1066 (30 page)

Goscelin records that Vital was particularly efficient in organising this task. A fleet of fifteen merchant ships had been requisitioned by him in Caen; these would have been ships not unlike the troop ships we see in the Bayeux Tapestry. Fourteen were destined for Westminster, but Vital employed the master of the fifteenth ship to carry a load of stone to Canterbury. The master agreed, and Vital handed him 'sealed letters' recording what was to be done.
¹⁵

Goscelin's story of what happened next vividly illustrates the perils of cross-Channel shipping in the eleventh century, though his principal purpose was to relate what he perceived to be a miraculous event.
¹⁶
It was a fair dawn when the convoy of fifteen ships set sail. Vital must have watched from the shore as the ships departed into the distance with the cargo of stone he had consigned to them. All went well until the flotilla reached about a third of the way across the Channel. Then there was a change of wind; a violent gale blew up. The ships, overladen with their heavy cargoes, were tossed this way and that; great waves broke over the bows; and soon fourteen of them foundered and sank quickly in the deep sea, with the loss of many lives. Only one was left afloat and that was the ship destined for St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury. Seeing the plight of their fellows, the desperate crew prepared to throw the stone overboard in order to save the vessel. But the master stopped them. He declared that their only hope was 'God and St Augustine', in whose service they could now claim to be sailing. It was their duty, he said, to carry the stone to Canterbury. The whole crew agreed and offered up suitable prayers. In addition, of course, they desperately bailed out; they stuffed tow into places where the seams had started; and where the gaps in the side of the ship had grown wide they packed them with cloth. It was a fearful struggle, but in the end the little ship lamely managed to reach the Sussex port of Bramber. Here, under unbearable strain, it finally broke up, splitting in half from end to end and disgorging its cargo of stone on to the sand.

To the master this appeared like a miraculous deliverance, caused by the intervention of St Augustine himself, and he was now more determined than ever to complete his mission. He managed to obtain a new ship, reloaded the stone and sailed round the coast and upriver to Canterbury. At St Augustine's Abbey he handed over the 'sealed letters', which had been given to him by Vital, and delivered the cargo. With a mixture of joy and weeping he retold to Abbot Scolland and his monks the whole story. Scolland rewarded the master not only with the amount stipulated in the letters but with a kindly bonus of some shillings as well. The master responded by giving the bonus back, requesting with tears that prayers should be offered up for his drowned mates.

At precisely what date this happened it is hard to say. The rebuilding programme was presumably commenced in earnest in 1072, after Scolland returned from Rome, and it might well have been in that year that Vital was engaged to transport the stone from Caen. If this is so, he was already a friend and colleague of Scolland, and a close associate of the abbey in the early 1070s, when it is most likely that the tapestry was made. At what stage he became a lay brother is also not known. There is, however, one curious and so far unnoticed aspect of his depiction in the tapestry that deserves comment in this context. Vital is surrounded by four crosses, two in the upper border, two in the lower border. No other figure in the tapestry is portrayed in this way. It seems plausible to suggest that the crosses were included round Vital by the St Augustine's designer in recognition of Vital's piety and good works, which were, of course, well known and acknowledged by the monks of the abbey. It is also possible that when the tapestry was made Vital was already a lay brother of the abbey and that the crosses refer to this fact as well.

There is another intriguing fact that Goscelin tells us about the rebuilding of St Augustine's Abbey. Not only was Caen stone from Normandy used. Stone was also being ferried over from the Marquise quarries in the county of Boulogne.
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The Marquise quarries lie some seven miles from Boulogne and were still worked until well into modern times. The district of Marquise was held by Arnulf of Ardres and later by his brother Gonfrid, both of whom were companions and vassals of Count Eustace II and may well have fought at Hastings under his command.
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Judging by his name, it is possible that the master mason and architect of St Augustine's, Blitherus, himself came from in or around Flanders as well. Vital was not involved in the transport of the Marquise stone. Instead, we learn from Goscelin that, during the abbacy of Scolland, the monks of St Augustine's dispatched one of their own men in order to assemble a team of quarrymen, to oversee the work and to pay them weekly wages. Unlike the Caen material, the stone from Boulogne was cut and prepared at the quarries according to whether it was to be used for plain walling, columns, capitals, bases or other mouldings in accordance with Scolland's grand design. Goscelin's opportunity for telling us this information was provided by his desire to persuade us of further tales of the miraculous. Thus, at that time, writes Goscelin, Robert the Frisian, Count of Flanders (1071-93), had invaded Boulogne and the district around the quarries was being attacked and pillaged. One of the Marquise quarrymen, Burch-ard by name, managed to escape, taking with him for safe custody a cow, which was the sole possession in the world of his widowed mother. Burchard took cover with the cow in a thick wood but here he disturbed a flock of magpies and their noisy chattering threatened to give him away. Terrified at what might happen, Burchard prayed, as he had been instructed, to St Augustine for help. The flock of magpies flew off and the soldiers who might have found him turned away, too. This incident was reported back to the monks in Canterbury and it evidently impressed them. The date cannot be established with precision. Count Eustace II of Boulogne and Robert the Frisian were involved in outright hostility during the Flemish civil war in early 1071 and it is thus possible that the incident occurred in that year. However, relations between the two counts continued to be poor so a later date is also possible. At any rate, some time during the comital reign of Eustace II of Boulogne it appears likely that stone from his county was being shipped to Canterbury for the rebuilding of St Augustine's Abbey under Abbot Scolland. The supply of Marquise stone reveals a background of good relations between Eustace and St Augustine's Abbey, where the designer of the tapestry was evidently connected, and this fits in well with Eustace's grand appearance in the work.

