The Story Told on the Famous Bayeux Tapestry Explained from Start to Finish

They say that his­to­ry is writ­ten by the vic­tors, but that isn’t always true: some­times it’s embroi­dered by the vic­tors. Such was the case with the Bayeux Tapes­try, which com­mem­o­rates the build-up to and suc­cess­ful exe­cu­tion of the Nor­man con­quest of Eng­land in 1066. Cre­at­ed not long after the events it depicts in what we now call the Unit­ed King­dom, the near­ly 230-foot-long cloth has been kept in France for most of its exis­tence. But as report­ed by Hyper­al­ler­gic’s Isa Far­fan, the Bayeux Tapes­try is now set for a year­long sojourn back in its home­land, and at no less an august insti­tu­tion than the British Muse­um, after spend­ing the bet­ter part of a mil­len­ni­um abroad.

In a style that may strike twen­ty-first-cen­tu­ry view­ers as a pre­de­ces­sor to the graph­ic nov­el — or even to the straight-ahead com­ic book, with its grotesque exag­ger­a­tions — the Bayeux Tapes­try’s embroi­dery tells the sto­ry, writes Far­fan, of “the vic­to­ry of William the Con­queror, the Duke of Nor­mandy, over Eng­land in the Bat­tle of Hast­ings. William assem­bled a fleet of ships filled with thou­sands of men and hors­es to cross the Eng­lish Chan­nel and suc­cess­ful­ly claimed the throne from the last Anglo-Sax­on king, Harold God­win­son.”

All this takes place over “58 scenes fea­tur­ing more than 600 wool-thread­ed peo­ple and 200 hors­es. Though it focus­es on the his­tor­i­cal bat­tle, the embroi­dery also reveals fix­tures of broad­er eleventh-cen­tu­ry life, includ­ing archi­tec­ture and armor, and includes almost 400 Latin words accom­pa­ny­ing the images.”

Those words are inter­pret­ed by YouTu­ber Lindy­beige in the video above, which offers a humor­ous ani­mat­ed tour of the full length of the Bayeux Tapes­try — or, in any case, a very close repli­ca made in Eng­land in the mid-nine­teenth cen­tu­ry. The elab­o­rate­ness of its treat­ment under­scores that the Nor­man con­quest was one of the most momen­tous events, if not the most momen­tous event, in all of Eng­lish his­to­ry; the extent of its glo­ri­fi­ca­tion under­scores how much the con­querors felt the need to legit­imize their rule. Noth­ing would ever be the same for Eng­lish cul­ture, Eng­lish law, and even, as recent­ly fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture, the Eng­lish lan­guage. If you go to Lon­don next year to behold the Bayeux Tapes­try for your­self, you’ll hear the usu­al ambi­ent grum­bling about the state of Eng­land — with a refreshed empha­sis, per­haps, on how wrong it all went after 1066.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Bayeux Tapes­try Gets Dig­i­tized: View the Medieval Tapes­try in High Res­o­lu­tion, Down to the Indi­vid­ual Thread

Behold a Cre­ative Ani­ma­tion of the Bayeux Tapes­try

How Eng­land First Became Eng­land: An Ani­mat­ed His­to­ry

The Bayeux Tapes­try Ani­mat­ed

The Entire His­to­ry of the British Isles Ani­mat­ed: 42,000 BCE to Today

Con­struct Your Own Bayeux Tapes­try with This Free Online App

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.