It’s not very cool to say that your favourite work of art in the world is a
piece of needlework. And yes, I mean sewing, not some Damien Hirst creation
where he’s shot a sheep full of knitting implements. But the Bayeux Tapestry
is quite simply breathtaking. And it’s not a tapestry, it’s an embroidery.
Needlework. It’s also a good excuse to spend some time in Normandy, as if
you need one.
Perhaps the most amazing thing of all is that it’s the Bayeux Tapestry and not
the Paris Tapestry. For this national treasure to be tucked away in a small
provincial town is a bit like Nelson’s Column towering over Maidstone.
Or is it? Because, as you travel through the old dukedom of William the
Conqueror, you notice that small places have big pretensions. Evreux,
Lisieux and Bayeux are little market towns just a few miles apart, but each
has an immense cathedral. All of them were paid for with English money, the
profits from William’s landgrabs across the Channel. So it’s only fair that
we English are now reconquering Normandy, buying up all the cottages,
turning the farms into B&Bs or simply beating the locals to the ripest
camemberts at the market.
On Saturdays, Bayeux holds one of the best food markets in France. And France
has a lot of food markets. Here, people don’t just come to buy, they come to
ogle the food; and the freshest produce on show is still alive. You’ll see
cute chickens in cages alongside their recently strangled siblings. Which
would you prefer, monsieur: ready to cook, or strangle your own? I saw one
stall selling the catch from a single trawler, and it seemed almost too
simple. Someone nets fish at night, then comes to market next day and sells
them? Surely they at least ought to send the catch to Brussels first, or put
out an invitation to tender on the Free European Market? The same goes for
the goat’s cheese stalls. The hands that take your euros are likely to be
the same ones that plugged the pumps on the udders.
At a larger stall, I examined local cheeses. Lots of camemberts, of course,
which you’re supposed to buy as runny (fait) as possible. If the inside
looks like custard and smells like urine, it’s a winner.
This being France, the booze stalls are richly supplied. The local drink isn’t
wine; it’s apple-based. There are lots of small local producers making
fruity cidres fermiers. Once you’ve decided whether you prefer brut (dry) or
doux (sweet), it’s impossible to choose between them. I just picked the ones
with the best-looking bottles. The really strong stuff is calvados. This is
70%-proof apple alcohol that will rip out your tonsils, saving you a long
wait for surgery.
The stars of the market, though, are the cochons de Bayeux. They’re an old
race of black-spotted pigs that have been revived so they can be killed
again and transformed into various bewildering types of sausage. The worst
of these (from a very English, “My God, what is that smell?” point of view)
is a local speciality, andouille de Vire, a suspiciously brown sausage made
from a pig’s rectum. I have to admit that I’ve always been too scared to try
it myself. But this is a purely personal phobia, and the French adore their
colonic charcuterie.
Toxic sausage apart, a morning stroll through the market will give you a
wonderful appetite. If you don’t feel like picnicking on goat’s cheese,
crusty bread and cider, there are plenty of cafes and restaurants around the
marketplace. I lunched on wonderful grilled scallops — coquilles Saint
Jacques — then it was time to get serious. The museum opens at 2pm, and I
wanted to be there on the dot. You can only appreciate the tapestry if
you’re first in and pressing your nose right to the glass, rather than
craning your neck to see around the girth of an andouille-eater.
First comes the maze-like exhibition, which explains when, how and why William
invaded England. It’s a fascinating story, but the tapestry tells you most
of the facts a million times better. I skipped the exhibition and headed
straight for the long, curved gallery where it is kept.
At the entrance, you’re given a huge 1980s-style mobile phone that plays an
audio commentary almost as historical as the tapestry itself. The English
voice is vintage BBC. You can picture the announcer in his dinner jacket
nipping off after the recording for gin and cribbage with the young Princess
Margaret. The commentary is quiet, informative, credible — and, in a few
years’ time, will probably be replaced by an excited yoof telling us how
Billy was a big player in the hiss-dree of the day and, like, really
deserves our rispeck.
Meantime, nice Mr Cholmondley talks us through the details of this magnificent
230ft strip of linen. He sets the scene: Prince Harold swears an oath of
allegiance to William, then treacherously has himself crowned king of
England. This gives William all the excuse he needs to go and fire arrows at
the traitor’s eyes.
But it is much more than a story of kings and crowns. It is Shakespeare, 500
years before he was born. As well as the royalty, we meet the men who built
the ships and carried the heavy armour. You can almost feel their goose
pimples as they wade out to the boats with their skirts hitched up. When
William arrives in Sussex, we see his cooks unloading food (no way was he
going to eat that English muck). They make fresh bread and barbecue
chickens. Some of them picnic on their shields, because the table only had
room for William and the bigwigs.
Nobody knows who designed the tapestry. My guidebook said that a male artist
would have drawn the scenes, with female embroiderers filling in the
colours. Of course, you couldn’t expect a Norman conqueror to do sewing. The
ladies got it exactly right. The gestures of the characters are so
expressive, and often so funny, that you almost forget the story was told
1,000 years ago. It’s hard to believe that the stitches that so perfectly
depict the texture of chain mail, or Harold whingeing about the French, were
pulled tight by women who have been dead half as long as Jesus.
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The last quarter of the tapestry is taken up with the Battle of Hastings.
Cavalrymen charge, knights on both sides are skewered and axed. Heads and
limbs litter the ground. And there is old Harold, an arrow in the eye, dying
his traitor’s death. I knew he was going to lose from the start — the first
time he appears in the tapestry, he’s foxhunting.
There’s only one thing that Bayeux gets wrong. It calls its treasure “la
tapisserie de la reine Mathilde”. Queen Matilda was William’s wife, left to
look after Normandy while he went off conquering.
Historians now say that she wasn’t the brains behind the tapestry at all. It
was Odo, William’s half-brother and Bishop of Bayeux, who wanted something
suitably boastful to decorate the cathedral he was building with the spoils
of war. Odo was also bishop of Kent, and it’s thought the tapestry was made
there, with English women doing the needlework.
Still, after my short break in Normandy, I’m so glad it isn’t the Maidstone
Tapestry. No disrispeck to Maidstone, of course.
Stephen Clarke is the author of A Year in the Merde (Bantam Press £9.99).
To order a copy for £8.49, plus p&p, call The Sunday Times Books
First on 0870 160 8080
TRAVEL BRIEF
Getting there: Brittany Ferries (0870 366 5333,
www.brittany-ferries.co.uk ) operates ferries from Portsmouth to Caen and
Cherbourg (return crossings for a car and two passengers start at £258); and
from Poole to Cherbourg (from £248). Or try P&O Ferries (0870 520
2020, www.poferries.com ). Irish Ferries (0818 300400, www.irishferries.com
) operates ferries from Rosslare to Cherbourg; from €458.
Where to stay: Hôtel d’Argouges (21 Rue St-Patrice; 00 33-2
31 92 88 86; doubles from £44) is a beautiful hôtel particulier in a
garden off Bayeux’s main square. Or try the Hôtel Lion d’Or (71 Rue St-Jean;
02 31 92 06 90; from £49), an old coaching inn. For more options, visit
www.bayeux-tourisme.com.
Further information: until March, the tapestry museum (02 31
51 25 50) is open 9.30am-12.30pm and 2pm-6pm; admission £5. It is closed in
the second week of January. The tourist office is on 02 31 51 28 28.
