The Study of the Bayeux Tapestry (review)

Reviews 203 of the text and illustrations in two volumes is convenient. The drawings and photographs are clear and give a full visual documentation of the Tempietto. It is surprising that there is no Bibliography, although extensive bibliographical material is referred to in the notes. Joan Barclay Lloyd Department ofArt History LaTrobe University Gameson, Richard, ed., The Study of the Bayeux Tapestry, Woodbridge, Suffolk, Boydell Press, 1997; cloth; pp. xiii, 216; 27 b / w illustrations; R.R.P. £45.00, $US 81.00. This book is a collection of reprints of journal articles about the B Tapestry, together with the editor's o w n essay on the subject, published for the first time. The rationale for reproducing these works here is that they are of enduring value in the study of the Bayeux Tapestry, and mostly out of print and hard to find (although I was able to find all but one in the National Library of Australia and the library of the Australian National University). Gameson also expresses the opinion that the collection should 'give the reader a sense of the development of scholarship in thefield'(p. vii). The papers range in scope and time from C. A. Stothard's 'Some Observations on the Bayeux Tapestry', first published in 1821, to S. A. Brown and M . W . Herren's work on the relationship between the Bayeux Tapestry and the hanging described in the poem Adelae Comitissae, published in 1994. Three articles originally written in French are presented here for the first time in translation. The collection as a whole addresses the range of issues with which historians of the embroidery have grappled for almost two centuries, and presents the unsolved arguments which have perplexed so m a n y commentators without nearing resolution. Stothard's article, which Gameson describes as having 'almost the status of a primary source (p. ix) represents some of the earliest attempts to determine the provenance, date and meaning of this artefact, but also reveals the compromised nature of a work which has been so extensively, albeit meticulously, restored. Edward Freeman's paper, first published in 1875, presents what 204 Reviews is known of the history of the Bayeux Tapestry since its making. He provides a succinct argument for its connection with Bishop Odo, rather than Queen Matilda, and introduces speculation on the identity of the mysterious /Elfgyva—who, with other characters, is the subject of Charles Prentout's essay of 1935. W . R. Lethaby's contribution (1917) is so short as to be a note rather than an essay, but it posits Harold's perjury as the central theme of the embroidery, an interpretation which has been largely accepted by subsequent commentators. It also raises the still hotly debated issue of the nationality of its design and execution. Rene Lepelley's technical discussion of the orthographic conventions displayed in key words of the Bayeux Tapestry's text would have been m a d e considerably easier to follow if the appropriate Old English characters and phonetic symbols had been used to replace the approximations which were required by the original typeface—no longer a difficult task. The translation of Simone Bertrand's article, which deals with the Bayeux Tapestry as a material artefact, features some odd textile terminology—'torsion' for 'twist', 'support' for the more usual 'ground', and the inaccurate 'shuttle' for 'bobbin'. C. R. Dodwell's article 'The Bayeux Tapestry and the French Secular Epic', puts the embroidery into the wider context of the medieval imagination, questioning the assumption that it was made for Bayeux Cathedral. Shirley A n n Brown and Michael W . Herren continue this theme with a comparison of the Bayeux Tapestry and the literary depiction of an embroidery in the Adelae Comitissae. N. P. Brooks and H. E. Walker extend some of this work into a discussion of the Bayeux Tapestry as work of art, and compare it with other contemporary art forms, concluding that it is likely to have been designed at Winchester. Richard Brilliant's article, subtitled 'a stripped narrative for their eyes and ears', addresses issues of audience, and the moveability of a textile, suggesting a reading dependent upon the circumstances of viewing the object...