 3, Wilson 3--4) and at Hastings (Scene 43, Wilson 48), eating is indicated by the fingers - not usually the thumb - being spread on the food or table, and drinking by a hand being cupped round a drinking vessel, sometimes with the index finger elegantly extended. Therefore pointing fingers at Scene 43, the Hastings feast, stand out. They make a symmetrical arrangement whereby the two outside figures at the meal point to a loaf and a fish on the table. This is an obvious reference to Christ's feeding of the multitudes, which he performed twice by miraculous duplication of loaves and fishes. 16 The Normans, we may remember, have fed their vast numbers by pillaging (Scene 41, Wilson 45-6). 17 The general iconography of this scene is believed to have been borrowed from the Last Supper picture in a Late Antique manuscript known as the St AugusMark 6: 38-44 (feeding five thousand); Mark 8: 5- 9 (four thousand, perhaps repetition). BernardS. Bachrach, 'Some Observations on the Military Administration of the Norman Conquest', ANS 8, 1985 (1986), 1- 25, esp. 4-5, estimates that as many as 14,000 men and 3,000 horses had to be fed and cared for. 16

17

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tine Gospels, 18 preserved in the monastery at Canterbury, and since the occasion is a last supper before the battle, it may seem appropriate; but for the discerning eye, it is not simply a copy but a parody, with Odo assuming the role of Christ and one of the feasters lounging on the table. Pointing on or back to show continuity

The Tapestry is organized into scenes which are usually closed off by buildings and trees, but small details often override the division. This may demonstrate simple continuity- 'and this is what happened next'- or it may indicate cause and effect. At Scene 9 (Wilson 9-10), where the captive Harold approaches Guy enthroned, a Norman holding a spear points away from the action, perhaps towards the next scene; but the identification of the stage gesture of eavesdropping by a little figure behind the pillar (to which I will return) and the fact that the Norman is also interrupting Guy by touching his elbow with a cupped hand, suggest otherwise. Perhaps the Norman is drawing the attention of Guy- and incidentally, of us- to the eavesdropper, and we are to connect the act of overhearing with the rescue of Harold by William which is to occupy the next five scenes. The offering of the crown to Harold at Scene 29 (Wilson 31) is accompanied by a pointing back to the previous scene, indicating that the event arises directly from what has gone before; but this is not without ambiguity, given that the previous image is a double one, two-tiered. The king is dying and speaking his last wishes at the top, and at the bottom he is being shrouded. A line ruled from the pointing finger goes back, narrowly, to the lower scene of wrapping the corpse rather than the upper one of the deathbed request; in other words, to the fact that the king is dead and the witan needs somebody to take control, rather than to the last bequest of the dying king. However, given the non-geometric medium of embroidery and the proximity of the two scenes, dying and shrouding, perhaps we are not justified in being so precise. Pointing to significant actor or action

The pointing finger is the commonest gesture of supporting actors, and sometimes a whole episode is choreographed in terms of it: characters at the sides focus the eye on the main (and fairly central) actor of a closed scene. Even William points to Harold at the oath swearing (Scene 23, Wilson 25--6), while the attendants point inward and upward at the caption. When King Edward and Harold come together they point to each other, which implies a degree of equality in their discussion even though by position and costume Harold is shown as being of inferior status to the king. When ruler and earl meet on Harold's return from France (Scene 25, Wilson 28), supporting figures on each side, bearing axes, also point inward, giving a satisfying symmetry to the encounter. It is not clear whether the supporting actors' gestures are simply indicating the main protagonists or if each is saying, one of Harold and the other of Edward, 'This is my man and he is right in this discussion'. Such an interpretation would imply more of an argument than is usually seen in the encounter. Most critics assume the rather cowed-looking Harold is being rebuked; but his pointing gesture is quite assertive. A more controversial meeting of pointing fingers occurs in the opening scene 18

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 286, fol. 125r., top row, centre.

XIV 152 (Scene 1, Wilson 1), where the right index fingers of Harold and the king appear to touch. The general iconography of the image is adapted from the Old English illustrated Hexateuch (probably from fol. 37r.), but the Bayeux artist has changed the hand gestures and created a point of focus where Harold and the king point at one another while touching. 19 Contemporary historians give conflicting reasons for Harold's journey, suggesting either that it was to inform William that he was Edward's designated heir, 20 in which case Harold was travelling as Edward's ambassador; or to negotiate the release of his own brother and nephew who had been hostages of William's since 1051,21 in which case he might, as Eadmer claims, have been travelling against Edward's advice. 22 This could be a touch of farewell, or an endowing of Harold with some plenipotentiary power. Interpreting this gesture could be an important clue to understanding the later touching of hands between Harold and Edward, and hence the nature of Edward's last wishes. Did he leave Harold in charge of queen and kingdom, the latter in trust for his designated heir, William; or did he make a deathbed bequest of the kingdom to Harold?23 However, the deathbed touching involves a different gesture so I will defer it. William and Harold never interact in this way, though William points to Harold in the palace scene (14, Wilson 16-17) and at the oath (Scene 23, Wilson 25-6). The only other occasion where hands appear to touch is at Scene 14 (Wilson 17) where Harold, centre-stage and evidently addressing William, points with his left hand. It is possible that he is pointing to the next image in the sequence, with the clericus and i'Elfgyva, which would imply that they, or she, form the subject of the conversation. However, Harold's hand appears to be touched by the man next to him. The man's fingers and thumb are curled in, but perhaps his index finger is meant to be laid on the back of Harold's hand, out of view. The touching seems deliberately depicted, not an accident of contiguity, since this character holds his spear and shield rather awkwardly together in the left hand, leaving his right hand free, whereas the man next to him has the more usual arrangement of spear in the right, shield in the left. The touching might suggest that the man is one of Harold's relatives, held hostage in William's court, about whom Harold is attempting to negotiate. The fact that the

