My thoughts on 1066 events

How the Bayeux Tapestry has been corrupted!  You're thinking that the headline is pretty strong and may be even clickbait. I'm going to show you why I think the Establishment has lost the plot and it all begins over 200 years ago.....  The Tapestry was scheduled to be displayed at the Louvre in Paris in 1803/04. Up until then it couldn't have been an object worthy of study but some French historians decided they would study it and needed a quick way to reference particular points of the Tapestry.  The historians came up with an easy way to reference the Tapestry by aligning "scenes" with the Latin inscriptions which seem to align with the illustrations below as seen below for Scene 50  B y https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/la-tapisserie-de-bayeux/decouvrir-la-tapisserie-de-bayeux/explorer-la-tapisserie-de-bayeux-en-ligne/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=190988073 However, the one sentence per illustration breaks down when the Tapestry tr...

  Interesting factoid about the Bayeux Tapestry Just a quick entry about an interesting fact concerning the Bayeux Tapestry.  Have you ever wondered why the Bayeux Tapestry has 58 scenes and not 70 or 5? Apparently it is all tied to the writing on the Tapestry. Back in 1804/5 just before going on display in the Paris Louvre Museum, historians wanted to be able to refer to specific parts of the Tapestry quickly and they noticed that the Latin sentences seemed to be relevant to the embroidered scene below or in close proximity to the scene. Hence the 58 scenes.  The part of the Tapestry that deals with the actual battle(s)  is where the above breaks down.  If you look at scenes 51 (a and b) and 52 (a) they form a cohesive picture of the Norman knights advancing to contact with the English  heavy infantry and attacking said infantry from the rear ( Eustace of Boulogne according to the Chronicle of Battle Abbey). The English are in good order i.e. within t...

 Arrival of the Tapestry to the British Museum See https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly9r54e5r4o It is amazing how a little knowledge can see through to errant reporting.  No doubt the reporter was on hand to witness the arrival of a most unique object but I wonder where he got his facts? Yes, it was produced within the lifetime of some of the participants of the battle but like all the other reports of the 11th Cent. it relied on Norman monks and clergy recording the battle for its information.  The report says "58 scenes" because that is the accepted wisdom of the Establishment. However my research lumps together the last 7 scenes into 4 key moments ( Start of morning battle, end of morning battle, start of afternoon battle and end of afternoon battle with the death of Harold II )   . So where else has the accepted wisdom gone wrong? It looks as though I'm going have to investigate the history of the allocation of the scenes. I would have liked the report to state...

Non Historical Musing  I've been told that anything I write from a historical viewpoint can be reliably be ignored but what about things that are not historical but operate on a practical level?  Take for instance William's landing in the Port of Hastings a few days after landing at Pevensey. I've not been able to work out from the official narrative exactly where William did land and of course there are those who fervently believe that William didn't land at Hastings at all. Let's take the sources at their word in that William came ashore at the Port of Hastings and that where the town centre is today was the Port of Hastings. Figure 1 Hastings Shore to Upper Fort  The above figure shows the elevation of the various routes from the Shore +20 m to the Upper Fort situated alongside the A2100. The routes are:- A:          Base of Castle B:          Old Town C:          1. Viaduct    via Mou...

  Welcome to my Blog! Hi,  Just a quick entry to welcome you to the blog and reassure you that it is still active despite the last post being last year (2024).  As you can see from the landing page this blog goes back intermittently to 2015. In it you can trace my thinking from when I had only a copy of the Bayeux Tapestry right through to when I have authoritative translations of most 11th and 12th cent. sources.  The article that Nick ( of Hastings Online Times fame) wrote is based on a paper ( with minor adjustments) that can be read on Academia. A version of that paper appears on this blog in four parts dated 18/19 July 2024.  In between looking at the Battle of Hastings I have researched Edward the Confessor's life and that of his Mum, Emma of Normandy and come up with five after adding two plus two (Edward had been swapped out in 1025 and his Mum was a conniving but strong  so and so).  I shall continue to post bits and pieces but most of what I ...

The Closed Shop (and Minds) of "Professional" Historians   This is not one of my normal posts on the Battle of Hastings but rather a rant about the interactions I've had with "professional" historians. That is not to say that the dealings have been anything but courteous but at the same time totally dismissive.  Let's start with English Heritage. Wace's tome, Roman de Rou runs to 11419 lines in Glyn S Burgess's translation. From lines 7699 to 8920 it details events surrounding the battle give or take a couple of lines.  Now in line 7947/8 it states " The priests and the ordained climbed up to the top of a hill to pray God, say their prayers and watch the battle" . Applying this to the official site at Battle Abbey one finds a mound about a kilometre away that could be the hill in question. Question is what level of detail can be seen at that distance? English Heritage had a very snazzy answer Well, they wrote, Wace got confused between the ...