Located today at the Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux in Normandy, France, the Bayeux Tapestry was commissioned in 1077 by Bishop Odo of Bayeux to commemorate William of Normandy’s victory at the battle of Hastings in 1066, an event usually referred to as the Norman Conquest of England. The entire year of 1066 is illustrated in fifty panels or scenes and is a propaganda piece portraying William’s rightful claim to the throne of England, Harold Godwinson as an oath-breaker and usurper, and the Norman victory at Hastings as God’s will. The misnamed tapestry (it is actually a woolen embroidery) is 230 feet long and twenty inches wide and is made using ten colors of yarn on a linen lining. Two main stitches were used in creating the tapestry. An outline stitch was used to outline the figures and then a laid-and-couch stitch was used for filling in the outlines with color. This particular type of couch stitch is referred to as the Bayeux stitch as it is unique to this tapestry. The tapestry chronicles that fateful year using 623 people, 55 dogs, 202 horses, 41 ships, 49 trees, nearly 2000 Latin words, and over 500 mythical and non-mythical creatures (birds, lions, dogs, deer, griffins, and dragons). More than twenty feet of this tapestry is missing, a scene that probably detailed William’s coronation on Christmas Day as William I of England (r.1066-1087). A striking work of art on its own, the Bayeux Tapestry is also an excellent primary source document on eleventh century warfare and culture.

The future Anglo-Norman king of England is famously known as William “the Conqueror” because of his victory at Hastings and his quick conquest of England during his reign.  He was a direct descendent of the Norwegian Viking adventurer Rollo, who was made the first duke of Normandy in 911 by the French monarch Charles “the Simple” (r.898-922) to secure the mouth of the Seine River from future Viking depredations.  William was the illegitimate son of Robert I, duke of Normandy, thus the epithet “the Bastard” but still became duke as a child in 1035. He depended for political survival on the goodwill of the Catholic Church and King Henry I of France (r.1031-1060), who helped to crush his enemies in 1047. In the early 1050s, he gained a valuable ally from his marriage with Matilda of Flanders, and he used this political marriage to expand his territories in Western France.  Maine was captured, campaigns were launched in Brittany, and in 1066 he crossed the English Channel at the head of a large army on a campaign endorsed by Pope Alexander II (p.1061-1073).

Top photo: A scene from the Bayeux Tapestry showing a Viking-styled clinker-built Norman ship crossing the English Channel. Source: Wikipedia, in the Public Domain. Click to enlarge.

Middle photo one: A scene from the Bayeux Tapestry depicting Bishop Odo rallying Duke William's army during the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Source: Wikipedia, in the Public Domain. Click to enlarge.

Middle photo two: Scene from the Bayeux Tapestry showing Norman and Anglo-Saxon horses tumbling to the ground. Source: Wikipedia, in the Public Domain. Click to enlarge.

Bottom photo: Scene from the Bayeux Tapestry. Harold's death at the Battle of Hastings. Legend above in Latin states, “Harold rex interfectus est,” ("King Harold is killed").

William laid claim to the English throne after the death of the Anglo-Saxon king Edward the Confessor (r.1042-1066), crossing the English Channel in late September 1066 with an army of 11,000 Norman, Breton and Flemish men, challenging Edward’s successor, King Harold II Godwinson, at the battle of Hastings in southeast England. But Harold faced two invasions in the autumn of 1066. In Norway, King Harald Hardrada (r.1046-1066) wanted to reestablish the Viking claim to the English throne. Hardrada intrigued with the new Anglo-Saxon king’s brother, Tostig, earl of Northumbria, in order to reinstate Tostig in northern England and establish a foothold for further conquest. In mid-September Hardrada launched an invasion fleet of three hundred ships and entered the Humber River and disembarked a force of 9,000 men ten miles southeast of York and defeated an Anglo-Saxon host at the battle of Fulford Gate. Harold gathered a mounted force of 8,000 men and marched north to meet the invading Viking army. Godwinson’s mounted army traversed 190 miles from London to Yorkshire in just five days, arriving in Tadcaster, ten miles south of York, and, maintaining strategic surprise, fell on Hardrada’s Viking army at the battle of Stamford Bridge. Hardrada was killed and the surviving Norse were pursued by remounted English troops back to the waiting Viking fleet where, with their backs up against their longships, they were drowned or slaughtered. When news reached Godwinson of the Norman landing at Pevensey in southeast England, he marched his army south to prepare for the Norman invasion. 

