What we know about the
Bayeux Tapestry.
The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the most important pictorial works surviving from the middle ages, and certainly the most important from the eleventh century. The wall hanging is not really a tapestry, but an embroidery of colored wool on an unbleached linen background. The Bayeux Tapestry comprises a series of connected panels two hundred and three feet in length, with each of the panels about eighteen inches high.Much of what we know about the origins of the Bayeux tapestry is a matter of guesswork. The wall hanging was almost certainly the work of English embroiderers, and was most probably produced in the famous embroidery works of Winchester. The best guess is that the Bayeux Tapestry was commissioned by Odo, bishop of Bayeux, William the Conqueror's half-brother, and one of the leading figures in the invasion of England. The Bayeux Tapestry was perhaps completed in 1077 in time for the consecration of the new cathedral at Bayeux. Or perhaps the wall hanging was finished in 1083. Historians have not come into complete agreement as to when the Bayeux Tapestry was actually finished. No one is quite sure how the Bayeux Tapestry was
displayed. Some have suggested that the wall hanging was hung
around the nave of Bayeux cathedral on feast days, but it doesn't seem
to have made for that specific purpose since the Bayeux tapestry is not
long enough to reach completely around the nave.
Wall Tapestry
Medieval Tapestries
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