> Thanks for a fascinating post on the Bayeaux Tapestry. Do you mean that the
> imagery follows after the imagery of the illuminated manuscripts?
>
> pat sloane
Dear Pat,
Evidence for the use of manuscript illuminations in the design of the
Bayeux Tapestry was first noticed by Francis Wormald in his essay
contained in F.M. Stenton, ed., The Bayeux Tapestry (2nd edn, London,
1965), and more has since emerged; it is conveniently encapsulated in
David J. Bernstein, The Mystery of the Bayeux Tapestry (London,
1986), pp. 39ff. Wormald pointed out several individual figures in
the embroidery which bear striking resemblance to figures in an
11th-century version of Prudentius' Psychomachia and also in the
Aelfric Hexateuch, both Canterbury manuscripts. Bernstein adds some
convincing examples of architectural settings in the embroidery which
resemble examples in the 9th-century Utrecht Psalter, which had come
to Canterbury by the beginning of the 11th century and had already
served as the model for one of the several copies made by the monks
of Christ Church. It has also been noticed that in one of the
feasting scenes in the embroidery, at which, significantly, Bishop
Odo presides, the table is defined as a half-circular strip,
indisputably based on an early Christian scene of the Last Supper.
Bernstein suggests as the model the example in St Augustine's
Gospels, which had come to England in 597 and which
was then at the Abbey of St Augustine, although I can't help thinking
that dependence on both monastic libraries at Canterbury may be going
a bit far. Certainly, all of the manuscript comparisons that have
thus far been made, however, depend on Canterbury. What is striking
about the comparisons is that citations from the manuscripts do not
seem to have been made programmatically but occasionally provided a
motif here and there. It is certainly possible that a monk who had
worked in the scriptorium of Christ Church for some time would have
built up a visual memory of such motifs, and positing a monk as
designer would also be necessary for substantiating another claim
made by Bernstein. As has long been noted, the Bayeux Tapestry is a
blatant justification of the conquest made for one of the conquerors
by the conquered. Bernstein maintains that the Anglo-Saxon designer
has subtlely incorporated a sort of subversive mise en abime, in
which the Norman conquerors are compared with the Babylonians, thus
turning them from, on the surface, being the "good guys" to,
subliminally, being the "bad guys". I am not absolutely convinced by
this argument but continue to be fascinated by it.
Cheers,
Jim Bugslag
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