Bayeux Tapestry is an embroidered cloth nearly 70 metres long and 50 centimetres tall that depicts the events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, led by William, Duke of Normandy challenging Harold II, King of England, and culminating in the Battle of Hastings.
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Designs on the Bayeux Tapestry are embroidered rather than in a tapestry weave, so it does not meet narrower definitions of a tapestry.
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Bayeux Tapestry had no idea where or what the original was, although he suggested it could have been a tapestry.
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Bayeux Tapestry was first briefly noted in English in 1746 by William Stukeley, in his Palaeographia Britannica.
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In 1816 the Society of Antiquaries of London commissioned its historical draughtsman, Charles Stothard, to visit Bayeux to make an accurate hand-coloured facsimile of the tapestry.
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Bayeux Tapestry's drawings were subsequently engraved by James Basire jr.
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Bayeux Tapestry was becoming a tourist attraction, with Robert Southey complaining of the need to queue to see the work.
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Bayeux Tapestry has attempted to estimate the size and architectural design of the 11th-century Bayeux Cathedral.
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Bayeux Tapestry considers the tapestry would have fitted well if it had been hung along the south, west, and north arcades of the nave and that the scenes it depicts can be correlated with positions of the arcade bays in a way that would have been dramatically satisfying.
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Bayeux Tapestry agrees with earlier speculation that a final panel is missing—one that shows William's coronation and which he thinks was some three metres long.
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Bayeux Tapestry fragments have been found in Scandinavia dating from the ninth century and it is thought that Norman and Anglo-Saxon embroidery developed from this sort of work.
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The Bayeux Tapestry was therefore not unique at the time it was created: rather it is remarkable for being the sole surviving example of medieval narrative needlework.
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Bayeux Tapestry begins with a panel of Edward the Confessor sending Harold to Normandy.
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Bayeux Tapestry was probably commissioned by the House of Normandy and essentially depicts a Norman viewpoint.
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Bayeux Tapestry's narration seems to place stress on Harold's oath to William, although its rationale is not made clear.
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Bayeux Tapestry is referred to in Tony Kushner's play Angels in America.
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