They are saying that history is written by the victors, however that isn’t at all times true: someoccasions it’s embroidered by the victors. Such was the case with the Bayeux Tapesstrive, which commemocharges the build-up to and successful execution of the Norman conquest of England in 1066. Created not lengthy after the occasions it depicts in what we now name the United Kingdom, the close toly 230-foot-long fabric has been saved in France for many of its existence. However as reported by Hyperallergic’s Isa Farfan, the Bayeux Tapesstrive is now set for a yrlengthy sojourn again in its houseland, and at no much less an august institution than the British Museum, after spending the guesster a part of a millennium overseas.
In a mode that will strike twenty-first-century viewers as a predecessor to the graphic novel — and even to the straight-ahead comic ebook, with its grotesque exaggerations — the Bayeux Tapesstrive’s embroidery tells the story, writes Farfan, of “the victory of William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy, over England within the Battle of Hastings. William assembled a fleet of ships stuffed with thousands of males and horses to cross the English Channel and successfully claimed the throne from the final Anglo-Saxon king, Harold Godwinson.”
All this takes place over “58 scenes featuring greater than 600 wool-threaded people and 200 horses. Although it focuses on the historical battle, the embroidery additionally reveals repairtures of broader eleventh-century life, including architecture and armor, and consists of virtually 400 Latin phrases accompanying the pictures.”
These phrases are interpreted by YouTuber Lindybeige in the video above, which gives a humorous animated tour of the total size of the Bayeux Tapesstrive — or, in any case, a really shut replica made in England within the mid-nineteenth century. The elabopriceness of its deal withment beneathscores that the Norman conquest was one of the crucial momentous occasions, if not essentially the most momentous occasion, in all of English history; the extent of its glorification beneathscores how a lot the conquerors felt the necessity to legitimize their rule. Nothing would ever be the identical for English culture, English legislation, and even, as latestly featured right here on Open Culture, the English language. For those who go to London subsequent yr to behold the Bayeux Tapesstrive on yourself, you’ll hear the usual ambient grumbling in regards to the state of England — with a refreshed emphasis, perhaps, on how improper all of it went after 1066.
Related content:
Behold a Creative Animation of the Bayeux Tapesstrive
How England First Grew to become England: An Animated History
The Bayeux Tapesstrive Animated
The Total History of the British Isles Animated: 42,000 BCE to At the moment
Construct Your Personal Bayeux Tapesstrive with This Free On-line App
Primarily based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His tasks embody the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the ebook The Statemuch less Metropolis: a Stroll by way of Twenty first-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on the social webwork formerly generally known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
