THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.* EVERYBODY has heard of the Bayeux Tapestry.
Everybody knows that the story of Edward, Harold, and William, and of the conquest of England, is told in its series of pictures. Most people have an idea that it was worked by Queen Matilda and her ladies. But few besides those who have visited Bayeux, or have specially studied the subject, possess any clear notion of what this ancient and extraordinary work of art is really like, or any knowledge of its authentic history. Its value is great as a chronicle and as a relic of needlework certainly eight hundred years old. Historical and artistic, it is on both accounts a treasure ; and one does not wonder that it has been an object of desire on this side of the Channel, though by good right it is among the most precious of the historical monuments of France. There was a legend that Mrs. Stothard, when her husband was employed in copying the tapestry in 1818, cut off a piece and carried it away with her to England. In Mr. Fowke's opinion, however, the accusation was unjust. Mr. Stothard certainly possessed two pieces of it, one of which was restored to the city of Bayeux in 1872 by the South Kensington Museum, but he is said to have rescued these pieces, before his mar- riage, from " a mass of rags incapable of restoration." These rags, the existence of which seems disgraceful, were the con- sequence of the extraordinary manner in which the tapestry was kept and shown from the Revolution till 1835. During these years it was wound like a panorama on two cylinders, and so carelessly that it was partly worn out under this treat- ment, which, however, was respectful compared with what it had suffered under the Revolution. Up to that time it had been preserved with care among the treasures of Bayeux Cathedral, being brought out for eight days every summer and hung round the nave of the Cathedral. Its length is to be realised by the fact that it decorated the whole nave. But the Church had no power to protect such a treasure in 1792, though its character ought to have appealed to those who considered themselves patriots. The ancient length of linen, with its quaint embroidery, was dragged out of the Cathedral and utilised to cover one of the military waggons belonging to the local battalion. It had started -on its way to the war when a worthy commissary of police, M. le Forestier, whose name should never be forgotten, flew to its rescue, brought canvas to cover the waggon in its place, and kept the tapestry in his study till he was relieved of the charge by a self- appointed commission—in those days how necessary, how beneficent—who undertook the protection of the works of art in the district. They saved the tapestry from being torn up at a civic fête in 1794.
Since those days the tapestry, first on cylinders in the H6tel de Ville, latterly restored and safely framed under glass in a • The Bayeux Tapestry: a History and Description. By Frank Rede Fowke. *Ex-Llbris Series." London : G. Bell and Sons. 110$. 03(1-] museum of its own, as we see it now, has been an object of pilgrimage to all kinds of people from all parts of the world. It has been copied, photographed, reproduced in colour. The fact is rather curious that from 1476, when it was mentioned in a Cathedral inventory, the tapestry seems to have dropped entirely out of the world's knowledge till 1724. Nobody cared for it but the Cathedral authorities, and they, no doubt, chiefly as a curious decoration, for it was neither beautiful nor ecclesiastical. Nobody saw it but the Bayeux citizens and the peasants who flocked in during that week of mid- summer to pay their devotions to the great relics and to stare at the strange hangings of the nave. In 1724 an ad drawing of part of the tapestry came into the hands of M. Lancelot, a learned antiquarian, and he tried without success to find the original. The Pere Montfaucon, of St. Maur, also made a search, writing to various Benedictine Abbeys in Normandy, and thus the tapestry was discovered at Bayeux, and the Pere Montfaucon made it known to the world in his great book, Monmens de la Monarchie Francoise. Then English antiquaries woke up. Stukeley and Ducarel wrote about "the noblest monument in the world relating to our old English history." Since those days the bibliography of the Bayeux Tapestry has become extensive.
Everything that need be known, and much that is new, even to those familiar with the tapestry, is to be found in Mr. Fowke's delightful book. Most of it was published some years ago in a larger work, which has been used in France as authoritative on the subject. The present book contains a history of the tapestry, and then, full of the most curious historical and antiquarian information, a set of notes on the scenes represented. Nothing could be more interesting than to study these notes carefully with the designs they describe. The last part of the volume—one of the "Ex-Libris Series "—is made up of seventy-nine plates, 6 in. by 4 in., reproduced by Count Ostroreg's method. Here we have everything of the original but the size and the colouring. All the quaint strangeness, the abounding life and spirit, the startling expression, the personal character, the story-telling power, of this wonderful old piece of needlework, are set plainly before us. The allegorical border of beasts, birds, fishes, fabulous creatures, shades off the stern and picturesque history of the centre designs into a dreamland of imagination. Was it really the work of Matilda and her ladies, done in honour of that conquering William who keeps so much dignity all through the story in contrast with the shaky, thin-mous- tached Harold 4 We are quite sorry that Mr. Fowke decides that it was not. There was a tradition of the sort with regard to "la Grand Telle du Conquest d'Angleterre," but the Canons of Bayeux themselves do not seem to have thought it worthy of record. M. Lancelot, early in the last century, was the first to mention it seriously. Then the idea seemed too appropriate to be dropped, and when the tapestry was ex- hibited in Paris under the First Empire, it became known as "le Tapis de la Reine Mathilde." Critics have differed, but Mr. Fowke gives many interesting reasons for his opinion that it was worked by Normans at Bayeux under the orders of Bishop Ode, and as an ornament for his Cathedral. This origin does not affect the antiquity of the work, which is evidently of the eleventh century, even if it spoils in acme measure its romantic interest.
Readers who have not seen the tapestry or a good copy of it may be interested in the few particulars fol- lowing. It is worked on a strip of brown linen, 230 ft. long and originally woven in one piece ; it has, however, been divided and joined again. Its width is nearly 20 in. On this linen a series of scenes, connected with each other, and described by Latin words about an inch high, are worked with a needle in worsteds of eight colours,—two blues, two greens, red, yellow, black, and grey. The colours are used in- discriminately, without much attempt to copy Nature ; there is no perspective and no light and shade. But Mr. Fowke cannot say too much—we venture to think he hardly says enough — of the extraordinary boldness and spirit of the composition, or of the imagination shown in the fantastic borders. The Bayeux Tapestry is not beautiful certainly; but it is marvellous, and so thought Napoleon, -fascinated . by Harold on his throne and the warning meteor that flashes- in the sky.
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