Harold, King of the English

Several years after the coronation of William the Conqueror, his half-brother Bishop Odo of Bayeux commissioned an unknown artist with the creation of a tapestry [actually: an embroidery, S.K.] 230 feet long and 20 inches high, an immense piece of needlecraft even by today's standards. This strip of linen was intended to display the Norman conquest of England and William's victory.

Using narrative techniques also found in modern moviemaking, the tapestry gives an elaborate insight into eleventh-century culture. The artist had cities and farms, peasants and craftsmen, cooking and fighting accurately embroidered. The illustration may even have been too detailed, at least from the Norman point of view, if the following interpretation holds.

After the death of King Edward the Confessor, three noblemen claimed the English throne: the victorious William the Conqueror, the Norwegian king Harold III, and Earl Harold Godwinson, who was favored by the Anglo-Saxons. William, however, insisted that the deceased Edward the Confessor had chosen him to be the successor to the throne. In addition, he claimed that Harold Godwinson had, when shipwrecked years before, sworn to help William to ascend to throne.

Harold Godwinson was crowned but a short time later killed at the Battle of Hastings, when William the Conqueror invaded England. Even though the tapestry shows the killing of Harold Godwinson as divine revenge, as ordered by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, the artist may have introduced a different idea: In the scene following Harold Godwinson's coronation, the tapestry says: "Here sits Harold, King of the English." With no word does the artist mention that Harold was crowned without a righteous claim; rather, this caption suggests that it was the legitimate king who had been enthroned and later killed. The presence of all parts of society in the surrounding illustrations, i.e. workers, fighters, and clergymen, reinforces this understanding.

This special Anglo-Saxon view of history found in the tapestry, however, is so subtle that most likely the Normans who commissioned the creation of the Bayeux Tapestry, as it is called now, never noticed it.

Pictures of the entire Bayeux Tapestry, in sequence, can be found online at The Bayeux Tapestry. The part in question can be found in Image 15.

Reference

Kishlansky, Mark, Patrick Geary, Patricia O'Brian, and R. Bin Wong, 1994. Societies and Cultures in World History, Vol. I, p. 285. Boston: Addison-Wesley.

Essay edited by Suzanne Kemmer

Last modified 11 Sept 07