19 The most likely model seems to me the encounter between Abraham and Abimelech, where the protagonists shake hands: Owen-Crocker, 'Reading the Bayeux Tapestry', 249- 51. 20 The suggestion is raised by William of Malmesbury in order to deny it, though he asserts that Edward granted the succession to William: Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, I, 416-17. William ofPoitiers has William say that Harold came to Normandy to confirm his succession: Poitiers, 120-1. 21 N. J. Higham, 'Harold Godwinesson: The Construction of Kingship', in King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry, ed. Owen-Crocker, 19-34 at 26-7. 22 Eadmer, HN, 6. William of Poitiers also mentions the hostages (Poitiers, 20-1, 68- 9). Since Edward had arranged the hostage-taking as part of his attempt to control the Godwines, a move to free them might have been against his wishes and we should be open to the possibility that his gestures on parting from Harold and receiving him again on his return (possibly with nephew) might reflect displeasure. 23 The Vita Eadwardi (122- 3) is ambiguous, saying that Edward commended the queen and all the kingdom to Harold's protection: ' Hanc ... cum omni regno tutandam tibi commendo'. ASC manuscripts C and D are similarly unclear, saying that Edward entrusted (befceste) the kingdom to Harold, while manuscript E asserts that the kingdom was granted to Harold: ' Harold eorl feng to Englalandes cynerice swa swa se cyng hit him geu5e': MS C, ed. Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe, ASC Collaborative Edn 5, Cambridge 200 I, 119; MS D, ed. G. P. Cubbin, ASC Collaborative Edn 6, Cambridge 1996, 79; MS E, ed. Susan Irvine, ASC Collaborative Edn 7, Cambridge 2004, 86. William of Poitiers (118- 19) dramatizes an envoy of Harold's saying that King Edward gave him the kingdom as a deathbed bequest which, by English custom, took precedence over his former granting of the kingdom to William. The unusual nature of Edward's gesture in terms of medieval iconography of kingly power is stressed by Thierry Lesieur, 'Lisible et visible. dans Ia Tapisserie de Bayeux ou Ia strategie de l'ambiguite', La Licorne 23, 1992, 173-82 at 178.

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man is bearded, and therefore mature, would suggest Harold's brother Wulfnoth rather than his nephew Hakon.

Nautical skill In several cases men aboard ships appear to be pointing to the sail or the rigging (Scenes 5, 24, 34, 38, Wilson 5-6, 26, 33, 40-2). The gesture appears with one, two, and in a single case three fingers up. The steersman especially, but not exclusively, uses this gesture. It seems probable that the sailors are testing the direction and strength of the wind with a gesture that is still used today, and that the manipulation of ropes and sails is in response to their conclusions. The gesture therefore works in two ways: it draws our attention to the sails and therefore to the progress of the ship in its journey, but it also gives some authenticity to the depiction of an important skill, sailing, in the same way that the handling of carpenters' tools or the transportation of a heavy load is depicted with verisimilitude.

Open hand The commonest alternative to the pointing finger is the open hand. The hand is seen palm side to the audience, the angle varying from horizontal to vertical but most often between the two. The thumb is somewhat separated from the fingers. The arm is bent so that the hand is level with the chest, neck, or head. At Edward's deathbed (Scene 27, Wilson 30) Harold has his thumb right up against the underside of his chin, while earlier as he approached Edward's throne (Scene 25, Wilson 28) his hand was well in front of his body. These variations may simply reflect the amount of space available (the deathbed scene being very compact) or they may be interpreted with different nuances, in terms of distance between a reigning monarch and a subject with whom he is displeased, and intimacy between a dying monarch and the only powerful man he can trust to carry out his wishes. I deduce that this open hand gesture means the actor is speaking rather than just observing. The proof comes at Scene 46 (Wilson 50) where a messenger makes this gesture and the caption confirms that the man is making an announcement: Hie nuntiatum est Willelmo de Harold, 'Here news is given to William about Harold'. Another clear example comes at Scene 14 (Wilson 17) - the discussion in the ducal palace - where Harold's entire body language indicates that he is presenting a forceful argument to William. This is not, as far as I know, a theatrical gesture, or one used for this purpose in manuscript illumination; although hands are sometimes placed in this position in Anglo-Saxon drawings they do not appear to signify speech. 24 I have become convinced this gesture is taken from real life. I was by chance lecturing in Italy during the recent election there (April 2006), and I saw ex-President Berlusconi on television several times, making just this gesture while talking vehemently.Z 5 I 24 In BL Stowe MS 944, fol. 6r., for example, Queen JElfgifu-Emma is gesturing towards the cross she and her husband are donating, and, above, the Virgin Mary is gesturing towards the mandorla which contains Christ: The Liber Vitae of the New Minster and Hyde Abbey Winchester: British Library Stowe 944, together with Leaves from British Library Cotton VespasianA . VIII and British Library Titus D.XXVII, Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile 29, Copenhagen 1996. 25 Interestingly I am not the first to notice that the Tapestry's gestures are mirrored in modern Italy: Bruce came to the same conclusion from personal observation in 1853-4. He deduced that the Tapestry designer must have been an Italian: John Collingwood Bruce, The Bayeux Tapestry Elucidated, London

