The Bayeux 'Tapestry': Invisible seams and visible boundaries

Abstract

The embroidered hanging known as the Bayeux 'Tapestry' was an obvious candidate for inclusion in an Anglo-Saxonists' conference titled 'Imagined Endings, Borders, Reigns, Millennia'. Almost certainly constructed in English workshops for a Norman master, the 'Tapestry' illustrates a chronological period that begins with the final years of Edward the Confessor's reign and ends with the closing of the Anglo-Saxon era. The physical termination of the 'Tapestry' is missing, but this does not preclude the imagining of it, usually as a scene showing the accession of William the Conqueror to the English throne, a new reign and a new, Norman, era.