There is one further piece to go in this jigsaw. Though his relationship with Lanfranc, the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1070, was notoriously bad, Bishop Odo was remembered as a friend of St Augustine's Abbey. He was, to be sure, involved in some disputes with the abbey over land rights but on the whole he figures in the records as a protector and benefactor of St Augustine's, according it several gifts and favours.
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A pattern of relationships is beginning to be perceivable and it centres not around Odo but rather around St Augustine's Abbey: the artist had some strong connection there; Wadard and Vital were both tenants of the abbey; Vital had been employed to ship stone from Caen and became a member of the confraternity; stone was also being supplied to St Augustine's from Boulogne; and Odo was a friend and benefactor.

We have suggested that Count Eustace II may have been the Tapestry's patron and that it was intended as a gift of reconciliation to Odo. If this is so, Eustace evidently employed an artist with strong connections to St Augustine's; the designer might have been a long-standing monk of the abbey who had originally been a native of Eustace's own region. Perhaps, as suggested above, Wadard and Vital were included in the work because they were the defenders of Dover Castle in 1067. If not, perhaps the designer included them simply because they were two knights associated with Odo whom he knew personally and who both had strong ties to the abbey. It may be that they assisted in some way with the work, or gave the designer details of the battle and other events from their own personal experience. None of these reasons necessarily implies that Odo was the patron. We have learned a surprising amount about Wadard and Vital, the two minor Norman knights, but their exact significance in relation to the Bayeux Tapestry remains mysterious. As so often in medieval history, the surviving evidence is teasingly incomplete.

21

Bayeux Cathedral and the Mystery of Survival

The early history of the Bayeux Tapestry remains obscure. It is possible that the tapestry came into Odo's possession not long after it was made and that it was taken by him to Bayeux. This cannot be proven; but it is certainly not implausible. His early possession of the work is understandable if he were its patron and it is consistent, too, with the alternative theory that it was produced under the patronage of someone else, someone who wished to flatter Odo, like Eustace of Boulogne, and who presented it to him as a gift. When first recorded by history in 1476 we find that the tapestry is a possession of Bayeux Cathedral and that it was displayed on occasions around the nave. But was the work originally intended for an ecclesiastical setting?

The widespread notion that the tapestry was specifically made to be hung around the nave of Bayeux Cathedral is unlikely to be right. It was certainly the practice to do so in the late fifteenth century, but its original purpose was probably quite different. It was pointed out by the art historian Charles Dodwell as long ago as 1966 that the tapestry's tale is secular in tone, having much in common with the epic genre of
chansons de geste
in general and the
Chanson de Roland
in particular.
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Although designed by someone connected with St Augustine's Abbey in England, the artist was not necessarily a life-long monk or even a monk at all; he could have been a layman attached to the abbey, of which there were often many. The tapestry's religious overtones are no more than would be expected in a secular work of its day intended to decorate the hall of some great lord. Had it been intended to be hung in an ecclesiastical setting the emphasis of the tale would probably have been quite different. Odo, for example, would surely have been depicted in his episcopal role, and in his episcopal robes, and Bayeux Cathedral itself would have been represented.

The last point is a telling one. Bayeux is shown on the embroidery but it is symbolised by a castle. Nowhere is the cathedral in sight. Bayeux cathedral could easily have been illustrated: William's army passes through Bayeux on its way back from the Breton campaign, and a passing glance at the cathedral could have been made, just as a glance is made in an earlier scene towards Mont-Saint-Michel. It seems that the artist simply did not conceive of Bayeux as a place with a cathedral. For this reason alone the idea that the tapestry was specifically made to be hung around the nave of Bayeux Cathedral on the occasion of its completion and rededication on 14 July 1077 is highly implausible. A great new church is shown in the tapestry in the course of completion; it is the largest building depicted in the whole of the work; and the hand of God even descends from the heavens in order to bless the new building. But this is not Bayeux Cathedral. It is Edward the Confessor's magnificent church at Westminster Abbey. The only other church depicted is the English church at Bosham. If the Bayeux Tapestry was conceived and made to celebrate the completion of Bayeux Cathedral, it does so in a remarkably strange way. It is true that at the top of one of the pillars in the nave of the cathedral is a little stone rendering of Harold's oath scene. This, perhaps, confuses the issue in the minds of some visitors; but the little frieze in the cathedral is a nineteenth-century addition and it is of no relevance to medieval history.
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It is not even certain that the tapestry shows the oath scene as taking place at Bayeux, let alone that the relics over which Harold swore were those of Bayeux Cathedral. The most that can be deduced from what we see in the tapestry is that the oath (so far as the tapestry's story goes) took place on open ground either at or near Bayeux.