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(a)

(b) Figure 3 Complex gestures (2): (a) Harold approaches Edward on his return to England (Scene 25, Wilson 28); (b) Harold and a companion enter the church at Basham (Scene 3, Wilson 3)

do not think it typical of English hand movements today, nor of French, but I saw President Bush gesturing this way, while making a public response to a question, in a televised news item in June 2006. 26 My explanation of this gesture as indicating speech would mean that at the controversial opening scene of the Tapestry it is Harold who is talking rather than Edward (and Harold's companion is also speaking, unless this is just an echo image): two Godwine brothers, perhaps, anxious to bring back their kinsmen from forced resi1856, 14. My attention was drawn to this by Carola Hicks, The Bayeux Tapestry: The Lift Story of a Masterpiece, London 2006, 157. 26 The American usage could be direct Italian influence, but may not be: in discussion at the Battle Conference 2006 it was suggested that the open hand posture is taught and encouraged among American public speakers as an assertive but non-aggressive gesture.

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dence in Normandy. 27 We should note that when Harold and Edward are parting again, at Edward's death, their touching hands are open in this gesture, not pointing. This suggests that they are engaged in dialogue, not one dictating to the other. Harold's left hand, making the same gesture but touching his chin, may convey his reception of, and response to, Edward's bequest. Open hand facing down

This means the character is dead. 28 There are several examples in both the main register and the bottom border (Scenes 52-3, 56-7, Wilson 61-6, 70-2) of bodies mutilated or in grotesque positions, with their hands open and downwards. 29 In the main register (Scene 52, Wilson 65) a foot soldier turns his head in astonished indignation towards the rider who has shattered the battle axe which was in his left hand. He still holds the shaft upright, but his right hand makes no attempt to ward off the enemy. It hangs down, an indication that he is effectively a dead man. Likewise, in a decapitation episode in the main register at Scene 57 (Wilson 70), the gesture creates a victim simultaneously alive and dead. He does not wear armour, and the episode seems likely to be significant, iconic, rather than simply illustrating an anonymous armed encounter, one of many in the heat of battle. Its composition is traditional: the executioner holds the man by the hair, in what is evidently a stock position in Anglo-Saxon and Roman art. 30 It can be found on the secondcentury Column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome and features in both the Harley Psalter and the Old English Hexateuch, both Canterbury manuscripts. Though about to be decapitated, the Bayeux man is not using his hands to defend himself, neither are his arms bound; they dangle lifelessly. Although the present red outline of the hands is evidently reconstruction,31 their position seems undeniable.

Hand and eye The lookout

The artists sometimes depict a man acting as a lookout. He is usually high up - in a tree, on a hill, on a platform, on a ship's mast or prow (Scenes 5, 11, 24, 38, 50, 54, Wilson 6, 12, 27, 41 left, 56, 67 lower)- and sometimes solitary. He is identifiable by a gesture of shading the eyes to see into the distance. 32 In some cases the elbow is raised in an unnatural way: we would bend the arm and keep it at eye level. In The analysis of the open hand gesture by Garnier, Le Langage de I 'image, l, 176, based mainly on thirteenth-century evidence but with one example from the eleventh, suggests compliance. If the gestures of Harold and his companion were read this way it would suggest that Edward is giving the orders. 28 My attention was drawn to this by the comment of Lucien Mussel, The Bayeux Tapestry, trans. Richard Rex, Woodbridge 2005 (published in French, Paris 2002), 252, on the decapitation image: ' an unnamed Englishman ... abandons the struggle, resigned to his grisly fate'. 29 That is, the fingers point to the feet. When the figure is horizontal, so is the hand. 30 I have previously explored the position for decapitation in Anglo-Saxon art in Gale R. Owen-Crocker, 'Horror in Beowulf Mutilation, Decapitation and Unburied Dead', in Early Medieval English Texts and Interpretations: Studies Presented to Donald G. Scragg, ed. E. Treharne and S. Rosser, Tempe AZ 2003, 81- 100 at 99. 3 1 The hands appear in a different colour in Stothard's coloured drawings, published 181 8-23: Martin K. Foys, The Bayeux Tapestry Digital Edition, Leicester 2003, panel 195. I am grateful to Martin Foys for this observation. 32 Even at Scene 38 (Wilson 41 ), when, as mentioned below, the sea crossing is taking place in the dark. 27

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(b)

(a) Figure 4 Eavesdropping: (a) Scene 9, Wilson 10; (b) From an illustrated cycle of the plays of Terence (after Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Gestures, plate Xa: detail from Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 3836, fol. 72v.)

one case (Scene 50, Wilson 56) the arm is foreshortened and in another (Scene 11, Wilson 12), though the elbow is down, it is the back of the hand, not the palm, that faces the viewer. This makes the gesture quite distinct from the open hand gestures we have seen: these actors are not talking. Calling

