Carola Hicks - The Bayeux Tapestry: The Life Story of a Masterpiece

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Version 1.0

Epub ISBN 9781407065885

www.randomhouse.co.uk

Published by Vintage 2007

6 8 10 9 7 5

Copyright Carola Hicks 2006

Carola Hicks has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

First published in Great Britain in 2006 by
Chatto & Windus
Vintage
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780099450191

Carola Hicks teaches Art History at Cambridge University. Her books include Animals in Medieval Art, Discovering Stained Glass and Improper Pursuits, a highly acclaimed biography of the eighteenth-century artist and designer Lady Di Beauclerk.

The vivid scenes on the Bayeux Tapestry depict the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066. It is one of Europes greatest treasures and its own story is full of drama and surprise.

Who commissioned the tapestry? Was it Bishop Odo, Williams ruthless half-brother? Or Harolds dynamic sister Edith, juggling for a place in the new court? Hicks shows us this world and the miracle of the tapestrys making the stitches, dyes and strange details in the margins. For centuries it lay ignored in Bayeux cathedral until its discovery in the eighteenth century. It became a symbol of power as well as art: townsfolk saved it during the French Revolution; Napoleon displayed it to promote his own conquest; the Nazis strove to make it their own; and its influence endures today.

This marvellous book, packed with thrilling stories, shows how we remake history in every age and how a great work of art has a life of its own.

Colour Plates

Scenes from the Bayeux Tapestry:

Illustrations in the text

I Embroidering History

Part title: Edwards deathbed

From the Tapestry.

II Lost and Found

Part-title: Border motif, fox and bird

III Revolutionaries and Romantics

Part title: The Brittany campaign

IV The Gentle Touch

Part-title: Border motif, cock and hen

V The Great Escape

Part-title: Soldier on the rope

VI Global Image

Part-title: Setting the weather-vane

Picture credits

The page references in this section correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created.

Scenes from the Bayeux Tapestry: By special permission of the City of Bayeux. Colour Plates: 7 Victoria and Albert Museum, London/Bridgeman Art Library; 8 Muse de la Ville de Paris, Muse Carnavalet, Paris/ Bridgeman; 9 Chteau de Versailles/Bridgeman; 10 Bibliothque des Arts Decoratifs, Paris/Bridgeman; 11 The Society of Antiquaries of London; 12 The Bayeux Tapestry, John Collingwood Bruce, 1856; 13 Baron Gerard Museum, Bayeux; 14 The Anchorage, Handsworth, Birmingham/photo Anthony Wallbank/ fotolibra; 15 Reading Museum Service (Reading Borough Council); 16 The D-Day Museum, Portsmouth The Overlord Embroidery Trust; 17 Battle Parish Church, Sussex/photo by Mick Sargent/fotolibra; Michael Linton Illustrations in the text: 33 The British Library; 49 City of Bayeux/Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques et des Sites, Paris; 52, 167 M. Rud, The Bayeux Tapestry, Copenhagen, 1992; 71, 107 Bibliothque Nationale de France, Paris; 77, 78, 127, 225 Cambridge University Library; 81 Ashmolean Museum, Oxford/Bridgeman; 98 Chteau de Versailles/ Bridgeman; 119 C. Dawson, Restorations of the Bayeux Tapestry, 1907; 124 Trustees of the British Museum; 135 The Society of Antiquaries of London; 136 The Bayeux Tapestry, John Collingwood Bruce, 1856; 186, 188 Reading Museum Service (Reading Borough Council); 207, 210 R. Dubosq, La Tapisserie de Bayeux dix ans tragiques, 1951/V&A Picture Library; 230 Berlin Bundesarchiv; 270 by John Hassall The Art Archive/Imperial War Museum, London; 272 Centre for Cartoons and Caricature, University of Kent (UKCC)/Guardian; 273 UKCC/Daily Telegraph; 274a Clive Goddard; 277 Photograph by John Blau, Camera Press London; 283 T. R. Nevett, Advertising in Britain, Heinemann, 1982; 284 History of Advertising Trust Archive; 300 Author; 301 City of Bayeux.

The noblest monument of English antiquity abroad William Stukeley

Very curious and authentic David Hume

Records one of the most memorable deeds of the French nation and preserves the memory of the pride and courage of our ancestors Napoleon Bonaparte

The most interesting thing conceivable John Ruskin

The work of very feeble amateurs Charles Dickens

Very quaint and rude and very interesting William Morris

A story told with irresistible charm Winston Churchill

Important for our glorious and cultured Germanic history Heinrich Himmler

Bletchley Park. 18 August 1944. An ugly Victorian mansion and a proliferation of low wooden huts so bleak and institutional that locals assume they house the mad. But this is Station X, a city of 10,000 codebreakers, deciphering the enemys radio signals with the aid of machines, brilliant minds and unremitting concentration. Top priority amongst the messages being intercepted today are those from Berlin to Paris, 11 weeks after D-Day, a time when the Allied forces are moving so rapidly that Hitler is planning to destroy the city rather than let it fall to them intact. Reichsfhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler, Hitlers second-in-command, has wired Carl Oberg, head of the Gestapo and SS in France. This urgent communication is decrypted by Hut 6, then passed on to Hut 3 where it is translated, analysed by a military adviser, evaluated by the duty officer and finally referred to higher authorities. But the message puzzles everyone, for it does not deal with troop movements or arrangements for the impending evacuation. It concerns the Bayeux Tapestry. Do not forget to bring the Bayeux Tapestry, commands Himmler. He has had his eye on it for four years and has already had it moved to the Louvre from a safe place in the country. Before Paris is blown to bits, he wants the Tapestry out.