The Bayeux Tapestry as a Religious - Peregrinations

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Animals, domestic and fantastical, were a common element in Anglo-Saxon and Romanesque art and their presence in the Tapestry is therefore unsurprising. There is, however, one scene in the Tapestry that would seem completely out of place within a sacred building. And that is the mysterious scene involving a rare figure in the Tapestry: a female with a name. This is Ælfgyva, a heavily robed figure whose face is apparently being stroked by a man, who from his tonsure, appears to be a cleric of some kind. (Figure 13) Was she a nun? All four of the women depicted in the Tapestry are shown heavily veiled. The designer may have borrowed a Byzantine convention where ladies of high rank wore veils in public to protect them from the gaze of the masses. Below them is a well-endowed male nude figure. Figure 13: Ælfgyva and a Cleric. Detail from the Bayeux Tapestry – 11th Century by special permission of the City of Bayeux. 149
Controversy has raged over who the lady might be and what the scene represents. The naked man, or “megaphallic” figure, is also interesting because carvings, almost identical to this one, have been found both in Northern France and in Ireland. 20 There is another nude male figure in the border in the scene just before this one. This one seems to be busy chopping wood. Naked couples may be found in the upper border where the narrative depicts the Norman cavalry preparing to move forward into battle at Hastings. It is possible that the pair of nude figures depict Adam and Eve. (Figure 14) Figure 14: Adam and Eve? Figure 15: Female Centaur We can also see a pair of lusty female centaurs with the heads and hair of mermaids. (Figure 15) A similar mermaid-centaur may be found carved over the west door of the church of St. Botolph, at Stow Longa in Huntingdonshire. In all likelihood the designer of the Tapestry was either a clerical figure or had close contacts with a cloister and monastic scriptorium. He would have been conversant with 20 Karen Rose Matthews, “Nudity in the Margins: The Bayeux Tapestry and its Relationship to Marginal Architectural Sculpture,” in Naked Before God: Uncovering the Body in Anglo-Saxon England, eds. Benjamin C. Withers and Jonathan Wilcox (Charleston: West Virginia University Press, 2003), 138-161. In the Reading Bayeux Tapestry, created in the late 19 th century, the naked figures were given underwear. See http://www.bayeuxtapestry.org.uk/ 150
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Page 9 and 10: presented to the monastery at Ely.
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Page 15: Figure 11: Chevron Pattern in the B
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Page 23 and 24: and they are mainly grouped around
Page 25 and 26: y special permission of the City of
Page 27 and 28: the oath-breaker, was a usurper who
Page 29 and 30: the small fleet of ghostly ships be
Page 31 and 32: finally falls, perhaps because of a

The Bayeux Tapestry as a Religious - Peregrinations

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