The figure at the prow of a ship in Scene 38 (under et venit: Wilson 41 right and 42) is not shading his eyes as a lookout would do (and as indeed another figure in a ship behind in the same scene is doing). This figure is making the open hand gesture. His vessel is not close to land but at sea, with other ships. The man is evidently calling to other ships. William crossed the Channel at night, 33 but the Tapestry designer hardly attempts to convey this. Only a possible lantern at the mast of a prominent ship - probably William's flagship - and this calling gesture acknowledge that the journey took place in the dark, when the ships which are visible to us were invisible to each other. A figure handling the anchor at Scene 4 (Wilson 5) is probably also calling out. He is evidently manning a small sailing/rowing boat in which Harold and his entourage are transported to their seagoing vessel and is preparing to drop the anchor near the bigger boat. 33

Poitiers, II 0- 13.

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The combatant

At Scene 53 (Wilson 67) a soldier is being stabbed by a rider's spear. The soldier stands on a hill and has one foot in a tree, as if he were a lookout; but the victim has an open hand to his head. His elbow is down, and this contrasts with another man making the 'lookout' gesture with elbow up, beneath him in the same scene. The man on the hill, placed as a lookout, may have been taken by surprise and is crying out. At Scene 55 (Wilson 68), in the thick of battle, surrounded by the caption Hie est Wille[lm]i Dux and indicated by the pointing finger of an armed man holding a flag, 34 Duke William tips back the face-piece of his helmet with his right hand. His elbow is down, and the gesture he makes is not to be confused with a 'lookout' movement; his hand is the other way round. This is consistent with textual evidence . that William raised his visor- a brave and dangerous act in the midst of the conflict - to assure demoralized troops that he was still alive. 35 In the context of hand and eye, I cannot avoid mentioning Harold's death and the controversial issue of whether or not he received an arrow in the eye. Against the arrow, I note that the position of the man's hand is exactly like that of men who throw spears. In support of the arrow, I note that the man holds a spear in his left hand, so he is not likely to be throwing another - people are not depicted with two - and that his head is tilted back, which is not usual among soldiers throwing spears. It is, however, the position of a man receiving an arrow in the eye in the Harley Psalter. 36

Hand to waist or hip

At Scene 10 (Wilson 10- 11) where Guy of Ponthieu confronts William's messengers, Guy adopts a position unusual in medieval art: he stands with the right arm bent and the hand at the waist or resting on the pelvis. Although the hand-on-hip might be interpreted as one of several possible hints at Guy's notorious effeminacy,37 the context suggests strongly that Guy is listening to argument, forcefully expressed by the extra-large and aggressive figures of William's messengers, who have come to 'persuade' Guy to give up his prisoner, Harold, to William. Guy holds a large axe, which indicates authority and suggests assertiveness. It is noticeable that his right hand is bunched into a fist, which may indicate possessiveness, though the fist is empty which suggests Guy's impotence. 38 The figure of Guy in his uniquely patterned tunic is a memorable one, and we, as audience of the Tapestry, are being programmed to associate the hand-on-hip gesture with listening to argument. Guy's gesture prefigures the hand position of Harold at Scene 29 (Wilson 31) as the crown is offered to him. Harold's stance demonstrates that he is not seizing the crown but Often interpreted as Eustace, because of the damaged border inscription E . . . cius (read as Eustacius). 35 Poitiers, 130--1. 36 BL Harley MS 603, fol. 2v., derived from the Utrecht Psalter. This detail illustrates 'The kings of the earth set themselves ... against the Lord, and against His anointed .. . Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath' (Psalm 2: 2- 5). The man is shot in the eye as a metaphor for divine punishment of sinful selfelevation. The matter is discussed in detail in Owen-Crocker, ' Reading the Bayeux Tapestry', 256-8. 37 Malmesbury, Gesta Regurn, !, 418- 19. See GaleR. Owen-Crocker, 'The Bayeux Tapestry: The Voice from the Border', in Signs on the Edge: Space, Text and Margin in Medieval Manuscripts, ed. Sarah Larratt Keefer and Rolf H. Bremmer, Leuven forthcoming 2007. 38 Garnier, Le Langage de I 'image, I, 161. A closed fist is said to be relatively uncommon. 34

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(a)

(b) Figure 5 Persuading: (a) Guy of Ponthieu is 'persuaded' to give up his prisoner, Harold (Scene 10, Wilson 10-11); (b) Harold is 'persuaded' to accept the crown of England (Scene 29, Wilson 31)

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(a)

(b)

Figure 6 Touching fingers: (a) Harold takes his leave of Edward (Scene 1, Wilson 1); (b) Edward's deathbed (Scene 27, Wilson 30).

