Chewing over the Norman Conquest: the Bayeux Tapestry as monastic mealtime reading *

Abstract

This article offers a new contextualization of the Bayeux Tapestry by exploring its use as mealtime reading in a monastic refectory. This conceptual and historical examination helps answer important questions – and even resolve several conundrums and contradictions – surrounding the artefact’s design and materiality, its intended message and target audience, and the remarkable lack of records attesting to its location – or even to its very existence – prior to the fifteenth century. The article reviews the Bayeux Tapestry’s probable place of origin, then makes a case for reading it as moral history, and concludes by revisiting some long-standing enigmas surrounding its provenance.