In London, Harold ordered his army to resupply and put out a call to arms for local reinforcements.  But reports that William was ravishing the English countryside compelled Harold to cut short his recruitment and move to where William was waiting at Hastings. Harold ordered his Anglo-Saxon army to Senlac Hill, deploying his infantry along a 1,100-yard front straddling the only exit road from Hastings, thereby blocking William’s access to the English heartland. The battle of Hastings on October 14 proved to be a deadly struggle between Anglo-Saxon infantry (the best of which were Godwinson’s great axe wielding Huscarls) and a Norman combined-arms army utilizing heavy cavalry as its centerpiece. Norman heavy cavalry attacked the Anglos-Saxon shield wall three times, and on the third attempt, assisted by infantry and allied archers, finally overwhelmed the defensive line, and killed Godwinson, who was wounded by a Norman arrow to the eye and finished off by Norman knights plundering his headquarters. Testimony to William’s hands-on command style, the duke had three horses killed underneath him during the battle. The remarkable events of the pivotal year 1066 are chronicled in the famous Bayeux Tapestry, climaxing in the battle of Hastings.

The Bayeux Tapestry is an important primary source for our understanding of Norman and Anglo-Saxon warfare because it accurately depicts military logistics, tactics, weaponry, and armor in use in the mid-eleventh century.  William of Normandy’s military planning is on full display in the early sections of the tapestry, including the felling of trees and the construction of clinker-built ships identical to the Viking ships that invaded the island centuries before. Once completed, the tapestry shows the loading of the ships with materials necessary for the invasion, including provisions, weapons, and armor, including coats of chainmail, helmets, swords, and lances.  After successfully crossing the English Channel and landing at Pevensey, the tapestry shows the construction of a motte and bailey castle near the beachhead, the first of around 550 of these earth and timber fortifications built by William during his two-decade long subjugation of Anglo-Saxon England. The tapestry also illustrates the tactics, weaponry and armor used by the invaders at the battle of Hastings, with Norman knights shown on horseback with lances, swords, and maces, their supporting infantry armed with bows and arrows. The defending Anglo-Saxons, on the other hand, are usually shown on foot armed with spears, swords, and long-hafted battle axes.  Conical helmets, chainmail armor, and kite shields are shown to be used by both sides. The tapestry also portrays the famous Anglo-Saxon “shield wall” defense against Norman cavalry tactics. These physical and cultural differences between the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans help the viewer differentiate the two sides in battle scenes. Most of the Normans are depicted with their characteristically odd hairstyle sporting the back half of their heads shaved, while most of the Anglo-Saxon warriors have moustaches. The artistic attention to specific details is remarkable, even depicting unique events on campaign like servants yoked to a cart, food and drinks being served on the back of kite shields at a banquet, and the cruel sport of bearbaiting (attacking a bear chained to a tree or pole). Moreover, the tapestry does not shy away from the violent realities of medieval warfare. Cavalry charges falter against shield walls, with horses tumbling to the ground as other mounts are slain by the swing of a great axe. Both Norman and Anglo-Saxon are shown killed or wounded, many prone on the ground in writhing postures with spears or lances sticking out of their bodies. Others are shown decapitated, their helmeted heads next to their armored bodies. Most famously the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson is portrayed dying from an arrow in his eye. After the battle, the tapestry shows armor being stripped from the dead, and the victorious Normans riding away in celebration.

The Bayeux Tapestry is a masterpiece of eleventh century Romanesque art, which was commissioned by Bishop Odo, William the Conqueror’s maternal half-brother, to decorate his newly built cathedral in Bayeux in 1077. Luckily, this delicate tapestry survived nine centuries through famines and plagues, numerous revolutions, two world wars, and most impressively, the occasional fires that raged through medieval and early modern cities.  The Bayeux Tapestry is perhaps the best-known pictorial representation of medieval warfare in existence and a unique primary source account of medieval Normandy and England, providing illustrations of military architecture such as motte and bailey castles, arms, and armor, and notably the continuation of a Norman seafaring traditions in the Scandinavian model, connecting the Age of Vikings to the Age of Knights in an artistically unique and physically tangible way.

Suggested Readings:

Primary Sources

Musset, Lucien. The Bayeux Tapestry. Boydell Press, 2005.

Secondary Sources

Devries, Kelly. The Norwegian Invasion of England in 1066. Boydell & Brewer, 2003.

Morris, Marc. The Norman Conquest: The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of Anglo-Saxon England.  Pegasus books, 2022.