The Bayeux Tapestry

The Bayeux Tapestry The Bayeux Tapestry A Critically Annotated Bibliography John F. Szabo Nicholas E. Kuefler ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD Lanham • Boulder • New York • London Published by Rowman & Littlefield A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB Copyright © 2015 by John F. Szabo and Nicholas E. Kuefler All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Szabo, John F., 1968– The Bayeux Tapestry : a critically annotated bibliography / John F. Szabo, Nicholas E. Kuefler. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4422-5155-7 (cloth : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1-4422-5156-4 (ebook) 1. Bayeux tapestry–Bibliography. 2. Great Britain–History–William I, 1066–1087– Bibliography. 3. Hastings, Battle of, England, 1066, in art–Bibliography. I. Kuefler, Nicholas E. II. Title. Z7914.T3S93 2015 [NK3049.B3] 016.74644’204330942–dc23 2015005537 ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America To George and Jean Szabo and Donald and Nancy Kuefler Contents Introduction ix THE BIBLIOGRAPHY 1 Appendix A: Dramatis Personae 521 Appendix B: Medieval Sources 537 Index 541 About the Authors 563 vii Introduction Commanding its own museum and over 200 years of examination, observation, and scholarship, the monumental embroidery, known popularly as the Bayeux Tapestry and documenting William the Conqueror’s invasion of England in Oc- tober 1066, is perhaps the most important surviving artifact of the Middle Ages. This magnificent textile, both celebrated and panned, is both enigmatic artwork and confounding historical record. The Tapestry has been called one of the earli- est cartoons as well as film on cloth. Both Napoleon and Hitler were intensely interested in the work for both its instructional value in displaying the last suc- cessful invasion of England and as a propaganda piece. Notably, the Bayeux Tapestry has produced some of the most compelling questions of the medieval period: Who commissioned it and for what purpose? What was the intended venue for its display? Who was the designer and who ex- ecuted the enormous task of its manufacture? How does it inform our understand- ing of eleventh-century life? And who was the mysterious Ӕlfgyva, depicted in the Tapestry’s main register? Much of the scholarship on the Bayeux Tapestry rests in attempts to answer those questions. This book is an effort to not only capture and describe that scholarship but also to reflect the popularity of the Tapestry in literature covering a surprisingly broad array of subjects. We hope the inclusion of this material will assist future scholars who may study references to the work in contemporary non- fiction and popular works as well as use of the Bayeux Tapestry as a primary and secondary source in the classroom. The monographs, articles, and other works cited in this bibliography reflect dozens of research areas. Major themes are: the Tapestry as a source of information for eleventh-century material culture, its role in telling the story of the Battle of Hastings and events leading up to the invasion, patronage of the Tapestry, ix x Introduction biographical detail on known historical figures in the Tapestry, arms and armor, medieval warfare strategy and techniques, opus anglicanum (the Anglo-Saxon needlework tradition), preservation and display of the artifact, the Tapestry’s place in medieval art, the embroidery’s depiction of medieval and Romanesque architecture, and the life of the Bayeux Tapestry itself. Other important areas of publication include shipbuilding and naval architecture, medieval costume, obscenity and lewdness in the embroidery’s images, the dawn of heraldry, the appearance of Halley’s Comet in 1066 and its depiction on the textile, and replicas and works inspired by the Tapestry. Regarding the latter, this book should serve as a thorough resource for writings on the Overlord Embroidery, the Leek Embroidery by Elizabeth Wardle, the Keiskamma Tapes- try and Altarpiece, and the painted replica of the Bayeux Tapestry by Margaret ReVille at the University of West Georgia. Themes surrounding audience en- gagement with the Bayeux Tapestry, in both modern and medieval times, are also frequently addressed in the literature. It is imperative to acknowledge previous efforts at gathering this body of work in a single bibliography. Most notably, Shirley Ann Brown compiled the frequently referenced The Bayeux Tapestry: History and Bibliography (1988) in which she cited 523 works and