It is much more likely that the tapestry was made to be hung around the walls of a large baronial hall, where it would have provided the backdrop to feasting, drinking and the telling of epic tales. Odo could well have possessed such a hall; perhaps he had more than one at his various abodes in Normandy and England. In this setting one can even imagine a
jongleur
(a visiting Turold?) singing the tale of 1066 to a large assembled company of knights and barons, while the story itself lay illustrated for all to see along the interior walls. It seems plausible to suggest that the tapestry (whether it was the gift of others or a commission for himself) was made while Odo was still in power, before his disgrace and imprisonment in 1082. So much is generally agreed by specialists; but beyond that the tapestry is difficult to date. William's army suffered a humiliating defeat at Dol in Brittany during the autumn of 1076. The tapestry shows a Norman success at Dol in alliance with Harold in 1064 or 1065. The depiction of this victory would have been less appropriate in the eyes of the Normans after their defeat at Dol in 1076. On the basis of this one can tentatively propose that the Bayeux Tapestry was made to be hung in a baronial hall at some time before the autumn of 1076. How, then, did it come into the possession of Bayeux Cathedral? And how did it survive for so long through the obscure Middle Ages before resurfacing in the written records of the cathedral in 1476? There is no certain answer to these questions. The following, though based on evidence, is a speculative reconstruction of what might have happened.

In November 1095 Bishop Odo of Bayeux journeyed to the centre of France in order to attend the Council of Clermont, the great gathering of the Church at which Pope Urban II pronounced the First Crusade. Perhaps the Bayeux Tapestry had not really been to Odo's taste; he might well have suspected it of anti-Norman bias from the start. Some historians have suggested that, even in its earliest days, the tapestry was not widely exposed. By 1095, however, almost thirty years had passed since the great events of 1066 and Odo had perhaps warmed again to the flattering way in which he is depicted in the embroidery - Odo, the second Archbishop Turpin, the indispensable right-hand man of William the Conqueror, Odo, the architect of the Norman victory. Did the old man perhaps cart the tapestry across France, with his sizeable baggage train, all the way to Clermont in order to display it to some of his more like-minded fellow ecclesiastics?

At some point before 1102 the poet Baudri of Bourgeuil saw the Bayeux Tapestry; his poem addressed to Countess Adela of Blois certainly bears the mark of its imprint, but quite when, or where, he saw the work is unknown. There is no record of his having ever visited Bayeux, nor that he ever met Bishop Odo. Their paths, however, crossed at least once for Baudri seems to have been present at the Council of Clermont as well. He later wrote a history of the Crusade -
Hieros-lymitae Historiae
- in the course of which he gave a famous description of Urban's speech in such terms that it can hardly be doubted that he was reporting what he had heard with his own ears. Was it, perhaps, on this occasion that Baudri had a chance to see the Bayeux Tapestry? This is not inconceivable, for Baudri wrote his own poem only a few years later, some time between 1099 and 1102. There is something rather pleasing in supposing that Odo, the old rascal, decided to show off the exploits of his younger years as retold in the stitches of the English; and to that end he brought along the tapestry to display before the assembled grandees at Clermont on the eve of the First Crusade.

The poet Wace was born on the island of Jersey broadly around the time that Baudri wrote his poem
Adelae Comitis-sae.
He became a learned cleric at Caen, a few miles from Bayeux, and by the mid-1160s had been granted a prebend or stipend at Bayeux Cathedral by King Henry II. It was during this period that he devoted himself to writing one of his major works, a long history of the dukes of Normandy in rhymed French (or more specifically western Norman) verse called the
Roman de Rou.
A large section of the poem covers the events of the Norman Conquest of England. Wace researched assiduously; he travelled widely, trawled through documents and interviewed contemporaries. One might presume that he would have known of and used the evidence of the Bayeux Tapestry, especially if it was being held at Bayeux at the time. Strangely, however, there is no unequivocal evidence that he knew of the tapestry at all. There are, it is true, three striking points of similarity that are shared with no other surviving source: only Wace and the tapestry tell us where Harold was taken after he was captured by Count Guy of Ponthieu - the castle of Beaurain; only Wace and the tapestry site Harold's oath at (or at least near) Bayeux; and only Wace and the tapestry recount the story of Bishop Odo riding into the confusion of battle at Hastings, waving his baton to encourage the more faint-hearted knights. But the poem contains more points of divergence than it does of striking similarity.

