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Cut On The Norman Bias: Fabulous Borders And Visual Glosses On The Bayeax Tapestry, Daniel Terkla

Daniel Terkla

Harold Godwinson, King of England for nine months in 1066, was undeniably an assertive opportunist - albeit a brave one -and perhaps a traitor; Edward the Confessor was a misguided monarch -or at least a bad judge of character-and William of Normandy was a righteous conqueror, a ruler asserting his legal right to the English crown. This, at least, is the interpretation of historical events presented by the Bayeux Tapestry, the late eleventh-century embroidery that Otto Pacht has called the ‘earliest work of secular art on a monumental scale which has survived from the Middle Ages.’3 In this study, I …