A richly woven tapestry of Britain’s medieval heritage | Letters
Readers respond to an article by Jonathan Jones on great medieval art apart from the Bayeux tapestry
Jonathan Jones (Never mind the Bayeux! Here’s some other great medieval art – and it’s free, 30 June) says that medieval art came to Britain with the Normans after having pointed out, probably correctly, that the tapestry was almost certainly embroidered by Kent women. These women were almost certainly Anglo-Saxon, and their husbands may well have died at Hastings.
The quality of this English embroidery was widely known across Europe before 1066 and it was often called Opus Anglicanum – English work. The creators of the Bayeux tapestry were probably forced by Odo of Bayeux to create it by the sort of compulsion that often characterised Norman rule in England. The article goes on to quote alternative sights due to the Normans, which are almost entirely architectural.
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