annotated 465. She provided a 115-citation update in The Bayeux Tapestry: Embroidering the Facts of History (2004) titled “Bib- liography of Bayeux Tapestry Studies: 1985-1999” and provided commentary on the scholarship in a chapter in the same book titled “The Bayeux Tapestry: A Critical Analysis of Publications, 1988-1999.” In The Bayeux Tapestry: New Interpretations (2004), Dan Terkla offered a 34- page bibliography titled “The Bayeux Tapestry: A Selective Bibliography.” Rich- ard Wissolik made notable contributions with his The Bayeux Tapestry: A Criti- cal, Annotated Bibliography with Cross-References and Summary Outlines of Scholarship, 1729–1990 and his 1995 update. The bibliographies included with major works on the Bayeux Tapestry have also contributed to the compilation of this work, including the most recently published bibliography on Tapestry studies in The Bayeux Tapestry: New Approaches, Proceedings of a Conference at the British Museum (2011), edited by Michael J. Lewis, Gale R. Owen-Crocker, and Dan Terkla. This 14-page listing of titles is a valuable and appreciated addition to the literature. Though limited to certain aspects of the embroidery, Carole Cable’s 1986 publication, The Bayeux Tapestry: A Bibliography of Books and Articles about Its Architectural, Aesthetic, and Cultural Aspects, included titles not typi- cally found in other bibliographies. In compiling this work, books and other materials have been borrowed from numerous libraries directly and through invaluable interlibrary loan services. We would like to extend special appreciation to Emory University Libraries, Georgia State University Libraries, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System, Los Angeles Public Library, and Bibliothèque Municipale de Bayeux. The determination of Introduction xi which titles to annotate was based on availability and relevance of the work to current and future Tapestry scholarship. The literature of the Bayeux Tapestry, as with other areas of research, builds upon the diligent work of others. We hope this gathering of Tapestry scholarship and references will assist others in their quest for answers to the fascinating questions posed by such an enigmatic textile. The Bibliography 1. 10,000 Years of Art. London: Phaidon Press, 2009. Notes: Abridged and revised paperback. First published as 30,000 Years of Art in 2007. This compact survey of art history is arranged chronologically and includes the Bayeux Tapestry, dated c.1075. Beneath a color image of a dining scene from the Tapestry, a brief narrative provides basic information about the embroidery including opus Anglicanum, Bishop Odo’s patronage, scholarship on where it was made noting both Kent and Normandy, and its intended setting. The text, which dates the work as c.1066–1082, also briefly mentions the men and women artisans employed in embroidery workshops and that they were Anglo-Saxon, Norman, and Breton. 2. “1066 and (Nearly) All That English Romanesque at the Hayward.” Bur- lington Magazine 126, no. 973 (1984): 195. This editorial, beginning with a quote from Sir Nikolaus Pevsner that suggests no other European nation has “so abject an inferiority complex about its own aesthetic capabilities as England,” comments on an exhibition of English Romanesque art and makes note of an issue with the title. It reads, “The com- mercial advisors were understandably nervous about how to present such a show. The title ‘English Romanesque art’ is clearly unlikely to fire the public imagina- tion, and the numerals 1066 will certainly do much for attendance figures. Yet it seems irresponsible to focus on Hastings in an exhibition which ranges from the Hebrides to the Empire but does not include the Bayeux tapestry; to conjure the Normans, when the evidence suggests that artistically it might make more sense to talk of a Mosan conquest; or to stress the disjunction of one battle, while it is 1 2 The Bibliography clear from current research that the continuities of cross-Channel contact both before and after 1066 were of far greater importance.” 3. “Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1976.” Record of the Art Museum, Princ- eton University 36, no. 1 (1977): 28–40. Included within several pages of listings representing acquisitions of paintings, sculpture, and drawings is an entry under “Miscellaneous” reading “Textile, copy of a section of the Bayeux tapestry, French, ca. 1920. Gift of Helen Woodruff (76–12).” 4. “Armchair

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