Thus Wace makes no mention of the existence of the Bayeux Tapestry itself. Nor does he make any mention of Turold,
Ælfgyva,
Wadard, Stigand, Vital and Count Eustace of Boul­ogne. There are striking differences as regards Harold's oath scene. In the tapestry Harold swears the oath standing upright, touching two reliquary boxes with tremulously outstretched fingers [plate 5]; but Wace has Harold kneeling, not standing, and he swears the oath only upon one reliquary box.
³
The copper figurehead on Duke William's ship, on which he made the crossing to England in 1066, is described by Wace in the following terms:

On the head of the ship at the front,
Which sailors call the prow,
He had a child made out of copper
Carrying a strung bow and arrow.
The child had his face turned towards England
And looked as if he were firing in that direction
So that, wherever the ship sailed,
He looked as if he were firing in front of him.
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In the tapestry, however, the image is quite different; here the embroidered figurehead is situated at the back of the ship, not at the prow, and the child statue holds a horn to his lips rather than a bow in his hand [scene 35].
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Moreover, although Wace has Odo riding in the battle encouraging the others with his baton, he describes him as riding a white horse and wearing chain-mail; Odo in the tapestry rides a blue horse and (more pertinently) does not wear chain mail.
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Such differences are striking. They have led a number of historians to conclude that Wace probably did not see the tapestry, although at the same time he must have been living and working at Bayeux, or at least in nearby Caen, and he held a position at Bayeux Cathedral. How could he have not known of the tapestry when he trawled for his source material so widely? And if he did not see it, where could the tapestry have been during the time that Wace wrote?

A clue to the answer, or at least a possible answer, lies in Bayeux Cathedral itself.
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In the central part of the nave lie some steps leading down to an old crypt that dates from the time of Bishop Odo. On the south side there is a window to the crypt and on the lintel of this window, facing out to the nave, there is a piece of french doggerel that was engraved in the fifteenth century. It tells us that on 3 April 1412 the then Bishop of Bayeux, Jean de Boissay, died and that as they were digging a grave for him in a prominent part of the church they made a surprising discovery.

As this place was being dug
In front of the great altar
The lower chapel [the crypt] was discovered
Which had previously been unknown.
It was there that he was buried.
May God care for his soul. Amen.
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It appears, therefore, that the old eleventh-century crypt had been blocked up and forgotten about and that it was unknown in the early fifteenth century until rediscovered in 1412. Exactly when it became blocked cannot be stated for certain. A document in the thirteenth century implies that the crypt was inaccessible then, but nevertheless known about.
⁹
It does not seem impossible that the crypt was damaged and became inaccessible in 1105 when Henry I, at war with his brother Robert Curthose, attacked Bayeux Cathedral. Writers linked to Bayeux described this attack as devastating; Wace himself tells us that 'the church was entirely destroyed'.
¹⁰
That is a poetic exaggeration, since the building was not quite so badly affected as that; but there is no doubt that damage was done.

Just prior to his departure on Crusade, in September 1096, Odo might well have had the tapestry spread out before him for one last time and then placed it for safe custody in the safest place that there was, which was in the crypt of his cathedral at Bayeux. Less than ten years later, if this conjecture is right, the crypt would have become inaccessible and it was not opened up until 1412. If this is what happened we can now understand how in the 1160s Wace was unable to inspect the tapestry: for it lay concealed, presumably tightly-wound in a large chest, in the blocked-up crypt beneath his feet. Those points in his poem which are notably similar to the tapestry may be the result of written or oral traditions at Bayeux itself, traditions which, perhaps, recorded the distant memories of those who had seen the tapestry. Thus Bishop Odo was remembered riding in to the battle and waving his baton; but the details of the scene were not known to Wace and he described them quite differently.

As the grave was being dug for Bishop Jean in 1412, the crypt was rediscovered. Was it perhaps on this occasion that the Bayeux Tapestry itself came to light? The first time that the tapestry is mentioned in any surviving written document is in 1476, when it is recorded as among the possessions of the cathedral. An earlier note in the cathedral records states that repairs were effected to a certain tapestry in 1463, which may possibly be our embroidery. If anything like this is correct, we can understand how the Bayeux Tapestry survived through the long period between the 1070s and the fifteenth century, when so much else was lost. There is moreover no unequivocal evidence that any other writer of the twelfth century saw the Bayeux Tapestry; the speculation that it lay quiet and undisturbed for over 300 years in the collapsed crypt of Bayeux Cathedral would account for that as well.
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