XIV 160 is listening to an argument; in other words, he is being persuaded. His placing in the scene, however, is unlike Guy's: Harold is front-facing, with only his head turned to look directly at the other men and at the crown and axe they offer. Front-facing is unusual in the Tapestry where most figures are in profile or three-quarters. The frontal position of Harold anticipates the authority he is soon to take on, 39 and the fist at his hip has one extended finger, which points diagonally downwards into himself. 40 It indicates 'I agree to accept the authority you offer me.' This graphic presentation of Harold is important in reflecting a view of the Englishman which contradicts later Norman propaganda: that Harold was no usurper but chosen as king by the country's leading men. 41

Religious gestures Blessing An unequivocal gesture of blessing is demonstrated by the Dextra Dei, the 'Hand of God' which hovers over Westminster Abbey as Edward's body is carried towards it (Scene 26, Wilson 29). The same hand shape is made by Harold as he swears his oath (Scene 23, Wilson 26) but I have chosen to classify it elsewhere. Prayer The gesture ofprayer, orans, 'let us pray', originated as a gesture of supplication to a deity. It was common to many ancient religions42 and is found in early Christian art in the Roman catacombs. Although today it is most often found as a ritual gesture of a priest inviting the congregation to prayer,43 it was originally not confined to the clergy and is the normal position indicting prayer in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. (The ' hands together' gesture was not introduced until the thirteenth century. 44) Archbishop Stigand, officiating (rightly or wrongly)45 at Harold's coronation (Scene 30, Wilson 31) is in the classic orans position. The cleric at Edward's shrouding (Scene 28, Wilson 30) has his left hand in this position; the right hand evidently gives a blessing, albeit at a rather oblique angle. Kneeling Harold's companion at Bosham church (Scene 3, Wilson 3) has his hand outstretched in the orans gesture. Both figures are caught in the act of kneeling down, in an He will appear front-facing at his coronation. Garnier, Le Langage de !"image, I, I 67- 70, divides the pointing finger gesture into subcategories of vertical (indicating ' authority') and horizontal (indicating ' agreement, witness' ), but I do not think these are generally valid for the Tapestry; for example minor, unnamed characters pointing up at the caption are not authority figures. However, the manner of Harold's pointing is evidently unusual. The tip of his finger is tucked into his girdle. 4! Ann Williams, 'Some Notes and Considerations on Problems Connected with the English Royal Succession, 860- 1066', ANSI, 1978 (1979), 144-{)7 and 225- 33, esp. 155. 42 Described at Isaiah 1: I 5 as to 'spread forth your hands', a gesture indicating prayer. 43 The gesture is enjoying a revival among evangelical Christian congregations. 44 Apparently from Buddhism: Davidson, 'Gesture', 83-4, 118 n. 81. 4 5 The debate about Stigand is summarized in Barbara English, 'The Coronation of Harold in the Bayeux Tapestry', in Bayeux Tapestry, ed. Bouet and others, 347- 81 at 377- 8. Note, however, that English is mistaken in stating that Stigand is 'without a pallium' . He wears the vestment round his shoulders and down the centre front of his body. 39

40

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unusual case of simultaneous mobility and immobility. 46 They are pictured outside the church. 47 We understand that when they are inside they will kneel down and pray; but the artist has pictured them with knees bent, actually descending. 48 I have only found two other instances of this, later in date: both from a thirteenth-century stained glass window in Chartres cathedral, which depict Charlemagne in the act of falling on his knees. 49 Harold's hand is against his body. Since his companion is making a gesture of prayer, I suggest that Harold is pictured in the act of genuflection and is crossing himself. Raising up

The outstretched hand of the clericus at Scene 15 (Wilson 17) touches the face of the woman we presume to be JElfgyva. There have been various interpretations of this gesture. David Hill has suggested the cleric is adjusting the woman's wedding veil, 5° in support of the interpretation that this is William's daughter, being betrothed to Harold, as mentioned in several Norman sources; 51 however, the woman's garment is similar to many other women's headdresses in early medieval art, and there is nothing distinctively bridal about it. Lucien Musset interprets the gesture as a blow in the face, 52 while Bernstein and McNulty interpret the gesture in relation to the innuendoes in the bottom border as indicating sexual impropriety between the woman and the cleric. 53 In support of this, Garnier provides evidence that the gesture was used as a graphic indication of affection, usually between the sexes, but does not document it before the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 54 Rather, the gesture which the clericus makes towards JElfgyva's face resembles the gesture of a man who draws the risen Lazarus from his sepulchre in the St Augustine Gospels. 55 The same thing may be seen in the cupping of God's hand round the face of a man in the Paris Psalter illustrating the text, 'the Lord awoke me and raised me up'. 56 Both were St Augustine's, Canterbury, manuscripts which could have been known to the Tapestry artist. 57 The gesture was not confined to Canterbury. It is used in an eleventh-century illustration of St Radegund restoring a I take this phrase from Garnier, Le Langage de /'image, I, 128. Lewis, Archaeological Authority, 28, and 'Bayeux Tapestry and Material Culture', 187-90, establishes that the architecture here is the south side of a typical late Anglo-Saxon church, rather than an internal chancel arch. 48 In the discussion which followed this paper at the Battle Conference 2006 it was suggested that Harold and his companions might have been approaching on their knees; but there is nothing in the context to suggest a reason for such a penitential act. Prayer at church in anticipation of the hazards of a sea voyage is, however, entirely plausible. 49 Garnier, Le Langage de /'image, I, 126-7, figs D, E. In these cases the arms are uplifted, but the knees resemble those of Harold and his companion. 50 David Hill, 'The Bayeux Tapestry and its Commentators: The Case of Scene 15', Medieval Life II, Summer 1999, 24-6. 51 Poitiers, 156-7; Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, I, 418- 19; Orderic, III, 114-15. 52 Mussel, Bayeux Tapestry, 126-8, supposes that the purpose of the blow is to ensure that the woman will not forget what she is witnessing. However, she does not appear to be witnessing anything. 53 David J. Bernstein, The Mystery of the Bayeux Tapestry, London 1986, 19; J. Bard McNulty, The Narrative Art of the Bayeux Tapestry Master, New York 1989, 55. 54 Garnier, Le Langage de /'image, II, 120-6. 55 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 286, fol. 125r., second row, left. 56 BN MS lat. 8824, fol. 2v. (Psalms 3: 4). The Old English text reads Drihten me awehte, and me upp amrde. See Ohlgren, Anglo-Saxon Textual Illustration, 50, 299. 57 I first explored this interpretation in Gale R. Owen-Crocker, 'Embroidered Wood: Animal-Headed Posts in the Bayeux Tapestry' , in Aedificia Nova: Studies in Honor of Rosemary Cramp, ed. Catherine Karkov and Helen Damico, Kalamazoo MI forthcoming 2007. 46 47

