The Bayeux Tapestry?

Fretwired

ICBM said:

Dominic said:

Absolutely correct ..........it's a great document albeit woven but a fantasy ....Harold Godwinson did not die poetically from an arrow in the eye.......he was hacked and bludgeoned to death 

It's not impossible it was both. If the arrow wound wasn't immediately fatal - and it doesn't have to have been, King Henry V survived something very similar just below the eye - he would likely have been in no fit state to defend himself.

Battlefield deaths were generally horrific and not at all instantaneous until the advent of explosives.

If I remember correctly one theory is the arrow is meant to be a 'divine justice' from Heaven - God punishing Harold and rewarding William. It didn't actually happen - in the tapestry it's simply an allegory. The Normans wrote everything down and stated that Harold was hacked to death in battle. It is believed the tapestry could have been commissioned by Edward the Confessor's widow  to gain favour with the Normans.

RobDavies

Seen it already on a school trip to France - was pretty underwhelming to be honest.  But then, I was about eleven at the time and the gun emplacements on the French beaches were far, far more interesting.

Sassafras

Bridgehouse said:

ICBM said:

Dominic said:

Absolutely correct ..........it's a great document albeit woven but a fantasy ....Harold Godwinson did not die poetically from an arrow in the eye.......he was hacked and bludgeoned to death 

It's not impossible it was both. If the arrow wound wasn't immediately fatal - and it doesn't have to have been, King Henry V survived something very similar just below the eye - he would likely have been in no fit state to defend himself.

Battlefield deaths were generally horrific and not at all instantaneous until the advent of explosives.

I understand decapitation by sword or axe is relatively instant

You've obviously never tried beheading someone who's wearing full armour.
It's a hell of a job, I can tell you.

Philly_Q

EricTheWeary said:

Dominic said:

munckee said:

chillidoggy said:

Is supposedly to be displayed in Britain after 'months of talks between culture departments'.

If you haven't already seen the tapestry, it's basically a fucking great long, single piece of embroidered piece of cloth which tells the story of an invasion of England by, you guessed it, the French.

Personally, I was totally underwhelmed when I saw it, frankly I've seen more impressive works of art by local 'artists' on walls in Margate. Mind you, I've also seen the Mona Lisa, and I found that to be a bit of a let down. When I visited the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, I was mightily impressed with the building's architecture, but not with the shite inside it, so maybe I'm a just a philistine.

So, will you be going to see the tapestry when it arrives?

We were never conquered by the french FFS, they were norsemen (normans) who were given a bit of france to stop them taking paris.  Plus they defeated the saxon's who were german anyway.  conquered by the f'cking french indeed! : )

Absolutely correct ..........it's a great document albeit woven but a fantasy ....Harold Godwinson did not die poetically from an arrow in the eye.......he was hacked and bludgeoned to death 

apparently the bit with an arrow in the eye is a later repair so possibly not what was on the original Bayeux tapestry ( which is embroidery, not tapestry and also apparently not made in Bayeux). Despite the Radio 4 news today calling them French the Normans weren’t French, otherwise we would have always called them French and not Normans. 

It it would be interesting to see as an historical artefact, I guess. 

I heard someone on the radio this morning saying it may actually have been made in the UK (although presumably by Normans).

I'd like to see it.

chillidoggy

Sassafras said:

Bridgehouse said:

ICBM said:

Dominic said:

Absolutely correct ..........it's a great document albeit woven but a fantasy ....Harold Godwinson did not die poetically from an arrow in the eye.......he was hacked and bludgeoned to death 

It's not impossible it was both. If the arrow wound wasn't immediately fatal - and it doesn't have to have been, King Henry V survived something very similar just below the eye - he would likely have been in no fit state to defend himself.

Battlefield deaths were generally horrific and not at all instantaneous until the advent of explosives.

I understand decapitation by sword or axe is relatively instant

You've obviously never tried beheading someone who's wearing full armour.
It's a hell of a job, I can tell you.

Thats a @VimFuego post if ever I saw one.

the_twin

I’ve seen it in Bayeux. It’s going to need a fair bit of space and a light and climate controlled environment - so probably one of the big museums in London. I thought it was a fascinating record. The best bits are all the doodles round the edges of the main narrative that show all manner of goings on, some surprisingly rude. You can have some fun plotting the life of William as you travel around Normandy. 

