They are saying that history is written by the victors, however that isn’t all the time true: someoccasions it’s embroidered by the victors. Such was the case with the Bayeux Tapesattempt, 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 material has been stored in France for many of its existence. However as reported by Hyperallergic’s Isa Farfan, the Bayeux Tapesattempt is now set for a 12 monthslengthy sojourn again in its dwellingland, and at no much less an august institution than the British Museum, after spending the wagerter a part of a millennium overseas.
In a mode which will strike twenty-first-century viewers as a predecessor to the graphic novel — and even to the straight-ahead comic e book, with its grotesque exaggerations — the Bayeux Tapesattempt’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 full of 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 nearly 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 complete size of the Bayeux Tapesattempt — or, in any case, a really shut replica made in England within the mid-nineteenth century. The elabofeeness of its deal withment underneathscores that the Norman conquest was probably the most momentous occasions, if not probably the most momentous occasion, in all of English history; the extent of its glorification underneathscores 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 currently featured right here on Open Culture, the English language. Should you go to London subsequent 12 months to behold the Bayeux Tapesattempt to yourself, you’ll hear the usual ambient grumbling concerning the state of England — with a refreshed emphasis, perhaps, on how flawed all of it went after 1066.
Related content:
The Bayeux Tapesattempt Will get Digitized: View the Medieval Tapesattempt in Excessive Resolution, Right down to the Individual Thread
Behold a Creative Animation of the Bayeux Tapesattempt
How England First Turned England: An Animated History
The Bayeux Tapesattempt Animated
The Whole History of the British Isles Animated: 42,000 BCE to Right now
Construct Your Personal Bayeux Tapesattempt 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 e book The Statemuch less Metropolis: a Stroll by way of Twenty first-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on the social internetwork formerly often known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