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(b)

(a)

.j (d)

(c)

(e) Figure 7 (a) .!Elfgyva and clericus (Scene 15, Wilson 17); (b) Detail of.!Elfgyva 's hand; (c) Spes and Humilitas from BL Cotton MS Cleopatra C. viii, fol. 17r. (after Ohlgren, Anglo-Saxon Textual Illustration, plate 15.23); (d) Detail of Spes's hand; (e) Approval or acquiescence gesture from an illustrated cycle of the plays of Terence (after Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Gestures, plate XL/Ib: detail from Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, S. P 4bis, fol. 36v.)

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sick man to health. The saint is cupping the chin of a patient who is being physically raised up in bed. 58 The gesture, then, may be seen as a metaphorical 'raising up' of lElfgyva, who is presumably a historical person, dead by the time of the Tapestry, being discussed by William and Harold in the adjacent image. I will return to the lElfgyva scene presently.

Theatrical gestures

Interestingly the artist mostly chooses to place classical miming gestures in the hands of anonymous characters who only appear once. The first two are probably connected. Eavesdropping

At Scene 9 (Wilson 9-10), as Harold, sword unbuckled, approaches his captor Guy, a figure lurks behind a pillar with his head turned towards the scene. His right hand has the little finger raised in a gesture which C. R. Dodwell has identified as indicating that a figure is meant to be out of sight of others and is eavesdropping.59 The left hand of the eavesdropper has the index finger raised; he may simply be clutching the column, but he may be indicating the word of the caption above, parabolant: Guy and Harold are talking, and he is listening. The man's figure is out of proportion. His odd two-tone hair may be meant to represent the cropped Norman hairstyle, but his strange costume with what looks like a dagged edge, 60 unique in the Tapestry, does not help us identifY his nationality. I might guess he is some kind of entertainer, enjoying an intimacy at Guy's court which enabled him to listen undetected. However, whoever he is, his spying must be significant, and we may be intended to deduce that his intelligence was reported to William. Supplication

At Scene 12 (Wilson 12-13) a small figure is placed between the seated figure of William and two armed Normans. The caption tells us 'Here a messenger came to Duke William', but the graphic indicates much more than that. This messenger is not just a local man bringing information. The man is English, identifiable as such by his tunic and hairstyle. His relative size in relation to the Normans indicates his vulnerability, and his hands are spread in a gesture which Dodwell identifies as supplication. 61 The man is desperately begging for William's help. Notice that, unlike the Norman soldiers in the scene, who stand still, with feet neatly placed, the supplicant's tunic is flying out and his legs appear to be carrying him forward. The association of a running movement with the outstretched arms of supplication is traditional, a convention which the Tapestry artist inherited from the cycle of

Garnier, Le Langage de /'image, II, 125, fig. 168, from Fortunatus, Life of St Radegund, Poitiers, Bib1iotheque municipale MS 250, fol. 42. 59 Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Gestures, 23, plate Xa. Dodwell does not find the gesture in Anglo-Saxon manuscript art. 60 Dagging, cutting the edge of a fulled or felted textile into decorative shapes with shears, is a technique of the later Middle Ages. 61 Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Gestures, 78-80, 129-32, plate XXVI. 58

XIV 164

(b)

(a)

I: \

~D.:J

(c)

(d) Figure 8 (a) Looking at the stella, Halley 's comet (Scene 32, Wilson 32); (b) Detail of awe gesture; (c) Detail of grasping the wrist; (d) Mother leads her child from burning building (Scene 47, Wilson 50)

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(b)

(a)

Figure 9 Swearing an oath: (a) From an illustrated cycle of the plays of Terence (detail from Paris Bibliotheque Nationale MS lat. 7899, fol. 143v., drawn by the author); (b) Detail of Harold's hand as he swears an oath (Scene 23, Wilson 25-6: above, Fig. 2b)

Terence illustrations,62 but here it is cunningly developed by the use of the ground line beneath the man's feet. This wavy line indicates the outdoors throughout most of the Tapestry. The scene indicates both that the man has hurried from the scene of Harold's capture by Guy of Ponthieu to William's court, and that he has arrived and is begging for help. The Bayeux artist subtly conveys the man in two locations simultaneously, his journey and his destination.

