I was bought membership to the British Museum for my birthday this year, which made obtaining tickets to see the Bayeux Tapestry a little easier – if you consider queuing online for over seven hours easy!
“More than an hour” is doing a LOT of heavy lifting here…
While I am fascinated by the history and spectacle of this 70-metre embroidered masterpiece, what immediately struck me when looking at it was how much it reminded me of a comic. Perhaps I am spending too much time immersed in graphic novels and hanging out with arty sorts (my boyfriend is a literal manga artist, so I have been drawn into a fascinating world that was completely unknown to me five years ago), but as I continue to work on my own comics (more news on that later!) I am increasingly looking at everything as a potential opportunity or voice that has a story to tell.
And that is what makes the Bayeux Tapestry so captivating to me. It isn’t simply a piece of medieval embroidery. It is a story told through pictures. There are characters, action, drama, visual clues, moments of humour and a sequence of events that takes us from one scene to the next. And penises – far more than I was expecting to encounter, if I am totally honest.
In other words, this epic embroidered historical retelling might just be the ultimate medieval Graphic Novel. (excluding the penises – or not, I am the last person to judge another persons choice of reading matter.)
There is something wonderfully strange about standing in front of an enormous piece of embroidery and realising that you are witnessing history while, essentially, reading a story.
We tend to think of books as things we read and paintings as things we look at. But the Bayeux Tapestry sits in this no-mans land; somewhere in between. It tells the story of the Norman conquest of England almost entirely through pictures, taking us from one event to another across roughly 70 metres of wool, linen and medieval drama.
And once you start looking at it as a comic, it becomes even more interesting.
What is a graphic novel
Imagine somebody in the 11th century deciding to make a graphic novel.
They don’t have speech bubbles. They don’t have glossy pages. They don’t have panels neatly separated by borders. Hell, they don’t even have printing presses yet, so this is going to be a one-off!
What they do have is a long piece of fabric, and they use it to tell a story.
The tapestry depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England in 1066, including the death of Edward the Confessor, Harold Godwinson’s journey, William of Normandy’s invasion and, of course, the Battle of Hastings.
There is a beginning, a middle and an end. Characters appear repeatedly. Events unfold in sequence. Important moments are given visual prominence.
It is storytelling through images.
Which sounds remarkably familiar…
Panel by panel… sort of
One of the things that makes a comic work is the way individual images are placed next to one another to create a sequence.
The Bayeux Tapestry does exactly this, although without the conventional comic-book panels. and as my Latin isn’t up to much, I must confess that I have no idea if any of the narration actually says ” splat”, “oww” or “oooff”.
Instead, what we have is a story that unfolds continuously along the fabric, and you read the scenes, follow the action, much as you would in any story told through pictures.
And just as with a comic, the images aren’t random.; the order matters. If you moved the scenes around, you would lose the story. That is the clever bit.
Meet the characters
Another thing that struck me is how important the characters are. This isn’t simply a collection of pictures of “medieval people doing medieval things”. Certain individuals are identified and appear within the story. Harold is particularly important, as is William and we can follow their actions and see where they fit within the unfolding drama.
There are also visual details that help us understand who is important. The way the characters are positioned, what they are wearing, the weapons they are carrying, the horses and the way figures are depicted, all contribute to our understanding of what is happening.
And that is something comics have been doing forever; A good graphic novel doesn’t need somebody to constantly tell you who the hero is – The artwork does the job.
No speech bubbles required
One of the things I love about comics is that you don’t necessarily need a huge amount of text to understand what is happening. In fact, there are some amazing works that entirely rely on their art rather than dialogue or narration. ( Check out Shaun Tan’s ‘The arrival’ as a great example)
Think about a single frame showing somebody running away while a building burns behind them. You already know something dramatic has happened.
The Bayeux Tapestry works in much the same way. There are Latin inscriptions which help identify people and events, but much of the storytelling is visual. (Plus, I don’t know about you, but my Latin reading skill is non-existent, so the words did not really help me!)
You can see the horses, the ships, the weapons, the fighting. Then you see the people falling and then – further towards the end than I had thought it would be – the legendary scene involving Harold and the arrow. Even if you take into account the fact that historians argue over whether the arrow killed him, or whether he actually died later, we can all agree that a large metal tipped pointy stick to the face is going to ruin your day. You don’t need a medieval history degree to understand that things have taken a rather unfortunate turn for the king. Perhaps that is the genius of visual storytelling. Even without words, you just know.
Look at the margins
But here’s where it gets even more interesting.
Running along the top and bottom of the main story are decorative borders containing animals, mythical creatures, people and other scenes.
Some are thought to relate to the main story, while others seem much more mysterious. And where you will spot all the naked people…
And this immediately made me think of the little details hidden in the background of modern comics. You know the sort of thing. Easter eggs. You’re reading the main story and suddenly notice something happening in the corner of a panel. Perhaps there is a visual joke. Perhaps there is a tiny reference that you wouldn’t notice unless you looked closely.
The Bayeux Tapestry has some of that same feeling. It rewards looking. And then looking again.
Sadly there is little opportunity for intensive study, as all of us there to view it are continuously reminded to keep moving. Also, as no photos are allowed, I have had to rely on memory, online photos and the postcards I bought ( I limited myself to 3, so I won’t quite be recreating the scene in my living room – which is substantially smaller than 70 metres.)
Medieval storytelling has a sense of humour
It is also worth remembering that this isn’t a completely serious, solemn piece of history. There are moments of humour and some rather wonderfully odd details. The people who created it weren’t simply recording events for future historians. They were communicating a story to an audience. And stories need to be interesting.
There are strange creatures, unusual characters and details that make you stop and wonder exactly what was going through the mind of the person who stitched them. ( I won’t mention them again, but you know what aspect I am querying be added to the work here!)
Which, frankly, is another reason I like the comic-book comparison. The best graphic novels aren’t simply walls of information, they have personality.
But whose story are we reading?
Of course, there is one important difference between the Bayeux Tapestry and a modern comic.
It isn’t an objective record of 1066 as it tells a particular version of events. It is thought to have been commissioned by Bishop Odo, the half- brother of William, who himself appears in the piece. This is where looking at it as a story becomes particularly useful; Every storyteller has a point of view. Who gets included in the narrative? Who gets left out? Who looks heroic? Who looks ridiculous? Which events are given lots of attention and which are dealt with quickly? (Having GCSE History flashbacks considering all these questions!)
Even without knowing exactly who commissioned or created the tapestry, we can see that the way the story is presented matters. It isn’t just what happened, but it is how the story of what happened was told.
And that is something we still do today.
A story that has survived 900 years
Perhaps the most amazing thing about the Bayeux Tapestry is that, nearly a thousand years later, we can still follow the story. Even though the technology has changed, along with what we consider ‘entertainment’. We have gone from embroidery to printing, from newspaper cartoons to graphic novels, from television to smartphones. But the basic idea hasn’t changed at all.
Show someone a picture and you can tell them a story.
The Bayeux Tapestry simply happens to do it on an enormous scale. ..And with considerably more sewing.
So, is it really a comic?
Technically, probably not. But I’m going to stick with my theory. It has sequential images. It has recurring characters. It has action. It has visual storytelling. It uses text alongside images. It has humour, drama and tiny details hiding in the artwork.
Most importantly, it understands something that every good comic, graphic novel and illustrated story understands:
Sometimes a picture can tell you more than a paragraph ever could.
And perhaps that is why, when I finally stood in front of the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum, I wasn’t just looking at a piece of medieval embroidery, I was reading it, panel by panel, scene by scene, thread by thread. The ultimate medieval comic.
