Only just learnt the Bayeux Tapestry is actually an embroidery

[JamieOliverPetrolStation]

I saw a comment on social media where someone pointed out that the Bayeux Tapestry is actually an embroidery. So it's the Bayeux Embroidery.

Apparently we’ve all just agreed to call it the wrong thing for nearly a thousand years and carry on. Life is a lie. Next someone will tell me Hadrian’s Wall is a fence and Stonehenge is technically a prehistoric gazebo.

Good question. No scene of Harold being hacked apart, fortunately. I think it's a PG version of the battle.

I dont think so, there is plenty of grim reality, especially in the 'foot notes'

Yes, but it’s a long-standing thing. Embroidery kits where the embroidery is done with wool rather than cotton or silk are often sold as or described as tapestry, even though they’re going nowhere near a loom.

Uh oh. Time to look at the footnotes.
Are there Parental Checks?

It was called a tapisserie ( French )
which means wall hanging

15th century inventory of Bayeaux Cathedral
Basically The word just stuck as a mistranslation

The tapestry wasn’t named in today’s language, it was originally described as a embroidery in the 1400s, and then found again in the 1700s where it was described in France as a tapestry which simply meant a wall hanging. By the time the 1800s came round and it was pointed out it was an embroidery, the name had stuck,

but on the 1700s it was technically correct on France, it just meant a wall hangjing,

Deadwood more like.

I was just thinking I thought it originated in England. I wonder how the French ended up with it. Did the Normans nick it?

Well, once the Conquest was complete, England was theirs, with all the goods and chattels.

I've always known it's an embroidery- textile terms shift about a lot over the years-when I was young everyone called needlepoint tapestry, needle point is also embroidery.
Tapestry is quite specific, it's a weaving technique, no needles are involved.

H&M Bayeux - The Sequel (said in that deep American voice used for trailers)

Perfect 👌🏼

It was owned by the person who ordered it, maybe stitched here?

Just read some stuff, it was rescued when in the revolution it was used as a tarpaulin, apparently (just a google).

I note KCIII called it The Canterbury Embroidery yesterday (it was very likely woven there) Good stuff!

There is a wonderful Embroidery in Scotland called The Great Tapestry of Scotland. 160 panels stitched by 1000 volunteers. I've seen it & it's fab.

Yep. But happily, the English habit of butchering and refusing to properly pronounce other languages and claiming the resulting mistranslations as our own, allows pedants like the OP to feel all superior about their knowledge. Next up, how koalas aren’t really bears and why a cliché isn’t really a cliché.

No it isn't ,tapestry is a weaving technique and is completely different from embroidery- both use multiple coloured threads and that's where the similarity ends.

are you quite well? This is a spectacularly weird response to someone saying “I only just found this out”.

If you read an admission of ignorance and somehow see smug superiority, I’m not sure the problem is with my post.

I thought that was a bit much too.

Your post prompted me to google, read some stuff and sign up to the next release of tickets. I hadn’t thought of it all much but it is interesting.

It is amazing - I agree!

It was comissioned by Odo Bishop of Bayeux- so presumably he paid for it and took it back to Bayeux. English embroidery was the highest quality and moist expensive in the medieval world- it was a natural step to get it embroidered here.

No. Men didn't tell the women were wrong as the women weren't even in the discussion. It's how it was waayyy back then, you know in the Middle Ages 🙄

Just to add to this - Odo was William's half brother. Think propaganda, and the best way to show it to the great unwashed is via pictures.

Of course! Look at Harold swearing on the Holy Relics! Irrefutable evidence that he swore an oath to help William become King after Edward's death!
Yes! It's in the picture. Definitely happened.

Yes I did know. Tapestry is another word for embroidery.