Pondering At Scene 37 (Wilson 38- 9) both of the men pulling a cartload of equipment have their fists under their chins. The nearer man's hand is clearly depicted in dark wool. His companion's hand in lighter wool is less obvious. It may be coincidental, a chance positioning of the hand when pulling a heavy load, but the men's gesture is a classic indication of pondering. This 'thinking' posture was originally associated with deities and philosophers, but it apparently became a standard comedic device of the Roman stage to associate it with a slave. 63 If this is indeed the meaning of the gesture here, it has the same kind of comic value: the rich and privileged will wear the helmets, throw the spears, and drink the great barrel of wine the slaves are pulling to the ships. The men who are doing the physical work to make this possible, harnessed to the cart like beasts, are wondering what it is all about. ' it is simply an expression of the dramatic convention of the running slave ... but ... the two· go together in Anglo-Saxon illustrations as they do in the Terence miniatures': Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Gestures, 130. 63 Ibid. 31- 2, also plates Xllla and LVa. The gesture is used in the Old English Hexateuch when characters are puzzled by disinformation or by God working in mysterious ways: ibid. 143- 5. 62

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(a)

(b) (c)

Figure 10 Supplication: (a) A supplicant comes to Williams court (Scene 12, Wilson 13); (b) Detail of supplication gesture; (c) From an illustrated cycle of the plays of Terence (after Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Gestures, plate XXVI: detail from BN MS lat. 7899, fol. 109r.)

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(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 11 Pondering: (a) Pulling a cart to load the invasion fleet (Scene 3 7, Wilson 38- 9); (b) Detail ofpondering gesture; (c) From an illustrated cycle of the plays of Terence (after Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Gestures, plate XII!b: detail from BN MS lat. 7899, fol. 41r.)

XIV 168

Figure 12 William is 'persuaded' to build ships (Scene 35, Wilson 34-5)

Approval or hope At Scene 15 (Wilson 17) the embroidered right hand of !Elfgyva, unusually clumsylooking among the hands in the Tapestry, may be the result of an attempt to copy in needlework a mime from the Roman stage which Dodwell has identified as a well established traditional gesture of approval or acquiescence. 64 There are slight variations to it, but basically the middle finger, or the ring finger, makes an incomplete circle with the thumb, leaving the index finger (or all the other fingers) extended. If we were to read the woman's gesture simply as acquiescence, we might favour the explanation that the woman was William's daughter accepting a betrothal to Harold. However, it is likely that the gesture was transmitted to the Bayeux designer throltgh an illustration to Prudentius's Psychomachia, since, as David Hill originally noted, the whole figure of !Elfgyva is copied from one of the personified Virtues in the Canterbury manuscript London, British Library, Cotton Cleopatra C.viii. 65 The specific model seems to be Spes (Hope), on fol. 17r. 66 The Virtues Spes and Humilitas (Humility) have triumphed in a long struggle against the Sin Superbia (Pride). Humilitas displays the severed head of the defeated Superbia, and Spes makes a speech denouncing pride, making with her right hand the gesture in question. If the Bayeux designer took along something of the context with the borrowed image - as I believe he did when borrowing the figure of Labor from fol. 30r. of the same manuscript67 - then we might look for a meaning in which pride has been Ibid. 61- 5, 122-9, plates XLIIa-XLVb. Hill, ' Bayeux Tapestry and Commentators', 26. 66 Hill 's drawing, though unidentified, is evidently a reversed image of Patientia (Patience) which appears on fol. 12r: of the manuscript (confirmed by personal communication). However, Spes is a closer match for JE!fgyva: the positions of the hands and feet are very similar. 67 Owen-Crocker, ' Embroidered Wood', n. 65. Briefly, the use of the Psychomachia personification Labor, an associate of the Vice Avaritia, depicts the Norman pillagers as greedy looters. 64

65

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overcome and the future is hopeful. If we consider that William and Harold have been in heated discussion and they ride off together on campaign, we might deduce that they have swallowed their pride, expressed by the peacocks in the upper border, and made a bargain. 68 However, the JElfgyva scene gives mixed messages, as we shall see later. Swearing an oath I include the gesture made by Harold's right hand as he swears his oath (sacramentum fecit, Scene 23, Wilson 25-6) in the category of theatrical gestures on the basis of the caption to an illustration in a ninth-century illustrated manuscript of Terence, which states that (in this specific context) a character's two outstretched fingers indicate that she is swearing an oath (juramenta confirmat). 69 Harold touches the index and middle fingers of his right hand against a portable reliquary. The hand is turned towards the audience and we can see that his other fingers and thumb are curled in. This is obviously a codified gesture. His left hand simply rests on another reliquary on an altar. Grief The woman at the foot of the bed in Scene 27 (Wilson 30) is not identified by the caption, though we have no problem recognizing her as Edith, wife of Edward the Confessor and sister of Harold, from the description of the deathbed in the Vita Eadwardi. 70 Edith has her hand to her face in a gesture of sorrow frequently seen on the Roman stage, and exemplifies a well known variation in which the sad person weeps into a garment. This became a common gesture of lamentation in AngloSaxon manuscript illumination.7 1 In particular it is used by bereaved women, in the Old English Hexateuch and in crucifixion scenes, where it is associated with the Virgin Mary.

