Britain seems to be a country at the verge of Norman-conquest mania. In July, the top minister and the French president introduced that the Bayeux tapestry – the epic Eleventh-century embroidery that depicts the 1066 conquest of England – can be loaned to the British Museum in 2026-27.
This makes new BBC drama sequence, King & Conqueror, which depicts the occasions main as much as the Norman conquest, extraordinarily properly timed. The credit of every episode function the drama’s identify overlaid on imagery from the Bayeux tapestry. However how does the drama evaluate to that almost all evocative textile account of the conquest?
I may write at period about how the BBC drama variously depicts and diverges from the tapestry’s model of occasions. And the level to which King & Conqueror is in line with Eleventh-century written and embroidered assets has been explored by way of historians in different places.
As an artwork historian who has researched the Bayeux tapestry, it’s tough to not be apologetic about the relative darkness and loss of color in King & Conqueror’s depiction of the Eleventh century, an age which might in truth were richly furnished, because the tapestry itself attests.
However it’s pleasant to peer that the narrative gadgets which are best on this new drama are the ones additionally incorporated in tapestry. To various levels, each the tapestry and the drama are dramatised retellings of historical past, a fact most manifestly signalled by way of indisputable fact that neither inform a wonderfully linear account of the occasions.
Within the tapestry sequencing as an example, Edward the Confessor’s funeral is stitched prior to his loss of life, surprising the viewer with the pomp of a stately funeral prior to then depicting his deathbed. In a similar fashion, in episode 5 of King & Conqueror, we see Harold and his spouse Edith abducted, sure and held in a wagon underneath assault from archers. Then the chronology leaps backwards to provide an explanation for that Harold and Edith have travelled on a diplomatic venture to Normandy, landed in Brittany by way of mistake, after which been taken hostage by way of bandits.
An unflinching portrayal of the brutality of combat is in a similar fashion utilized in each the BBC drama and the tapestry to care for suspense, even if the result of the Combat of Hastings is widely recognized.
James Norton as Harold, Earl of Wessex, later King Harold.
Lilja Jons / BBC
Violence and concern
Blood and gore are dramatically found in King & Conqueror. However arguably, changing benign patterns of birds and beasts at the margins of the tapestry with mutilated our bodies is an much more arresting strategy to sign the violent disruption to existence brought about by way of medieval combat.
The dimensions of William’s violence off the battlefield could also be extra totally captured within the tapestry. Within the ultimate episode of the drama, William is proven ordering the plundering and burning of each and every village they move thru: “We move forward like the wrath of God.”
However the concern such an order would have struck in folks of all categories isn’t so explicitly captured as it’s within the tapestry, the place the combat is preceded by way of the depiction of an nameless lady and kid fleeing their house because the Normans set it on fireplace.
On this sense, the tapestry additionally provides a better sense of the impact of a conquering military had on unusual girls, than a drama extra desirous about the primary characters. Such a lot so, that it makes the BBC’s sexed-up trailer shared on social media bewildering.
Suggestive clips of Harold and William are proven with the textual content: “Want to be served by a king? Or let him conquer you?” Somebody who had seen the Bayeux tapestry and noticed the destiny of ladies portrayed there, would on no account want to conquered by way of William’s forces.
The porousness of the Channel as a well-trodden diplomatic street is a in a similar fashion efficient leitmotif in each the tapestry and the drama. Boats crossing the Channel are a widespread tableau in King & Conqueror, attaining a crescendo within the ultimate episode, during which the size of the Norman fleet with its sails raised resembles the white cliffs of Dover.
Within the tapestry, boat crossings are proven with equivalent frequency, despite the fact that the size of the Norman fleet is much more evocatively captured by way of the depiction of its building: males felling timber to make boats for the invading flotilla. An extraordinary selection of boats within the tapestry are then noticed crossing the Channel, their overlapping prows powerfully conveying the size of the invading naval power.
Historical past meets fresh politics
It’s right here that the Bayeux tapestry, the BBC’s dramatisation, and fresh politics intersect. At the day that adopted the announcement of the Bayeux tapestry’s mortgage, Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron held a joint press convention during which they introduced a bilateral coverage engineered to reply to the rise within the selection of migrants crossing the Channel from France in small boats.
In King & Conqueror, the sequence ends with William’s coronation. Then again, the tapestry itself seems incomplete and terminates unexpectedly after the Combat of Hastings.
President Macron and Keir Starmer and their other halves at the steps of Quantity 10, prior to sitting down to speak about the immigrant boats crossing the Channel in July.
Fred Duval / Shutterstock
The present leaders of France and Britain have explicitly sought to border their new coverage as a continuation of the tapestry’s narrative, with Macron commenting:
The tale is unfinished and no one is aware of the tip … However that is our paintings, our accountability and our likelihood … to complete the tapestry and … take the similar street as those warriors however with every other frame of mind … that in combination we can construct a brand new … commonplace historical past and create a brand new technology in keeping with tradition, wisdom, appreciate, science and centuries of enlightenment, creations, and … friendship.
There may be, in fact, a real understatement to selling Anglo-French bilateralism thru an object that depicts the invasion and conquering of England by way of the Normans in 1066.
However there could also be a poignant, unacknowledged paradox in referencing an object that so evocatively depicts boats crossing the Channel as a method of bolstering insurance policies particularly designed to discourage them, and the folks they convey. Indubitably, it’s transparent that some visible motifs stay as politically affecting these days as they did within the Eleventh century.