snakemanStoo

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DTvcOLYWAAEsqIE.jpg

Dominic

The whole Battle of Hastings thing is quite strange..........Most would imagine that the Anglo Saxon hordes rallied to defeat William and the Normans as they jumped from their ships onto the beaches; In reality it was nothing like this;The Normans had landed and were running amok scaring the locals ,pillaging and raping the Sussex countryside for months before they met Harold in Battle.
 Meantime Harold was otherwise occupied.....he had sent word to William in civil fashion explaining that he was rather busy and would William do the gentlemanly thing and hold on for him for a few months.Reason being that in the same week  another Invader had landed 40 miles away in Kent and needed to be sorted out first.The other invader was also of Viking descent ,Harald Hardrada of Denmark who had formed a sneaky alliance with Tostig , Harold Godwinson's jealous brother.They had marched North and Harold had to ride North and defeat them in Yorkshire before charging back down South to meet William.William was aware of all this and happily pillaged Sussex and waited for Harold knowing he could easily have marched on London and ST Albans while Harold was busy with Tostig and Hardrada .
 What a Gentleman.

axisus

Bloody typical of the French to depict themselves winning

the_twin

He wasn't called William the Bastard for nothing.

Bridgehouse

Sassafras said:

Bridgehouse said:

ICBM said:

Dominic said:

Absolutely correct ..........it's a great document albeit woven but a fantasy ....Harold Godwinson did not die poetically from an arrow in the eye.......he was hacked and bludgeoned to death 

It's not impossible it was both. If the arrow wound wasn't immediately fatal - and it doesn't have to have been, King Henry V survived something very similar just below the eye - he would likely have been in no fit state to defend himself.

Battlefield deaths were generally horrific and not at all instantaneous until the advent of explosives.

I understand decapitation by sword or axe is relatively instant

You've obviously never tried beheading someone who's wearing full armour.
It's a hell of a job, I can tell you.

Full armour in 1066 eh? 

Nope.

thecolourbox

the_twin said:

He wasn't called William the Bastard for nothing.

I'd suspect that was his parentage wasn't it?

Carew

Fretwired said:

Luckily the Normans weren't really French. Normandy wasn't part of France in 1066 and the Normans were descendants of Vikings who were given the area around Rouen by the French King as part of a peace treaty around 910.

Depends what you mean by 'French'.  France was made up of duchies.    They were client provinces of the French king, though.

Some Normans only were descended from vikings.

ICBM

Bridgehouse said:

Full armour in 1066 eh? 

Nope.

No, but a chain-mail hooded shirt (can’t remember what it’s called but that’s the basic design) and a helmet. Highly unlikely you’d be able to cut through that in one go, even with an axe.

I don’t doubt at all that he was essentially hacked to death - that’s what the Normans themselves said. But the story of an arrow in the eye goes back a very long way too, and I certainly think it’s possible both are true. There’s nothing to say he wasn’t depicted twice on the tapestry - that’s how different parts of the story are done.

Carew said:

Fretwired said:

Luckily the Normans weren't really French. Normandy wasn't part of France in 1066 and the Normans were descendants of Vikings who were given the area around Rouen by the French King as part of a peace treaty around 910.

Depends what you mean by 'French'.  France was made up of duchies.    They were client provinces of the French king, though.

Some Normans only were descended from vikings.

Only the aristocracy really. The bulk of the rank and file were certainly French.

If I remember rightly, it was a Breton contingent running away - either intentionally as a tactic, or because they'd genuinely had enough - that caused the English shield line to break in pursuit of them, and the Norman knights to then be able to get in and win the battle.

DiscoStu

https://i.imgur.com/T22vAvL.png

usedtobe

I probably won’t get to see it, but I’ll cope..

DLM

https://i.imgur.com/T22vAvL.png

Ah, so @fretmeister wasn't kidding when he said he could trace his forefathers back to the Norman conquest!

Phil_aka_Pip

Carew said:

France was made up of douches.

fixed

Phil_aka_Pip

the_twin said:

He wasn't called William the Bastard for nothing.

he was a bastard in every sense of the word

Bridgehouse

ICBM said:

Bridgehouse said:

Full armour in 1066 eh? 

Nope.

No, but a chain-mail hooded shirt (can’t remember what it’s called but that’s the basic design) and a helmet. Highly unlikely you’d be able to cut through that in one go, even with an axe.

I'm getting pedantic now, specially as a history graduate. However, my reply was in response to the suggestion that instant death only happened when modern warfare was introduced.

The reality is that all soldiers on the battlefield in 1066 were either offering their feudal duty or mercenaries. 

You went into battle with what you could afford - you had to acquire all your own kit. Some would have afforded chain mail, but for a low ranking archer, it would have been a leather jerkin at best. The neck would have been totally exposed. 

There is archeological evidence of early mediaeval battles (and late Middle Ages battles) of plenty of clean decapitations - most likely fast moving axe or swords men on horseback travelling at speed and timing a swing to hit said soldier from behind. 

Although we could argue over "instantaneous" if you like Does a few seconds to blink count or are we talking nuclear-blast-instant-nanosecond-turns you to dust instant?