{"id":519,"date":"2026-05-21T16:05:44","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T16:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/21\/the-bayeux-tapestry-tells-only-the-winners-story-but-the-other-side-can-be-found-in-old-english-texts\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T16:05:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T16:05:44","slug":"the-bayeux-tapestry-tells-only-the-winners-story-but-the-other-side-can-be-found-in-old-english-texts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/21\/the-bayeux-tapestry-tells-only-the-winners-story-but-the-other-side-can-be-found-in-old-english-texts\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bayeux Tapestry tells only the winner\u2019s story \u2013 but the other side can be found in old English texts"},"content":{"rendered":"
King Harold swearing oath on holy relics to William, Duke of Normandy<\/span> Wikimedia<\/a>, CC BY<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the Bayeux Tapestry comes to London, the year 1066 and the Norman Conquest are in the spotlight. The tapestry \u2013 an embroidered cloth nearly 70 metres long, created soon after the events it depicts \u2013 tells the story of the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and William of Normandy\u2019s triumphant defeat of Harold Godwinson, King of England.<\/p>\n

The tapestry<\/a> depicts William of Normandy as the victor, and Harold as a slippery oath-breaker who promises the English throne to William then goes back on his word. But it shows little of the wider impact of the battle on English people \u2013 except for one glimpse, just after William\u2019s ships land at Pevensey on England\u2019s south-east coast, when we see a woman and child fleeing a burning building<\/a>, torched by Norman soldiers. <\/p>\n

So what did 1066 feel like from an English perspective? What was it like to live through the Norman Conquest? Remarkable English documents, written in the thick of events, give us an astonishing insight into the side of the story not depicted on the famous tapestry.<\/p>\n

The battle on October 14 1066 had far-reaching consequences for England (and later, more of Britain), as the land passed into Norman control<\/a>. By 1086, only 8% of the total landed wealth of England was still held by English people, with the other 92% in Norman possession. Language, culture and tradition were trodden under the feet of the new occupying force.<\/p>\n

Even more than a century later, the Conquest remained a raw and open wound. Around 1196, the English monk William of Newburgh<\/a> writes that, whenever it rains, the battlefield at Hastings \u201csweats real and seemingly fresh blood\u201d<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But some English sources have the power to take us right back into 1066 itself.<\/p>\n

Contemporary accounts<\/h2>\n

The Life of King Edward<\/a> (Vita \u00c6dwardi Regis), was written between 1065 and 1067 and so takes us through the Norman Conquest in real time. The Life was commissioned for the wife and widow of King Edward the Confessor, Edith, who was also the sister of his successor King Harold II. It was written in Latin, probably by a Flemish monk. It\u2019s a clever piece of political spin, setting out to bolster Edward\u2019s reputation \u2013 including his posthumous standing as an emerging new saint.<\/p>\n

But, unexpectedly, The Life of King Edward finds itself in the teeth of the Norman Conquest, where it struggles to find words for the devastation that has struck England and its ruling dynasties.<\/p>\n

Book I of The Life was completed before the Battle of Hastings and deals with the exploits of the powerful Godwin family, including Edith\u2019s father, Earl Godwin of Wessex, and her brother, Harold \u2013 who caught an arrow in the eye (probably) at Hastings.<\/p>\n

Book II of the Life opens in crisis and despair. In the silence between the books, the Battle of Hastings has happened. Now, Edith\u2019s husband Edward and her brothers (Harold, Leofwine and Gyrth, as well as Tostig who died at Stamford Bridge<\/a>) are dead, together with other English nobles and perhaps four thousand English fighters. England\u2019s power lies in tatters. <\/p>\n

The writer appeals to Clio, muse of history, for help, as he desperately searches for words. \u201cAlas!\u201d the text exclaims, \u201cWhat will you say?\u201d <\/p>\n

What\u2019s fascinating here is that we don\u2019t actually get a direct account of 1066. Instead, the author of this text is dumbfounded. What we see is a writer reeling from this catastrophic blow to the English ruling elite, talking us through the impossibility of his attempt to chronicle it. Shocked silence speaks louder than words, letting us in on the trauma of the English defeat.<\/p>\n

How can anyone articulate the horror that has just unfolded? \u201cWhat madman,\u201d the author asks, \u201ccould write of this?\u201d And how can he present this book to his noble patron, Edith, when \u2013 instead of a celebration \u2013 it\u2019s now a catalogue of personal loss and the kingdom\u2019s ruin?<\/p>\n

Today, the Bayeux Tapestry is incomplete, its final scenes lost long ago. Scholars presume it ended with a depiction of William\u2019s triumphant coronation as King of England<\/a>. The Life of Edward, instead, shows us an alternative ending: loss, grief and desolation for the English.<\/p>\n

Moving to later, a generation after 1066, we find a more considered, deliberate response to the Norman Conquest from defiant English voices.<\/p>\n

Monks at Peterborough Abbey<\/a> continued making year-by-year additions to their monumental Chronicle of English history (often called the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle<\/a>), written in monasteries across England since the time of King Alfred the Great.<\/p>\n

On the death of William the Conqueror in 1087, the monks wrote an epitaph \u2013 a poem summing up the life of this mighty king and his legacy. The first line takes us straight inside the reality of life under Norman occupation. <\/p>\n

\n

Castelas he let wyrcean ond earme men swi\u00f0e swencean<\/em>
\n(He had castles built and wretched men sorely oppressed) <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

We glimpse the militarised landscape engineered by the Normans, with castles \u2013 their new technology of war and control \u2013 built across the country. <\/p>\n

The Chronicle poem laments William\u2019s \u201charshness\u201d, his greed and cruelty to his people. Spitting with irony, it reflects on how he loved his royal forests, lavishing care on boars, hares and stags, while his destitute subjects would be blinded for killing a deer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWoe, alas,\u201d the poem proclaims, \u201cthat any man should be so proud, \/ raise himself up and reckon himself over all men\u201d. Just as William has tallied up his new possessions in England \u2013 the record of his lands and property in the great Domesday Book<\/a> \u2013 the Chronicle poem takes its own cool and careful accounting to William\u2019s life, and finds it wanting. This is guerrilla poetry, written in English, quietly holding out against the consequences of 1066.<\/p>\n

Beyond the Bayeux Tapestry, these medieval documents remind us that every story has another side, and that history is not written only by the victors.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Catherine Clarke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

King Harold swearing oath on holy relics to William, Duke of Normandy Wikimedia, CC BY As the Bayeux Tapestry comes to London, the year 1066 and the Norman Conquest are in the spotlight. The tapestry \u2013 an embroidered cloth nearly 70 metres long, created soon after the events it depicts \u2013 tells the story of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}