Time Travel Tuesday: Bayeux Tapestry

When think­ing about eyra’s newest show, Long Form, and how it is about extend­ed nar­ra­tives, the Bayeux Tapes­try imme­di­ate­ly came to mind.

The Bayeux Tapes­try is a long embroi­dered cloth (not an actu­al tapes­try) that was con­struct­ed around 1092. It is near­ly 230 feet long! It depicts the events lead­ing up to the Nor­man con­quest in Eng­land in the 11th-cen­tu­ry inva­sion and occu­pa­tion of Eng­land by an army of Nor­mans, Bre­tons and French sol­diers led by Duke William II of Normandy.

The tapes­try con­sists of 50 scenes and cap­tions, and is an exam­ple of ear­ly reportage illus­tra­tion. The sto­ry, no sur­prise, is long and con­tains mys­ter­ies (!!), along with 623 peo­ple, 202 hors­es, 55 dogs, 506 birds and ani­mals, 49 trees, and 41 ships*.

Here are just a few scenes of this mas­sive work. What accom­pa­nies this long piece are trans­la­tions of the Latin cap­tions, which you can read in full here.

*Accord­ing to Middle-Ages.org

All images via Wikipedia. Don’t laugh. Who­ev­er uploaded them did a pret­ty great job.