Reading ambiguities The significance of individual instances of pointing The Tapestry's lack of dimensional depth and the contraction of individual figures into narrow spaces inevitably lead to ambiguity. It is not clear, for example, if the man at second left in the Bosham feast scene (Scene 3, Wilson 3--4) is pointing to the larger figure of Harold in the centre (and by implication to the importance of what he is saying) or if he is pointing past him to a messenger who says it is time to embark. At Scene 9 (Wilson 10) a Norman holding a spear points away from the

This point is discussed in detail in Owen-Crocker, 'Embroidered Wood'. Schmitt, La Raison des gestes, 98- 100, 378 n. 14. The caption to Schmitt's illustration (fig. 3, p. 99) includes the information ' Seulle commentaire ecrit permet de distinguer le geste du serment d'un simple geste d 'adlocutio'. This gesture is not included in Dodwell's discussion of Roman theatrical gestures transmitted to Anglo-Saxon manuscript art, and I know of no other instance of it in a tenth- or eleventhcentury context. It occurs in BN MS Lat. 7899 fol. 143v. (as do many of the images of classical gestures Dodwell illustrates). 70 Vita Eadwardi, 122-3. 71 Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Gestures, 74-8, 111- 22. 68

69

XIV 170 action, perhaps towards the next scene; but the possibility that he has spotted the eavesdropper behind the pillar, and is attracting Guy's attention to the matter by touching his elbow, potentially interlinks the actors and the scenes. Neither of these examples is of great importance in terms of the overall narrative, but the greater the interaction between characters, the more dramatic the graphics of the Tapestry prove to be. Critics might disagree about some of these interpretations. In discussing the deathbed scene (27, Wilson 30), H. E. J. Cowdrey develops an elaborate theory in which the weeping Edith is pointing to her own left hand as an indication that Harold is to be distrusted. 72 To my own eyes, looking at the scene in relation to other scenes, it seems that Edith is pointing to the central issue of the deathbed bequest, which is marked for us by the touching hands of the king and his successor at the centre of the tableau. In this Edith acts a double part: she is both the icon of grief, a familiar role for the female figure in Anglo-Saxon art, found at the crucifixion and at the death of an Old Testament male; and she is the supporting actor focusing our attention on the chief protagonists. To Cowdrey she also indicates a pro-Norman interpretation of events, that Harold's acceptance of the bequest is perjury. The inspiration behind the invasion The conference at which William orders ships to be built (Scene 35, Wilson 34-5) involves gestures by all four figures in the scene. Bishop Odo points onwards to the felling of trees for the construction of the fleet, and the carpenter who stands behind and left of him points the same way, while inclining his head towards the group who are issuing the orders. A figure standing on the left of the scene might be the messenger who has brought news of Harold's accession across the Channel in the previous scene, or it could be William's half-brother Robert, by analogy with Scene 44 (Wilson 48) where all three brothers are named. (I will assume here that the man is a messenger.) This man points in the same direction as Odo does, either towards Odo and William, both seated, or onward. Both the messenger and Odo have one open hand outstretched, indicating that they are talking. William has his right hand on his hip, which, as we have seen, suggests he is being persuaded. 73 His left hand points, and in view of the bent arm it seems to point to himself rather than to the messenger. The gestures suggest that the men to the right and left of William are persuading him to act and that he is accepting that responsibility, rather than that he is taking the initiative as the caption indicates (Willelm Dux iussit naves edificare). As I have suggested elsewhere, although the text reflects a William-centred orthodoxy, the graphics give some prominence to Odo as a proactive figure that is not always reflected in the commentary, perhaps because Odo was the patron of the Tapestry. 74

72 H. E. J. Cowdrey, 'King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry: A Critical Introduction', in King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry, ed. Owen-Crocker, 1- 15 at 13. 73 His gesture is distinct from the 'hand on thigh' position that is not uncommon for seated rulers in medieval art. 74 GaleR. Owen-Crocker, 'Brothers, Rivals and the Geometry of the Bayeux Tapestry', in King Harold ll and the Bayeux Tapestry, ed. Owen-Crocker, 109-23 at 112- 13. I am not the first to 'read' Odo's role this way, though specific analysis of the body language in support of the observation is mine; A. Leve, La Tapisserie de Ia reine Mathilde dite Ia Tapisserie de Bayeux, Paris 1919, 200, in support of the suggestion that Odo was patron of the embroidery, remarked 'C'est lui qui semble avoir les heureuses initiatives, notamment au grand conseil de Rouen' .

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The mixed messages of the /Elfgyva scene

Scene 15 (Wilson 17), captioned Ubi unus clericus et /Elfgyva, is of course mysterious and has been subject to many different interpretations. The leading candidates for the woman's role are JElfgifu-Emma, wife of JEthelred II and subsequently of Cnut; her rival JElfgifu ofNorthampton, mother of two sons by Cnut; and William's daughter, who was not named JElfgyva, but Adelida or Agatha, and who was, allegedly, betrothed to Harold. The situation is complicated by the fact that JElfgyfu, JElfgifu, JElfgyfa or JElfgiva was a favourite English royal name, born by less famous members of the family; and by commentators' suggestions of other identifications for the woman in the Tapestry which involve historical characters who were not actually called JElfgyva. 75 The cleric has one hand to the woman's face, which I have suggested implies that she is being resurrected; in other words, her case is being talked over after her death. This would be appropriate if the subject were JElfgifu-Emma, since she was William's great-aunt and the mother of the current English I